A Blockchain-Based Trusted Edge Platform in Edge Computing Environment.

Edge computing is a product of the evolution of IoT and the development of cloud computing technology, providing computing, storage, network, and other infrastructure close to users. Compared with the centralized deployment model of traditional cloud computing, edge computing solves the problems of extended communication time and high convergence traffic, providing better support for low latency and high bandwidth services. With the increasing amount of data generated by users and devices in IoT, security and privacy issues in the edge computing environment have become concerns. Blockchain, a security technology developed rapidly in recent years, has been adopted by many industries, such as finance and insurance. With the edge computing capability, deploying blockchain platforms/applications on edge computing platforms can provide security services for network edge environments. Although there are already solutions for integrating edge computing with blockchain in many IoT application scenarios, they slightly lack scalability, portability, and heterogeneous data processing. In this paper, we propose a trusted edge platform to integrate the edge computing framework and blockchain network for building an edge security environment. The proposed platform aims to preserve the data privacy of the edge computing client. The design based on the microservice architecture makes the platform lighter. To improve the portability of the platform, we introduce the Edgex Foundry framework and design an edge application module on the platform to improve the business capability of Edgex. Simultaneously, we designed a series of well-defined security authentication microservices. These microservices use the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain network to build a reliable security mechanism in the edge environment. Finally, we build an edge computing network using different hardware devices and deploy the trusted edge platform on multiple network nodes. The usability of the proposed platform is demonstrated by testing the round-trip time (RTT) of several important workflows. The experimental results demonstrate that the platform can meet the availability requirements in real-world usage scenarios.

Integrated Metabolomics and Proteomics Analysis Reveals Plasma Lipid Metabolic Disturbance in Patients With Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease in the elderly with a pathogenesis that remains unclear. We aimed to explore its pathogenesis through plasma integrated metabolomics and proteomics analysis. The clinical data of consecutively recruited PD patients and healthy controls were assessed. Fasting plasma samples were obtained and analyzed using metabolomics and proteomics methods. After that, differentially expressed metabolites and proteins were identified for further bioinformatics analysis. No significant difference was found in the clinical data between these two groups. Eighty-three metabolites were differentially expressed in PD patients identified by metabolomics analysis. These metabolites were predominately lipid and lipid-like molecules (63%), among which 25% were sphingolipids. The sphingolipid metabolism pathway was enriched and tended to be activated in the following KEGG pathway analysis. According to the proteomics analysis, forty proteins were identified to be differentially expressed, seven of which were apolipoproteins. Furthermore, five of the six top ranking Gene Ontology terms from cellular components and eleven of the other fourteen Gene Ontology terms from biological processes were directly associated with lipid metabolism. In KEGG pathway analysis, the five enriched pathways were also significantly related with lipid metabolism (p < 0.05). Overall, Parkinson's disease is associated with plasma lipid metabolic disturbance, including an activated sphingolipid metabolism and decreased apolipoproteins.

Increased Serum Alkaline Phosphatase in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke.

BACKGROUND: Stroke is one of the most common causes of disability and death. Higher alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels have been associated with poor functional outcomes and mortality in previous studies. We investigated alterations in serum ALP concentrations and functional outcomes in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS). METHODS: Patients with first-ever AIS were recruited to participate in the study. Serum ALP levels were measured using a Cobas Integra 400 Plus automatic biochemical analyzer, and severity of stroke was evaluated using the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score on admission. Functional outcome was measured using the modified Rankin scale 1 year after admission. RESULTS: Serum ALP concentration was increased in patients with AIS (81.75 ± 20.49 versus 69.93 ± 16.12 U/L, P = .000) and the optimal ALP cutoff point for diagnosing patients with AIS was 81.50 U/L, with a sensitivity of 49.5% and specificity of 78.9%. However, there was no significant correlation between ALP and NIHSS scores (r = .170, P = .085) and ALP was not significantly different between favorable and unfavorable functional outcomes (81.76 ± .60 versus 81.70 ± 20.54 U/L, P = .802). CONCLUSIONS: Serum ALP concentration, which was increased in patients with AIS, might represent a low-potency biomarker for the diagnosis of AIS. However, this was not significantly correlated with NIHSS scores or the functional outcome after 1 year.

Prognostic value of Sirtuin1 in acute ischemic stroke and its correlation with functional outcomes.

BACKGROUND: The blood-brain barrier is impaired in patients with stroke. The release of protein markers such as Sirtuin1 (SIRTl) into circulation may be useful to assess the prognosis of patients with cerebrovascular disease. In this study, we investigated the predictive value of SIRT1 levels in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients. METHODS: In all, 101 AIS patients and 38 healthy controls were enrolled, and blood samples were collected within 72 hours of stroke onset. SIRT1 was analyzed using a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit. On admission, neurological status was assessed by the standardized National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Functional outcomes were measured 1 year after admission using the modified Rankin scale. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, SIRT1 was significantly increased in the AIS group (0.63 ±â€Š0.75 vs 0.48 ±â€Š0.80 ng/mL; P ≤ 0.05). However, there was no significant correlation between SIRT1 and NIHSS score at admission (r = -0.01, P = .920). In addition, with an unadjusted odds ratio of 0.862 (95% confidence interval 0.495-1.502), SIRT1 was not significantly correlated with functional outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Serum concentrations of SIRT1 have no significant predictive value for favorable functional outcome after acute stroke in our study.

Identification of key aromatic compounds in Congou black tea by partial least-square regression with variable importance of projection scores and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry/gas chromatography-olfactometry.

BACKGROUND: Gas chromatography-olfactometry (GC-O) is the most frequently used method to estimate the sensory contribution of single odorant, but disregards the interactions between volatiles. In order to select the key volatiles responsible for the aroma attributes of Congou black tea (Camellia sinensis), instrumental, sensory and multivariate statistical approaches were applied. RESULTS: Using sensory analysis, nine panellists developed eight descriptors: floral, sweet, fruity, green, roasted, oil, spicy, and off-odour. Linalool, (E)-furan linalool oxide, (Z)-pyran linalool oxide, methyl salicylate, ß-myrcene, and phenylethyl alcohol, which were identified from the most representative samples by the GC-O procedure, were the essential aroma-active compounds in the formation of basic Congou black tea aroma. In addition, 136 volatiles were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), among which 55 compounds were determined as the key factors for six sensory attributes by partial least-square regression (PLSR) with variable importance of projection scores. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrated that headspace solid-phase microextraction/GC-MS/GC-O was a fast approach for isolation and quantification aroma-active compounds. The PLSR method was also considered to be a useful tool in selecting important variables for sensory attributes. These two strategies, which allowed us to comprehensively evaluate the sensorial contribution of a single volatile from different perspectives, can be applied to related products for comprehensive quality control. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.

[Progress in catechins oxidation products and their formation mechanism].

Catechins are the key components of tea and have a great impact on its quality. Catechins can be oxidized to form a new black tea polyphenols, some of which have better pharmacological effect. However, the formation mechanism of these new polyphenols is still unclear. In this paper, oxidation products coming from catechins and the formation mechanism of the new compounds are reviewed.It is the base of further study on theaflavins, thearubigins and theabrownines.