Secure context-sensitive authorization

There is a recent trend toward rule-based authorization systems to achieve flexible security policies. Also, new sensing technologies in pervasive computing make it possible to define context-sensitive rules, such as “allow database access only to staff who are currently located in the main office”. However, these rules, or the facts that are needed to verify authority, often involve sensitive context information. This paper presents a secure context-sensitive authorization system that protects confidential information in facts or rules. Furthermore, our system allows multiple hosts in a distributed environment to perform the evaluation of an authorization query in a collaborative way; we do not need a universally trusted central host that maintains all the context information. The core of our approach is to decompose a proof for making an authorization decision into a set of sub-proofs produced on multiple different hosts, while preserving the integrity and confidentiality policies of the mutually untrusted principals operating these hosts. We prove the correctness of our algorithm.     

An error evaluation scheme based on rotation of magnetic field in adaptive finite element analysis

The finite-element analysis is widely used in design stage of electromagnetic apparatuses. The analysis accuracy depends on the characteristics of the finite-element mesh, e.g., number of nodes, number of elements and shape of elements. Recently, the adaptive finite-element analysis is one of the most promising numerical analysis techniques. In process of the adaptive finite-element method, the error evaluation is one of the important schemes. In this paper, a new error evaluation scheme, which is suitable for electromagnetic problems, is proposed. The proposed error evaluation method is then applied to two-dimensional and three-dimensional magnetostatic field problems for its verification.     

Motional coherency in chain dynamics of polybutadiene studied by molecular dynamics simulations

Molecular dynamics simulations of 1,4-polybutadiene in bulk amorphous state were performed. Results were compared with the recent neutron spin-echo measurements. To investigate motional coherency the relaxation rates for the collective and self-motions, the collective and self-relaxation rates, were evaluated for the short and long time regimes of the normalized intermediate scattering functions. The scattering vector dependence of the collective relaxation rates estimated for both fast and slow processes indicated a minimum at scattering vector q = 1.5 Å⁻¹, corresponding to the position of a peak in the static structure factor. The self-relaxation rates increased monotonously with q. A phenomenon known as de Gennes narrowing was reproduced well in the simulation and found to be originated from the inter-molecular correlation. The collective relaxation rate evaluated for fast process appeared to modulate around a peak of q = 2.9 Å⁻¹, corresponding to the intra-molecular correlation.     

Inhibition of intimal hyperplasia after vein grafting by in vivo transfer of human senescent cell-derived inhibitor-1 gene

OBJECTIVE: To define the distribution and determinants of cardiovascular disease events among participants undergoing long-term antihypertensive therapy, and to stratify them into risk groups on the basis of pretreatment clinical profiles. DESIGN: A prospective cohort study of participants in a worksite-based antihypertensive treatment program in New York city (1973-1994). PATIENTS: We studied 8690 systematically treated patients who had at least 6 months of follow-up (average of 5.7 years) and, at entry, had had a systolic blood pressure of > or = 160 mmHg or a diastolic blood pressure of > or = 95 mmHg (after 1992 > or = 140/90 mmHg), or had been being administered antihypertensive medication. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Blood pressure and incidence of morbid and mortal cardiovascular events. RESULTS: Blood pressure control (to 140 +/- 3/87 +/- 7 mmHg) was achieved by the first year and maintained through 18 years of therapy. In nearly 50,000 person-years of follow-up, there were 468 cardiovascular disease events [myocardial infarction including revascularization (282), strokes (93), congestive heart failure (30) and other cardiovascular deaths (63)]. Deaths from cardiovascular disease events accounted for 68% of all deaths. Myocardial infarction was most common throughout, but congestive heart failure incidence surpassed stroke incidence after 10 years. A scheme for risk stratification was constructed after analysis of the independent association of baseline factors and incident cardiovascular events. Upon the basis of ease of ascertainment and their demonstrated associations with occurrence of cardiovascular disease during treatment, we selected five pretreatment factors (history of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, age > or = 55 years and pulse pressure > or = 60 mmHg) to stratify patients into four groups. Those with no risk factor had a low risk (n=2999), those with one had a moderate risk (3042), those with two had a high risk (2237), and those with three or more had a very high risk (412). Overall, the unadjusted rates of incidence of cardiovascular disease events per 1000 person-years for patients in very high and low risk groups differed by factors of six and 14 for men and women, respectively. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate that long-term control of blood pressure can be achieved in a general population. Nevertheless, cardiovascular disease events still accounted for most morbidity and mortality among these 'recovered' hypertensive patients. At entry, on the basis of readily identifiable characteristics, it was possible to stratify patients according to likelihood of subsequent events occurring despite control of blood pressure. This scheme could provide the basis for targeting more aggressive therapy where the potential for further cardioprotection is greatest.     

Phase and magnetic properties of iron oxide clusters in 20CaO·20SiO2·7Fe2O3·6FeO glasses

The annealing of 20CaO·20SiO₂·7Fe₂O₃·6FeO glasses at 973K in vacuo produced clusters of iron oxide, the shape of which was nearly spherical and the diameter distributed in the narrow range 25–115Å. The phase of clusters was identified to be Fe³⁺(Fe³⁺ _{poststagger|1.30}Fe²⁺ _{poststagger|0.55}V_0.15)·O₄ in the inverse spinel structure based upon the Mössbauer spectra and x-ray diffraction profiles. The clusters exhibited superparamagnetism and their effective anisotropy energy constant was inversely proportional to the cluster diameter. The magnetization of the glasses measured by a vibrating sample magnetometer was 7.2 × 10^-6 Wbmkg^-1 at 10 kOe at room temperature and smaller than the value calculated assuming that the whole clusters have superparamagnetism. These results suggest the pinning of spins near the cluster surface.     

Ribotyping and a study of transmission of Staphylococcus aureus collected from food preparation facilities

Food poisoning from Staphylococcus aureus is sometimes caused by improper handling of food items in food preparation facilities. Prevention of contamination by employees is particularly important in facilities where a significant amount of food preparation is performed by hand. Some experiments have been performed to describe bacterial cross-contamination in the food preparation process, but there have been few studies of cross-contamination in actual food preparation facilities. Aiming to shed light on the transmission of S. aureus in food preparation facilities, this study collected samples of 66 strains of this bacterium from the fingers of food preparation staff, foodstuffs, prepared foods, cooking utensils, and cooking equipment and typed them with the ribotyping method. S. aureus from the same ribogroup was detected on the hands of a study participant, a faucet, knife, frying pan, and a salad, indicating that bacteria found on the hands of the study participant was transmitted to cooking utensils and prepared foods. Transmission (from a faucet to a frying pan handle) of bacteria by another person, a third party, was also detected.     

Cloning and heterologous expression of a beta-fructofuranosidase gene from Arthrobacter globiformis IFO 3062, and site-directed mutagenesis of the essential aspartic acid and glutamic acid of the active site

We have cloned the gene encoding a beta-fructofuranosidase from Arthrobacter globiformis IFO 3062, and subsequently, the gene was heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli. This beta-fructofuranosidase gene encodes a protein of 548 amino acid residues with a calculated molecular mass of 60,519 Da. We have examined the roles of three residues of A. globiformis IFO 3062 beta-fructofuranosidase by site-directed mutagenesis, and found that aspartic acid 130 and glutamic acid 392, which are two of the apparent catalytic residues, are essential for hydrolase activity. This study provides the first experimental evidence showing that these two amino acid residues of beta-fructofuranosidase play a critical role in hydrolyzing sucrose.     

Silica films with a single-crystalline mesoporous structure

Films of mesoporous materials attract broad interest because of their wide applicability in the fields of optics and electronics. Although many of these films have a regular local porous structure, the structural regularity has not been used practically yet because of difficulties in its control on macroscopic scales. Here, we demonstrate the preparation of mesoporous silica films whose porous structure can be described as a single crystal, that is, a long-range order of cage-like pores is maintained over centimetre scales. These films have a three-dimensional hexagonal (space group P6(3)/mmc) porous structure, and the in-plane arrangement of the pores is strictly controlled by a polymeric substrate surface that has been treated by rubbing. This new class of single-crystalline films with mesoscopic periodic structure is a significant breakthrough in bottom-up nanotechnology, and could lead to novel devices, for example, optics in a soft X-ray region, and quantum electronics.     

Fluorogenic derivatization reagents suitable for isolation and identification of cysteine-containing proteins utilizing high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

The fluorogenic derivatization reagents with a positive charge, 4-(dimethylaminoethylaminosulfonyl)-7-chloro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole (DAABD-Cl) and 7-chloro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole-4-sulfonylaminoethyltrimethylammonium chloride (TAABD-Cl), are proposed for use in proteomics studies. Following derivatization of protein mixtures with these reagents, a series of standard processes of isolation, digestion, and identification of the proteins were performed utilizing high-performance liquid chromatography-fluorescence detection and tandem mass spectrometry with the probability-based protein identification algorithm. Both DAABD and TAABD derivatives were detected fluorometrically at the femtomole level and showed more than 100-fold improvement in sensitivity compared to the underivatized original compounds with an electrospray ionization ion trap mass spectrometer analysis. The modification of the MASCOT database search system memorized with the fragment information of a DAABD-attached Cys residue allowed the identification of the proteolytic peptide fragments of the derivatized bovine serum albumin (BSA) with an estimated 38% sequence coverage of BSA. Utilizing DAABD-Cl as a derivatization reagent, identification of several proteins was also possible in a soluble extract of Caenorhabditis elegans (10 microg of protein). Consequently, for identification of proteins in the complex matrixes of proteins, DAABD-Cl could be a more appropriate reagent than ammonium 7-fluoro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole-4-sulfonate as reported previously.