Osteopathic Touch: The Best Diagnostic & Therapeutic Tool - Osteopathic Diagnosis & Treatment for Nephrolithiasis

Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy (OMT) is a set of osteopathic techniques that involves manipulation of the musculoskeletal system using the hands. It offers a supplement to standard modes of diagnosis and treatment, and is a key component of the osteopathic holistic approach to medicine. Despite growing numbers of osteopathic physicians in the United States, OMT continues to be an underutilized asset in a plethora of medical conditions. With the merger of osteopathic and allopathic residency programs, restructuring of standardized curricula to a pass/fail format, and further changes uniting the two tracks of physician education, OMT remains one of the few facets of training that makes osteopathic physicians unique. It is a powerful diagnostic tool that can aid in diagnosis prior to obtaining advanced studies such ultrasound, and is just as useful in standalone treatment or as adjuvant to more invasive therapies like surgery. In a survey of osteopathic physicians, lack of further OMT training in graduate medical education is cited as the most common barrier to using OMT in their practice. We present the application of four OMT techniques to one of the most prevalent and costly urologic conditions globally - nephrolithiasis. Nephrolithiasis is quite common in men and women of all ages, though especially prevalent in young adult men. According to a 2014 article, treatment of renal stones had an annual cost exceeding five billion dollars.3 Nephrolithiasis commonly presents with flank pain that may radiate to the groin and pelvic area. Accompanying symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, frequency, dysuria and hematuria. These symptoms can make it quite difficult for patients to sit comfortably, complicating their ability to perform tasks of daily living. With advances in minimally invasive procedures, surgical intervention and pain medications are a standard of treatment. OMT can serve as a supplement to traditional approaches in pain management, and in some cases, a non-invasive alternative to facilitate stone passing. Our aim is to educate urologists and urology residents about the usefulness of OMT in their specialty, and using this example, encourage both osteopathic and allopathic physicians across specialties to incorporate OMT in their practice

A Performance Comparison of Ciphering Algorithms with the sWIFI Algorithm

Abstract -Ciphering algorithms play a main role in WLAN security systems. However, those algorithms consume a significant amount of computing resources such as CPU time, and packet size. In an attempt to remedy the WLAN security issue, a novel method has been deployed to secure the transmitted data over wireless network, called a secure WiFi (sWiFi) algorithm. This paper also provides evaluation of five encryption algorithms: AES (Rijndael), DES, 3DES, Blowfish, and the proposed algorithm (sWiFi). We examine a method for analyzing trade-off between efficiency and security. A comparison has been conducted for those encryption algorithms at different settings for each algorithm such as different sizes of data blocks, different platforms (Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux) and different encryption/decryption speed