Cloud computing adoption framework:A security framework for business clouds

This paper presents a Cloud Computing Adoption Framework (CCAF) security suitable for business clouds. CCAF multi-layered security is based on the development and integration of three major security technologies: firewall, identity management and encryption based on the development of Enterprise File Sync and Share technologies. This paper presents our motivation, related work and our views on security framework. Core technologies have been explained in details and experiments were designed to demonstrate the robustness of the CCAF multi-layered security. In penetration testing, CCAF multi-layered security could detect and block 99.95% viruses and trojans and could maintain 85% and above of blocking for 100 hours of continuous attacks. Detection and blocking took less than 0.012 second per trojan and viruses. A full CCAF multi-layered security protection could block all SQL injection providing real protection to data. CCAF multi-layered security had 100% rate of not reporting false alarm. All F-measures for CCAF test results were 99.75% and above. How CCAF multi-layered security can blend with policy, real services and blend with business activities have been illustrated. Research contributions have been justified and CCAF multi-layered security can offer added value for volume, velocity and veracity for Big Data services operated in the Cloud

Multi-satellite altimetry and GOCE geoid based surface and subsurface currents in the Mediterranean Sea

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Effects of natto extract on endothelial injury in a rat model

Vascular endothelial damage has been found to be associated with thrombus formation, which is considered to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. A diet of natto leads to a low prevalence of cardiovascular disease. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of natto extract on vascular endothelia damage with exposure to laser irradiation. Endothelial damage both in vitro and in vivo was induced by irradiation of rose bengal using a DPSS green laser. Cell viability was determined by MTS assay, and the intimal thickening was verified by a histological approach. The antioxidant content of natto extract was determined for the free radical scavenging activity. Endothelial cells were injured in the presence of rose bengal irradiated in a dose-dependent manner. Natto extract exhibits high levels of antioxidant activity compared with purified natto kinase. Apoptosis of laser-injured endothelial cells was significantly reduced in the presence of natto extract. Both the natto extract and natto kinase suppressed intimal thickening in rats with endothelial injury. The present findings suggest that natto extract suppresses vessel thickening as a synergic effect attributed to its antioxidant and anti-apoptosis properties

Observation of temporal variations in seismic anisotropy within an active fault‐zone revealed from the Taiwan Chelungpu‐fault Drilling Project Borehole Seismic Array

Temporal fault-zone observations are important to better understand the evolution of fault structure and stress configuration. However, long-term monitoring in the fault-zone is rare after a large earthquake. Here, we use seismic data in the fault-zone at 1-km depth from the Taiwan Chelungpu-fault Drilling Project to study long-term anisotropy after the 1999 Mw7.6 Chi-Chi earthquake. The direct S-wave splitting measurements resolve the overall weak anisotropy in the shallow crust. In order to resolve fault damage zone anisotropy, we perform coda cross-correlation technique for 794 microearthquakes between 2007 and 2013. We estimate the temporal change in background shear-wave velocity, fast shear-wave polarization direction (FSP), and strength of anisotropy (Aani) in the fault damage zone. We show the average FSP direction is N93°E with a significant Aani of about 12%, likely due to the pervasive vertical microcracks created after the earthquake. Temporal variations of anisotropy exhibit seasonal variation with periodicity every 9 to 12 months that correlates with rainfall events. Furthermore, long-term anisotropy shows a gradual rotation of FSP direction of about 15° during the first 4 years of observation. At the same time, the strength of anisotropy reduced from 17 to 10 % and shear-wave velocity increased, suggesting the fault healed after the earthquake. This study reports in-situ evidence for two key observations: (1) long-term, fault-zone healing after a major earthquake, and (2) modulation of 1-km deep fault-zone properties by surficial hydrologic processes. These observations may provide constraints on the response of the fault damage zone in the interseismic period

Sampling Neural Radiance Fields for Refractive Objects

Recently, differentiable volume rendering in neural radiance fields (NeRF) has gained a lot of popularity, and its variants have attained many impressive results. However, existing methods usually assume the scene is a homogeneous volume so that a ray is cast along the straight path. In this work, the scene is instead a heterogeneous volume with a piecewise-constant refractive index, where the path will be curved if it intersects the different refractive indices. For novel view synthesis of refractive objects, our NeRF-based framework aims to optimize the radiance fields of bounded volume and boundary from multi-view posed images with refractive object silhouettes. To tackle this challenging problem, the refractive index of a scene is reconstructed from silhouettes. Given the refractive index, we extend the stratified and hierarchical sampling techniques in NeRF to allow drawing samples along a curved path tracked by the Eikonal equation. The results indicate that our framework outperforms the state-of-the-art method both quantitatively and qualitatively, demonstrating better performance on the perceptual similarity metric and an apparent improvement in the rendering quality on several synthetic and real scenes.Comment: SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 Technical Communications. 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Project: https://alexkeroro86.github.io/SampleNeRFRO/ Code: https://github.com/alexkeroro86/SampleNeRFR

High expression FUT1 and B3GALT5 is an independent predictor of postoperative recurrence and survival in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Cancer may arise from dedifferentiation of mature cells or maturation-arrested stem cells. Previously we reported that definitive endoderm from which liver was derived, expressed Globo H, SSEA-3 and SSEA-4. In this study, we examined the expression of their biosynthetic enzymes, FUT1, FUT2, B3GALT5 and ST3GAL2, in 135 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues by qRT-PCR. High expression of either FUT1 or B3GALT5 was significantly associated with advanced stages and poor outcome. Kaplan Meier survival analysis showed significantly shorter relapse-free survival (RFS) for those with high expression of either FUT1 or B3GALT5 (P = 0.024 and 0.001, respectively) and shorter overall survival (OS) for those with high expression of B3GALT5 (P = 0.017). Combination of FUT1 and B3GALT5 revealed that high expression of both genes had poorer RFS and OS than the others (P < 0.001). Moreover, multivariable Cox regression analysis identified the combination of B3GALT5 and FUT1 as an independent predictor for RFS (HR: 2.370, 95% CI: 1.505-3.731, P < 0.001) and OS (HR: 2.153, 95% CI: 1.188-3.902, P = 0.012) in HCC. In addition, the presence of Globo H, SSEA-3 and SSEA-4 in some HCC tissues and their absence in normal liver was established by immunohistochemistry staining and mass spectrometric analysis

Interferon-b Modulates Inflammatory Response in Cerebral Ischemia

BACKGROUND: Stroke is a leading cause of death in the world. In >80% of strokes, the initial acute phase of ischemic injury is due to the occlusion of a blood vessel resulting in severe focal hypoperfusion, excitotoxicity, and oxidative damage. Interferon-β (IFNβ), a cytokine with immunomodulatory properties, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis for more than a decade. Its anti-inflammatory properties and well-characterized safety profile suggest that IFNβ has therapeutic potential for the treatment of ischemic stroke. METHODS AND RESULTS: We investigated the therapeutic effect of IFNβ in the mouse model of transient middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion. We found that IFNβ not only reduced infarct size in ischemic brains but also lessened neurological deficits in ischemic stroke animals. Further, multiple molecular mechanisms by which IFNβ modulates ischemic brain inflammation were identified. IFNβ reduced central nervous system infiltration of monocytes/macrophages, neutrophils, CD4(+) T cells, and γδ T cells; inhibited the production of inflammatory mediators; suppressed the expression of adhesion molecules on brain endothelial cells; and repressed microglia activation in the ischemic brain. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that IFNβ exerts a protective effect against ischemic stroke through its anti-inflammatory properties and suggest that IFNβ is a potential therapeutic agent, targeting the reperfusion damage subsequent to the treatment with tissue plasminogen activator

Benthic Fluxes of Dissolved Organic Carbon from Gas Hydrate Sediments in the Northern South China Sea

Hydrocarbon vents have recently been reported to contribute considerable amounts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to the oceans. Many such hydrocarbon vents widely exist in the northern South China Sea (NSCS). To investigate if these hydrocarbon vent sites release DOC, we used a real-time video multiple-corer to collect bottom seawater and surface sediments at vent sites. We analyzed concentrations of DOC in these samples and estimated DOC fluxes. Elevated DOC concentrations in the porewaters were found at some sites suggesting that DOC may come from these hydrocarbon vents. Benthic fluxes of DOC from these sediments were 28 to 1264 µmol m−2 d−1 (on average ~321 µmol m−2 d−1 which are several times higher than most DOC fluxes in coastal and continental margin sediments. The results demonstrate that the real-time video multiple-corer can precisely collect samples at vent sites. The estimated benthic DOC flux from the methane venting sites (8.6 x 106 mol y-1, is 24% of the DOC discharge from the Pearl River to the South China Sea, indicating that these sediments make an important contribution to the DOC in deep waters

Towards a Privacy Rule Conceptual Model for Smart Toys

A smart toy is defined as a device consisting of a physical toy component that connects to one or more toy computing services to facilitate gameplay in the cloud through networking and sensory technologies to enhance the functionality of a traditional toy. A smart toy in this context can be effectively considered an Internet of Things (IoT) with Artificial Intelligence (AI) which can provide Augmented Reality (AR) experiences to users. In this paper, the first assumption is that children do not understand the concept of privacy and the children do not know how to protect themselves online, especially in a social media and cloud environment. The second assumption is that children may disclose private information to smart toys and not be aware of the possible consequences and liabilities. This paper presents a privacy rule conceptual model with the concepts of smart toy, mobile service, device, location, and guidance with related privacy entities: purpose, recipient, obligation, and retention for smart toys. Further the paper also discusses an implementation of the prototype interface with sample scenarios for future research works

Prostaglandin E2 Inhibition of IL-27 Production in Murine Dendritic Cells: A Novel Mechanism That Involves IRF1

IL-27, a multifunctional cytokine produced by APCs, antagonizes inflammation by affecting conventional dendritic cells (cDC), inducing IL-10, and promoting development of regulatory Tr1 cells. Although the mechanisms involved in IL-27 induction are well studied, much less is known about the factors that negatively impact IL-27 expression. PGE2, a major immunomodulatory prostanoid, acts as a proinflammatory agent in several models of inflammatory/autoimmune disease, promoting primarily Th17 development and function. In this study, we report on a novel mechanism that promotes the proinflammatory function of PGE2 We showed previously that PGE2 inhibits IL-27 production in murine bone marrow-derived DCs. In this study, we show that, in addition to bone marrow-derived DCs, PGE2 inhibits IL-27 production in macrophages and in splenic cDC, and we identify a novel pathway consisting of signaling through EP2/EP4→induction of cAMP→downregulation of IFN regulatory factor 1 expression and binding to the p28 IFN-stimulated response element site. The inhibitory effect of PGE2 on p28 and irf1 expression does not involve endogenous IFN-β, STAT1, or STAT2, and inhibition of IL-27 does not appear to be mediated through PKA, exchange protein activated by cAMP, PI3K, or MAPKs. We observed similar inhibition of il27p28 expression in vivo in splenic DC following administration of dimethyl PGE2 in conjunction with LPS. Based on the anti-inflammatory role of IL-27 in cDC and through the generation of Tr1 cells, we propose that the PGE2-induced inhibition of IL-27 in activated cDC represents an important additional mechanism for its in vivo proinflammatory functions