A Novel System for Confidential Medical Data Storage Using Chaskey Encryption and Blockchain Technology

يعد التخزين الآمن للمعلومات الطبية السرية أمرًا بالغ الأهمية لمنظمات الرعاية الصحية التي تسعى إلى حماية خصوصية المريض والامتثال للمتطلبات التنظيمية. في هذا البحث، نقدم نظامًا جديدًا للتخزين الآمن للبيانات الطبية باستخدام تقنية تشفير Chaskey و blockchain. يستخدم النظام تشفير Chaskey لضمان سرية وسلامة البيانات الطبية، وتكنولوجيا blockchain لتوفير حلول تخزين البيانات الطبية بحيث يكون قابل للتطوير ويتميز باللامركزية. يستخدم النظام أيضًا تقنيات Bflow للتجزئة ومنها التجزئة الرأسية لتعزيز قابلية التوسع وإدارة البيانات المخزنة. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، يستخدم النظام العقود الذكية لفرض سياسات التحكم في الوصول والتدابير الأمنية الأخرى. سنقدم وصف للنظام المقترح بالتفصيل ونقدم تحليلاً لخصائصه الأمنية والأداء. تظهر نتائجنا أن النظام يوفر حلاً آمنًا للغاية وقابل للتطوير لتخزين البيانات الطبية السرية، مع تطبيقات محتملة في مجموعة واسعة من إعدادات الرعاية الصحية.Secure storage of confidential medical information is critical to healthcare organizations seeking to protect patient's privacy and comply with regulatory requirements. This paper presents a new scheme for secure storage of medical data using Chaskey cryptography and blockchain technology. The system uses Chaskey encryption to ensure integrity and confidentiality of medical data, blockchain technology to provide a scalable and decentralized storage solution. The system also uses Bflow segmentation and vertical segmentation technologies to enhance scalability and manage the stored data. In addition, the system uses smart contracts to enforce access control policies and other security measures. The description of the system detailing and provide an analysis of its security and performance characteristics. The resulting images were tested against a number of important metrics such as Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Squared Error (MSE), bit error rate (BER), Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), Normalization Correlation (NC) and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM). Our results showing that the system provides a highly secure and scalable solution for storing confidential medical data, with potential applications in a wide range of healthcare settings

Functional Exploitation of Carob, Oat Flour, and Whey Permeate as Substrates for a Novel Kefir-Like Fermented Beverage: An Optimized Formulation

This study investigated the fortification of a carob-based kefir-like beverage (KLB) with whey permeate (WP) and oat flour (OF). The response surface method was used to show the effect of WP and OF concentrations on lactic acid bacteria and yeast cell densities, pH, total titratable acidity (TTA), total phenolics content (TCP), DPPH radical scavenging activity, and overall acceptability (OA) in KLB. The statistical design provided thirteen formulations where OF concentration varied from 3% to 5% and WP from 10% to 15%. The enrichment of carob pods decoction with WP and OF had a positive effect on biomass production. Overall fermentation was shown to increase TPC of KLB. Furthermore, OF supplementation led to the higher levels of TPC and antiradical activity. WP negatively affected OA at linear and quadratic levels, whereas no effect of OF was observed at the linear level. The optimum point was found by using WP at 11.51% and OF at 4.77%. Optimized KLB resulted in an enrichment of bioavailable phenolics derivatives and highly digestible proteins

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Microbiological, Biochemical, and Functional Aspects of Fermented Vegetable and Fruit Beverages

In recent years, the request for the functional beverages that promote health and wellness has increased. In fact, fermented juices are an excellent delivering means for bioactive components. Their production is of crucial importance to supply probiotics, in particular, for people with particulars needs like dairy-product allergic consumers and vegetarians. This review focuses on recent findings regarding the microbial composition and the health benefits of fermented fruit and vegetable beverages by lactic acid bacteria, kefir grains, and SCOBY as well as discussing the metabolites resulting from these fermentations process. Moreover, limits that could restrain their production at the industrial level and solutions that have been proposed to overcome these constraints are also reviewed

A Survey on Trust Management for WBAN: Investigations and Future Directions

The rapid uptake of the Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) and their services poses unprecedented security requirements. WBAN are evolving to support these requirements. Fulfilling these tasks is challenging as their mobile context is increasingly complex, heterogeneous, and evolving. One potential solution to meet the WBAN security requirements is trust management that helps to reach a more secure and adaptable WBAN environment. Accordingly, this article aims to serve as a brief survey of trust management approaches within intra-WBAN and inter-WBAN. For that, we first summarize trust management concepts, discuss WBAN challenges and classify the attacks on WBAN trust management models. Subsequently, we detail and compare the existing trust based approaches in a WBAN context. We pinpoint their limitations and provide a new classification of these different approaches. We also propose a set of best practices that may help the reader to build a robust and an efficient trust management framework. We complete this survey by highlighting the open future directions and perspectives for research

Investigation on the Integrated Cloud and BlockChain (ICBC)Technologies to Secure Healthcare Data Management Systems

International audienceBlockchain is emerging as one of the most promising and resourceful security technologies for cloud infrastructures. In a distributed database system, blockchain is used to store, read, and validate transactions. It can improve security, trustworthiness, and privacy by using an unchallengeable, shared distributed ledger on cloud nodes. Cloud-based healthcare systems (CHS) are vulnerable to various threats and attacks such as identity theft, medical fraud, insurance fraud, and alteration of critical patient data. Secure retrieval, access, and storage of data on CHS are necessary to protect critical medical data. Accordingly, the integrated cloud and BlockChain (ICBC) architecture emerge as a potential solution for shaping the next era of a healthcare system while providing efficient, secure, and effective patient care. In this context, this paper presents an in-depth exploration of advanced approaches to securing cloud-based healthcare data management systems using blockchain technologies. It provides a taxonomy and highlights the benefits and limitations of the approaches examined