Integrated Support for Handoff Management and Context-Awareness in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The overwhelming success of mobile devices and wireless communications is stressing the need for the development of mobility-aware services. Device mobility requires services adapting their behavior to sudden context changes and being aware of handoffs, which introduce unpredictable delays and intermittent discontinuities. Heterogeneity of wireless technologies (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G) complicates the situation, since a different treatment of context-awareness and handoffs is required for each solution. This paper presents a middleware architecture designed to ease mobility-aware service development. The architecture hides technology-specific mechanisms and offers a set of facilities for context awareness and handoff management. The architecture prototype works with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, which today represent two of the most widespread wireless technologies. In addition, the paper discusses motivations and design details in the challenging context of mobile multimedia streaming applications

Contraceptive use and sexual function: a comparison of Italian female medical students and women attending family planning services

Objectives: The aims of the study were to understand how education relates to contraceptive choice and how sexual function can vary in relation to the use of a contraceptive method. Methods: We surveyed female medical students and women attending a family planning service (FPS) in Italy. Participants completed an online questionnaire which asked for information on sociodemographics, lifestyle, sexuality and contraceptive use and also included items of the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI). Results: The questionnaire was completed by 413 women (362 students and 51 women attending the FPS) between the ages of 18 and 30 years. FSFI scores revealed a lower risk of sexual dysfunction among women in the control group who did not use oral hormonal contraception. The differences in FSFI total scores between the two study groups, when subdivided by the primary contraceptive method used, was statistically significant (p < 0.005). Women using the vaginal ring had the lowest risk of sexual dysfunction, compared with all other women, and had a positive sexual function profile. In particular, the highest FSFI domain scores were lubrication, orgasm and satisfaction, also among the control group. Expensive contraception, such as long-acting reversible contraception, was not preferred by this young population, even though such methods are more contemporary and manageable. Compared with controls, students had lower compliance with contraception and a negative attitude towards voluntary termination of pregnancy. Conclusion: Despite their scientific knowledge, Italian female medical students were found to need sexual and contraceptive assistance. A woman's sexual function responds to her awareness of her body and varies in relation to how she is guided in her contraceptive choice. Contraceptive counselling is an excellent means to improve female sexuality

Big Data in Critical Infrastructures Security Monitoring: Challenges and Opportunities

Critical Infrastructures (CIs), such as smart power grids, transport systems, and financial infrastructures, are more and more vulnerable to cyber threats, due to the adoption of commodity computing facilities. Despite the use of several monitoring tools, recent attacks have proven that current defensive mechanisms for CIs are not effective enough against most advanced threats. In this paper we explore the idea of a framework leveraging multiple data sources to improve protection capabilities of CIs. Challenges and opportunities are discussed along three main research directions: i) use of distinct and heterogeneous data sources, ii) monitoring with adaptive granularity, and iii) attack modeling and runtime combination of multiple data analysis techniques.Comment: EDCC-2014, BIG4CIP-201

Role of poly [adp-ribose] polymerase 1 in activating the kirsten ras (Kras) gene in response to oxidative stress

In pancreatic Panc-1 cancer cells, an increase of oxidative stress enhances the level of 7,8-dihydro-8-oxoguanine (8OG) more in the KRAS promoter region containing G4 motifs than in non-G4 motif G-rich genomic regions. We found that H2O2 stimulates the recruitment to the KRAS promoter of poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase 1 (PARP-1), which efficiently binds to local G4 structures. Upon binding to G4 DNA, PARP-1 undergoes auto PARylation and thus becomes negatively charged. In our view this should favor the recruitment to the KRAS promoter of MAZ and hnRNP A1, as these two nuclear factors, because of their isoelectric points >7, are cationic in nature under physiological conditions. This is indeed supported by pulldown assays which showed that PARP-1, MAZ, and hnRNP A1 form a multiprotein complex with an oligonucleotide mimicking the KRAS G4 structure. Our data suggest that an increase of oxidative stress in Panc-1 cells activates a ROS-G4-PARP-1 axis that stimulates the transcription of KRAS. This mechanism is confirmed by the finding that when PARP-1 is silenced by siRNA or auto PARylation is inhibited by Veliparib, the expression of KRAS is downregulated. When Panc-1 cells are treated with H2O2 instead, a strong up-regulation of KRAS transcription is observed

More Kindness, Less Prejudice against Immigrants? A Preliminary Study with Adolescents

Prejudice against immigrants is a relevant research topic within social psychology. Researchers identified several individual variables affecting anti-immigrant prejudice, such as morality and personality. However, until now, prejudice has never been studied in relation to kindness, which might be a significant protective factor against prejudice. Based on Kohlberg's theory of moral judgement, four stage dimensions of kindness were identified, from egocentric to authentic kindness (i.e., a means for social progress and improvement). This study aims to explore the relationship between the four kindness dimensions and blatant and subtle prejudice against immigrants in adolescence, by also considering the moderating role of adolescents' sex. It involved 215 Italian participants (77% girls), who were asked to fill in a self-report questionnaire. Results showed that boys scored higher on egocentric kindness than girls, but no sex differences emerged for prejudice. Egocentric and extrinsically motivated kindness appeared to be risk factors for prejudice, whereas the most authentic form of kindness was a protective factor. In addition, adolescents' sex moderated the relationship between egocentric kindness and blatant prejudice, whereby this association was stronger for boys. The implications of these findings, the study's limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed

A Novel Transformer-Based IMU Self-Calibration Approach through On-Board RGB Camera for UAV Flight Stabilization

During flight, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) need several sensors to follow a predefined path and reach a specific destination. To this aim, they generally exploit an inertial measurement unit (IMU) for pose estimation. Usually, in the UAV context, an IMU entails a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyroscope. However, as happens for many physical devices, they can present some misalignment between the real value and the registered one. These systematic or occasional errors can derive from different sources and could be related to the sensor itself or to external noise due to the place where it is located. Hardware calibration requires special equipment, which is not always available. In any case, even if possible, it can be used to solve the physical problem and sometimes requires removing the sensor from its location, which is not always feasible. At the same time, solving the problem of external noise usually requires software procedures. Moreover, as reported in the literature, even two IMUs from the same brand and the same production chain could produce different measurements under identical conditions. This paper proposes a soft calibration procedure to reduce the misalignment created by systematic errors and noise based on the grayscale or RGB camera built-in on the drone. Based on the transformer neural network architecture trained in a supervised learning fashion on pairs of short videos shot by the UAV’s camera and the correspondent UAV measurements, the strategy does not require any special equipment. It is easily reproducible and could be used to increase the trajectory accuracy of the UAV during the flight

Gonosomal mosaicism for a novel col5a1 pathogenic variant in classic ehlers-danlos syndrome

(1) Background: Classic Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (cEDS) is a heritable connective tissue disorder characterized by joint hypermobility and skin hyperextensibility with atrophic scarring. Many cEDS individuals carry variants in either the COL5A1 or COL5A2 genes. Mosaicism is relatively common in heritable connective tissue disorders but is rare in EDS. In cEDS, a single example of presumed gonosomal mosaicism for a COL5A1 variant has been published to date. (2) Methods: An 8-year-old girl with cEDS was analyzed by next-generation sequencing (NGS). Segregation was performed by Sanger sequencing in her unaffected parents. In the father, the mosaicism of the variant was further analyzed by targeted NGS and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) in the blood and by Sanger sequencing in other tissues. (3) Results: The NGS analysis revealed the novel germline heterozygous COL5A1 c.1369G&gt;T, p.(Glu457*) variant in the proband. Sanger chromatogram of the father’s blood specimen suggested the presence of a low-level mosaicism for the COL5A1 variant, which was confirmed by NGS and estimated to be 4.8% by ddPCR. The mosaicism was also confirmed by Sanger sequencing in the father’s saliva, hair bulbs and nails. (4) Conclusions: We described the second case of cEDS caused by paternal gonosomal mosaicism in COL5A1. Parental mosaicism could be an issue in cEDS and, therefore, considered for appropriate genetic counseling

A novel mutation in calcium-sensing receptor gene associated to hypercalcemia and hypercalciuria.

Background: Familial Hyperparathyroidism (HPT) and Familial benign Hypocalciuric Hypercalcemia (FHH) are the most common causes of hereditary hypercalcemia. FHH has been demonstrated to be caused by inactivating mutations of calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) gene, involved in PTH regulation as well as in renal calcium excretion.Case presentation: In two individuals, father and son, we found a novel heterozygous mutation in CaSR gene. The hypercalcemia was present only in father, which, by contrast to the classic form of FHH showed hypercalciuria (from 300 to 600 mg/24 h in different evaluations) and a Calcium/Creatinine ratio of 0.031, instead of low or normal calciuria (<0.01 typical finding in FHH). His son showed the same mutation in CaSR gene, but no clinical signs or hypercalcemia although serum ionized calcium levels were close to the upper limit of normal values (1.30 mmol/L: normal range: 1.12-1.31 mmol/L). Sequence analysis revealed a point mutation at codon 972 of CaSR gene (chromosome 3q), located within cytoplasmic domain of the CaSR, that changes Threonine with Methionine. The father was treated with Cinacalcet 90 mg/day, with a decrease of total serum calcemia from an average value of 12.2 mg/dl to 10.9 mg/dl.Conclusion: This is a case of a novel inactivating point mutation of CaSR gene that determines an atypical clinical presentation of FHH, characterized by hypercalcemia, hypercalciuria and inadequate normal PTH levels. Functional assay demonstrated that the 972 M variant influenced the maturation of the protein, in terms of the post-translational glycosylation. The impairment of the receptor activity is in keeping with the specific localization of the 972 residue in the C-terminal tail, assigned to the intracellular signalling, that on the basis of the our findings appears to be differently modulated in parathyroid gland and in kidne

A Novel GAN-Based Anomaly Detection and Localization Method for Aerial Video Surveillance at Low Altitude

The last two decades have seen an incessant growth in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with HD cameras for developing aerial vision-based systems to support civilian and military tasks, including land monitoring, change detection, and object classification. To perform most of these tasks, the artificial intelligence algorithms usually need to know, a priori, what to look for, identify. or recognize. Actually, in most operational scenarios, such as war zones or post-disaster situations, areas and objects of interest are not decidable a priori since their shape and visual features may have been altered by events or even intentionally disguised (e.g., improvised explosive devices (IEDs)). For these reasons, in recent years, more and more research groups are investigating the design of original anomaly detection methods, which, in short, are focused on detecting samples that differ from the others in terms of visual appearance and occurrences with respect to a given environment. In this paper, we present a novel two-branch Generative Adversarial Network (GAN)-based method for low-altitude RGB aerial video surveillance to detect and localize anomalies. We have chosen to focus on the low-altitude sequences as we are interested in complex operational scenarios where even a small object or device can represent a reason for danger or attention. The proposed model was tested on the UAV Mosaicking and Change Detection (UMCD) dataset, a one-of-a-kind collection of challenging videos whose sequences were acquired between 6 and 15 m above sea level on three types of ground (i.e., urban, dirt, and countryside). Results demonstrated the effectiveness of the model in terms of Area Under the Receiving Operating Curve (AUROC) and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), achieving an average of 97.2% and 95.7%, respectively, thus suggesting that the system can be deployed in real-world applications