Search Results (33)

Arboviruses pose a significant global public health threat, with Ross River virus (RRV), Barmah Forest virus (BFV), and dengue virus (DENV) being among the most common and clinically significant in Australia. Some arboviruses, including those prevalent in Australia, have been reported to cause transfusion-transmitted infections. This study examined the spatiotemporal variation of these arboviruses and their potential impact on blood donation numbers across Australia. Using data from the Australian Department of Health on eight arboviruses from 2002 to 2017, we retrospectively assessed the distribution and clustering of incidence rates in space and time using Geographic Information System mapping and space–time scan statistics. Regression models were used to investigate how weather variables, their lag months, space, and time affect case and blood donation counts. The predictors’ importance varied with the spatial scale of analysis. Key predictors were average rainfall, minimum temperature, daily temperature variation, and relative humidity. Blood donation number was significantly associated with the incidence rate of all viruses and its interaction with local transmission of DENV, overall. This study, the first to cover eight clinically relevant arboviruses at a fine geographical level in Australia, identifies regions at risk for transmission and provides valuable insights for public health intervention. Full article

Background: This pilot study aimed to evaluate the Retinal Function Imager (RFI) for visualizing retinal vasculature and assessment of blood flow characteristics in patients with retinal vasculitis. The RFI is a non-invasive imaging device measuring the blood flow velocity (BFV) in secondary and tertiary retinal vessels using hemoglobin as an intrinsic motion-contrast agent. Methods: To test the feasibility of the RFI for patients with retinal vasculitis, capillary perfusion maps (nCPMs) were generated from 15 eyes of eight patients (five females; mean age: 49 ± 12 years) with a mean uveitis duration of 74 ± 85 months. Five of these patients had birdshot chorioretinopathy, and three had primarily non-occlusive venous retinal vasculitis of unknown origin. To reflect that the BFV may be more reduced in patients with prolonged disease, patients were classified into a short-term (uveitis duration: 8–15 months) and a long-term uveitis group (uveitis duration: 60–264 months). Data were compared with healthy controls (16 eyes of 11 patients; mean age 45 ± 12 years; 8 females). Results: The mean BFV in the controls was 3.79 ± 0.50 mm/s in the retinal arteries and 2.35 ± 0.44 mm/s in the retinal veins, which was significantly higher compared to the retinal vasculitis group. Patients revealed an arterial BFV of 2.75 ± 0.74 mm/s (p < 0.001) and a venous BFV of 1.75 ± 0.51 mm/s (p = 0.016). In the short-term group, a trend towards a decreased venular and arteriolar BFV was seen, while a significant reduction was observed in the long-term group. The patients’ microvasculature anatomy revealed by the nCPMs appeared unevenly distributed and a lower number of blood vessels were seen, along with a lower degree of complexity of their branching patterns, when compared with controls. Conclusions: This study demonstrated a reduction in venular and arteriolar BFVs in patients with retinal vasculitis. BFV alterations were already observed in early disease stages and became more pronounced in progressed disease. Additionally, we showed that retinal microvasculature changes may be observed by nCPMs. Retinal imaging with the RFI may serve as a diagnostic and quantifying tool in retinal vasculitis. Full article

To evaluate the frequency of errors in the diagnosis of medical laboratory-diagnosed Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infections in Australia, we studied 42 laboratory-diagnosed CHIKV serum samples from one Queensland medical laboratory by ELISA IgG/IgM and measured the specific neutralization antibodies (Nab) against Barmah Forest virus (BFV), CHIKV and Ross River virus (RRV). The sero-positivity rates for the sera were as follows: anti-BFV IgG⁺ 19% (8/42), IgM⁺ 2.4% (1/42) and Nab⁺ 16.7% (7/42); anti-CHIKV IgG⁺ 90.5% (38/42), IgM⁺ 21.4% (9/42) and Nab⁺ 90.5% (38/42); anti-RRV IgG⁺ 88.1% (37/42), IgM⁺ 28.6% (12/42) and Nab⁺ 83.2% (35/42), respectively. Among the samples with multiple antibody positivity, 2.4% (1/42) showed triple ELISA IgM⁺, and 14.3% (6/42) exhibited double IgM RRV⁺CHIKV⁺; 9.5% (4/42) showed triple IgG⁺, 76.2% (32/42) displayed double IgG RRV⁺CHIKV⁺, 4.8% (2/42) showed IgG BFV⁺RRV⁺ and 4.8% (2/42) showed IgG BFV⁺+CHIKV⁺; and 9.5% (4/42) showed triple Nab⁺ and 69% (29/42) exhibited double Nab RRV⁺CHIKV⁺, respectively. Our analysis of the single-virus infection control Nab results suggested no cross-neutralization between RRV and BFV, and only mild cross-neutralization between CHIKV and RRV, BFV and CHIKV, all with a ≥4-fold Nab titre ratio difference between the true virus infection and cross-reactivity counterpart virus. Subsequently, we re-diagnosed these 42 patients as 1 BFV⁺, 8 CHIKV⁺ and 23 RRV⁺ single-virus infections, along with five RRV⁺/BFV⁺ and four RRV⁺/CHIKV⁺ double infections, and one possible RRV⁺/BFV⁺ or RRV⁺CHIKV⁺, respectively. These findings suggests that a substantial proportion of medically attended RRV and BFV infections were misdiagnosed as CHIKV infections, highlighting the imperative need for diagnostic laboratory tests capable of distinguishing between CHIKV infections and actively co-circulating RRV and BFV. For a correct diagnosis, it is crucial to consider reliable diagnostic methods such as the neutralization assay to exclude RRV and BFV. Full article

In actual operation, there are security risks to the data of the network control system, mainly in the form of possible eavesdropping of signals in the transmission channel and parameters in the controller leading to data leakage. In this paper, we propose a scheme for encrypting linear controllers using fully homomorphic encryption, which effectively removes these security risks and substantially improves the security of networked control systems. Meanwhile, this paper uses precomputation to handle data encryption, which eliminates the encryption time and solves the drawback of fully homomorphic encryption that it is difficult to apply due to the efficiency problem. Compared to previous schemes with precomputation, for the first time, we propose two methods to mitigate the problem of the slight security degradation caused by precomputation, which makes our scheme more secure. Finally, we provide numerical simulation results to support our scheme, and the data show that the encrypted controller achieves normal control and improves safety and efficiency. Full article

Machine learning (ML) is widely used today, especially through deep neural networks (DNNs); however, increasing computational load and resource requirements have led to cloud-based solutions. To address this problem, a new generation of networks has emerged called spiking neural networks (SNNs), which mimic the behavior of the human brain to improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption. These networks often process large amounts of sensitive information, such as confidential data, and thus privacy issues arise. Homomorphic encryption (HE) offers a solution, allowing calculations to be performed on encrypted data without decrypting them. This research compares traditional DNNs and SNNs using the Brakerski/Fan-Vercauteren (BFV) encryption scheme. The LeNet-5 and AlexNet models, widely-used convolutional architectures, are used for both DNN and SNN models based on their respective architectures, and the networks are trained and compared using the FashionMNIST dataset. The results show that SNNs using HE achieve up to 40% higher accuracy than DNNs for low values of the plaintext modulus t, although their execution time is longer due to their time-coding nature with multiple time steps. Full article

The endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) machinery is essential for the budding of retroviruses such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and bovine foamy virus (BFV), which rely on their late domain to recruit ESCRT complexes to facilitate budding. However, the impact of intracellular host proteins on BFV budding remains poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of CCL2 on BFV budding and interactions with key host proteins. Our results indicate that CCL2 promotes BFV budding in an ALG-2-interacting protein X (Alix)-dependent manner by enhancing the interaction between Alix and BFV Gag (BGag). Notably, we found a link between Alix, BGag and CCL2, with Alix mediating the interaction between the latter two. Furthermore, we observed that natural host bovine CCL2 also has a facilitating role in the budding process of BFV, similar to human CCL2. Taken together, these results demonstrate that CCL2 promotes BFV budding by enhancing the Alix-BGag association. Full article

Bovine foamy virus (BFVbta) displays a very high degree of cell-associated replication which is unprecedented even among the other known foamy viruses. Interestingly, recent studies have shown that it can in fact adapt in vitro to high-titer (HT) cell-free transmission due to genetic changes acquired during repeated rounds of cell-free BFVbta passages in immortalized bovine MDBK cells. Molecular clones obtained from the HT BFVbta Riems cell-free variant (HT BFVbta Riems) have been thoroughly characterized in MDBK cell cultures However, during recent years, it has become increasingly clear that the source of the host cells used for virus growth and functional studies of virus replication and virus–cell interactions plays a paramount role. Established cell lines, mostly derived from tumors, but occasionally experimentally immortalized and transformed, frequently display aberrant features relating, for example. to growth, metabolism, and genetics. Even state-of-the-art organoid cultures of primary cells cannot replicate the conditions in an authentic host, especially those concerning cell diversity and the role of innate and adaptive immunity. Therefore, to determine the overall replication characteristics of the cloned wt and HT BFVbta Riems variant, we conducted a small-scale animal pilot study. The replication of the original wt BFVbta Riems isolate, as well as that of its HT variant, were analyzed. Both BFVbta variants established infection in calves, with proviruses in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and induced Gag-specific antibodies. In addition, a related pattern in the host innate immune reaction was detected in the peripheral blood leukocytes of the BFV-infected calves. Surprisingly, an analysis of the Gag sequence two weeks post-inoculation revealed that the HT BFVbta variant showed a very high level of genetic reversion to the wild type (parental BFVbta genotype). Full article

Multi-key Homomorphic Encryption (MKHE) scheme can homomorphically evaluate ciphertexts encrypted by different keys, which can effectively protect the privacy information of data holders in the joint computing of cloud services. Since the first full Homomorphic encryption scheme was proposed, bootstrapping is the only way to realize the arbitrary depth homomorphic computation of MKHE schemes. But bootstrap operation is quite expensive. In order to implement fast bootstrapping in MKHE schemes, previous works proposed multi-key TFHE schemes to implement low-latency bootstrapping and output a univariate function of messages after bootstrapping, called Programmable Bootstrapping (PBS). However, these schemes can only encrypt single-bit messages. PBS only outputs a function. And after a homomorphic operation, a bootstrap is required, which undoubtedly results in an increase in the cost of the whole multi-key homomorphic encryption operation. In this paper, we propose a MKHE scheme for multi-output PBS. For this purpose, we study the encryption method and homomorphic operation steps of MKHE, and add BFV homomorphic encryption multiplication and multi-key ciphertext relinearization. We separate the homomorphic operation from bootstrapping. We homomorphically evaluate test polynomials for multiple functions. In contrast to previous MKHE schemes, we support the output of multiple message-related functions with a single bootstrapping operation on the ciphertext. It is no longer limited to encrypting single-bit plaintext, and an effective ciphertext packaging technology is added. According to the analysis given in this paper, it is known that in the scenario of multi-party joint computation, the proposed scheme can be implemented with less bootstrapping when the same number of functions are homomorphically operated. This will effectively reduce the computational overhead. Full article

The postpartum (PP) period is a crucial stage for the resumption of reproductive performance and ovarian cyclicity in dairy buffaloes. The present study aimed, for the first time, to assess the effect of the administration of estradiol benzoate (EB) on ovarian and uterine hemodynamics in PP dairy buffaloes. Eight pluriparous acyclic domestic buffaloes were enrolled in the present experiment and received a dose of 10 mg of estradiol benzoate (EB) intramuscularly 4 weeks after parturition. All animals were examined two times before EB administration (days −3, and −1) and on the day of EB administration (day 0), followed by examinations on days 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 post-EB administration. The middle uterine artery (MUA) and ovarian artery (OA) blood flow patterns were assessed using a color Doppler ultrasound device. The reproductive parameters were (1) the cross-sectional diameters (cm) of the OA and MUA, (2) cranial uterine horn thickness (UHT; cm), and (3) hemodynamic changes within the MUA on both the ipsi- and contra-lateral sides of the previous pregnant horn and within the OA corresponding to the ovarian tissues. The examined blood flow parameters were the pulsatility index (PI), resistance index (RI), peak systolic/end-diastolic ratio (S/D), time-averaged maximum velocity (TAV; cm/s), uterine blood flow rate (BFR; bpm), and uterine blood flow volume (BFV; mL/min). Concomitantly, blood samples were collected from the coccygeal vein, and the sera were stored at −18 °C for use in estradiol (E2-17β) and nitric oxide (NO) assays. The results revealed increases in both OA and MUA cross-sectional diameter (cm) on the ipsi-lateral and contra-lateral (p < 0.05) sides within 24 h until day 9 post-treatment. The values of the RI and PI of blood flow within the OA and MUA on the ipsi-lateral and contra-lateral sides of the previous pregnancy were obviously lower (p < 0.05) at 24 h after the administration of EB, and then, started to gradually elevate, reaching the pre-treatment values on day 9 after EB administration. Both the BFR and BFV in the OA and MUA significantly increased from 24 h to 72 h after EB administration on both the ipsi-lateral and contra-lateral sides (p < 0.05); then, their values started to decrease to reach the pretreatment value on day 9 after EB administration. Both E2 and NO concentrations significantly increased (p < 0.05) from 24 h until day 3 after EB injection and then started to decline after that, reaching the pre-treatment value on day 9. In conclusion, the administration of EB enhances the ovarian and uterine blood flow concomitantly with increased levels of NO in PP dairy buffaloes. Full article

Valves are important components in controlling the amount of fluid going to devices. One of these types is the butterfly valve (BFV) that adjusts the amount of flow by rotating the valve disk by means of its shafts which is usually located in the middle of the flow. Despite its common usage in various applications, the BFV is known to cause a high-pressure drop. Conversely, the pinch valve is another type of flow control device that uses a pinching mechanism to open and close the inner tube by pinching at different degrees. The absence of flow-controlling mechanisms in the flow path, such as the valve disk and its shaft, contribute to the minimal pressure drop in pinch valves. The high-pressure drop in BFVs and the minimal pressure drop in pinch valve flow make it worthwhile to investigate and compare their flow at all opening positions of the two valves. Therefore, this work numerically explores the potential of using the pinch valve as an alternative to the BFV in terms of its ability to attain a lower pressure loss, hence better flow rate. The influence of various BFV parameters such as shaft diameter, valve thickness, and valve disk edge were examined. The performance characteristics of both valves were obtained using CFD models formed on the SolidWorks program. This CFD model solves the differential equations using the finite element method. Moreover, a mathematical model to determine the area of the pinch valve at various pinching degrees was developed and compared with the results obtained from other mathematical models and CFD. It was shown that using a flat 1 mm valve disk thickness with round edges resulted in a 7.5% increase in mass flow rate compared to standard BFVs. On the other hand, using the pinch valve resulted in over a 700% mass flow rate compared to the BFV at a 25% opening position and a 49% increase in flow rate at a 75% opening position. Thus, the pinch valve has the potential to replace the BFV due to its better flow characteristics in any application. Full article

Pre-participation screening (PPS) in professional junior football is common practice. However, football players (FP) from non-professional football clubs may also be exposed to health risks, both internal and musculoskeletal. Therefore, the Bavarian Football Association (BFV) implemented a cardiological and orthopedic screening program for semi-professional FP in 2014. The purpose of this study was to obtain and present epidemiological data of pre-adolescent and adolescent semi-professional FP, including cardiac pathologies, past injuries, and orthopedic disorders. This study represents a retrospective analysis of semi-professional FP aged 11 to 14 years participating in the PPS program from 2014 to 2018, including their medical history, cardiac risk profiles, and the results of undergoing orthopedic and sports cardiology examinations. Overall, 362 male and 162 female FP could be included. More than 20% of the FP indicated suffering from one or more medical conditions. Cardiac abnormalities were reported in 30 (5.7%) FP. Further cardiological diagnostics were recommended for 3% of the FP due to findings while undergoing the PPS. Orthopedic disorders could be detected in 51 (9.7%) FP. Of the reported injuries, 44.3% could be categorized as overuse injuries. In order to guarantee extensive preventive sports medical care for semi-professional junior FP, a PPS concept should include a basic orthopedic examination in addition to cardiological screening due to a high rate of overuse injuries and cardiac abnormalities among pre-adolescent and adolescent FP. Further studies are needed in junior football to gain epidemiological data on injury occurrence and cardiac abnormalities on an amateur level to evaluate possible PPS programs, even on an amateur level. Full article

Secure comparison is a fundamental problem in multiparty computation. There are two different parties, each holding an $l$-bit integer, denoted by $a$ and $b$, respectively. The goal of secure comparison is to compute the order relationship between $a$ and $b$, say $\left(a>b\right)\in \left\{0,1\right\}$, without revealing their inputs to any others. Since previous solutions based on homomorphic encryption need at least $\mathsf{\Omega }\left(l\right)$encryptions for each $l$-bit comparison, the total encryption time leads to a computational bottleneck for these protocols. This work presents a fast, semi-honest, secure comparison protocol based on the BFV encryption scheme. With its vector-like plaintext space, the number of required encryptions can be significantly reduced; actually, only six encryptions are needed for each comparison in our protocol. In other words, the proposed protocol can achieve the time complexity $\tilde{O}(\lambda +l$) for a given security parameter λ. As a result, 4096-bit integers can be securely compared within 12.08 ms, which is 280 times faster than the state-of-the-art homomorphic encryption-based secure comparison protocol. Furthermore, we can compare k pairs of $l\cdot k^{-1}$-bit integers with almost the same execution time as comparing $l$-bit integers and achieve higher throughput regardless of the compared integer size. Full article

Barmah Forest virus (BFV), Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and Ross River virus (RRV) belong to the Alphavirus genus of the family Togaviridae. All three virus infections have been reported in Papua New Guinea (PNG) previously, but the exact prevalence and distribution of these three alphaviruses in PNG has not been established. Sera collected from 204 PNG Military Personnel (PNGMP) study participants in April 2019 was tested for the presence of anti-BFV, anti-CHIKV and anti-RRV immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies using commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) IgG detection kits, as well as for specific neutralizing antibodies (NAb) against individual viruses. Overall, sero-positivity of the sera was anti-BFV IgG 12.3% (25/204), anti-BFV NAb 8.3% (17/204); anti-CHIKV IgG 47.1% (96/204), anti-CHIKV NAb 34.8% (71/204); and anti-RRV IgG 93.1% (190/204), anti-RRV NAb 56.4% (115/204), respectively. Of the 137/204 participants that were Nab-positive for at least one virus, we identified 4 BFV, 40 CHIKV and 73 RRV single infections, and 9 RRV+CHIKV and 11 BFV+RRV double infections. The lower proportion of NAb sero-positive compared to the ELISA IgG sero-positive assay samples suggests that the currently available commercial ELISA detection kits for these three alphaviruses may not be suitable for diagnostic/surveillance purposes in endemic areas such as PNG, due to serological cross-reactivity among these three alphaviruses. Laboratory testing using known positive control sera indicated no cross-neutralization between BFV and RRV; however, some RRV or BFV single infection human sera demonstrated low-level cross-neutralization against CHIKV (the ratio of RRV/CHIKV NAb titers or BFV/CHIKV ≥ 4). Our preliminary results indicate that the majority of PNGMP have previously been exposed to RRV, with mild exposure to CHIKV and low-level exposure to BFV, suggesting that multiple alphaviruses have been circulating among PNGMP. The transmission landscapes of these three alphaviruses across PNG should be prioritized for further investigation, including identification of specific vectors and hosts that mediate human spillover in order to mitigate future outbreaks. Ongoing education regarding precautionary and protective measures are needed to better protect individuals who travel to PNG. Full article

The objective of the current study was to investigate the echotextural and hemodynamic changes of ewes entering the dry period with or without subclinical mastitis. B-mode and color Doppler ultrasonography were applied to 12 Chios ewes (6 with healthy udders (group A) and 6 with subclinical mastitis (group B)) before the dry period, during the dry period (the involution phase, steady state, and transition phase), and postpartum. The color Doppler of the mammary arteries was used to evaluate them according to the pulsatility index (PI), resistive index (RI), end-diastolic velocity (EDV), time-averaged maximum velocity (TAMV), blood flow volume (BFV), and artery diameter (D). Udder parenchyma images, analyzed by Echovet v2.0, were used to evaluate the mean value (MV), standard deviation (SD), gradient mean value (GMV), gradient variance (GV), contrast (Con), entropy (Ent), gray value distribution (GVD), run length distribution (RunLD), and long run emphasis (LRunEm). In the involution phase, the PI was higher in group B compared to group A (p ≤ 0.05). The PI and RI were higher postpartum, whereas the EDV, TAVM, and D were higher in the transition phase (p ≤ 0.05). Neither the period nor the ewe group affected the MV, SD, GMV, GV, Con, and GVD values (p ≤ 0.05). In the steady state, the LRunEm was higher in group B, but postpartum, it was higher in group A (p ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, B-mode and Doppler can reveal differences (i) between healthy ewes and ewes with subclinical mastitis and (ii) among the different periods studied. Further research is needed on the blood flow and echotexture indices of the udders of ewes with unilateral subclinical mastitis. Full article

The use of biocompatible and biodegradable porous scaffolds produced via additive manufacturing is one of the most common approaches in tissue engineering. The geometric design of tissue engineering scaffolds (e.g., pore size, pore shape, and pore distribution) has a significant impact on their biological behavior. Fluid flow dynamics are important for understanding blood flow through a porous structure, as they determine the transport of nutrients and oxygen to cells and the flushing of toxic waste. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the scaffold architecture, pore size and distribution on its biological performance using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Different blood flow velocities (BFV) induce wall shear stresses (WSS) on cells. WSS values above 30 mPa are detrimental to their growth. In this study, two scaffold designs were considered: rectangular scaffolds with uniform square pores (300, 350, and 450 µm), and anatomically designed circular scaffolds with a bone-like structure and pore size gradient (476–979 µm). The anatomically designed scaffolds provided the best fluid flow conditions, suggesting a 24.21% improvement in the biological performance compared to the rectangular scaffolds. The numerical observations are aligned with those of previously reported biological studies. Full article