Vitamin D is indispensable for the maintenance of bone and mineral health. Inadequate vitamin D action increases the risk for various musculoskeletal/mineral events including fracture, fall, ...secondary hyperparathyroidism, diminished response to antiresorptives, rickets/osteomalacia, and hypocalcemia. Its most common cause in recent years is vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency, clinically defined by a low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D 25(OH)D level. Guidelines for vitamin D insufficiency/deficiency defined by serum 25(OH)D concentrations have been published all over the world. In Japan, however, the information on the associations between serum 25(OH)D and bone and mineral disorders has not been widely shared among healthcare providers, partly because its measurement had not been reimbursed with national medical insurance policy until August 2016. We have set out to collect and analyze Japanese data on the relationship between serum 25(OH)D concentration and bone and mineral events. Integrating these domestic data and published guidelines worldwide, here, we present the following assessment criteria for vitamin D sufficiency/insufficiency/deficiency using serum 25(OH)D level in Japan. (1) Serum 25(OH)D level equal to or above 30 ng/ml is considered to be vitamin D sufficient. (2) Serum 25(OH)D level less than 30 ng/ml but not less than 20 ng/ml is considered to be vitamin D insufficient. (3) Serum 25(OH)D level less than 20 ng/ml is considered to be vitamin D deficient. We believe that these criteria will be clinically helpful in the assessment of serum 25(OH)D concentrations and further expect that they will form a basis for the future development of guidelines for the management of vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency.
Contemporary security information and event management (SIEM) solutions struggle to identify critical security incidents effectively due to the overwhelming number of false alerts generated by ...disparate security products, which results in significant alert fatigue and hinders effective incident response. To overcome this challenge, we propose a next-generation SIEM framework that integrates security orchestration automation and response capabilities and utilizes a divide-and-conquer strategy to mitigate the impact of low-quality IDS alerts. The proposed framework leverages advanced machine learning and data visualization tools-including a cost-sensitive learning method and an event segmenting algorithm-to filter and correlate alerts plus an augmented visualization tool to expedite the triage process. The proposed framework was evaluated experimentally on a dataset collected from a real-world enterprise network, and we report highly convincing results. The alert screening scheme demonstrates significant potential for real-world security operations. We believe that our findings will contributing to the development of a next-generation SIEM system that effectively addresses alert fatigue and lays the foundation for future research in this field.
Abstract
Understanding the morphology of the superior aspect of the proximal femur is critical for treating femoral fracture. We assessed the correlation among the ideal insertion point of the ...femoral nail, femur head-neck axis, and native anteversion. One hundred patients with normal femurs were included in this study. Computed tomography (CT) images of the proximal femur superior aspect and amount of native anteversion were acquired. Generalised Procrustes analysis showed the morphological characteristics of the superior proximal femur according to native anteversion amount. Morphological characteristics were represented by 4 parameters; the correlation between parameters and native anteversion was investigated using CT data. The passing point of the line from the proximal femoral canal parallel to the native anteversion at the greater trochanter was located more posteriorly (mean 35.6%); the passing point of native anteversion was posterior in the femoral neck and head, although the line of the head-neck centre passed more anteriorly at the greater trochanter (mean 67.5%). This posterior translation was significantly associated with native anteversion amount. Morphometric geometric analysis showed that the lag screw could not pass head-neck centre from the nail inserted into proximal femoral canal. Anterior insertion of the nail was needed for positioning the lag screw centre.
Oxytocin (OXT) is a cyclic nonapeptide, two amino acids of which are cysteine, forming an intramolecular disulfide bond. OXT is produced in the hypothalamus and is secreted into the bloodstream from ...the posterior pituitary. As recent studies have suggested that OXT is a neurotransmitter exhibiting central effects important for social deficits, it has drawn much attention as a drug candidate for the treatment of autism. Although human-stage clinical trials of the nasal spray of OXT for the treatment of autism have already begun, few studies have examined the pharmacokinetics and brain distribution of OXT after nasal application. The aim of this study is to evaluate the disposition, nasal absorption, and therapeutic potential of OXT after nasal administration. The pharmacokinetics of OXT after intravenous bolus injection to rats followed a two-compartment model, with a rapid initial half-life of 3 min. The nasal bioavailability of OXT was approximately 2%. The brain concentration of OXT after nasal application was much higher than that after intravenous application, despite much lower concentrations in the plasma. More than 95% of OXT in the brain was directly transported from the nasal cavity. The in vivo stress-relief effect by OXT was observed only after intranasal administration. These results indicate that pharmacologically active OXT was effectively delivered to the brain after intranasal administration. In conclusion, the nasal cavity is a promising route for the efficient delivery of OXT to the brain.
A previous study suggested that the airlift condition is superior to the Optisol-GS condition for preserving the limbal tissue of the human cornea. The purpose of this research is to investigate a ...new preservation device that preserves the cornea while separating epithelial and endothelial areas. The differences after preserving the corneal epithelium under different conditions were compared. A total of 24 corneas of New Zealand rabbits were divided into four groups in which the corneal epithelia were submersed in Optisol-GS or under airlift conditions for 1 and 2 weeks at 4 Formula: see textC. Transparency, optical coherence tomography (OCT), hematoxylin and eosin (H &E) staining, and epithelial migration tests were used to assess corneal status. The epithelial migration examination showed significantly greater migration ability after the airlift condition. Corneas in the 1-week Optisol-GS group were the most transparent, followed by the 1-week airlift group. OCT showed a progressive increase in corneal thickness to the end of the study. H &E staining showed that the epithelial cells retained intact cellular structure and morphology of the cells for both 1-week-preserved groups. However, there was disruption of the corneal epithelial cell structure for both 2-week-preserved groups. Corneal epithelium preserved under the hypothermic airlift condition was comparable to that under the Optisol-GS condition.
To elucidate the bacterial community dynamics in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and the relatedness among bacterial communities in the influent, effluent and sludge, the structure and ...metabolic ability of the bacterial community throughout a full-scale WWTP employing a conventional activated sludge process was investigated during a period of 10 months. The bacterial community structure was analyzed by terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism targeting eubacterial 16S rRNA genes, while a Biolog assay was applied to assess the metabolic ability of the activated sludge. Influent bacterial community structure was generally stable. In contrast, the bacterial community structure in the effluent was similar to that in the influent in some cases, while in other cases it was unique and differed greatly from that in the influent and sludge. These results suggest that temporal variations of the effluent bacterial community may be useful to predict the wastewater treatment performance and settleability of activated sludge. The bacterial community structure in the sludge was relatively stable and was rarely impacted by the influent populations. Biolog assay also revealed that activated sludge maintained a remarkably similar metabolic potential of organic compounds over time due to functional redundancy, in which the minor populations played a significant role.
1,4-Dioxane (DX) is a recalcitrant cyclic ether that has gained attention as an emerging pollutant in the aquatic environment. Enrichment of indigenous DX-degrading bacteria, which are considered to ...be minor populations even in DX-impacted environments, is the key for efficient biological DX removal. Therefore, this study aimed to explore carbon sources applicable for the enrichment of DX-degrading bacteria present in landfill leachate, which is a potential source of DX pollution. Microorganisms collected from landfill leachate were cultivated on six different carbon sources (DX, tetrahydrofuran (THF), 1,3,5-trioxane (TX), ethylene glycol (EG), diethylene glycol (DEG), and 1,4-butanediol (BD)) in a sequential batch mode. Consequently, enrichment cultures cultivated on THF in addition to DX improved the DX degradation ability compared to that of the original leachate sample, while those on the other test carbon sources did not. The results indicated that THF can be an alternative carbon source to enrich DX-degrading bacteria, and that TX, EG, DEG and BD are not applicable to concentrate DX-degrading bacteria in complex microbial consortia. In addition, sequencing analyses of 16S rRNA and soluble di-iron monooxygenase (SDIMO) genes revealed notable dominance of
thm
/
dxm
genes involved in group 5 SDIMO both in DX- and THF-enrichment cultures. The analysis also showed a predominance of
Pseudonocardia
in THF-enrichment culture, suggesting that
Pseudonocardia
harboring
thm
/
dxm
genes contributes to enhanced DX degradation in THF-enrichment culture.
Intrusion analysis is essential for cybersecurity, but oftentimes, the overwhelming number of false alerts issued by security appliances can prove to be a considerable hurdle. Machine learning ...algorithms can automate a task known as security alert data analysis to facilitate faster alert triage and incident response. This paper presents a bidirectional approach to address severe class imbalance in security alert data analysis. The proposed method utilizes an ensemble of three oversampling techniques to generate an augmented set of high-quality synthetic positive samples and employs a data subsampling algorithm to identify and remove noisy negative samples. Experimental results using an enterprise and a benchmark dataset confirm that this approach yields significantly improved recall and false positive rates compared with conventional oversampling techniques, suggesting its potential for more effective and efficient AI-assisted security operations.
Estimating the dissolution behavior of a solid in the nasal mucus is challenging for solid dosage forms designed for the nasal application as the solid dissolves into nasal mucus and permeates ...through the mucosa. In the current study, the dissolution behavior of powders in the artificial nasal fluid was investigated using a 3D-printed chamber system to establish in vitro evaluation system for the dissolution of solid formulations that can simulate the intranasal environment in vivo. The dissolution rates of the five model drugs correlated with their solubility (r2 = 0.956, p < 0.01). The permeation rate of drugs across the Calu-3 cell layers after powder application depends on the membrane permeability of the drug. An analysis of membrane permeability considering the dissolution of powders showed the possibility of characterizing whether the drug in the powder was dissolution-limited or permeation-limited. This suggests that critical information can be obtained to understand which mechanism is more effective for the improvement of drug absorption from powders. This study indicates that the elucidation of drug dissolution behavior into nasal mucus is an important factor for the formulation of nasal powders and that the in vitro system developed could be a useful tool.
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