The importance of looking into microgrid security is getting more crucial due to the cyber vulnerabilities introduced by digitalization and the increasing dependency on information and communication technology (ICT) systems. Especially with a current academic unanimity on the incremental significance of the microgrid’s role in building the future smart grid, this article addresses the existing approaches attending to cyber-physical security in power systems from a microgrid-oriented perspective. First, we start with a brief descriptive review of the most commonly used terms in the latest relevant literature, followed by a comprehensive presentation of the recent efforts explored in a manner that helps the reader to choose the appropriate future research direction among several fields.

Dicentric chromosomes are a relevant marker of chromosomal instability. Their appearance is associated with telomere dysfunction, leading to cancer progression and a poor clinical outcome. Here, we present Telomere and Centromere staining followed by M-FISH (TC+M-FISH) for improved detection of telomere dysfunction and the identification of dicentric chromosomes in cancer patients and various genetic syndromes. Significant telomere length shortening and significantly higher frequencies of telomere loss and deletion were found in the peripheral lymphocytes of patients with cancer and genetic syndromes relative to similar age-matched healthy donors. We assessed our technique against conventional cytogenetics for the detection of dicentric chromosomes by subjecting metaphase preparations to both approaches. We identified dicentric chromosomes in 28/50 cancer patients and 21/44 genetic syndrome patients using our approach, but only 7/50 and 12/44, respectively, using standard cytogenetics. We ascribe this discrepancy to the identification of the unique configuration of dicentric chromosomes. We observed significantly higher frequencies of telomere loss and deletion in patients with dicentric chromosomes (p < 10⁻⁴). TC+M-FISH analysis is superior to classical cytogenetics for the detection of chromosomal instability. Our approach is a relatively simple but useful tool for documenting telomere dysfunction and chromosomal instability with the potential to become a standard additional diagnostic tool in medical genetics and the clinic.

Background: We analyzed telomere maintenance mechanisms (TMMs) in lymph node samples from HL patients treated with standard therapy. The TMMs correlated with clinical outcomes of patients. Materials and Methods: Lymph node biopsies obtained from 38 HL patients and 24 patients with lymphadenitis were included in this study. Seven HL cell lines were used as in vitro models. Telomerase activity (TA) was assessed by TRAP assay and verified through hTERT immunofluorescence expression; alternative telomere lengthening (ALT) was also assessed, along with EBV status. Results: Both TA and ALT mechanisms were present in HL lymph nodes. Our findings were reproduced in HL cell lines. The highest levels of TA were expressed in CD30−/CD15− cells. Small cells were identified with ALT and TA. Hodgkin and Reed Sternberg cells contained high levels of PML bodies, but had very low hTERT expression. There was a significant correlation between overall survival (p < 10⁻³), event-free survival (p < 10⁻⁴), and freedom from progression (p < 10⁻³) and the presence of an ALT profile in lymph nodes of EBV+ patients. Conclusion: The presence of both types of TMMs in HL lymph nodes and in HL cell lines has not previously been reported. TMMs correlate with the treatment outcome of EBV+ HL patients.

In the event of a radiological or nuclear accident, or when physical dosimetry is not available, the scoring of radiation-induced chromosomal aberrations in lymphocytes constitutes an essential tool for the estimation of the absorbed dose of the exposed individual and for effective triage. Cytogenetic biodosimetry employs different cytogenetic assays including the scoring of dicentrics, micronuclei, and translocations as well as analyses of induced premature chromosome condensation to define the frequency of chromosome aberrations. However, inherent challenges using these techniques include the considerable time span from sampling to result, the sensitivity and specificity of the various techniques, and the requirement of highly skilled personnel. Thus, techniques that obviate these challenges are needed. The introduction of telomere and centromere (TC) staining have successfully met these challenges and, in addition, greatly improved the efficiency of cytogenetic biodosimetry through the development of automated approaches, thus reducing the need for specialized personnel. Here, we review the role of the various cytogenetic dosimeters and their recent improvements in the management of populations exposed to genotoxic agents such as ionizing radiation. Finally, we discuss the emerging potentials to exploit these techniques in a wider spectrum of medical and biological applications, e.g., in cancer biology to identify prognostic biomarkers for the optimal triage and treatment of patients.

In this paper, we study the solving of the gridless sparse optimization problem and its application to 3D image deconvolution. Based on the recent works of [14] introducing the sliding Frank–Wolfe algorithm to solve the Beurling LASSO problem, we introduce an accelerated algorithm, denoted BSFW, that preserves its convergence properties, while removing most of the costly local descents. Besides, as the solving of BLASSO still relies on a regularization parameter, we introduce a homotopy algorithm to solve the constrained BLASSO that allows to use a more practical parameter based on the image residual, e.g. its standard deviation. Both algorithms benefit from a finite termination property, i.e. they are guaranteed to find the solution in a finite number of step under mild conditions. These methods are then applied on the problem of 3D tomographic diffractive microscopy images, with the purpose of explaining the image by a small number of atoms in convolved observations. Numerical results on synthetic and real images illustrates the improvement provided by the BSFW method, the homotopy method and their combination.

A crucial step in nonintrusive load monitoring (NILM) is feature extraction, which consists of signal processing techniques to extract features from voltage and current signals. This paper presents a new time-frequency feature based on Stockwell transform. The extracted features aim to describe the shape of the current transient signal by applying an energy measure on the fundamental and the harmonic frequency voices. In order to validate the proposed methodology, classical machine learning tools are applied (k-NN and decision tree classifiers) on two existing datasets (Controlled On/Off Loads Library (COOLL) and Home Equipment Laboratory Dataset (HELD1)). The classification rates achieved are clearly higher than that for other related studies in the literature, with 99.52% and 96.92% classification rates for the COOLL and HELD1 datasets, respectively.