IoT: the internal and external threat

John Curry, Senior Lecturer in Computing at Bath Spa University, and Nick Drage, a specialist in cyber security, discuss what CISOs should be doing about the security threats emanating from the internet of things

Development of the CHARIOT Research Register for the Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia and Other Late Onset Neurodegenerative Diseases

Identifying cognitively healthy people at high risk of developing dementia is an ever-increasing focus. These individuals are essential for inclusion in observational studies into the natural history of the prodromal and early disease stages and for interventional studies aimed at prevention or disease modification. The success of this research is dependent on having access to a well characterised, representative and sufficiently large population of individuals. Access to such a population remains challenging as clinical research has, historically, focussed on patients with dementia referred to secondary and tertiary services. The primary care system in the United Kingdom allows access to a true prodromal population prior to symptoms emerging and specialist referral. We report the development and recruitment rates of the CHARIOT register, a primary care-based recruitment register for research into the prevention of dementia. The CHARIOT register was designed specifically to support recruitment into observational natural history studies of pre-symptomatic or prodromal dementia stages, and primary or secondary prevention pharmaceutical trials or other prevention strategies for dementia and other cognitive problems associated with ageing.Participants were recruited through searches of general practice lists across the west and central London regions. Invitations were posted to individuals aged between 60 and 85 years, without a diagnosis of dementia. Upon consent, a minimum data set of demographic and contact details was extracted from the patient's electronic health record.To date, 123 surgeries participated in the register, recruiting a total of 24,509 participants-a response rate of 22.3%. The age, gender and ethnicity profiles of participants closely match that of the overall eligible population. Higher response rates tended to be associated with larger practices (r = 0.34), practices with a larger older population (r = 0.27), less socioeconomically disadvantaged practices (r = 0.68), and practices with a higher proportion of White patients (r = 0.82).Response rates are comparable to other registers reported in the literature, and indicate good interest and support for a research register and for participation in research for the prevention of age-related neurodegenerative diseases and dementia. We consider that the simplicity of the approach means that this system is easily scalable and replicable across the UK and internationally

Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation in a Life-Long Endurance Athlete: A Descriptive Case Study

The diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (AF) in lifelong endurance athletes occurs at a greater incidence over a lifetime vs the undertrained, general population. In fact, the more intense an aerobic-oriented person trains or races and over a greater amount of time, the higher the diagnosis of general cardiac arrhythmias. PURPOSE: Therefore, the primary aim was to observe the cumulative effects of life-long endurance training (since the age of 10-yrs old) and the yearly occurrences of paroxysmal AF (PAF) in an otherwise healthy, 53-yr-old male. METHODS: The complete health history of a 53-yr-old male (ht: 1.83 m, wt: 72.7 kg, VO2max: 56 ml/kg/min, HRmax: 185 bpm, no alcohol consumption the past 2 yrs, 7-day resting heart rate average/HRavg = 50 bpm) with diagnosed PAF (on January 21, 2016) was gathered and summarized over a 5.7 yr time span (2018-2023). Garmin Connect data were amassed and analyzed for physiological training metrics, including: number of activities/yr, total distance/yr (mi), max distance each yr (mi), total activity time per yr (hrs), average time per workout (hrs), total caloric expenditure (estimated kcals), total ascent per year (ft), average ascent per workout (ft), HRavg per workout (bpm), and HRmax attained/yr (bpm). A simple Pearson correction coefficient was performed between PAF episodes and each physiological metric. RESULTS: Training metrics over 5.7 yrs included: 13 PAF episodes; 3,127 recorded activities (e.g., running, mountain biking, weight lifting); a total of 18,789 human powered mi accumulated; a maximum distance of 90 mi in one session; 3,016.6 hrs of total exercise time; 58 min per training session; 1,541,541 calories expended; 1,681,573 ft of ascent; an average of 590 ft of ascent/activity; HRavg of 129 bpm per workout; and a HRmax of 188 bpm. No correlation (\u3c .30) was found between number of PAF episodes over 5.7 yrs and any physiological measure. CONCLUSION: PAF in this athlete does not seem to be influenced by any of the physiological variables reported. No medication use was reported. After consulting with his medical provider, an electrophysiologist at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN; October 2018), this older athlete was cleared to continue his usual exercise routine until the PAF became (subjectively) a hindrance to his lifestyle. Then cardiac ablation would become a recommendation

Deformations and embeddings of three-dimensional strictly pseudoconvex CR manifolds

Abstract deformations of the CR structure of a compact strictly pseudoconvex hypersurface $M$ in $\mathbb{C}^2$ are encoded by complex functions on $M$. In sharp contrast with the higher dimensional case, the natural integrability condition for $3$-dimensional CR structures is vacuous, and generic deformations of a compact strictly pseudoconvex hypersurface $M\subseteq \mathbb{C}^2$ are not embeddable even in $\mathbb{C}^N$ for any $N$. A fundamental (and difficult) problem is to characterize when a complex function on $M \subseteq \mathbb{C}^2$ gives rise to an actual deformation of $M$ inside $\mathbb{C}^2$. In this paper we study the embeddability of families of deformations of a given embedded CR $3$-manifold, and the structure of the space of embeddable CR structures on $S^3$. We show that the space of embeddable deformations of the standard CR $3$-sphere is a Frechet submanifold of $C^{\infty}(S^3,\mathbb{C})$ near the origin. We establish a modified version of the Cheng-Lee slice theorem in which we are able to characterize precisely the embeddable deformations in the slice (in terms of spherical harmonics). We also introduce a canonical family of embeddable deformations and corresponding embeddings starting with any infinitesimally embeddable deformation of the unit sphere in $\mathbb{C}^2$.Comment: 42 page

Inhibition of interleukin-1β-stimulated collagenase and stromelysin expression in human tendon fibroblasts by epigallocatechin gallate ester

The medicinal benefits of green tea (Camellia sinensis) consumption have been attributed to bioavailable polyphenols, notably epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). We have assessed the effects of EGCG and its non-esterified counterpart EGC on the expression of the collagenases, matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)-1 and -13, and the stromelysin, MMP-3, in human tendon-derived fibroblasts. Interleukin (IL)-1ß increased MMP-1, -3 and -13 mRNA and output at least 30-fold. EGCG reduced this stimulation, by 20–30% at 2.5 µM and more than 80% at 25 µM, and had a smaller effect on MMP-2 mRNA expression, which was not stimulated by IL-1ß. In all experiments EGCG was at least 10-fold more potent than EGC. EGCG reduced the stimulation of p54 JNK/SAPK phosphorylation by IL-1ß but did not affect p38 MAPK phosphorylation, the degradation of I?B or the activating phosphorylation of NF?B. We conclude that EGCG reduces the IL-1-stimulated expression of both collagenase and stromelysin mRNA species, an effect which may be mediated by inhibition of the JNK/SAPK pathway. Taken together with previous reports of EGCG effects on the expression and/or activity of gelatinases and aggrecanases, our results underline the importance of extracellular matrix breakdown as a potential target for the actions of green tea polyphenols

Synthetic Turing protocells: vesicle self-reproduction through symmetry-breaking instabilities

The reproduction of a living cell requires a repeatable set of chemical events to be properly coordinated. Such events define a replication cycle, coupling the growth and shape change of the cell membrane with internal metabolic reactions. Although the logic of such process is determined by potentially simple physico-chemical laws, the modeling of a full, self-maintained cell cycle is not trivial. Here we present a novel approach to the problem which makes use of so called symmetry breaking instabilities as the engine of cell growth and division. It is shown that the process occurs as a consequence of the breaking of spatial symmetry and provides a reliable mechanism of vesicle growth and reproduction. Our model opens the possibility of a synthetic protocell lacking information but displaying self-reproduction under a very simple set of chemical reactions