Safety evaluation of seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) leaves in Japanese quail

Aim: The present study was designed to evaluate the safety of seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L. Elaeagnaceae) leaves added in the diet of Japanese quail. Materials and Methods: A total of ninety quail chicks were randomly divided into 2 groups and fed a standard quail chick mash added with or without 2% SBT leaf powder (Group SX), and a standard quail chick mash (Group CX, control) for 21 days. Six animals from each group were randomly sacrificed at 7, 14 and 21 day post feeding. Blood and tissue samples were collected for biochemical and histopathological studies.Results: The inclusion of SBT in quail diet did not affect the weekly body weights, clinical signs or mortality among the birds. The serum biochemical parameters like alanine transaminase, total protein, albumin, cholesterol and uric acid values in SBT treated group were found at par with those in the control group. Gross and histopathological studies of various internal organs such as liver, kidneys, heart, spleen, proventriculus, small intestine, bursa and thymus did not reveal any significant lesions in the tissue sections. However, proliferation of lymphoid tissue was a prominent finding noted in different lymphoid organs.Conclusion: In conclusion, the addition of seabuckthorn leaf powder at 2% level in the diet of Japanese quail was found to be safe and it can be used as a feed additive

Common reduction of the Raf kinase inhibitory protein in clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Despite the recent progress in our understanding of clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCCs), the etiology of ccRCC remains unclear. We reported here a prevailing reduction of the raf kinase inhibitory protein (RKIP) in ccRCC. In our examination of more than 600 ccRCC patients by western blot and immunohistochemistry, RKIP was significantly reduced in 80% of tumors. Inhibition of RKIP transcription in ccRCC occurs to greater levels than VHL transcription based on the quantification analysis of their transcripts in six large datasets of DNA microarray available in Oncomine™ with the median rank of suppression being 582 and 2343 for RKIP and VHL, respectively. Collectively, the magnitude of RKIP reduction and the levels of its downregulation match those of VHL. Furthermore, RKIP displays tumor suppressing activity in ccRCC. While modulation of RKIP expression did not affect the proliferation of A498 and 786-0 ccRCC cells and neither their ability to form xenograft tumors in NOD/SCID mice, ectopic expression or knockdown of RKIP inhibited or enhanced A498 and 786-0 ccRCC cell invasion, respectively. This was associated with robust changes in vimentin expression, a marker of EMT. Taken together, we demonstrate here that downregulation of RKIP occurs frequently at a rate that reaches that of VHL, suggesting RKIP being a critical tumor suppressor for ccRCC. This is consistent with RKIP being a tumor suppressor for other cancers

An easily recoverable and recyclable homogeneous polyester-based Pd catalytic system for the hydrogenation of α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds

Homogeneous catalysis is an efficient tool to carry out hydrogenation processes but the major drawback is represented by the separation of the expensive catalyst from the product mixture. In this view we prepared a polyester-based Pd catalytic system that offers the advantages of both homogenous and heterogeneous catalyses: efficacy, selectivity and recyclability. Here its application in the hydrogenation of selected alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds is described

Topology Optimization of Carbon Nanotube Reinforced Polymer Damping Structures

Topology optimization has been successfully used for improving vibration damping in constrained layer damping structures. Reinforcing carbon nanotubes in a polymer matrix greatly influence the mechanical properties of the polymer. Such nanotube-reinforced polymers (NRP) can be used to further enhance the damping properties of the constrained layer structures. In this work, topology optimization is performed on constrained damping layer structures using NRP in order to maximize the loss factor for the first resonance frequency of the base beam. In addition to the material fractions of the NRP and elastic material, the volume fraction of the nanotubes in the polymer is also a design variable in the optimization process. The modal strain energy method is used for the loss factor calculation. A commercially available finite element code ABAQUS is used for the finite element analysis. The structure is discretized using 2-dimensional 8-noded quadratic elements. Optimization is performed with a gradient based optimization code which uses a sequential quadratic programming algorithm. To make the optimization process more efficient, an analytical method to calculate the gradients is derived to replace the previously used finite difference method. The resulting structures show a remarkable increase in damping performance. To show the robustness of the optimization process, material fraction and base beam thickness parameter studies are also performed

Implementation of East Sumba Regent Regulation Number 33 of 2023 on Educational Services for Belief in God Almighty in Educational Units

Educational services for adherents of indigenous beliefs are a manifestation of the constitutional mandate to guarantee the rights of every citizen. This research aims to conduct an in-depth analysis of the implementation of the East Sumba Regent Regulation Number 33 of 2023 concerning Educational Services for Belief in God Almighty in Educational Units, with a case study on Marapu believers. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews with key stakeholders such as the Regent of East Sumba, the Head of the Education Office, foundation leaders, and educators, as well as through observation and documentation. Data analysis was carried out using the five-factor policy implementation framework from Khan and Khandeker (2016), which includes rational, management, organizational, bureaucratic, and political factors. The results show that in the rational factor, the policy objectives are clearly defined, but socialization to the grassroots community is still limited. In the management factor, a budget has been allocated, but implementation is constrained by the limited number and qualifications of educators and the inadequacy of Marapu-specific teaching modules. The organizational factor indicates strong leadership from the regional head and high motivation from various parties, but teamwork in the field needs to be optimized. The bureaucratic factor shows that an implementation structure is in place, but the competence and capacity of implementers at the school level still need improvement. Finally, in the political factor, there is strong political will and minimal inhibiting political pressure after initial dialogues, but harmony among all implementing actors must be continuously maintained. This study concludes that the policy implementation is proceeding with a strong legal and political foundation but faces significant challenges in managerial and technical aspects on the ground.

INDDoS+: secure DDoS detection mechanism in programmable switches

Volumetric distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is a key issue in modern telecommunication networks since it can exhaust the resources of legitimate users and cripple network services. Recently, with the emergence of high-throughput and low-latency programmable switches, DDoS detection mechanisms have been designed and implemented in an in-network manner, that is, DDoS detection executed directly within programmable switches. State-of-the-art works use advanced data structures to monitor the number of connections targeting destination hosts: if there is sudden increase of connections and the number exceeds a given threshold, the destination host is most likely under DDoS attack. However, while this approach is efficient in DDoS victims identification, it has inherent vulnerabilities in the detection mechanism that may lead to security issues. In this paper, we study two possible vulnerabilities in DDoS detection data structures, showing the possibilities to break DDoS detection mechanisms in programmable switches. To mitigate the constructed attacks, we propose a solution called INDDoS+. The results show that INDDoS+ is robust to attacks and can accurately detect DDoS attempts when limited hardware resources are assigned

Tracking Normalized Network Traffic Entropy to Detect DDoS Attacks in P4

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks represent a persistent threat to modern telecommunications networks: detecting and counteracting them is still a crucial unresolved challenge for network operators. DDoS attack detection is usually carried out in one or more central nodes that collect significant amounts of monitoring data from networking devices, potentially creating issues related to network overload or delay in detection. The dawn of programmable data planes in Software-Defined Networks can help mitigate this issue, opening the door to the detection of DDoS attacks directly in the data plane of the switches. However, the most widely-adopted data plane programming language, namely P4, lacks supporting many arithmetic operations, therefore, some of the advanced network monitoring functionalities needed for DDoS detection cannot be straightforwardly implemented in P4. This work overcomes such a limitation and presents two novel strategies for flow cardinality and for normalized network traffic entropy estimation that only use P4-supported operations and guarantee a low relative error. Additionally, based on these contributions, we propose a DDoS detection strategy relying on variations of the normalized network traffic entropy. Results show that it has comparable or higher detection accuracy than state-of-the-art solutions, yet being simpler and entirely executed in the data plane.Comment: Accepted by TDSC on 24/09/202

Low Power Arithmetic Units using Pass Logic

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