Multifaceted role of nitric oxide in an in vitro mouse neuronal injury model: transcriptomic profiling defines the temporal recruitment of death signalling cascades

Nitric oxide is implicated in the pathogenesis of various neuropathologies characterized by oxidative stress. Although nitric oxide has been reported to be involved in the exacerbation of oxidative stress observed in several neuropathologies, existent data fail to provide a holistic description of how nitrergic pathobiology elicits neuronal injury. Here we provide a comprehensive description of mechanisms contributing to nitric oxide induced neuronal injury by global transcriptomic profiling. Microarray analyses were undertaken on RNA from murine primary cortical neurons treated with the nitric oxide generator DETA-NONOate (NOC-18, 0.5 mM) for 8–24 hrs. Biological pathway analysis focused upon 3672 gene probes which demonstrated at least a ±1.5-fold expression in a minimum of one out of three time-points and passed statistical analysis (one-way anova, P < 0.05). Numerous enriched processes potentially determining nitric oxide mediated neuronal injury were identified from the transcriptomic profile: cell death, developmental growth and survival, cell cycle, calcium ion homeostasis, endoplasmic reticulum stress, oxidative stress, mitochondrial homeostasis, ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis, and GSH and nitric oxide metabolism. Our detailed time-course study of nitric oxide induced neuronal injury allowed us to provide the first time a holistic description of the temporal sequence of cellular events contributing to nitrergic injury. These data form a foundation for the development of screening platforms and define targets for intervention in nitric oxide neuropathologies where nitric oxide mediated injury is causative.

Forgeability of Wang-Zhu-Feng-Yau’s attribute-based signature with policy-and-endorsement mechanism

Recently, Wang et al. presented a new construction of attribute-based signature with policy-and-endorsement mechanism. The existential unforgeability of their scheme was claimed to be based on the strong Diffie-Hellman assumption in the random oracle model. Unfortunately, by carefully revisiting the design and security proof of Wang et al.’s scheme, we show that their scheme cannot provide unforgeability, namely, a forger, whose attributes do not satisfy a given signing predicate, can also generate valid signatures. We also point out the flaws in Wang et al.’s proof.

A distributed gateway selection algorithm for UAV networks

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been widely adopted in military and civilian applications. For small UAVs, cooperation based on communication networks can effectively expand their working area. Although the UAV networks are quite similar to the traditional mobile ad hoc networks, the special characteristics of the UAV application scenario have not been considered in the literature. In this paper, we propose a distributed gateway selection algorithm with dynamic network partition by taking into account the application characteristics of UAV networks. In the proposed algorithm, the influence of the asymmetry information phenomenon on UAVs' topology control is weakened by dividing the network into several subareas. During the operation of the network, the partition of the network can be adaptively adjusted to keep the whole network topology stable even though UAVs are moving rapidly. Meanwhile, the number of gateways can be completely controlled according to the system requirements. In particular, we define the stability of UAV networks, build a network partition model, and design a distributed gateway selection algorithm. Simulation results show using our proposed scheme that the faster the nodes move in the network, the more stable topology can be found, which is quite suitable for UAV applications.

SAT-GRD: An ID/Loc split network architecture interconnecting satellite and ground networks

Since the satellite network plays an irreplaceable role in many fields, how to interconnect it with the ground network has received an unprecedented attention. However, with much more requirements imposed to the current terrestrial network, many serious problems caused by the IP dual-role exposed. In this context, their direct interconnection seems not the most appropriate way. Thus, in this paper, SAT-GRD, an incrementally deployable ID/Loc split network architecture is proposed, aiming to integrate the satellite and ground networks efficiently. Specifically, SAT-GRD separates the identity of both the host and network from the location. Then, it isolates the host from the network, and further divides the whole network into core and edge networks. These make SAT-GRD much more flexible and scalable to achieve heterogeneous network convergence and avoid problems resulting from the overloaded semantics of IP addresses. In addition, much work has been done to implement the proof-of-concept prototype of SAT-GRD, and experimental results prove its feasibility.