An Effective Hash-Based Assessment and Recovery Algorithm for Healthcare Systems

The immense improvements in the latest internet inventions encouraged the adaptation of technology within the healthcare sector. The healthcare systems storing highly sensitive information can be targeted by attackers aiming to insert, delete, or modify the data stored. These malicious activities may cause severe damage to the database accessibility and lead to catastrophic long-term harm to the patients’ health. The adaptation of the most advanced security paradigm does not guarantee full protection. It is possible that the attack is not directly detected. This highlights the need to assess the widespread damage scale before starting the repair of the inconsistent medical database. Within the scope of the damage assessment and recovery, several matrices-based, cluster-based, and graph-based models were introduced. The objective of this work is to correctly assess the damage and recover the database within a suitable time frame and efficient utilization of memory. We use a lightweight structure based on hash tables to gauge the incurred damage and recuperate quickly following an attack. The presented approach is contrasted with other existing ones and demonstrated superior performance

Current research in multilingualism and education in Lebanon : a report

In their research report the authors introduce 11 research projects in the area of multilingualism and education currently undertaken in Lebanon. A number of projects tackle the issue of multilingualism and language learning. Empirical studies describe students' perceptions as well as the perspectives of their teachers and discuss consequences for educational practices in schools and universities. The authors present the contributions in three groups: The section on 'Multiculturalism' between yesterday and today' comprises papers dealing various aspects of multicultural aspects of life and communication, whereas the focus of the second group, 'Special cases of multilingualism', is on specific patterns of multilingual communication. The contributions of the last section, 'Multiculturalism and education', discuss a variety of language related issues in multilingual education. The overall aim of the article is to present the studies to a wider public and encourage a more international discussion of these issues which are relevant in many countries around the Mediterranean.peer-reviewe

Transforming mosques into a containment space during natural disasters; browsing through recent publications

Mosques around the world have been serving the Muslim community for religious and social purposes since the beginning of Islam. Mosques have played an important role to educate and create a peaceful yet proper cosmos for its visitors. However, nowadays, mosques are not only used for its educational component, but on occasion have been transformed into places to serve multi-ethnic and multi-religious communities during natural disasters. This paper is an attempt to surf through the recent publications that discuss natural disasters and the containment of such incidents. Four case studies have been presented to draw a picture of a mosque’s role before, during and after natural disasters. Although many researchers have investigated this role, there still is an urgent need to understand the several examples of cases globally and the issues the researchers have dealt with in such incidents. Selected papers have been reviewed to study the conclusions found in the most recent publications in this field. The aim of this paper is to find out the missing aspects and the gap in the literature for the purpose of future studies and designs

A parallelized database damage assessment approach after cyberattack for healthcare systems

In the current Internet of things era, all companies shifted from paper-based data to the electronic format. Although this shift increased the efficiency of data processing, it has security drawbacks. Healthcare databases are a precious target for attackers because they facilitate identity theft and cybercrime. This paper presents an approach for database damage assessment for healthcare systems. Inspired by the current behavior of COVID-19 infections, our approach views the damage assessment problem the same way. The malicious transactions will be viewed as if they are COVID-19 viruses, taken from infection onward. The challenge of this research is to discover the infected transactions in a minimal time. The proposed parallel algorithm is based on the transaction dependency paradigm, with a time complexity O((M+NQ+Nˆ3)/L) (M = total number of transactions under scrutiny, N = number of malicious and affected transactions in the testing list, Q = time for dependency check, and L = number of threads used). The memory complexity of the algorithm is O(N+KL) (N = number of malicious and affected transactions, K = number of transactions in one area handled by one thread, and L = number of threads). Since the damage assessment time is directly proportional to the denial-of-service time, the proposed algorithm provides a minimized execution time. Our algorithm is a novel approach that outperforms other existing algorithms in this domain in terms of both time and memory, working up to four times faster in terms of time and with 120,000 fewer bytes in terms of memory

Scheduling Household Appliances using Genetic Algorithms

Smart grids with their advanced communication capabilities and sensing methodologies introduce a smart manner for energy management systems. In fact, the fast development of smart grid technologies provide an advanced control over the energy offered and consumed by the suppliers and the consumers of the electricity, respectively. The growing usage of electricity is leading to an increased demand on the following scarce resources: energy, oil and coal. This will result in increasing electricity prices. Moreover, the continuing growth of electricity is negatively affecting the environment. Therefore, coming up with a planned schedule for household appliances for controlling Demand Side Management in smart grids is beneficial on the economic and environmental level. In this paper, we present a scheduling algorithm using heuristic optimization that will serve as a solution to create a schedule for home appliances that minimizes the monetary expenses and protects the environment indirectly

Salivary biomarkers for the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological diseases

Current research efforts on neurological diseases are focused on identifying novel disease biomarkers to aid in diagnosis, provide accurate prognostic information and monitor disease progression. With advances in detection and quantification methods in genomics, proteomics and metabolomics, saliva has emerged as a good source of samples for detection of disease biomarkers. Obtaining a sample of saliva offers multiple advantages over the currently tested biological fluids as it is a non-invasive, painless and simple procedure that does not require expert training or harbour undesirable side effects for the patients. Here, we review the existing literature on salivary biomarkers and examine their validity in diagnosing and monitoring neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism and Alzheimer\u27s, Parkinson\u27s and Huntington\u27s disease. Based on the available research, amyloid beta peptide, tau protein, lactoferrin, alpha-synuclein, DJ-1 protein, chromogranin A, huntingtin protein, DNA methylation disruptions, and micro-RNA profiles display a reliable degree of consistency and validity as disease biomarkers

eHealth Technology: What Do We Know and What do We Need to Learn

eHealth is the use of information and communication technologies for health. eHealth serves multiple utilization purposes for storage, exchange, and retrieval of digital data for administrative, clinical, educational and research purposes. The ultimate purpose of the eHealth use globally is to promote health for individuals efficiently and effectively [1].A growing body of evidence reveals potential benefits of eHealth on delivery of health care that are cost-effective and responsive to patient’s needs without compromising the quality of service [2]. Systematic reviews revealed promising results on improvement of patient outcomes with implementation of eHealth services [3] especially with challenging behavioral lifestyle modifications such as improving medication adherence [4] physical activity [5] and HIV prevention [6] as well as addressing mental health [7].With the continuous evolution of eHealth services, challenges to its application and utilization are on rise. Systematic review identified multiple challenges. First, stakeholders and systems users need to have enough training to use the eHealth technology effectively and optimally. Second, the robustness of the technology and its interoperability such as integrity of data and security concerns [8]. Third, capital and startup costs and maintenance can be too costly. Fourth, legal clarity and legal framework challenge relates to legal issues such as privacy [9]. Fifth, organizational context pertains to the environment where eHealth technology is utilized [10]. A critical focus on the emerging technologies currently provides the next context for the integration of eHealth data in every aspect of human activity. The Internet of Things will cause an unpredicted explosion in the delivery of directed custom-made eHealth services to human beings; and thus, the new generation of eHealth data movement will exploit this feature to its full potential. In a way the matching of eHealth services to human needs will incorporate the identification, distribution, and management of many machine-generated eHealth data.With the most documented challenges reported, what are the lessons learnt and how do we tackle them? Opportunities for confronting such challenges are proposed. Investment in advancing competencies of human resources in relation to information systems design and implementation as deemed crucial for optimal utilization of eHealth technology. Governments and national bodies should support eHealth technology to achieve its optimal purposes and become incorporated in health organizations. Researchers and clinicians also need to learn how to apply eHealth technology fully to extend their ability to study and influence health behavior as well as engage patients.</p