A novel smart contract based blockchain with sidechain for electronic voting

Several countries have been researching digital voting methods in order to overcome the challenges of paper balloting and physical voting. The recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic has compelled the remote implementation of existing systems and procedures. Online voting will ultimately become the norm just like unified payments interface (UPI) payments and online banking. With digital voting or electronic voting (e-voting) a small bug can cause massive vote rigging. E-voting must be honest, exact, safe, and simple. E-voting is vulnerable to malware, which can disrupt servers. Blockchain’s end-to-end validation solves these problems. Three smart contracts-voter, candidate, and voting-are employed. The problem of fraudulent actions is addressed using vote coins. Vote coins indicate voter status. Sidechain technology complements blockchain. Sidechains improve blockchain functionality by performing operations outside of blockchains and delivering the results to the mainchain. Thus, storing the encrypted vote on the sidechain and using the decrypted result on the mainchain reduces cost. Building access control policies to grant only authorized users’ access to the votes for counting is made simpler by this authorization paradigm. Results of the approach depict the proposed e-voting system improves system security against replay attacks and reduces the processing cost as well as processing time

Biotech 3

Not AvailableThe present study was taken up to understand the phylogenetic relationship using ITS and TEF markers among 22 isolates of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lentis (Fol) causing lentil wilt belonging to eight races isolated from different geographic locations of India and to develop specific markers for its detection. The nucleotide sequences of ITS region varied from 490 to 560 bp whereas, 670?725 bp for TEF 1?. The phylogeny analysis revealed that the isolates were more than 98% similar based on the neighbour joining analysis and were grouped into two major clusters in both ITS and TEF. The first major cluster of ITS had twenty isolates whereas for TEF, there were 15 isolates. Two sets of SCAR markers MS1 (162 bp) and MS2 (125 bp) were designed and synthesised. These markers were used against race representative Fol isolates for amplification. While, MS 1 marker was able to detect the genomic DNA up to 0.1 ng, MS 2 could detect the Fol genomic DNA up to 0.05 ng. The specificity of these two markers to detect Fol and their inability to amplify most common lentil pathogens (Rhizoctonia solani, R. bataticola, Sclerotium rolfsii, Sclerotinia sclerotiarum, and Aschochyta rabiei) makes them a reliable tool for detection. The phylogenetic analysis is helpful in the understanding of variability in Fol populations and the SCAR markers help in rapid and reliable detection of an important pathogen of lentil

Impact of External Environment Factors on Human Resource Management Function, a Generic Model study with reference to Multi-National Companies in India

In this paper ,we explore models of  environmental analysis, organizational design and HR strategy. Thus the theme , is the interaction between human resource management (HRM), the environment and the organization (MNC in India) . The theoretical underpinning for this approach is the best-fit or contingency model of HR strategy, This model argues that there is no one model of HR strategy which suits all circumstances. Instead, different strategies are appropriate in different environmental and organizational settings. However we should bear  in mind that the best-fit model is not the only model of HR strategy. Other models include the best practice model, which argues that there is one approach to HR strategy; the high performance workplace model, which is suitable in nearly all organizational and environmental settings; and the resource-based model, which argues that resources, particularly human capital and core  competencies, are much more important for HR strategy than the environment

Plant Disease (Plant Disease Reporter)

Not AvailableDuring 2017 and 2018, distinct leaf anthracnose symptoms were observed on cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) from Wardha district, Maharashtra state, India. The appearance of symptoms coincided with greater humidity and intermittent rains during the months of August and September. Among 500 Bollgard-II cotton hybrids plants, nearly 20 to 30% were found affected, which showed 35 to 40% disease severity. Symptoms initially appeared as small, circular or irregular, sunken, chlorotic spots, which later turned brown with a dark border. As the disease progressed, lesions expanded and merged, causing necrosis of the whole leaf. For pathogen isolation, 15 randomly sampled symptomatic plants were brought to the laboratory. Diseased leaf sections (5 mm2) were surface disinfested with 1% NaClO for 2 min, rinsed three times in sterile water, dried with sterilized blotter paper, and then plated on potato dextrose agar. The plates were incubated at 25 ? 2?C for 5 days under a 12-h photoperiod. Three isolates (CS1, CS2, and CS3) were recovered from infected leaves. Purified colonies were initially white, turned gray with time, and had salmon-colored conidial masses embedded in the medium in a concentric ring pattern and black acervuli aggregated mainly in the center of the culture plate. Conidia were single celled, hyaline, cylindrical having rounded ends, smooth walls, guttulate, 9.6 to 16.9 ?m in length, and 3.5 to 6.0 ?m in width (n = 100). These morphological characteristics were consistent with the species description of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides complex (Weir et al. 2012). For molecular identification, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of rDNA and a partial sequence of the actin (ACT) and beta-tubulin (TUB2) genes of three isolates were amplified with ITS1/ITS4, ACT-512F/ACT-783R, and BT2Fd/BT4R primers, respectively (Damm et al. 2009). The ITS sequence (MH478170, 558 bp), ACT gene (MH494078, 283 bp), and TUB2 gene (MH494079, 321 bp) of representative isolate CS1 showed 99 to 100% identity with sequences (JX010171, FJ907423, and JX010404, respectively) obtained from the holotype isolate (BPD-I2) of Colletotrichum siamense Prihastuti, L. Cai & K.D. Hyde (Prihastuti et al. 2009; Weir et al. 2012). Pathogenicity was tested on 45-day-old Bollgard-II cotton hybrid plants by spore spray inoculation. Five plants for each isolate were inoculated with a conidial suspension (106 conidia/ml) (and control plants with sterilized water) and kept separately in a glass house at 25?C, >85% relative humidity, and a 12-h photoperiod. Plants were sprayed lightly with water in the morning and evening to maintain humidity and thus enhance the infection. The experiment was repeated. Anthracnose symptoms were observed 7 days after inoculation, whereas the control plants remained symptomless. The pathogen was reisolated from infected leaves and its identity as C. siamense confirmed based on morphological characteristics as well as on sequences of ITS, ACT, and TUB2 genes. To our knowledge, this is the first report of leaf anthracnose caused by C. siamense on cotton in India or globally. This report will be useful to plan for species-specific disease management strategies

A Review of Security Techniques against Black Hole Attacks in Mobile Ad hoc Networks

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a special type of a wireless network formed by nodes that communicate without any fixed infrastructure or centralised management. Nodes in MANET act as a router and a host. These nodes are free to join and leave the network. Routes are established by use of special routing protocols. Mobility of nodes makes the network topology dynamic at any given time. These unique features together with unsecured boundaries make the security of MANETs a challenging endeavor. MANETs are prone to attacks such black hole among others. Sometimes the black hole nodes cooperate forming cooperative black hole attack that drop or redirecting data packets. This paper reviews various security techniques and routing protocols against black hole attacks and establishes their limitations. The identified knowledge gaps will be used as a foundation for the development of a resilient security technique against collaborative black hole attacks