Network Research Group Research Articles

Viro-Immunological Efficacy and Safety of Bictegravir/Emtricitabine/Tenofovir Alafenamide among Women Living with HIV: A 96-Week Post-Switch Analysis from the Real-Life SHiNe-SHiC Cohort.

Background/Objectives: Out of 39.9 million adults living with HIV in 2022, 20 million were women. Despite bearing a significant burden, women remain underrepresented in clinical trials, including those for antiretroviral treatments (ART). This study evaluates the safety and efficacy of the bictegravir/emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide (B/F/TAF) regimen in a real-life cohort of 99 women with HIV (females with HIV, FWH) over 48 and 96 weeks. Methods: A retrospective cohort study utilized data from the Sardinian HIV Network and Sicilian HIV Cohort (SHiNe-SHiC) research group. The study included FWH, who started B/F/TAF as a treatment switch. The primary objectives were achieving and maintaining an HIV RNA level of <50 copies/mL at 48 and 96 weeks. Secondary objectives included treatment safety, durability, and reasons for discontinuation. Data on demographics, viro-immunological markers, lipid profiles, and treatment interruptions were extracted for analysis. Results: Among the 99 FWH, the median age was 51.9 years, and the median duration of HIV was 15.1 years. At baseline, 80.8% had undetectable HIV-RNA, which increased to 93.8% at 96 weeks. There was a statistically significant increase in CD4 cells/mL (48w p < 0.001, 96w p < 0.001) and CD4/CD8 ratio (48w p < 0.009, 96w p < 0.048), and reductions in total cholesterol (48w p < 0.003, 96w p < 0.006) and LDL (48w p < 0.004, 96w p < 0.009) levels at 48 and 96 weeks. Nine treatment interruptions were noted, with one due to adverse events. The regimen was well-tolerated overall. Conclusions: B/F/TAF demonstrated high efficacy and safety in this real-world cohort of FWH, highlighting the critical need for gender-focused research in HIV treatment. Ensuring equitable access to effective treatment options for women is imperative for the global health community's efforts to eliminate HIV.

The PROVENT-C19 registry: A study protocol for international multicenter SIAARTI registry on the use of prone positioning in mechanically ventilated patients with COVID-19 ARDS.

The worldwide use of prone position (PP) for invasively ventilated patients with COVID-19 is progressively increasing from the first pandemic wave in everyday clinical practice. Among the suggested treatments for the management of ARDS patients, PP was recommended in the Surviving Sepsis Campaign COVID-19 guidelines as an adjuvant therapy for improving ventilation. In patients with severe classical ARDS, some authors reported that early application of prolonged PP sessions significantly decreases 28-day and 90-day mortality. Since January 2021, the COVID19 Veneto ICU Network research group has developed and implemented nationally and internationally the "PROVENT-C19 Registry", endorsed by the Italian Society of Anesthesia Analgesia Resuscitation and Intensive Care…'(SIAARTI). The PROVENT-C19 Registry wishes to describe 1. The real clinical practice on the use of PP in COVID-19 patients during the pandemic at a National and International level; and 2. Potential baseline and clinical characteristics that identify subpopulations of invasively ventilated patients with COVID-19 that may improve daily from PP therapy. This web-based registry will provide relevant information on how the database research tools may improve our daily clinical practice. This multicenter, prospective registry is the first to identify and characterize the role of PP on clinical outcome in COVID-19 patients. In recent years, data emerging from large registries have been increasingly used to provide real-world evidence on the effectiveness, quality, and safety of a clinical intervention. Indeed observation-based registries could be effective tools aimed at identifying specific clusters of patients within a large study population with widely heterogeneous clinical characteristics. The registry was registered (ClinicalTrial.Gov Trials Register NCT04905875) on May 28,2021.

A Gated Recurrent Unit Deep Learning Model to Detect and Mitigate Distributed Denial of Service and Portscan Attacks

Nowadays, it is common for applications to require servers to run constantly and aim as close as possible to zero downtime. The slightest failure might cause significant financial losses and sometimes even lives. For this reason, security and management measures against network threats are fundamental and have been researched for years. Software-defined networks (SDN) are an advancement in network management due to their centralization of the control plane, as it facilitates equipment setup and administration over the local network. However, this centralization makes the controller a target to denial of service attacks (DoS). In this study, we aim to develop a network anomaly detection and mitigation system that uses gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural networks combined with fuzzy logic. The neural network is trained to forecast future traffic, and anomalies are detected when the forecasting fails. The system is designed to operate in software-defined networks since they provide network flow information and tools to manage forwarding tables. We also demonstrate how the neural network&#x2019;s hyperparameters affect the detection module. The system was tested using two datasets: one with emulated traffic generated by the data communication and networking research group called Orion, from computer science department at state university of Londrina, and CICDDoS2019, a well-known dataset by the anomaly detection community. The results show that GRU networks combined with fuzzy logic are a viable option to detect anomalies in SDN and possibly in other anomaly detection applications. We compared our model with other deep learning techniques.

Adolescent and young adult enrollment to a National Cancer Institute-sponsored National Clinical Trials Network Research Group over 25 years.

Adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients with cancer have not seen the same improvements in survival as younger (pediatric) patients and older patients (adults 40 years old or older). This may be related to their lower participation in clinical trials. This study examined AYA patient accrual to SWOG Cancer Research Network phase 1 to 3 clinical treatment trials for 29 cancers over 25 years (January 1996 to December 2020). Trial enrollments for AYA patients (15-39 years old) were compared with trial enrollments for older patients (40 years old or older) in SWOG and with US AYA cancer population rates derived from US Census and National Cancer Institute/Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results data. In total, 84,219 patients were enrolled in SWOG treatment trials, including 7109 AYA patients (8.4%); in contrast, AYAs constituted 3.8% of the US cancer population. By histology, the highest proportions of AYA patients were in trials for Hodgkin disease (825 of 1220; 67.6%) and acute lymphocytic leukemia (350 of 678; 51.6%), whereas breast cancer trials had the greatest number of AYA patients (3032 of 32,693; 9.3%). SWOG AYA patients were more often female (68.8% vs 58.7%; P < .001), Black (10.1% vs 8.2%; P < .001), and Hispanic (10.6% vs 5.6%; P < .001) than SWOG patients who were 40 years old or older, and they were more often female (68.8% vs 65.1%; P < .001) but less often Black (10.1% vs 11.8%; P < .001) or Hispanic (10.6% vs 12.8%; P < .001) than AYA patients in the US cancer population. AYA patients with cancer were well represented in SWOG clinical trials in comparison with US cancer population patients with the same cancers. The SWOG AYA population was more racially/ethnically diverse than older SWOG patients, although it was less diverse than the US AYA cancer population. Adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients with cancer (aged 15-39 years) have not seen the same improvements in survival as younger (pediatric) patients and older patients (adults 40 years old or older). This may be related to their lower participation in clinical trials. This study evaluated the extent to which AYA patients were enrolled in a large, National Cancer Institute-sponsored network group over 25 years (1996-2020). Overall, 8.4% of the enrolled patients (7109 of 84,219) were AYAs; this was twice the corresponding rate of 3.8% in the US cancer population. AYA patients were also more racially/ethnically diverse than older trial patients, although they were less racially/ethnically diverse than the US AYA cancer population.

Blockchain technology for the management of food sciences researches

BackgroundThe management of scientific research projects, working on scale and involving geographically distant groups, uses frequently technological means that can loss information and access non-standardized or outdated data. The records complexity can make impossible to apply the project management discipline in a broad and efficient way. Scope and approachResearches involving products of vegetable origin demand collaborative studies with transparency and information traceability, increasing confidence in results. To address these issues, a solution for mapping the effectiveness of research management have been designed using blockchain technology, a decentralized solution aiming to the safety improvement, waste reduction and traceability of the scientific results along the process. Key findings and conclusionsThe use of blockchain technology allows the creation of decentralized storage location for all information, according to personalized information and safe access permissions. Smart contracts were used to define research protocols for subsequent data collection, automatic processing and analysis, assuring that protocols were respected throughout the search chain and mapping the process efficiency. Blockchain can support the scientific research chain, specifically in this case for management of the functional foods research. The proposed architecture can be replicated for any type of research with the benefits of the technology present. In this way, data search through blockchain can be done, providing tools to the different network research groups to make validations and contributes to the traceability, safety and reliability of results.

Metrological Aspects to Identify and Quantify Cancer Malignancies

Cancer research is currently one of the most challenging topics in the health area, notwithstanding the implementation of Network research groups, like PAN-Cancer and Cancer Core Europe, that provide a powerful knowledge base. Cancer marker information made available by these networks is making it possible to develop “macro visions” that will enable the achievement of better prognoses. The availability of big data produced by sequencing techniques requires new kinds of infrastructures in the field of bioinformatics, which are being used by these networks to manage information produced around the World.

Atomos: Constant-Size Path Validation Proof

Path validation has been explored as an indispensable security feature for the future Internet. Motivated by the Path-Aware Networking Research Group (PANRG) under the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), it gives end-hosts more control over packet forwarding and ensures that the forwarding history is verifiable. The main idea is to require that routers add proofs in packet headers for other routers to verify. We identify linear-scale proofs as the essential efficiency barrier of existing path validation solutions. In this paper, we propose Atomos to validate network paths with constant-size proofs. To this end, we construct a noncommutative homomorphic asymmetric-key encryption scheme. Asymmetric cryptography minimizes the number of proofs needed and saves time in processing proofs. The homomorphism we design yields constant-size proofs. It limits the header-space overhead and outperforms existing linear-scale counterparts when the path length exceeds a value that is usually small. Furthermore, the proposed encryption scheme is noncommutative so that any deviation from the forwarding path can be detected. We explore a series of design strategies for security and efficiency. The evaluation results show that Atomos yields not only shorter proofs but also faster validation than existing solutions.

Information-Centric Networking: Research and Standardization Status

Information-centric networking (ICN) is a new approach to networking contents rather than devices that hold the contents. It has recently attracted much attention of network research and standardization communities. National and multi-national funded research projects have progressed worldwide. International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) started ICN standardization activities in 2012. In parallel, the standards-oriented research cooperation is progressing in the Information-Centric Networking Research Group (ICNRG) of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). All these global efforts have been collectively advancing the novel network architecture of ICN. However, there are very few surveys and discussions on the detailed ICN standardization status. To update the reader with information about the ICN research and standardization related activities, this paper starts with the history of global activities on ICN from 2010, giving references to various projects. It then describes the recent progress in the standardization of ICN component technologies in ITU-T and various documents produced by ICNRG. Lastly, it discusses the future directions for progressing ICN.

Profiling cancer-associated genetic alterations and molecular classification of cancer in Korean gastric cancer patients.

Recently, the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network and Asian Cancer Research Group provided a new classification of gastric cancer (GC) to aid the development of biomarkers for targeted therapy and predict prognosis. We studied associations between genetically aberrant profiles of cancer-related genes, environmental factors, and histopathological features in 107 paired gastric tumor-non-tumor tissue GC samples. 6.5% of our GC cases were classified as the EBV subtype, 17.8% as the MSI subtype, 43.0% as the CIN subtype, and 32.7% as the GS subtype. The distribution of four GC subgroups based on the TCGA and our dataset were similar. The MSI subtype showed a hyper-mutated status and the best prognosis among molecular subtype. However, molecular classification based on the four GC subtypes showed no significant survival differences in terms of overall survival (p= 0.548) or relapse-free survival (RFS, p=0.518). The P619fs*43 in ZBTB20 was limited to MSI group (n= 5/19, 26.3%), showing similar trends observed in TCGA dataset.Genetic alterations of the RTK/RAS/MAPK and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathways were detected in 34.6% of GC cases (37 individual cases). We also found two cases with likely pathogenic variants (NM_004360.4: c. 2494 G>A, p.V832M) in the CDH1 gene.Here, we classified molecular subtypes of GC according to the TCGA system and provide a critical starting point for the design of more appropriate clinical trials based on a comprehensive analysis of genetic alterations in Korean GC patients.

Criatividade e inovação na escola do século XXI: uma mudança de paradigmas

This article aims to make known the main concepts of creativity and innovation in contemporary school, with the breakup of the conservative paradigm for emancipatory education, and discuss this break, which operates a change in educational institutions according to the conceptions and theoretical references on the create and innovate, in of transformation. The study, of bibliographical character, began with the analysis of the theoretical in the International Network Research Group Investigating creative and innovative Schools, which led to the perception that the contemporary school, to oppose a conservative education, which prioritizes the individual work and fragmented knowledge, can be defined as emancipatory, creative and innovative, because it has the vision and transformative forming of your do and pedagogical collective , and search the interconnection of knowledge and the production of knowledge. The creative potential, nature and the human being are valued, aiming at the individual, social and planetary good, according to principles that depart from and for life.

Secure machine‐type communications in LTE networks

AbstractWith a great variety of potential applications, machine‐type communications (MTC) is gaining a tremendous interest from mobile network operators and research groups. MTC is standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which has been regarded as the promising solution facilitating machine‐to‐machine communications. In the latest standard, 3GPP proposes a novel architecture for MTC, in which the MTC server is located outside the operator domain. However, the connection between the 3GPP core network and MTC server in this scenario is insecure; consequently, there are distrustful relationships among MTC device, core network, and MTC server. If the security issue is not well addressed, all applications involved in MTC cannot be put into the market. To address this problem, we propose an end‐to‐end security scheme for MTC based on the proxy‐signature technique, called E2SEC. Specifically, both the MTC device and MTC server can establish strong trustful relationships with each other by using the proxy signatures issued by the 3GPP core network. Moreover, we present some implementation considerations of E2SEC and analyze the performance during authentication by comparing the operational cost of three cases that apply three different signature algorithms, that is, ElGamal, Schnorr, and DSA. Through security analysis by using Automatic Cryptographic Protocol Verifier (ProVerif), we conclude that the proposed E2SEC scheme can achieve the security goals and prevent various security threats. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

The nesC language

We present nesC, a programming language for networked embedded systems that represent a new design space for application developers. An example of a networked embedded system is a sensor network, which consists of (potentially) thousands of tiny, lowpower "motes," each of which execute concurrent, reactive programs that must operate with severe memory and power constraints. nesC's contribution is to support the special needs of this domain by exposing a programming model that incorporates event-driven execution, a flexible concurrency model, and component-oriented application design. Restrictions on the programming model allow the nesC compiler to perform whole-program analyses, including data-race detection (which improves reliability) and aggressive function inlining (which reduces resource consumption). nesC has been used to implement TinyOS, a small operating system for sensor networks, as well as several significant sensor applications. nesC and TinyOS have been adopted by a large number of sensor network research groups, and our experience and evaluation of the language shows that it is effective at supporting the complex, concurrent programming style demanded by this new class of deeply networked systems.

Information‐centric networking for multimedia, social and peer‐to‐peer communications

ABSTRACTInformation‐centric networking (ICN) is an emerging networking paradigm, which is considered as a possible solution for the next generation Internet. Several research projects have been funded by the state and the industry towards the specification and implementation of ICN solutions, whereas Internet Research Task Force has established a research group for this reason, the Information‐Centric Networking Research Group. However, the use of ICN in action will be decided on the basis of its performance in several disciplines that, eventually, concern the users expectations from their applications over the future Internet. Currently, statistics suggest that, in the near future, the Internet bandwidth will be mainly consumed by multimedia and peer‐to‐peer applications. Furthermore, social networking applications become more and more popular both to end‐users and businesses. This special issue includes papers illustrating how information‐centric networks can effectively address practical issues rising in ICN deployments considering multimedia applications and social networking technologies. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Research on Delay-Tolerant Network and Increasing Probability of Opportunistic Communication

At present, Internet has brought a lot of benefits to people. In most situations, it has an excellent performance. It requires a continuous end to end network for providing a reliable delivery. However, in reality, there is a challenged network which is discontinuous with high delay and many interruptions. In these cases, conventional network performs poorly or cannot be available. Delay-Tolerant Network (DTN) is an emerging area which is used to solve the problems in that challenged network. As its name described, it can handle or tolerant high delay which could lead to a disconnection that may be many hours or many days. It introduces a bundle protocol and uses a mechanism of store and forward to implement a hop to hop network which can operate in the discontinuous environment. It is used in terrestrial civilian networks, military wireless networks and outer space networks which have a high delay. The reference implementation has been developed by Delay-Tolerant Network Research Group (DTNRG). It implements a mature architecture of DTN and provides almost complete functions on Linux operating system. Later, the Bytewalla project implements part of DTN architecture and functions on Android operating systems. It is defective and there is much space to improve it. This research concerns that the Bluetooth convergence layer increases the probability of communication based on DTN.

Feature interview with Ranveer Chandra

Ranveer Chandra is a Senior Researcher in the Mobility &amp; Networking Research Group at Microsoft Research. His research is focused on mobile devices, with particular emphasis on wireless communications and energy efficiency. Ranveer is leading the white space networking project at Microsoft Research. He was invited to the FCC to present his work, and spectrum regulators from India, China, Brazil, Singapore and US (including the FCC chairman) have visited the Microsoft campus to see his deployment of the world's first urban white space network. The following interview captures the essence of his work on white spaces by focusing on his work published in ACM SIGCOMM 2009, which received the Best Paper Award.

The Software-Defined-Networking Research Group

Software-defined networking (SDN) promises to bring radical improvements in both cost and functionality to the networking field. At the same time, SDN poses many fundamental questions, including deep architectural issues such as whether control should be centralized or distributed, and whether control and data planes should be separated or share fate. The Software Defined Networking Research Group has been formed to facilitate research into these and other foundational questions.

Application of nondestructive testing methods to study the damage zone underneath impact craters of MEMIN laboratory experiments

Abstract– Within the framework of the Multidisciplinary Experimental and Modeling Impact Research Network (MEMIN) research group, the damage zones underneath two experimentally produced impact craters in sandstone targets were investigated using several nondestructive testing (NDT) methods. The 20 × 20 × 20 cm sandstones were impacted by steel projectiles with a radius of 1.25 mm at approximately 5 km s−1, resulting in craters with approximately 6 cm diameter and approximately 1 cm depth. Ultrasound (US) tomography and vibrational analysis were applied before and after the impact experiments to characterize the damage zone, and micro‐computer tomography (μ‐CT) measurements were performed to visualize subsurface fractures. The newly obtained experimental data can help to quantify the extent of the damage zone, which extends to about 8 cm depth in the target. The impacted sandstone shows a local p‐wave reduction of 18% below the crater floor, and a general reduction in elastic moduli by between approximately 9 and approximately 18%, depending on the type of elastic modulus. The results contribute to a better empirical and theoretical understanding of hypervelocity events and simulations of cratering processes.

Raising awareness of research in palliative care – the roadshow!

AimTo ensure all specialist palliative care teams are aware of research development and research recruitment opportunities and thus maximise access to palliative care research for all patients in Wales.MethodThe Marie...

Benchmarking of percutaneous injuries at a teaching tertiary care center in Saudi Arabia relative to United States hospitals participating in the Exposure Prevention Information Network

Despite recent improvements in policies, practices, and device design, percutaneous injuries (PIs) from needles and sharp instruments continue to expose health care workers to the risk of bloodborne pathogens. Prospective surveillance was instituted to study the epidemiologic characteristics of PIs at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (KAMC-R) from 2004 through 2008 and to benchmark these characteristics relative to those of a network of US hospitals participating in the Exposure Prevention Information Network (EPINet) research group (2004-2007). The mean PIs rate per 100 daily occupied beds in KAMC-R was significantly lower than that reported by teaching and nonteaching US EPINet hospitals. Similar to US EPINet hospitals, nurses at KAMC-R reported more PIs than physicians. Compared with US EPINet hospitals, nurses at KAMC-R experienced more PIs (52.8% vs 38.1%, respectively), whereas physicians experienced fewer PIs (18.4% vs 28.6%, respectively). The majority of PIs happened in patient wards (50.6%) in KAMC-R and operating rooms (34.1%) in US EPINet hospitals. Suturing, which was involved in only 10% of PIs at KAMC-R, was the most frequent PIs mechanism in US EPINet hospitals (23.3%). In both KAMC-R and US EPINet hospitals, disposable syringes were the most frequent devices involved, the left hand was the most common site of injury, and the source patient was largely identifiable. We have lower rates of PIs at KAMC-R relative to US EPINet hospitals. Whereas it is difficult to fully explain such differences, this could be due to variations in health care systems, underreporting, or the impact of the PIs prevention activities.

Renal injury study in critical ill patients in accordance with the new definition given by the Acute Kidney Injury Network

Objective This research aims to apply the definition proposed by the Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) research group to assess the incidence, risk factors, and outcomes in acute kidney injury (AKI) patients admitted at the intensive care unit (ICU). Design This is a retrospective cohort study. Patients who were admitted to the ICU from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2004 were studied. Interventions Medical records of all patients were reviewed. Demographic information, diagnoses, risk factors for AKI, laboratory data, urinary output, frequency and days of exposure to mechanical ventilation, ICU and hospital stay, and outcomes were recorded. Measurements and Main Results A total of 794 patients were studied. There were 39.8% of patients who presented AKI (stage 1: 13.9%, stage 2: 12%, stage 3: 13.9%). The variables that were associated with the presence of AKI in the multivariable analysis were as follows: sepsis (odds ratio [OR], 5.29; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.36-8.33), heart failure (OR, 3.01; 95% CI, 1.59-5.67), vasopressor use (OR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.26-2.83), and age ( β = 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.03). The mean hospital stay increased with renal commitment: patients without AKI, 10.9 days; AKIN stage 1, 17.8; AKIN stage 2, 21.1; and AKIN stage 3, 22.1 days ( P < .0001). Mortality rate increased as more advanced the AKI stage was (no AKI, 7.3%; AKI 1, 16.4%; AKI 2, 34.7%; and AKIN 3, 45.5%; P < .0001). Conclusions All of the result indicators—stay days in ICU, hospital stay days, frequency and days of mechanical ventilation, and mortality—considerably increased with more acute AKI stage. The most important risk factor of AKI was the sepsis.