Glibenclamide for the Treatment of Ischemic and Hemorrhagic Stroke

Ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes are associated with severe functional disability and high mortality. Except for recombinant tissue plasminogen activator, therapies targeting the underlying pathophysiology of central nervous system (CNS) ischemia and hemorrhage are strikingly lacking. Sur1-regulated channels play essential roles in necrotic cell death and cerebral edema following ischemic insults, and in neuroinflammation after hemorrhagic injuries. Inhibiting endothelial, neuronal, astrocytic and oligodendroglial sulfonylurea receptor 1–transient receptor potential melastatin 4 (Sur1–Trpm4) channels and, in some cases, microglial K_ATP (Sur1–Kir6.2) channels, with glibenclamide is protective in a variety of contexts. Robust preclinical studies have shown that glibenclamide and other sulfonylurea agents reduce infarct volumes, edema and hemorrhagic conversion, and improve outcomes in rodent models of ischemic stroke. Retrospective studies suggest that diabetic patients on sulfonylurea drugs at stroke presentation fare better if they continue on drug. Additional laboratory investigations have implicated Sur1 in the pathophysiology of hemorrhagic CNS insults. In clinically relevant models of subarachnoid hemorrhage, glibenclamide reduces adverse neuroinflammatory and behavioral outcomes. Here, we provide an overview of the preclinical studies of glibenclamide therapy for CNS ischemia and hemorrhage, discuss the available data from clinical investigations, and conclude with promising preclinical results that suggest glibenclamide may be an effective therapeutic option for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke.     

Mechanical damage characterization of glass fiber-reinforced polymer laminates by ultrasonic maps

A method for simultaneous measurement of the thickness and density for Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) laminate plates with ultrasonic waves in C-Scan mode is presented in the form of maps. The method uses three different signals in immersion pulse-echo C-Scan mode. The maps obtained based on the density show the heterogeneity of the material at high resolution at the pixel level (1 × 1 mm²) and therefore they represent an efficient tool to assess and evaluate the damage of the composite structures after manufacturing and after an applied mechanical loading.     

Behavior of 316L stainless steel containing corrosion pits under cyclic loading

The environmental performance of 316L grade stainless steel, in the form of tensile specimens containing a single corrosion pit with various aspect ratios, under cyclic loading in aerated chloride solutions is investigated in this study. Results from environmental tests were compared and contrasted with those obtained using finite element analysis (FEA). Fractography of the failed specimens obtained from experiments revealed that fatigue crack initiation took place at the base of the shallow pit. The crack initiation shifted towards the shoulder and the mouth of the pit for pits of increasing depth. This process is well predicted by FEA, as the strain contour maps show that strain is the highest around the centric strip of the pit. However, for shallow pits, local strain is uniformly distributed around that strip but begins to concentrate more towards the shoulder and the mouth region for increasingly deep pits.     

基于哈希链的软件定义网络路径安全

针对软件定义网络中，控制器无法保证下发的网络策略能够在转发设备上得到正确执行的安全问题，提出一种新的转发路径监控安全方案。首先以控制器的全局视图能力为基础，设计了基于OpenFlow协议的路径凭据交互处理机制；然后采用哈希链和消息验证码作为生成和处理转发路径凭据信息的关键技术；最后在此基础上，对Ryu控制器和Open vSwitch开源交换机进行深度优化，添加相应处理流程，建立轻量级的路径安全机制。测试结果表明，该机制能够有效保证数据转发路径安全，吞吐量消耗比SDN数据层可信转发方案（SDNsec）降低20%以上，更适用于路径复杂的网络环境，但时延和CPU使用率的浮动超过15%，有待进一步优化。     

共享交通的时空轨迹检索与群体发现

为解决共享交通下的共乘用户群体发现效率低、准确率不高问题，依据R-树原理建立GeoOD-Tree索引，并在此基础上提出以最大化共乘率为目标的群体发现策略。首先，对原始时空轨迹数据进行特征提取与标定处理，挖掘有效出行起讫点（OD）轨迹；其次，针对用户起讫点轨迹的特征，建立GeoOD-Tree索引进行有效的存储管理；最后，给出以最大化共乘行程为目标的群体发现模型，并运用K最近邻（KNN）查询对搜索空间剪枝压缩，提高群体发现效率。采用西安市近12000辆出租车营运轨迹数据，选取动态时间规整（DTW）等典型算法与所提算法在查询效率与准确率上进行性能对比分析。与DTW算法相比，所提算法的准确率提高了10.12%，查询效率提高了约15倍。实验结果表明提出的群体发现策略能有效提高共乘用户群体发现的准确率和效率，可有效提升共乘出行方式的出行率。     

一种北斗联合低轨星座的导航增强方法研究

单纯依靠北斗导航系统提供定位导航授时服务,存在卫星信号落地功率低、易受遮蔽和阻断的不足。针对此问题,研究了一种北斗联合低轨星座实现导航增强的系统架构;提出了一种新的适应严重遮蔽或干扰条件下,基于到达时间(TOA)和到达频率(FOA)联合观测的定位解算算法;对高中低轨混合星座条件下的覆盖特性和精度衰减因子进行了仿真分析。分析结果表明,用户可见星数平均增加了64.2%,位置精度衰减因子(PDOP)平均改善了28.7%。研究结果可为下一代北斗的论证设计与研制建设提供参考借鉴。     

A methodology for the estimation of transverse failure strength of an oxidized lamina from isothermal aging studies

Surface oxidation and ensuing damage substantially decrease the service life of High Temperature Polymer Matrix Composite (HTPMC) structures. Oxidative degradation behavior of composites is strongly dependent on the coupling between chemical and mechanical responses of the material. In a composite lamina, the onset of damage and subsequent coupled acceleration of both damage and oxidation are controlled by the transverse failure strength of the oxidized regions. The direct measurement of this strength from experimentation is challenging and cumbersome. A model-based methodology for estimating the mean transverse failure strength of the oxidized regions of a unidirectional composite is described in this paper. As the strength of the oxidized region is expected to show a high-degree of spatial variability, the estimated mean is shown to be relatively insensitive to the effect of strength variance. The developed methodology is illustrated with isothermal aging data available for a typical high-temperature composite system.     

An adaptive image steganographic scheme based on Noise Visibility Function and an optimal chaotic based encryption method

Steganography is the science of hiding secret message in an appropriate digital multimedia in such a way that the existence of the embedded message should be invisible to anyone apart from the sender or the intended recipient. This paper presents an irreversible scheme for hiding a secret image in the cover image that is able to improve both the visual quality and the security of the stego-image while still providing a large embedding capacity. This is achieved by a hybrid steganography scheme incorporates Noise Visibility Function (NVF) and an optimal chaotic based encryption scheme. In the embedding process, first to reduce the image distortion and to increase the embedding capacity, the payload of each region of the cover image is determined dynamically according to NVF. NVF analyzes the local image properties to identify the complex areas where more secret bits should be embedded. This ensures to maintain a high visual quality of the stego-image as well as a large embedding capacity. Second, the security of the secret image is brought about by an optimal chaotic based encryption scheme to transform the secret image into an encrypted image. Third, the optimal chaotic based encryption scheme is achieved by using a hybrid optimization of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) which is allowing us to find an optimal secret key. The optimal secret key is able to encrypt the secret image so as the rate of changes after embedding process be decreased which results in increasing the quality of the stego-image. In the extracting process, the secret image can be extracted from the stego-image losslessly without referring to the original cover image. The experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme not only has the ability to achieve a good trade-off between the payload and the stego-image quality, but also can resist against the statistics and image processing attacks.     

Multiobjective PSO based adaption of neural network topology for pixel classification in satellite imagery

The proposed work involves the multiobjective PSO based adaption of optimal neural network topology for the classification of multispectral satellite images. It is per pixel supervised classification using spectral bands (original feature space). This paper also presents a thorough experimental analysis to investigate the behavior of neural network classifier for given problem. Based on 1050 number of experiments, we conclude that following two critical issues needs to be addressed: (1) selection of most discriminative spectral bands and (2) determination of optimal number of nodes in hidden layer. We propose new methodology based on multiobjective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) technique to determine discriminative spectral bands and the number of hidden layer node simultaneously. The accuracy with neural network structure thus obtained is compared with that of traditional classifiers like MLC and Euclidean classifier. The performance of proposed classifier is evaluated quantitatively using Xie-Beni and β indexes. The result shows the superiority of the proposed method to the conventional one.     

Synergistic effect of co-alloying elements on site preferences and elastic properties of Ni3Al: A first-principles study

The site preferences of co-alloying elements (Mo–Ta, Mo–Re, Mo–Cr) in Ni₃Al are studied using first-principles calculations, and the effects of these alloying elements on the elastic properties of Ni₃Al are evaluated by elastic property calculations. The results show that the Mo–Ta, Mo–Re and Mo–Cr atom pairs all prefer Al–Al sites and the spatial neighbor relation of substitution sites almost has no influence on the site preference results. Furthermore, the Young's modulus of Ni₃Al increases much higher by substituting Al–Al sites with co-alloying atoms, among which Mo–Re has the best strengthening effect. The enhanced chemical bondings between alloying atoms and their neighbor host atoms are considered to be the main strengthening mechanism of the alloying elements in Ni₃Al.