EFFECT OF SUB-CHRONIC EXPOSURE TO CHROMIUM ON HAEMATOLOGICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS OF MALE ALBINO RAT

Objectives :  Exposure to chromium, the transition element found in many compounds of earth's crust, leads to various health hazards including cancer, dermatitis, damage of liver  and kidneys and reproductive toxicity in both male and female. Toxic  effect of chronic exposure to chromium at low environmentally relevant dose is recently recognized and less studied. In the present study, we evaluated the effect of sub-chronic exposure to low doses of chromium VI (K2Cr2O7) on various haematological and biochemical parameters in male albino rats.Methods : Male albino rats (160±10 gm) received 1/25, 1/50 and 1/100 of reported oral LD50 dose of chromium VI (K2Cr2O7) for 90 consecutive days. After treatment, the blood was collected for analysis of various haematological and biochemical parameters.Results :  Exposure to chromium VI at 1/25 LD50 dose caused decrease in body weight gain and reduction in the weight of the reproductive organs along with increase in the weight of liver and kidney. Numbers of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and haemoglobin concentration reduced with increase in clotting time. The total sperm count and motility was also reduced in exposed rats. There was decrease in plasma protein and albumin concentration, with increase in plasma glucose and cholesterol level. The activity of enzyme alanine aminotransferase and enzyme aspertate aminotransferase was stimulated in treated rats.Conclusion : The results of the present study revealed that chronic low dose  exposure to chromium VI resulted in a toxic effect in experimental male albino rats.    Â

Heat Killed Attenuated Leishmania Induces Apoptosis of HepG2 Cells Through ROS Mediated p53 Dependent Mitochondrial Pathway

Cytotoxic effect of attenuated Leishmania on liver cancer cells by inducing ROS generation. Methods: Spectrophotometric study to analyze cell death and levels of different active caspases. Flow cytometric study was done to analyze apoptosis induction and ROS generation and levels of different protein. Western blot analysis was performed to study the levels of protein. Confocal microscopy was done to ascertain the expression of different apoptotic markers. Results: We have now observed that attenuated Leishmania donovani UR6 also has potentiality towards growth inhibition of HepG2 cells and investigated the mechanism of action. The effect is associated with increased DNA fragmentation, rise in number of annexinV positive cells, and cell cycle arrest at G1 phase. The detection of unregulated levels of active PARP, cleaved caspases 3 and 9, cytosolic cytochrome C, Bax, and Bad, along with the observed downregulation of Bcl-2 and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential suggested the involvement of mitochondrial pathway. Enhanced ROS and p53 levels regulate the apoptosis of HepG2 cells. NAC was found to inhibit p53 production but PFT-α has no effect on ROS generation. In conclusion, Leishmania donovani UR6 efficiently induces apoptosis in HepG2 cells through ROS mediated p53 dependent mitochondrial pathway. Conclusion: It has been reported earlier that some parasites show prominent cytotoxic effect and prevent tumor growth. From our study we found that Leishmania donovani UR6 efficiently induced apoptosis in HepG2 cells through ROS mediated p53 dependent mitochondrial pathway. This study has rejuvenated the age old idea of bio-therap

LLM for SoC Security: A Paradigm Shift

As the ubiquity and complexity of system-on-chip (SoC) designs increase across electronic devices, the task of incorporating security into an SoC design flow poses significant challenges. Existing security solutions are inadequate to provide effective verification of modern SoC designs due to their limitations in scalability, comprehensiveness, and adaptability. On the other hand, Large Language Models (LLMs) are celebrated for their remarkable success in natural language understanding, advanced reasoning, and program synthesis tasks. Recognizing an opportunity, our research delves into leveraging the emergent capabilities of Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) to address the existing gaps in SoC security, aiming for a more efficient, scalable, and adaptable methodology. By integrating LLMs into the SoC security verification paradigm, we open a new frontier of possibilities and challenges to ensure the security of increasingly complex SoCs. This paper offers an in-depth analysis of existing works, showcases practical case studies, demonstrates comprehensive experiments, and provides useful promoting guidelines. We also present the achievements, prospects, and challenges of employing LLM in different SoC security verification tasks.Comment: 42 page

LLM for SoC Security: A Paradigm Shift

As the ubiquity and complexity of system-on-chip (SoC) designs increase across electronic devices, the task of incorporating security into an SoC design flow poses significant challenges. Existing security solutions are inadequate to provide effective verification of modern SoC designs due to their limitations in scalability, comprehensiveness, and adaptability. On the other hand, Large Language Models (LLMs) are celebrated for their remarkable success in natural language understanding, advanced reasoning, and program synthesis tasks. Recognizing an opportunity, our research delves into leveraging the emergent capabilities of Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) to address the existing gaps in SoC security, aiming for a more efficient, scalable, and adaptable methodology. By integrating LLMs into the SoC security verification paradigm, we open a new frontier of possibilities and challenges to ensure the security of increasingly complex SoCs. This paper offers an in-depth analysis of existing works, showcases practical case studies, demonstrates comprehensive experiments, and provides useful promoting guidelines. We also present the achievements, prospects, and challenges of employing LLM in different SoC security verification tasks

PQC-SEP: Power Side-channel Evaluation Platform for Post-Quantum Cryptography Algorithms

Research in post-quantum cryptography (PQC) aims to develop cryptographic algorithms that can withstand classical and quantum attacks. The recent advance in the PQC field has gradually switched from the theory to the implementation of cryptographic algorithms on hardware platforms. In addition, the PQC standardization process of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is currently in its third round. It specifies ease of protection against side-channel analysis (SCA) as an essential selection criterion. Following this trend, in this paper, we evaluate side-channel leakages of existing PQC implementations using PQC-SEP, a completely automated side-channel evaluation platform at both pre-and post-silicon levels. It automatically estimates the amount of side-channel leakage in the power profile of a PQC design at early design stages, i.e., RTL, gate level, and physical layout level. It also efficiently validates side-channel leakages at the post-silicon level against artificial intelligence (AI) based SCA models and traditional SCA models. Further, we delineate challenges and approaches for future research directions

Secure Physical Design

An integrated circuit is subject to a number of attacks including information leakage, side-channel attacks, fault-injection, malicious change, reverse engineering, and piracy. Majority of these attacks take advantage of physical placement and routing of cells and interconnects. Several measures have already been proposed to deal with security issues of the high level functional design and logic synthesis. However, to ensure end-to-end trustworthy IC design flow, it is necessary to have security sign-off during physical design flow. This paper presents a secure physical design roadmap to enable end-to-end trustworthy IC design flow. The paper also discusses utilization of AI/ML to establish security at the layout level. Major research challenges in obtaining a secure physical design are also discussed

Cardiometabolic and Hematological Consequences of Subclinical Hypothyroidism – A Hospital-based Study

Introduction: Cardiometabolic syndrome is a major public health problem that effects various groups of population world over. Overt hypothyroidism is reported to be associated with both adverse cardiometabolic events as well as hematological picture. However, cardiometabolic and hematological consequences of subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) are yet to be evaluated in different population. In the present study, we evaluated cardiometabolic and hematological consequences of SCH in a middle aged population from Agartala, Tripura, India. Methodology: The study was conducted on 193 patients attending the ENT OPD of Tripura Medical College and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Teaching Hospital, Hapania, Agartala. Subjects having diabetes mellitus, hypertension, patients having thyroxin, antithyroid drugs and antilipidemic drug users, established cancer patients, pregnant woman, and women receiving oral contraceptive pills were excluded from inclusion in the study. Results: The mean age of the subjects was 40.13 years, and females constituted around 65 % of total subjects. The analyses showed a significant difference the RBC count, HB concentration, and a non-significant difference in WBC count between euthyroid and hypothyroid subjects, while platelets showed no significant difference between the groups. There was a significant increase in total cholesterol level and level of LDL cholesterol as well as blood pressure, blood sugar level, and waist circumference in hypothyroid subjects in comparison to euthyroid subjects. Conclusion: The study concluded that the subjects with hypothyroidism have worse cardiometabolic parameters with alteration in lipid profile. Thyroid dysfunction affects all blood parameters except platelets. The follow-up of patients with hypothyroidism should include the complete blood count and evaluation of lipid profile and other cardiometabolic parameters