Standred interferon therapy and its Response rates in Chronic HCV Patients in District Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

To eradicate the Hepatitis C Virus from the bodies of the infected individuals Interferon and Ribavirin based therapy is used. HCV is highly prevalent in District Mardan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that is why it is important to determine the response of standard interferon based therapy in Chronic HCV patients of this region. A total of 215 patients were selected for interferon based therapy. The patients were selected from three different Tehsil of District Mardan. After confirmation of active HCV infection by q-PCR, standard interferon with Ribavirin was given to patients for 6 months. After completion of therapy, end of treatment virologic response (ETR) was calculated. After completion of the 6 months long therapy, the results obtained were as. Out of total 215 patients, 168 (78.13%) were negative for HCV RNA and showing end of treatment response (ETR) while 47 (21.86%) were positive for HCV RNA and did not show ETR. In Tehsil Mardan, out of 102 patients who had completed therapy, 76 patients (74.51%) showed ETR and 26 (25.49%) did not show the ETR. In Tehsil Kattlang, we found that out of total 51 patients who had taken 6 months therapy, 41 (80.39%) were negative for HCV RNA and 10 (19.61%) were resistant to therapy while in Tehsil Tkhatbhai, out of 62, 50 (80.64%) were negative and 12 (19.35%) were positive. The above discussion shows that antiviral therapy against HCV infection in chronic HCV patients of District Mardan KPK province is 78.13%. The high response rate may be due to the prevalence of genotypes 2 and 3

Stealthy Verification Mechanism to Defend SDN Against Topology Poisoning

Software-defined network (SDN) is an emerging networking paradigm that segregates functionalities of control and data plane to reduce their complexity and provides more control, scalability, and centralized management. OpenFlow (OF) is a widely used protocol that builds a global and shared view of the network. Therefore, for SDN applications, the correctness of the topology view has a critical impact on the flow-based communication and provision of services. However, recently identified vulnerabilities in Open Flow Discovery Protocol (OFDP) reveal that malicious hosts or data plane switches can poison the global view of the network, and an intruder can launch man-in-the-middle or denial of service attacks. Existing passive approach-based solutions work well for known attacks. Some solutions use an active approach to identify the fake links or malicious hosts by sending Stealthy Probing Verification (SPV) packets. However, due to the use of probing mechanism, it faces scalability and bandwidth consumption issues in the case of large data centers networks and resource limited networks. The proposed technique is based on the SPV mechanism, however, to counter the scalability and bandwidth issues, the probing packets are only initiated when triggered updates of a new link or network node are received by the SDN controller. The probing traffic has been reduced by 40%. Hence consume less bandwidth and identifies a malicious host in less than 90 ms. The results indicate that the Enhance Stealthy Probing Verification (ESPV) is a more scalable and suitable solution to detect and identify fake links or malicious hosts in large data center networks and resource limited networks such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)

In-Vitro Efficacy of Crude Extract of Zizipus Jujuba against Selected Bacterial Strains

Abstract- The research was assessed to evaluate the efficacy of crude extract of Zizipus jujuba against selected bacterial strains. The extract of Zizipus jujuba leaves was obtained by three different methods and the inhibition zones obtained through disc diffusion method. A decent antibacterial activity of Zizipus jujuba leaves crude extract of cold water and ethanol was found against Salmonella typhimurium and Staphylococcus aereus. Maximum zone of inhibition through cold water extract was obtained by Enterococcus feacalis (32mm) followed by Staphylococcus aureus (28mm), Salmonella typhimurium (27.52), Klebsilla pneumonia (19mm) and Escherichia coli (19mm). Similarly maximum zone of inhibition through ethanol extract was obtained by Staphylococcus aureus (28mm) followed by Salmonella typhimurium (27.52). The bacterial species showed no sensitivity against hot water extract due to the degradation of alkaloids in hot water. Mean observation taken was that these bacterial species can be inhibited by Zizipus jujuba plant. The study showed that Zizipus jujuba plant can be used to obtained antibiotics having less or no side effect, especially against Salmonella and staphylococcus aureus infections. Index Terms- Efficacy, Zizipus jujuba, Antibacterial activity, Cold water extract, zone of Inhibition

A Review of Circularly Polarized Dielectric Resonator Antennas: Recent Developments and Applications

A comprehensive review on recent developments and applications of circularly polarized (CP) dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs) is proposed in this paper. DRAs have received more considerations in various applications due to their advantages such as wide bandwidth, high gain, high efficiency, low losses, and low profile. A broad justification for circular polarization and DRAs is stated at the beginning of the review. Various techniques such as single feed, dual, or multiple feeds used by different researchers for generating circular polarization in DRAs are briefly studied in this paper. Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) CP DRAs, which can increase channel capacity, link reliability, and data rate, have also been analyzed. Additionally, innovative design solutions for broadening the circular polarization bandwidth and reducing mutual coupling are studied. Several applications of DRA are also discussed comprehensively. This paper finishes with concluding remarks