Lipid rafts act as a common platform for Aß oligomer-induced Alzheimer’s pathology

Background Amyloid ß protein (Aß) oligomers induce the overproduction of phosphorylated tau and neurodegeneration. These cascades gradually cause cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). While each pathological event in AD has been studied in detail separately, the spatial and temporal relationships between pathological events in AD remain unclear. Here, we demonstrated that lipid rafts function as a common platform for the pathological cascades of AD. Methods Cellular and synaptosomal lipid rafts were prepared from the brains of Aß amyloid model mice (Tg2576 mice) and double transgenic mice (Tg2576 x TgTauP301L mice) and longitudinally analyzed. Results Aß oligomers, the cellular prion protein (PrPc), and Aß oligomer/PrPc complexes were detected in the lipid rafts. The levels of Fyn, the phosphorylated NR2B subunit of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor, glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta, total tau, phosphorylated tau, and tau oligomers increased with Aß oligomer accumulation in both the cellular and synaptosomal lipid rafts. Increases in the levels of these molecules were first seen at 6 months of age and corresponded with the early stages of Aß accumulation in the amyloid model mice. Conclusions Lipid rafts act as a common platform for the progression of Alzheimer’s pathology. The findings of this study suggest a novel therapeutic approach to AD, involving the modification of lipid raft components and the inhibition of their roles in the sequential pathological events of AD.

Comparative Analysis and Enhancement of CFG-based Hardware-Assisted CFI Schemes

Subverting the flow of instructions (e.g., by use of code-reuse attacks) still poses a serious threat to the security of today’s systems. Various control flow integrity (CFI) schemes have been proposed as a powerful technique to detect and mitigate such attacks. In recent years, many hardware-assisted implementations of CFI enforcement based on control flow graphs (CFGs) have been presented by academia. Such approaches check whether control flow transfers follow the intended CFG by limiting the valid target addresses. However, these papers all target different platforms and were evaluated with different sets of benchmark applications, which makes quantitative comparisons hardly possible. For this paper, we have implemented multiple promising CFG-based CFI schemes on a common platform comprising a RISC-V within FPGA. By porting almost 40 benchmark applications to this system we can present a meaningful comparison of the various techniques in terms of run-time performance, hardware utilization, and binary size. In addition, we present an enhanced CFI approach that is inspired by what we consider the best concepts and ideas of previously proposed mechanisms. We have made this approach more practical and feature-complete by tackling some problems largely ignored previously. We show with this fine-grained scheme that CFI can be achieved with even less overheads than previously demonstrated.

A Comparative Study of Gameplay of Different Sets of Players in an Engineering Mapping Game

Educators in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) field are constantly employing different tools to make the process of education streamlined and fun. The digital gaming platform also called e-gaming platform has evolved as one of the key tools to make STEM education more accessible to students. UNTANGLED III is such an e-gaming platform that is based on STEM concepts and aims to bring in players from all educational backgrounds under a common platform. The data obtained from the game gave us insights on how males and females play the game. It has answered whether there are any significant differences in the gameplay strategies between males and females. The data pertaining to the types of puzzles that players, from both genders, chose and played, was also obtained. Males and females had no stark differences in the strategies that they used in solving the puzzles. They used similar kinds of moves and in fact solved similar kinds of puzzles of similar difficulty levels. During their gameplay sessions, both the males and the females visualized similar patterns in the puzzles as evident in their final solution. The performance of players from both the genders, based on the gameplay data was at par. Suggestions obtained from the current players and outreach events hold the key to increasing the overall participation in the game.

A Hummingbird in Space

Two distinct trends are apparent in the design and planning of satellite missions. Until the late 1990s, multibillion-dollar space programs centered on large satellites, such as Envisat [1], promised to provide a common platform to support a variety of co-located sensing equipment. A reduction in cost was expected, as several instruments shared a single bus and a single launch. These benefits did not materialize due to the rise of a plethora of engineering and scheduling problems: electromagnetic incompatibilities between diverse technologies; instruments inducing vibrations on the platform that affect other equipment; and deployment-ready instruments waiting for other equipment in earlier development stages. As a reaction to these issues, the second trend where programs based on single-instrument satellites of much smaller sizes and mass began to emerge, eventually leading to the deployment of space devices that nowadays we call small satellites [11].

Benefits of “Decentered and Influential” Practices During Telehealth: Establishing, Slipping, and Re-Establishing Position in a Therapeutic Conversation

Telehealth therapy has become a common platform to provide therapeutic services during the COVID-19 pandemic and is expected to remain a viable option for services. Most mental health professionals had little prior experience in using this modality and have been experimenting with various ways of ensuring respectful, collaborative and effective ways of offering their services. A Decentered and Influential position offers numerous benefits that support anchoring therapists in a mindset that is conducive to optimized therapeutic conversations especially with people from socio-cultural and generational backgrounds different from their own. The value of this therapeutic position is illustrated by clinical work with a teenager struggling with violence towards family members during the quarantine. A description of clinical work where the therapist slipped to a centered position, and the re-engagement of a Decentered and Influential position, is exemplified by a discussion and preventive suggestions.

World of Public Health Dentists: A Comprehensive, Innovative and Interactive Website (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Public Health Dentistry is one of the nine recognized specialties of Dentistry by Dental Council of India. Reaching out to poor and undeserved, screening, policy framework implementation, development of newer techniques and materials of preventive procedure, echoing the agenda of tobacco cessation are a few listed leading activities of Public Health Dentist (PHD). These Dentists are the voice of dentistry in community research and policy level. Hence adequate opportunities of sharing must be available on a common platform. OBJECTIVE To assess the need, develop and validate an innovative and informative common web-based platform for all Public Health Dentist METHODS The exploratory study was conducted for a duration of 6 months. The study was divided into four phases. In the first phase the webpage was developed after a thorough web-based search, a systematic and organised outline of the webpage was laid down. Technical guidance was obtained from web designers who helped us design the web page into various components. In second phase of the study validation of the web page and need assessment of the website was done. This was done by self-administered, structured and validated 18 item questionnaire among 30 faculty and 30 Post Graduate Students [(PG) (in public health dentistry)]. The website was developed in the third phase of the study. The various sections of website were ‘About Us’, ‘Continuous Dental Education (C.D.E)’, ‘Webinar’, ‘Health Programmes’ and Information Education Communication (I.E.C) material’ etc. Fourth phase of the study was validation of fully developed and functional website. The validation of the website was done by self-administered, structured and validated 13 item questionnaire by the same subjects. RESULTS All faculty and PG felt the need of such common platform for public health dentist. Around 82% (n=23) PHD realized need of a common platform during their post-graduation days. Approximately, 85% of PHD (n=24) and 81% of PG (n=20) felt that more information needs to be added in this website once it was fully functional. A scholastic and interactive web portal was developed with domain name www.publichealthdentistryworld.com. All the PHD (n=25) and 92% of PG (n=23) considered research section appropriate. Majority of PHD (n=24) and PG (n=22) agreed Literature Search Section of the website was appropriate . More than three fourth of the study participants agreed that the website was user friendly and aesthetically designed. CONCLUSIONS www.publichealthdentistryworld.com is a scholastic platform designed for Public Health Dentist and is a novel approach as till date no such interactive and innovative platform exits which will bring all the public health dentist in India on one platform.

Love and Anger in Global Party Politics

The reactions feature of Facebook provides an opportunity to explore emotional responses to political messages across the globe on a common platform. In this article, we describe this new measure and present a dataset of over two million posts from the Facebook pages of 690 political parties in 79 democracies. We study Love and Angry reactions to these posts, their potential use as measures of emotional response, and party-level variation in the frequency of these reactions. We find that parties receive systematically different proportions of Love and Angry reactions depending on their ideology, party family, and populist orientation. More extreme parties tend to elicit relatively greater emotional responses. Nationalist, populist, and right-leaning parties in particular elicit a higher proportion of Angry reactions and emotional polarization.

Blut : Blood Donation Application

Blood Donation Management System is an android application that brings voluntary blood donors and those in need of blood on to a common platform. The mission is to fulfil every blood request in the country with a Promising android application and motivated individuals who are willing to donate blood. The proposed work aims to overcome the communication barrier between donors and receivers and aims to encourage people to donate blood by providing motivational videos and quotes in the app. This project will contain details about medical history of the donors and blood camps. We also aim to create misconceptions that people has regarding blood donation. This project aims at servicing the persons who seek donors who are willing to donate blood and also provide it in the time frame required. Blood Donation Management System tries to assist Victims/patients/those in want of blood. It is an endeavor to achieve dead set these people in want of blood and connect them to those willing to donate. The proposed work explores to find blood donors by using the blood group and address they have filled during registration