Non-repudiation protocols are aimed at exchanging digital messages and irrefutable receipts between two mistrusting parties over the Internet, which form the cornerstones of modern secure network ...transactions. Timeliness is a key security property of non-repudiation protocols, which ensures that protocol agents can terminate their execution within a finite time, and guarantees the satisfaction of time-constraint among protocol events. A number of analysis methods have been proposed, but most of them cannot explicitly express the time factor which plays an important role in protocols. In order to address the challenge of analyzing timeliness, this paper extends the logic of events theory (LoET) and proposes a novel formal logic. By explicitly introducing the time factor into predicate formulas, the new logic can model actions, knowledge, and process states of each agent at different time points, thus enhancing its ability of time description. The formal semantics of new logic is given to avoid ambiguity of logic language and guarantee the soundness of new logic. A typical non-repudiation protocol is analyzed with new logic, and the timeliness flaw is discovered. The proposed logic overcomes the limitations of LoET in terms of time description and effectively addresses the issue of the inability to analyze timeliness.
Abstract Background Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is a growing clinical challenge. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective tool for TRD treatment. However, there remains a subset of ...patients who do not respond to this treatment with common anesthetic agent. Ketamine, a noteworthy anesthetic agent, has emerged as an augmentation to enhance the antidepressant efficacy of ECT. Trials of i.v. ketamine in TRD indicated dose-related mood enhancing efficacy. efficacy. We aimed to explore anesthetic and subanesthetic concentrations of ketamine in ECT for TRD with respect to their impact on mood and neuropsychological effects. Methods Ninety TRD patients (36 males, 54 females; average age, 30.6 years old) were randomly assigned to receive either ketamine (0.8 mg/kg) (n=30), subanesthetic ketamine (0.5 mg/kg) plus propofol (0.5 mg/kg) (n=30) or propofol (0.8 mg/kg) (n=30) as an anesthetic and underwent 8 ECT sessions. The primary outcome measures were the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17), cognitive assessments and seizure parameters. Results The ketamine group had an earlier improvement in HDRS-17, longer seizure duration, lower electric quantity, a higher remission rate, and a lower degree of executive cognitive impairment compared to the ketamine+propofol and propofol groups. The ketamine+propofol group showed earlier improvement in the HDRS-17, a longer seizure duration and a different seizure energy index when compared to the propofol group. Limitations The postoperative dissociative side effect was not assessed. Conclusions Both anesthetic and subanesthetic concentrations of ketamine have rapid mood enhancing actions in ECT for TRD, while anesthetic concentrations results in larger magnitudes of antidepression and cognitive protection. ECT with ketamine anesthesia might be an optimized therapy for patients with TRD.
Suicide is a tremendous threat to global public health, and a large number of people who committed suicide suffered the pain of mental diseases, especially major depressive disorder (MDD). Previous ...study showed that ketamine could reduce suicidal ideation (SI), potentially by improving the impaired working memory (WM). The objective of current study was to illuminate the relationship between WM and SI in MDD with repeated ketamine treatment. MDD patients with SI (
n
= 59) and without SI (
n
= 37) completed six intravenous infusions of ketamine (0.5 mg/kg over 40 min) over 12 days (Day 1, 3, 5, 8, 10 and 12). The severity of depressive symptoms, SI and WM were assessed at baseline, day 13 and day 26. We found that WM was significantly improved after 6 ketamine infusions (
F
= 161.284,
p
= 0.009) in a linear mixed model. Correlation analysis showed that the improvement of depressive symptom was significantly associated with WM at baseline (
r
= − 0.265,
p
= 0.042) and the reduction in SSI-part I was related to the change of WM (
r
= 0.276,
p
= 0.034) in the MDD patients with SI. Furthermore, Logistic regression analysis showed that improvement in WM might predict the anti-SI response of ketamine. Our findings suggest that the improvement of working memory may partly account for the anti-SI effect of ketamine, and intervention of improving working memory function may be capable of reducing suicidal ideation.
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a substantial global public health problem in need of novel and effective treatment strategies. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a ...non-invasive and promising treatment for depression that has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, the methodological weaknesses of existing work impairs the universal clinical use of rTMS. The variation of stimulated targets across the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex may account for most of the heterogeneity in the efficacy of rTMS. Many rTMS target location methods for MDD have been developed in recent decades. This review was conducted to assess this emerging field and to improve treatment outcomes in clinical practice.
Structural abnormalities in schizophrenia (SZ) patients have been well documented with structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and region of interest ...(ROI) analyses. However, these analyses can only detect group-wise differences and thus, have a poor predictive value for individuals. In the present study, we applied a machine learning method that combined support vector machine (SVM) with recursive feature elimination (RFE) to discriminate SZ patients from normal controls (NCs) using their structural MRI data. We first employed both VBM and ROI analyses to compare gray matter volume (GMV) and white matter volume (WMV) between 41 SZ patients and 42 age- and sex-matched NCs. The method of SVM combined with RFE was used to discriminate SZ patients from NCs using significant between-group differences in both GMV and WMV as input features. We found that SZ patients showed GM and WM abnormalities in several brain structures primarily involved in the emotion, memory, and visual systems. An SVM with a RFE classifier using the significant structural abnormalities identified by the VBM analysis as input features achieved the best performance (an accuracy of 88.4%, a sensitivity of 91.9%, and a specificity of 84.4%) in the discriminative analyses of SZ patients. These results suggested that distinct neuroanatomical profiles associated with SZ patients might provide a potential biomarker for disease diagnosis, and machine-learning methods can reveal neurobiological mechanisms in psychiatric diseases.
Early detection of patients with late-life depression (LLD) with a high risk of developing dementia contributes to early intervention. Odor identification (OI) dysfunction serves as a marker for ...predicting dementia, but whether OI dysfunction increases the risk of dementia in LLD patients remains unclear. The present study aimed to explore the interactive effect of LLD and OI dysfunction on the risk of dementia and its underlying neuroimaging changes. One hundred and fifty-seven LLD patients and 101 normal controls were recruited, and data on their OI, cognition, activity of daily living (ADL), and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging were collected. Two × two factorial analyses were used to analyze the interactive effects of LLD and OI dysfunction on neuropsychological and neuroimaging abnormalities. Mediation analyses were used to explore whether abnormalities detected by neuroimaging mediated the the associations between OI and cognition/ADL. The results suggested that LLD and OI dysfunction exhibited additive effects on reduced ADL, global cognition and memory scores, as well as neuroimaging variables including (i) increased fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) in the right orbitofrontal cortex and right precentral cortex, and (ii) increased regional homogeneity (ReHo) in the left hippocampus/fusiform gyrus, etc. In addition, these increased fALFF and ReHo values were associated with reduced neuropsychological scores (ADL, global cognition, memory, and language). Moreover, ReHo of the left hippocampus/fusiform gyrus completely mediated the relationship between OI and ADL, and partially mediated the relationship between OI and global cognition. Overall, mediated by the hypersynchronization of the left hippocampus/fusiform gyrus, OI dysfunction may increase the risk of dementia in LLD patients.
Brain iron accumulation, which is indicated in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) ferritin, is associated with the development of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Studies have indicated that iron deposition ...might participate in Alzheimer's pathology through the induction of microglial activation. A soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (sTrem2) in CSF is increasingly recognized as a reliable indicator for microglia activity in the brain and participates in the development of neuroinflammation. However, the association between CSF ferritin and sTrem2 under the AD continuum has not been well-established. We enrolled individuals from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. Participants were classified into healthy controls (HC,
n
= 46) and AD continuum (
n
= 105) in the combined strata of Amyloid/Tau/Neurodegeneration (ATN) mode and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) criteria. The associations between CSF ferritin (indicating iron burden) and sTrem2, as well as AD pathology, which is reflected by Aβ42, t-tau, and p-tau in CSF, were explored. CSF ferritin was significantly associated with sTrem2 among all participants (β = 0.517,
P
< 0.001, FDR < 0.001), HC (β = 0.749,
P
= 0.006, FDR = 0.010), and AD continuum (β = 0.488,
P
< 0.001, FDR < 0.001), respectively. However, ferritin predicted the accelerated sTrem2 level in those with high ferritin (β = 0.549,
P
= 0.036, FDR = 0.045). In conclusion, CSF ferritin serves as a potential biomarker of Trem2-indicated microglia function.
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•Novel emulsifying agents based on MP peptide (MPP) and maltodextrin are created.•Synergism of ultrasound and microwave greatly improves the glycation efficiency.•Single and combined ...ultrasound-induced glycation enhance emulsifying ability of MP.•MPP modified by UM-assisted conjugation produces the most stable emulsion product.
In this study, we systematically investigated the emulsifying capabilities of myofibrillar protein (MP)- and MP peptide (MPP)-based conjugates synthesized through intensification techniques: water bath (WB), microwave, ultrasound, and the combined ultrasound-microwave (UM) methods. Compared with WB, microwave, and ultrasound treatments, the combined UM treatment greatly promoted the glycation reaction because ultrasound and microwave mutually reinforced modification effects. The resultant conjugate structure tended to unfold with more flexible conformation and homogeneous morphology. Moreover, the emulsifying properties of conjugates developed with single and combined ultrasound-assisted glycation displayed substantial improvement, and pre-hydrolysis further enhanced these performances, as observed in the Principal Component Analysis as well. Remarkably, MPP grafted by maltodextrin with the assistance of a combined UM field produced the smallest and most uniform emulsion system, positioning it as the most efficient emulsifier among all the fabricated glycoconjugates. Our study highlighted the potential of synergistically applying ultrasound and microwave techniques to develop a well-performance glycation with an ideal conjugate structure, in which they would be associated into a strong film that provided the robust physical barrier, creaming stability, heat retention, and oxidation resistance. These findings offered a basis for better utilizing complex ultrasonic technology to develop novel and improved MP-based food products.
Myocardial infarction (MI) is the leading cause of deaths worldwide, triggering widespread and irreversible damage to the heart. Currently, there are no drugs that can reverse ischemic damage to the ...myocardium and hence, finding novel therapeutic agents that can limit the extent of myocardial damage following MI is crucial. Liensinine (LSN) is a naturally derived bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloid that is known to exhibit numerous antioxidative and cardiovascular beneficial effects. However, the role of LSN in MI-induced injury and its underlying mechanisms remain unexplored.
Our study aims to evaluate the cardioprotective effects of LSN following MI and its underlying molecular mechanisms.
We constructed murine models of MI in order to examine the potential cardioprotective effects and mechanisms of LSN in protecting against myocardial ischemic damage both in vivo and in vitro.
Administration with LSN strongly protected against cardiac injuries following MI by decreasing the extent of ischemic damage and improving cardiac function. Additionally, LSN was found to be a potent inhibitor of Wnt/β‑catenin signaling pathway. Hence, the beneficial effects of LSN in preventing oxidative and DNA damage following ischemia was due to its ability to inhibit aberrant activation of Wnt/β‑catenin signaling.
Our findings reveal for the first time a novel cardioprotective role of LSN during myocardial infarction and most notably, its ability to protect cardiomyocytes against oxidative stress-induced damage via inhibiting Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Our study therefore suggests new therapeutic potential of LSN or plants that contain the natural alkaloid LSN in ischemic heart diseases.
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•Liensinine is a natural alkaloid that exhibits strong cardioprotective effects.•Liensinine robustly protects against ischemic injury after myocardial infarction.•Liensinine attenuates ischemia-induced oxidative and DNA damage.•Cardioprotective effects of Liensinine is via inhibiting Wnt/β-catenin signaling.
The increasing commercialization and massive deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems has raised many security related issues which in return evokes the need of security protocols. ...Logic of events theory (LoET) is a formal method for constructing and reasoning about distributed systems and protocols that involve concepts of security. We propose fresh ciphertext and ciphertext release lemmas to extend LoET for analyzing and proving the security of authentication protocols that use symmetric key cryptography more than just digital signature. Based on the extended LoET we formally analyze and prove the authentication property of RCIA protocol, which provides mutual authentication between Tag and Reader in RFID system. Our proof approach based on extended LoET could be applied to the design and analysis of such ultralightweight RFID mutual authentication protocols.
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