Genome-Wide Association Analysis and Genomic Prediction of Thyroglobulin Plasma Levels

Thyroglobulin (Tg) is an iodoglycoprotein produced by thyroid follicular cells which acts as an essential substrate for thyroid hormone synthesis. To date, only one genome-wide association study (GWAS) of plasma Tg levels has been performed by our research group. Utilizing recent advancements in computation and modeling, we apply a Bayesian approach to the probabilistic inference of the genetic architecture of Tg. We fitted a Bayesian sparse linear mixed model (BSLMM) and a frequentist linear mixed model (LMM) of 7,289,083 variants in 1096 healthy European-ancestry participants of the Croatian Biobank. Meta-analysis with two independent cohorts (total n = 2109) identified 83 genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the ST6GAL1 gene (p<5×10−8). BSLMM revealed additional association signals on chromosomes 1, 8, 10, and 14. For ST6GAL1 and the newly uncovered genes, we provide physiological and pathophysiological explanations of how their expression could be associated with variations in plasma Tg levels. We found that the SNP-heritability of Tg is 17% and that 52% of this variation is due to a small number of 16 variants that have a major effect on Tg levels. Our results suggest that the genetic architecture of plasma Tg is not polygenic, but influenced by a few genes with major effects.     

Analysis of regularities in composition dependence of the viscosity for glass-forming oxide melts: I. viscosity of melts in the Na2O-RO-SiO2 and Na2O-R2O-SiO2 systems

The available experimental data on the composition dependence of the viscosity have been analyzed for the Na₂O-RO-SiO₂ and Na₂O-R₂O-SiO₂ systems. It is established that, at temperatures of 900–1000°C and above, the influence of composition on the viscosity logarithm obeys the additivity rule. In particular, this allows a quantitative comparison of the influence of all the components entering into the composition of the studied systems on the viscosity of melts. It is demonstrated that the change in the cationic size of alkaline-earth and alkali metals upon substitution of their oxides for silica produces opposite effects on the viscosity. Certain regularities in the effect of the studied components on the viscosity of melts are revealed for temperatures below the lower boundary of the additivity. The regularities revealed are useful for the development of techniques for calculating the viscosity of multicomponent melts.     

Security challenges in internet of things: Distributed denial of service attack detection using support vector machine-based expert systems

The rapid development of internet of things (IoT) is to be the next generation of the IoT devices are a simple target for attackers due to the lack of security. Attackers can easily hack the IoT devices that can be used to form botnets, which can be used to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against networks. Botnets are the most dangerous threat to the security systems. Software-defined networking (SDN) is one of the developing filed, which introduce the capacity of dynamic program to the network. Use the flexibility and multidimensional characteristics of SDN used to prevent DDoS attacks. The DDoS attack is the major attack to the network, which makes the entire network down, so that normal users might not avail the services from the server. In this article, we proposed the DDoS attack detection model based on SDN environment by combining support vector machine classification algorithm is used to collect flow table values in sampling time periods. From the flow table values, the five-tuple characteristic values extracted and based on it the DDoS attack can be detected. Based on the experimental results, we found the average accuracy rate is 96.23% with a normal amount of traffic flow. Proposed research offers a better DDoS detection rate on SDN.     

Environmental Factors That Affect Parathyroid Hormone and Calcitonin Levels

Calciotropic hormones, parathyroid hormone (PTH) and calcitonin are involved in the regulation of bone mineral metabolism and maintenance of calcium and phosphate homeostasis in the body. Therefore, an understanding of environmental and genetic factors influencing PTH and calcitonin levels is crucial. Genetic factors are estimated to account for 60% of variations in PTH levels, while the genetic background of interindividual calcitonin variations has not yet been studied. In this review, we analyzed the literature discussing the influence of environmental factors (lifestyle factors and pollutants) on PTH and calcitonin levels. Among lifestyle factors, smoking, body mass index (BMI), diet, alcohol, and exercise were analyzed; among pollutants, heavy metals and chemicals were analyzed. Lifestyle factors that showed the clearest association with PTH levels were smoking, BMI, exercise, and micronutrients taken from the diet (vitamin D and calcium). Smoking, vitamin D, and calcium intake led to a decrease in PTH levels, while higher BMI and exercise led to an increase in PTH levels. In terms of pollutants, exposure to cadmium led to a decrease in PTH levels, while exposure to lead increased PTH levels. Several studies have investigated the effect of chemicals on PTH levels in humans. Compared to PTH studies, a smaller number of studies analyzed the influence of environmental factors on calcitonin levels, which gives great variability in results. Only a few studies have analyzed the influence of pollutants on calcitonin levels in humans. The lifestyle factor with the clearest relationship with calcitonin was smoking (smokers had increased calcitonin levels). Given the importance of PTH and calcitonin in maintaining calcium and phosphate homeostasis and bone mineral metabolism, additional studies on the influence of environmental factors that could affect PTH and calcitonin levels are crucial.     

Bounds on the trace of a solution to the Lyapunov equation with a general stable matrix

Some new estimates for the eigenvalue decay rate of the Lyapunov equation AX+XA^T=B with a low rank right-hand side B are derived. The new bounds show that the right-hand side B can greatly influence the eigenvalue decay rate of the solution. This suggests a new choice of the ADI-parameters for the iterative solution. The advantage of these new parameters is illustrated on second order damped systems with a low rank damping matrix.