University of Cagliari

About: University of Cagliari is a education organization based out in Cagliari, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Dopamine. The organization has 11029 authors who have published 29046 publications receiving 771023 citations. The organization is also known as: Università degli Studi di Cagliari & Universita degli Studi di Cagliari.

DroidScribe: Classifying Android Malware Based on Runtime Behavior

Abstract: The Android ecosystem has witnessed a surge in malware, which not only puts mobile devices at risk but also increases the burden on malware analysts assessing and categorizing threats. In this paper, we show how to use machine learning to automatically classify Android malware samples into families with high accuracy, while observing only their runtime behavior. We focus exclusively on dynamic analysis of runtime behavior to provide a clean point of comparison that is dual to static approaches. Specific challenges in the use of dynamic analysis on Android are the limited information gained from tracking low-level events and the imperfect coverage when testing apps, e.g., due to inactive command and control servers. We observe that on Android, pure system calls do not carry enough semantic content for classification and instead rely on lightweight virtual machine introspection to also reconstruct Android-level inter-process communication. To address the sparsity of data resulting from low coverage, we introduce a novel classification method that fuses Support Vector Machines with Conformal Prediction to generate high-accuracy prediction sets where the information is insufficient to pinpoint a single family.

Genetic Selection and Differential Stress Responses : The Roman Lines/Strains of Rats

Abstract: ETH, Institut fur Natztierwissenschaften, Schorenstrasse 16, CH-8603 Schwerzenbach, Switzerland Autonomous University of Barcelona, Medical Psychology Unit, E-08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain University of Santiago de Compostela, Department of Psychobiology, E-15705 Santiago de Compostela, Spain University of Cagliari, Department of Toxicology, Viale A. Diaz 182, I-09126 Cagliari, Italy University of Magdeburg, Anatomy Institute, Leipzigerstrasse 44, D-39120 Magdeburg, Germany IUPG, Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, 100 avenue de Bel-Air, CH-1225 Chene-Bourg (GE), Switzerland NV Organon, RE 2211, P.O. Box 20, NL-5340 BH Oss, the Netherlands University of Oxford, Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, GB-Oxford OX3 9DU, England University of Groningen, Department of Animal Physiology, Kerklaan 30, P.O. Box 14, NL-9750 AA Haren, the Netherlands University of Delaware, Departments of Psychology and Biology, Newark, Delaware 19716 USA

Antimicrobial peptides: natural templates for synthetic membrane-active compounds.

Abstract: The innate immunity of multicellular organisms relies in large part on the action of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) to resist microbial invasion. Crafted by evolution into an extremely diversified array of sequences and folds, AMPs do share a common amphiphilic 3-D arrangement. This feature is directly linked with a common mechanism of action that predominantly (although not exclusively) develops upon interaction of peptides with cell membranes of target cells. This minireview reports on current understanding of the modes of interaction of AMPs with biological and model membranes, especially focusing on recent insights into the folding and oligomerization requirements of peptides to bind and insert into lipid membranes and exert their antibiotic effects. Given the potential of AMPs to be developed into a new class of anti-infective agents, emphasis is placed on how the information on peptide-membrane interactions could direct the design and selection of improved biomimetic synthetic peptides with antibiotic properties.

CoFe2O4 and CoFe2O4/SiO2 Core/Shell Nanoparticles: Magnetic and Spectroscopic Study

Abstract: Spherical nanoparticles of surfactant-coated CoFe2O4 (core) were prepared through thermal decomposition of metal acetylacetonates in the presence of a mixture of oleic acid and oleylamine and uniformly coated with silica shell by using tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) and ammonia in a micellar solution (core/shell). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis of core/shell nanoparticles evidenced the high homogeneity of the coating process in producing single core/shell nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution. The combined use of spectroscopic studies (NMR and FTIR) on core and core/shell nanoparticles pointed out that the surfactants’ layer bound to the surface core nanoparticles is retained also after the silica coating process. This allows to obtaining systems with very similar magnetic behavior but weaker dipolar interparticle interactions and lower values of saturation magnetization. In view of the interest in biomedical field, the effect of the CoFe2O4 nanoparticles silica coating was also s...