Random Coding Research Articles

Implementation of image file security using the advanced encryption standard method

The application of technology in this era has entered digitalization and is modern. Therefore, we are already in an era of advanced and rapid technological development. It has become a human need to exchange information in every activity. Documents that contain information that is frequently sought or used. The document's use also includes essential information. Document security is undoubtedly a significant factor in prioritizing important information in a document to prevent unauthorized people from misusing the document's vital information. Cryptography is a method of overcoming document security issues so that third parties cannot read the information or messages contained within the document. The 128-bit advanced encryption standard (AES) algorithm is one of the algorithms included in the cryptography technique. Additionally, it can be combined with operation modes such as electronic codebook (ECB) and cipher block chaining (CBC) to create an application that can generate random codes to improve the security of the data contained in the document.

Deep Learning for the Design of Random Coding Metasurfaces

Deep Learning for the Design of Random Coding Metasurfaces

O-066 Transdermal testosterone prior to ovarian stimulation for in vitro fertilization in women with poor ovarian response. A multicenter multinational double-blind placebo-controlled randomized trial (The T-TRANSPORT)

Abstract Study question Does administration of 2 months of transdermal testosterone prior to ovarian stimulation for IVF/ICSI increase clinical pregnancy rates in Bologna criteria poor ovarian responders? Summary answer Pre-treatment with 5.5mg testosterone for 2 months prior to ovarian stimulation for IVF/ICSI does not increase clinical pregnancy rates as compared with placebo. What is known already The role of androgens in the treatment of infertile women has been extensively investigated over the last 20 years. Early animal studies and small human studies supported a potentially beneficial role of androgen pretreatment for the management of poor ovarian responders. Still, available evidence regarding androgen administration remains inconclusive, and clinical guidelines do not support their use in infertile women, mainly due to the lack of robust evidence regarding efficacy, the small sample sizes, the lack of data regarding safety, and the lack of uniform dose and duration of testosterone pretreatment for poor ovarian responders. Study design, size, duration T-TRANSPORT is the first multicenter multinational superiority phase III, double-blind placebo-controlled randomized trial aiming to detect differences in clinical pregnancy rates between testosterone transdermal gel or placebo for the treatment of poor responders. A sample size of 400 women was calculated, with an interim analysis prespecified to be performed after 70% of recruitment, to determine continuation, sample size re-calculation, or early termination for futility, based on the conditional power reached (≥80%, 40-80% and <20%, respectively). Participants/materials, setting, methods T-TRANSPORT included women 18-43 years old from 10 centers and 4 European countries (Spain, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland) randomized between 2015-2022. Women with poor ovarian response according to the Bologna criteria were randomly assigned 1:1 (stratified by center and age group (<36, 36-39 and ≥40 years old)) to receive either 5.5mg of transdermal testosterone or placebo for ∼60 days prior to initiation of ovarian stimulation for IVF/ICSI. Main results and the role of chance Overall, 316 poor responders were included and 290 patients were randomized. Based on the prespecified interim analysis, recruitment stopped when 70% of the patients have completed their treatment and blinded data were analyzed. Patients were categorized as group A and Group B until the decision of the DSMB board to break the randomization code is taken. Ovarian stimulation outcomes did not differ between groups, with a (mean ± SD) number of oocytes retrieved 3.42±2.25 vs. 3.69±2.72, number of MII oocytes 2.75±2.06 vs. 2.83±1.91 and number of embryos 1.46±1.22 vs. 1.90±1.92, for the comparison of Group A vs. Group B, respectively. Clinical pregnancy rates were comparable between groups, Group A: 17.42% vs. Group B 16.30%, RR (95%CI):1.07(0.64-1.79). Analysis of the results per-age strata also failed to demonstrate significant differences between groups in women <36 (Group A:24% vs. Group B: 17.9%), 36-39 (A: 21.4% vs. B:20%) and ≥40 years old (A:10% vs. B:12.3%) Finally, no severe adverse events were observed in any of the groups that led to treatment discontinuation. Comparison of androgenic adverse events showed differences for hirsutism A:7.10% vs. B:14.07% and acne A:16.13% vs. B:21.48%, whereas very few cases of alopecia A:1.29% vs. B:2.22% and voice deepening (A:1.29% vs. B:0%) were reported. Limitations, reasons for caution All patients, per protocol, underwent D3 embryo transfer. In addition, the study duration exceeded 7 years, owing to a temporary halt during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the results presented here are blinded data which will be unblinded by the time of presentation based on the interim analysis performed. Wider implications of the findings Testosterone pre-treatment prior to IVF/ICSI does not increase clinical pregnancy rates in poor ovarian responders. Planned posthoc analyses within the T-TRANSPORT trial aim to investigate whether testosterone may affect ovarian reserve markers, follicular fluid biomarkers, cumulus cells gene expression, and libido in women with poor ovarian response. Study funding Yes. Funding source Funding by commercial/corporate company(ies). The study received Unrestricted grants by Ferring Pharmaceuticals, BESINS international and Roche Diagnostics. Testosterone and placebo gel were provided by BESINS INTERNATIONAL. Trial registration number NCT02418572

O-263 Effect of clindamycin and a live biotherapeutic containing lactobacilli on the reproductive outcomes of IVF patients with abnormal vaginal microbiota: a double-blind, placebo-controlled multicentre trial

Abstract Study question Does treatment of abnormal vaginal microbiota improve the reproductive outcomes of IVF patients? Summary answer Data is being analysed and will be presented at ESHRE 2023. What is known already An increasing number of studies reported an association between abnormal genital tract microbiota and adverse reproductive outcomes in IVF patients. One hypothesis could be that vaginal microbiota ascend to the endometrium where the microbiota hampers implantation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study powered to investigate causality between abnormal genital tract microbiota - in this study defined by a bacterial vaginosis like vaginal microbiota - and clinical pregnancy rate in IVF patients. Study design, size, duration Double-blind, placebo-controlled multicentre trial in IVF patients diagnosed with abnormal vaginal microbiota and subsequently randomised into three parallel groups 1:1:1. The first group received clindamycin 300 mg ×2 daily for 7 days followed by vaginal Lactobacillus crispatus until the clinical pregnancy scan. The second group received clindamycin and placebo, whereas the third group received placebo/placebo. A total of 1518 patients were screened, and 338 patients were randomised. The study duration was from 2017 to 2023. Participants/materials, setting, methods IVF patients with any cause of infertility embarking on their first, second or third IVF stimulation cycle or embryo transfer were approached for inclusion. At a minimum 12 days prior to embryo transfer, patients were screened for abnormal vaginal microbiota defined by a qPCR assay, targeting high quantitative loads of Fannyhessea vaginae and Gardnerella spp. Patients were excluded if they had intrauterine malformations like polyps, septum, and fibroma. Main results and the role of chance Data and safety monitoring board has decided not to open the randomization code yet. The final dataset is being completed. Data is being analysed and will be presented at ESHRE 2023. Limitations, reasons for caution Data is being analysed and will be presented at ESHRE 2023. Wider implications of the findings The present drug intervention study used clindamycin and a live biotherapeutic containing Lactobacillus crispatus. The results of the study could have a worldwide important clinical impact on daily IVF practice as currently there is no evidence that screening and treating IVF patients with abnormal vaginal microbiota improves the reproductive outcome. Trial registration number EudraCT 2016-002385-31

Towards long double-stranded chains and robust DNA-based data storage using the random code system.

DNA has become a popular choice for next-generation storage media due to its high storage density and stability. As the storage medium of life's information, DNA has significant storage capacity and low-cost, low-power replication and transcription capabilities. However, utilizing long double-stranded DNA for storage can introduce unstable factors that make it difficult to meet the constraints of biological systems. To address this challenge, we have designed a highly robust coding scheme called the "random code system," inspired by the idea of fountain codes. The random code system includes the establishment of a random matrix, Gaussian preprocessing, and random equilibrium. Compared to Luby transform codes (LT codes), random code (RC) has better robustness and recovery ability of lost information. In biological experiments, we successfully stored 29,390 bits of data in 25,700 bp chains, achieving a storage density of 1.78 bits per nucleotide. These results demonstrate the potential for using long double-stranded DNA and the random code system for robust DNA-based data storage.

Floquet Codes without Parent Subsystem Codes

We propose a new class of error-correcting dynamic codes in two and three dimensions that has no explicit connection to any parent subsystem code. The two-dimensional code, which we call the CSS (Calderbank-Shor-Steane) honeycomb code, is geometrically similar to that of the honeycomb code by Hastings and Haah and also dynamically embeds an instantaneous toric code. However, unlike the honeycomb code, it possesses an explicit CSS structure and its gauge checks do not form a subsystem code. Nevertheless, we show that our dynamic protocol conserves logical information and possesses a threshold for error correction. We generalize this construction to three dimensions and obtain a code that fault tolerantly alternates between realizing two type-I fracton models, the checkerboard and the X-cube model. Finally, we show the compatibility of our CSS honeycomb-code protocol and the honeycomb code by showing the possibility of randomly switching between the two protocols without information loss while still measuring error syndromes. We call this more general aperiodic structure “dynamic tree codes,” which we also generalize to three dimensions. We construct a probabilistic finite automaton prescription that generates dynamic tree codes correcting any single-qubit Pauli errors and can be viewed as a step toward the development of practical fault-tolerant random codes.1 MoreReceived 27 December 2022Accepted 21 April 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.020341Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasQuantum error correctionQuantum memoriesSurface code quantum computingTopological orderTopological phases of matterQuantum Information

Measurement incompatibility and quantum advantage in communication

Measurement incompatibility stipulates the existence of quantum measurements that cannot be carried out simultaneously on single systems. We show that the set of input-output probabilities obtained from d-dimensional classical systems assisted with shared randomness is the same as the set obtained from d-dimensional quantum strategies restricted to compatible measurements with shared randomness in any communication scenario. Thus, measurement incompatibility is necessary for quantum advantage in communication, and any quantum advantage (with or without shared randomness) in communication acts as a witness to the incompatibility of the measurements at the receiver's end in a semi-device-independent way. We introduce a class of communication tasks - a general version of random access codes - to witness incompatibility of an arbitrary number of quantum measurements with arbitrary outcomes acting on d-dimensional systems, and provide generic upper bounds on the success metric of these tasks for compatible measurements. We identify all sets of three incompatible rank-one projective qubit measurements that random access codes can witness. Finally, we present the generic relationship between different sets of probability distributions - classical, quantum with or without shared randomness, and quantum restricted to compatible measurements with or without shared randomness - produced in communication scenarios.

Generalized Belief Propagation Algorithms for Decoding of Surface Codes

Belief propagation (BP) is well-known as a low complexity decoding algorithm with a strong performance for important classes of quantum error correcting codes, e.g. notably for the quantum low-density parity check (LDPC) code class of random expander codes. However, it is also well-known that the performance of BP breaks down when facing topological codes such as the surface code, where naive BP fails entirely to reach a below-threshold regime, i.e. the regime where error correction becomes useful. Previous works have shown, that this can be remedied by resorting to post-processing decoders outside the framework of BP. In this work, we present a generalized belief propagation method with an outer re-initialization loop that successfully decodes surface codes, i.e. opposed to naive BP it recovers the sub-threshold regime known from decoders tailored to the surface code and from statistical-mechanical mappings. We report a threshold of 17% under independent bit-and phase-flip data noise (to be compared to the ideal threshold of 20.6%) and a threshold value of 14% under depolarizing data noise (compared to the ideal threshold of 18.9%), which are on par with thresholds achieved by non-BP post-processing methods.

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy followed by adjuvant cisplatin–gemcitabine versus cisplatin–fluorouracil chemotherapy for N2–3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a multicentre, open-label, randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial

Patients with N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma have a high risk of treatment being unsuccessful despite the current practice of using a concurrent adjuvant cisplatin-fluorouracil regimen. We aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of concurrent adjuvant cisplatin-gemcitabine with cisplatin-fluorouracil in N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma. We conducted an open-label, randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial at four cancer centres in China. Eligible patients were aged 18-65 years with untreated, non-keratinising, stage T1-4 N2-3 M0 nasopharyngeal carcinoma, an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status score of 0-1, and adequate bone marrow, liver, and renal function. Eligible patients were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive concurrent cisplatin (100 mg/m2 intravenously) on days 1, 22, and 43 of intensity-modulated radiotherapy followed by either gemcitabine (1 g/m2 intravenously on days 1 and 8) and cisplatin (80 mg/m2 intravenously for 4 h on day 1) once every 3 weeks or fluorouracil (4 g/m2 in continuous intravenous infusion for 96 h) and cisplatin (80 mg/m2 intravenously for 4 h on day 1) once every 4 weeks, for three cycles. Randomisation was done using a computer-generated random number code with a block size of six, stratified by treatment centre and nodal category. The primary endpoint was 3-year progression-free survival in the intention-to-treat population (ie, all patients randomly assigned to treatment). Safety was assessed in all participants who received at least one dose of chemoradiotherapy. This study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03321539, and patients are currently under follow-up. From Oct 30, 2017, to July 9, 2020, 240 patients (median age 44 years [IQR 36-52]; 175 [73%] male and 65 [27%] female) were randomly assigned to the cisplatin-fluorouracil group (n=120) or cisplatin-gemcitabine group (n=120). As of data cutoff (Dec 25, 2022), median follow-up was 40 months (IQR 32-48). 3-year progression-free survival was 83·9% (95% CI 75·9-89·4; 19 disease progressions and 11 deaths) in the cisplatin-gemcitabine group and 71·5% (62·5-78·7; 34 disease progressions and seven deaths) in the cisplatin-fluorouracil group (stratified hazard ratio 0·54 [95% CI 0·32-0·93]; log rank p=0·023). The most common grade 3 or worse adverse events that occurred during treatment were leukopenia (61 [52%] of 117 in the cisplatin-gemcitabine group vs 34 [29%] of 116 in the cisplatin-fluorouracil group; p=0·00039), neutropenia (37 [32%] vs 19 [16%]; p=0·010), and mucositis (27 [23%] vs 32 [28%]; p=0·43). The most common grade 3 or worse late adverse event (occurring from 3 months after completion of radiotherapy) was auditory or hearing loss (six [5%] vs ten [9%]). One (1%) patient in the cisplatin-gemcitabine group died due to treatment-related complications (septic shock caused by neutropenic infection). No patients in the cisplatin-fluorouracil group had treatment-related deaths. Our findings suggest that concurrent adjuvant cisplatin-gemcitabine could be used as an adjuvant therapy in the treatment of patients with N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma, although long-term follow-up is required to confirm the optimal therapeutic ratio. National Key Research and Development Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Guangdong Major Project of Basic and Applied Basic Research, Sci-Tech Project Foundation of Guangzhou City, Sun Yat-sen University Clinical Research 5010 Program, Innovative Research Team of High-level Local Universities in Shanghai, Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province for Distinguished Young Scholar, Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, Postdoctoral Innovative Talent Support Program, Pearl River S&T Nova Program of Guangzhou, Planned Science and Technology Project of Guangdong Province, Key Youth Teacher Cultivating Program of Sun Yat-sen University, the Rural Science and Technology Commissioner Program of Guangdong Province, and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Effectiveness of Pediatric Competency-Based Orientation (PCBO) on Knowledge, Confidence, and Manifestation of Early Recognition of Nursing Expertise Among PACU Nurses

To evaluate the effectiveness of the American Society of Perianesthesia Nurses (ASPAN) pediatric competency-based orientation (PCBO) education program on knowledge, confidence, and early recognition of nursing expertise among perianesthesia nurses in an acute care setting. A quasi-experimental pre/post survey-intervention design. Sixty perianesthesia nurses with experience ranging from less than 5 years to more than 20 years were included. A chapter review survey was completed to assess knowledge before reviewing the chapters and again after reviewing the ASPAN PCBO materials. A presurvey assessing confidence levels, decision making abilities, and early detection of knowledge regarding pediatric patients' expertise were obtained at the beginning of the study. At the end of the study, a post-study survey was completed to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Random codes were assigned to each participant to ensure that the participants' information was blinded. Perianesthesia nurses' knowledge increased from pre to post intervention with one of the three sets of chapters (Set 2) statistically significant. Perianesthesia nurses' confidence and recognition of nursing expertise scores increased statistically significant from pre to post intervention. Both confidence (with 33 items [P value ≤ .001]) and recognition of nursing expertise (with 16 items [P value ≤ 0.001]) were statistically significant. The ASPAN PCBO was shown to be statistically effective at increasing knowledge, building expertise, promoting confidence, and improving decision making skills. The plan is for the ASPAN PCBO to be incorporated into the new-hire perianesthesia orientation didactic and the competency plan.

The Partial-Inverse Approach to Linearized Polynomials and Gabidulin Codes With Applications to Network Coding

This paper introduces the partial-inverse problem for linearized polynomials and develops its application to decoding Gabidulin codes and lifted Gabidulin codes in linear random network coding. The proposed approach is a natural generalization of its counterpart for ordinary polynomials, thus providing a unified perspective on Reed–Solomon codes for the Hamming metric and for the rank metric. The basic algorithm for solving the partial-inverse problem is a common parent algorithm of a Berlekamp–Massey algorithm, a Euclidean algorithm, and yet another algorithm, all of which are obtained as easy variations of the basic algorithm. Decoding Gabidulin codes can be reduced to the partial-inverse problem via a key equation with a new converse. This paper also develops new algorithms for interpolating crisscross erasures and for joint decoding of errors, erasures, and deviations in random network coding.

Basis-Finding Algorithm for Decoding Fountain Codes for DNA-Based Data Storage

In this paper, we consider the decoding of fountain codes where the received symbols may have errors. It is motivated by the application of fountain codes in DNA-based data storage systems where the inner code decoding, which generally has undetectable errors, is performed before the outer fountain code decoding. We propose a novel and efficient decoding algorithm, namely basis-finding algorithm (BFA), followed by three implementations. The key idea of the BFA is to find a basis of the received symbols, and then use the most reliable basis elements to recover the source symbols with the inactivation decoding. Gaussian elimination is used to find the basis and to identify the most reliable basis elements. As a result, the BFA has polynomial time complexity. For random fountain codes, we are able to derive some theoretical bounds for the frame error rate (FER) of the BFA. Extensive simulations with Luby transform (LT) codes show that, the BFA has significantly lower FER than the belief propagation (BP) algorithm except for an extremely large amount of received symbols, and the FER of the BFA generally decreases as the average weight of basis elements increases.

LiVoAuth: Liveness Detection in Voiceprint Authentication With Random Challenges and Detection Modes

Voiceprint authentication provides great con- venience to users in many application scenarios. However, it easily suffers from spoofing attacks including speech synthesis, speech conversion and speech replay. Liveness detection is an effective way to resist these attacks. But existing methods suffer from many disadvantages, such as extra deployment costs due to precise data collection, environmental disturbance, high computational overhead and operational complexity. A uniform platform that can offer Voiceprint Authentication as a Service (VAaS) over the cloud is also lacked. Hence, it is imperative to design an economic and effective method for liveness detection in voiceprint authentication. In this paper, we propose a novel liveness detection method named LiVoAuth for voiceprint authentication. It applies a randomly generated vector se- quence as Liveness Detection Mode (LDM), corresponding to a random challenge code used for authentication. We implement LiVoAuth and conduct a series of user studies to evaluate its performance in terms of accuracy, stability, efficiency, security, and user acceptance. Experimental re- sults demonstrate its advantages compared with cutting- edge methods.

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy followed by adjuvant cisplatin-gemcitabine versus cisplatin-5-fluorouracil chemotherapy for N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma: A multicentre, open-label, randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial.

6000 Background: Patients with N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma have a high risk of failures, despite the current practice of concurrent adjuvant cisplatin-5-fluorouracil (PF) regime. Adjuvant PF regimen may not be adequate for tumor control of high risk patients, emphasizing the need for more effective regimen of adjuvant chemotherapy in N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Methods: We conducted this multicentre, open-label, phase 3, randomised, controlled trial in four centers in China. Patients aged 18–65 years with stage T1–4N2–3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive concurrent cisplatin (100mg/m2 intravenously) on days 1, 22, and 43 of radiotherapy followed by either gemcitabine (1 g/m2 intravenously on days 1 and 8) and cisplatin (80 mg/m2 intravenously on day 1) (GP) once every 3 weeks or 5-fluorouracil (4 g/m2 in continuous intravenous infusion over 96 h) and cisplatin (80 mg/m2 on day 1 given intravenously) once every 4 weeks for three cycles. Randomisation was by a computer-generated random number code with a block size of six, stratified by treatment centre and nodal stage (N2 or N3). The primary endpoint was 3-year progression-free survival in the intention-to-treat population. This study is registered in ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03321539. Results: From October 30, 2017 to July 9, 2020, 240 were randomly assigned to PF group (n = 120) or GP group (n = 120). After a median follow-up of 40 months (IQR: 32-48), the 3-year progression-free survival was 83.9% (95% CI 75.9–89.4) in GP group and 71.5% (62.5–78.7) in PF group (stratified HR 0.54; 95% CI, 0.32 to 0.93; p = 0.023). Significantly lower cumulative incidence of locoregional relapse (2.6% vs. 12.5%; HR 0.33; 95% CI, 0.12 to 0.90; Fine-Gray p = 0.030) and distant metastasis (10.4% vs. 20.1%; HR 0.50; 95% CI, 0.26 to 0.98; Fine-Gray p = 0.042) were also observed in GP group than PF group. However, there was no effect on early 3-year overall survival (90.7% vs. 94.0%; HR 1.12; 95% CI, 0.50 to 2.55; log-rank p = 0.779). Overall incidence of treatment-related adverse events was not significant different between the two treatment groups in the concurrent phase. In the adjuvant phase, significant higher incidence of grade 3-4 leucopenia (42 [41.2%] vs. 19 [16.8%], p < 0.001), neutropenia (33 [32.0%] vs. 10 [8.9%], p = 0.001) and thrombocytopenia (9 [8.7%] vs. 2 [1.8%], p = 0.044) was observed in GP group than PF group, whereas the frequency of diarrhea (6 [5.3%] vs. 0 [0%], p = 0.030) and mucositis (21 [18.6%] vs. 7 [6.8%], p = 0.010) was higher in PF group than in GP group. Conclusions: Concurrent adjuvant GP regimen significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma with acceptable toxicity. Long term follow-up is needed to confirm the ultimate therapeutic ratio. Clinical trial information: NCT03321539 .

Umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stromal cells preserve endogenous insulin production in type 1 diabetes: a Phase I/II randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial

Aim/hypothesisThis study aimed to investigate the safety and efficacy of treatment with allogeneic Wharton’s jelly-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) in recent-onset type 1 diabetes.MethodsA combined Phase I/II trial, composed of a dose escalation followed by a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled study in parallel design, was performed in which treatment with allogeneic MSCs produced as an advanced therapy medicinal product (ProTrans) was compared with placebo in adults with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes. Inclusion criteria were a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes <2 years before enrolment, age 18–40 years and a fasting plasma C-peptide concentration >0.12 nmol/l. Randomisation was performed with a web-based randomisation system, with a randomisation code created prior to the start of the study. The randomisation was made in blocks, with participants randomised to ProTrans or placebo treatment. Randomisation envelopes were kept at the clinic in a locked room, with study staff opening the envelopes at the baseline visits. All participants and study personnel were blinded to group assignment. The study was conducted at Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.ResultsThree participants were included in each dose cohort during the first part of the study. Fifteen participants were randomised in the second part of the study, with ten participants assigned to ProTrans treatment and five to placebo. All participants were analysed for the primary and secondary outcomes. No serious adverse events related to treatment were observed and, overall, few adverse events (mainly mild upper respiratory tract infections) were reported in the active treatment and placebo arms. The primary efficacy endpoint was defined as Δ-change in C-peptide AUC for a mixed meal tolerance test at 1 year following ProTrans/placebo infusion compared with baseline performance prior to treatment. C-peptide levels in placebo-treated individuals declined by 47%, whereas those in ProTrans-treated individuals declined by only 10% (p<0.05). Similarly, insulin requirements increased in placebo-treated individuals by a median of 10 U/day, whereas insulin needs of ProTrans-treated individuals did not change over the follow-up period of 12 months (p<0.05).Conclusions/interpretationThis study suggests that allogeneic Wharton’s jelly-derived MSCs (ProTrans) is a safe treatment for recent-onset type 1 diabetes, with the potential to preserve beta cell function.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT03406585FundingThe sponsor of the clinical trial is NextCell Pharma AB, Stockholm, Sweden.Graphical

Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying Modulation With Random Coding Pulse for Long-Range ϕ-OTDR

Transient effect in erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) restricts the application of the phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (ϕ-OTDR) system with coding probe pulse (CPP) in long-distance vibration sensing. In this paper, a CPP modulation scheme based on phase coding is proposed to suppress the amplitude distortion after optical amplification. Quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK), which has a high spectrum utilization efficiency, is designed on a I/Q modulator. The random sequence CPP is used in this system, because of the single coding sequence, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can be improved without loss of the sensing bandwidth. Experimental results prove the effectiveness of the scheme. Compared to the conventional modulation scheme at a 50 mW pump power, the distortion coefficient of the CPP after amplification decreases from 57.67% to 9.23%, and the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) increases from 13.89 dB to16.67 dB. Without distributed amplification, the proposed system successfully located the vibration at 85.652 km under the carrier period of 40 ns, and the SNR of the demodulated signal is up to 21.99 dB.

Multiple-Beam Steering Using Graphene-Based Coding Metasurfaces.

Recently, the coding metasurface has gained significant attention due to its exceptional potential in controlling electromagnetic (EM) waves with the rapid development of wireless communication systems. Meanwhile, graphene shows tremendous promise for the implementation of reconfigurable antennas due to its high tunable conductivity and its unique property that makes it a very suitable material for realizing steerable coded states. In this paper, we first propose a simple structured beam reconfigurable millimeter wave (MMW) antenna using a novel graphene-based coding metasurface (GBCM). Different from the previous method, its coding state can be manipulated by altering the sheet impedance of graphene instead of bias voltage. Then, we design and simulate several most popular coding sequences, including dual-, quad-and single-beam-generated implement, 30° beam deflection, as well as a random coding sequence for radar cross-section (RCS) reduction. The theoretical and simulation results show that graphene has great potential for MMW manipulation applications, which lay a foundation for the subsequent development and fabrication of GBCM.

Two instances of random access code in the quantum regime

We consider two classes of quantum generalisations of random access code (RAC) and study the bounds for probabilities of success for such tasks. It provides a useful framework for the study of certain information processing tasks with constrained resources. The first class is based on a RAC with quantum inputs and output known as the no-signalling quantum RAC (NS-QRAC) box (Grudka et al 2015 Phys. Rev. A 92 052312), where unbounded entanglement and constrained classical communication are allowed. We show that it can be seen as quantum teleportation with constrained classical communication and provide a lower quantum bound for the success probability. We consider two modifications to the NS-QRAC scenario: the first, where unbounded entanglement and constrained quantum communication is allowed and the second, where bounded entanglement and unconstrained classical communication is allowed. We find a monogamy relation for the transmission fidelities, which—in contrast to the usual communication schemes—involves multiple senders and a single receiver. We provide an upper bounds for the latter and a lower one for the former. The second class is based on a RAC with a quantum channel and shared entanglement (Tavakoli et al 2021 PRX Quantum 2 040357). We study the set of tasks where two inputs made of two digits of d-base are encoded over a qudit and a maximally entangled state. We show that such tasks can be seen as quantum dense-coding with constrained quantum communication and explicit protocols, which give lower quantum bounds for the tasks’ efficiency, in dimensions . The employed encoding utilises Gray codes.

Design of Polar Codes and PAC Codes for SCL Decoding

The performance of a code under the maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder highly depends on the weight enumerating function (WEF). However, how to compute efficiently the WEF of a polar code or a polarization-adjusted convolutional (PAC) code is still an open problem. For the design of stand-alone polar codes, we consider enumerating the number of minimum-weight non-zero codewords of the polar code. The block error rate (BLER) under the ML decoder can be approximated as a function of the minimum weight of non-zero codewords and its multiplicity. On the other hand, for the design of PAC codes, we consider enumerating the WEF averaged over the ensemble of random PAC codes. The ML-BLER upper bound can be represented as a function of the WEF. The bit-channel selection algorithms for polar codes and PAC codes are proposed, which take both utilization of the polarization effect and the ML decoding performance as selection criteria. Simulation results show that the proposed stand-alone polar codes are competitive when the block length gets larger. Also, simulation results show that the proposed PAC codes yield excellent performance for a wide range of code rates and block lengths and outperform the 5G polar codes.

Indobufen versus aspirin in patients with acute ischaemic stroke in China (INSURE): a randomised, double-blind, double-dummy, active control, non-inferiority trial

Aspirin is recommended for secondary stroke prevention in patients with moderate-to-severe ischaemic stroke but can lead to gastrointestinal intolerance and bleeding. Indobufen is used as an alternative antiplatelet agent in some countries, despite an absence of large-scale clinical trials for this indication. We tested the hypothesis that indobufen is non-inferior to aspirin in reducing the risk of new stroke at 90 days in patients with moderate-to-severe ischaemic stroke. We conducted a randomised, double-blind, double-dummy, active control, non-inferiority trial at 163 tertiary and district general hospitals in China. Eligible participants were aged 18-80 years with acute moderate-to-severe ischaemic stroke (National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score 4-18). We randomly assigned (1:1) participants within 72 h of the onset of symptoms to receive either indobufen (100 mg tablet twice per day) or aspirin (100 mg tablet once per day) for 90 days. The randomisation sequence was computer generated centrally and stratified by local participating centres. Masked local investigators assigned the random code to patients in ascending order and provided a treatment kit corresponding to the random code. The primary efficacy outcome was new stroke and the primary safety outcome was severe or moderate bleeding, both within 90 days. This primary efficacy outcome was assessed in all randomly assigned and consenting patients and in a per-protocol group (ie, all patients finishing the treatment without major violation of the trial protocol). Safety analyses were done in the safety-analysis population (ie, all patients who received at least one dose of the study drug and had a safety assessment available). We assessed the non-inferiority of indobufen versus aspirin using the one-sided upper limit of the 95% CI of the hazard ratio (HR) with a prespecified non-inferiority margin of 1·25. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03871517). This trial took place between June 2, 2019, and Nov 28, 2021. Of 84 093 patients screened, 5438 patients were randomly assigned to receive either indobufen (n=2715) or aspirin (n=2723), all of whom were included in the primary analyses. Median age was 64·2 years (IQR 56·1-70·6); 1921 (35·3%) were women and 3517 (64·7%) were men. Stroke occurred within 90 days in 213 (7·9%) patients in the indobufen group versus 175 (6·4%) in the aspirin group (HR 1·23, 95% CI 1·01-1·50; pnon-inferiority=0·44). Moderate or severe bleeding occurred in 18 (0·7%) patients in the indobufen group and in 28 (1·0%) in the aspirin group (0·63, 95% CI 0·35 to 1·15; p=0·13). Adverse events within 90 days occurred in 666 (24·5%) patients in the indobufen group and 679 (24·9%) patients in the aspirin group (p=0·73). In patients with acute moderate-to-severe ischaemic stroke, indobufen was not non-inferior to aspirin because the upper limit of the 95% CI was greater than 1·25. Furthermore, indobufen seemed to be inferior to aspirin in reducing the risk of recurrent stroke at 90 days because the lower limit of the 95% CI was greater than 1·00. Although moderate or severe bleeding did not differ between groups, these findings do not support the use of indobufen for secondary stroke prevention in patients with moderate-to-severe ischaemic stroke. Hangzhou Zhongmei Huadong Pharmaceutical and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences. For the Chinese translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.