Plasma metabonomics investigation reveals involvement of fatty acid oxidation in hematotoxicity in Chinese benzene-exposed workers with low white blood cell count
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH
Authors: Sun, Rongli; Xu, Kai; Zhang, Qiaoyun; Jiang, Xiaoyun; Man, Zhaodi; Yin, Lihong; Zhang, Juan; Pu, Yuepu
Abstract
Benzene is an environmental and occupational contaminant. Health hazards associated with occupational benzene exposure is a major public health problem in China. In this study, we analyzed metabolite profiles among plasma samples collected from benzene-exposed workers with low white blood cell count (BLWs) and healthy controls using high-performance liquid chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. To screen potential benzene hematotoxicity biomarkers and metabolic pathways, principal component analysis was used to examine metabolite profile changes in plasma samples. The alterations in fatty acid oxidation (FAO) pathway were consistent with our previous findings in a mouse model; hence, two key genes were selected and verified in WBC samples. A total of nine identified metabolites were significantly changed in BLWs, which were involved in glutathione metabolism, porphyrin metabolism, lipid metabolism pathway, and FAO metabolism. Furthermore, compared with healthy controls, the mRNA expressions of carnitine acyltransferase (CRAT) and ACADVL were significantly increased in BLWs. Particularly, WBC counts was negatively correlated with the expression of AVADVL in BLWs. These aberrant metabolites could act as potential biomarkers for benzene hematotoxicity. In addition, fatty acid oxidation pathway may play a critical role in the development of hematotoxicity caused by benzene.
ICS-CRAT: A Cyber Resilience Assessment Tool for Industrial Control Systems
2019 IEEE 5TH INTL CONFERENCE ON BIG DATA SECURITY ON CLOUD (BIGDATASECURITY) / IEEE INTL CONFERENCE ON HIGH PERFORMANCE AND SMART COMPUTING (HPSC) / IEEE INTL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT DATA AND SECURITY (IDS)
Authors: Haque, Md Ariful; Shetty, Sachin; Krishnappa, Bheshaj
Abstract
In this work, we use a subjective approach to compute cyber resilience metrics for industrial control systems. We utilize the extended form of the R4 resilience framework and span the metrics over physical, technical, and organizational domains of resilience. We develop a qualitative cyber resilience assessment tool using the framework and a subjective questionnaire method. We make sure the questionnaires are realistic, balanced, and pertinent to ICS by involving subject matter experts into the process and following security guidelines and standards practices. We provide detail mathematical explanation of the resilience computation procedure. We discuss several usages of the qualitative tool by generating simulation results. We provide a system architecture of the simulation engine and the validation of the tool. We think the qualitative simulation tool would give useful insights for industrial control systems' overall resilience assessment and security analysis.