Critical Analysis on Detection and Mitigation of Security Vulnerabilities in Virtualization Data Centers

There is an increasing demand for IT resources in growing business enterprises. Data center virtualization helps to meet this increasing demand by driving higher server utilization and utilizing un-used CPU cycles without causes much increase in new servers. Reduction in infrastructure complexities, Optimization of cost of IT system management, power and cooling are some of the additional benefits of virtualization. Virtualization also brings various security vulnerabilities. They are prone to attacks like hyperjacking, intrusion, data thefts, denial of service attacks on virtualized servers and web facing applications etc. This works identifies the security challenges in virtualization. A critical analysis on existing state of art works on detection and mitigation of various vulnerabilities is presented. The aim is to identify the open issues and propose prospective solutions in brief for these open issues

Peptides as therapeutics and active gene delivery vehicles for cancer treatment

Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of AgronomyMasaaki TamuraOver the years proteins/peptides have evolved as promising therapeutic agents in the treatment of cancer. Considering the advantages of peptides such as their small size, ease of synthesis, tumor-penetrating ability and bio-compatibility, present report discusses proof of concept for 1. C1B5 peptide of protein kinase Cγ and a low dose of gemcitabine combination treatment for peritoneally disseminated pancreatic cancer and 2. dTAT peptide nanoparticles mediated gene (angiotensin II type 2 receptor gene) therapy for lung cancer. 1. A significant reduction in intraperitoneally (IP) transplanted pancreatic carcinoma growth was demonstrated with C1B5 peptide and gemcitabine co-treatment in an immunocompetent mouse model. Increased number of Granzyme B positive cells was observed in treated mice ascites, suggesting the involvement of immune response in tumor attenuation. The strong effect observed in combination treatment might be because of increase in lymphocyte recruitment by gemcitabine followed by C1B5 peptide mediated CD8+ T-cells or NK cells activation apart from direct cancer cell apoptosis. 2. To test dTAT peptide nanoparticles (dTAT NPs) mediated therapeutic gene delivery, luciferase reporter gene containing dTAT nanoparticles were synthesized (dTAT/pLUC/Ca2+). Synthesis conditions for nanoparticles were optimized based on dTAT/pLUC/Ca2+ nanoparticles transfection efficiency. With the optimized conditions, dTAT NPs containing AT2R, TRAIL or miR-34a pDNA (dTAT/pAT2R, dTAT/TRAIL or dTAT/miR- 34a) were synthesized. Therapeutic potential of these NPs was analyzed in lung adenocarcinoma containing mice by administering them intravenously (IV) or/and intratracheally (IV). Combination treatment with the IV injection of the new dTAT/pAT2R/Ca2+ formulation and the IT injection of the original dTAT/pAT2R/Ca2+ formulation is effective in attenuation of developed human bronchioloalveolar carcinoma in the SCID mouse lungs. Findings from the above mentioned studies have vital clinical relevance as it implies that peptides alone or when used as gene delivery systems may prove to be beneficial in the treatment of various stages of cancer

A Novel Energy Aware Clustering Mechanism with Fuzzy Logic in MANET Environment

A Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) comprises of the vast range of devices such as sensors, smart phones, laptops and other mobile devices that connect with each other across wireless networks and collaborate in a dispersed fashion to offer network functions in the absence of a permanent infrastructure. The Cluster Head (CH) selection in a clustered MANET is still crucial for lowering each node's energy consumption and increasing the network's lifetime. However, in existing clustering mechanism trust of the all nodes are presumed those causes increased challenge in the MANET environment. Security is a crucial factor when constructing ad-hoc networks. In a MANET, energy consumption in route optimization is dependent on network resilience and connectivity. The primary objective of this study is to design a reliable clustering mechanism for MANETs that takes energy efficiency into account. For trusted energy-efficient CH in the nodes, a safe clustering strategy integrating energy-efficient and fuzzy logic based energy clustering is proposed to address security problems brought about by malicious nodes and to pick a trustworthy node as CH. To improve the problem findings Bat algorithm (BAT) is integrated with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The PSO technique is inspired because it imitates the sociological characteristics of the flock of the birds through random population. The BAT is a metaheuristic algorithm inspired by microbat echolocation behavior that uses pulse average with global optimization of the average path in the network. Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization (HPSO) and BAT techniques are applied to identify the best route between the source and destination. According to the simulation results, the suggested Fuzzy logic Particle Swarm Optimization BAT (FLPSO-BAT) technique has a minimum latency of 0.0019 milliseconds, with energy consumption value of 0.09 millijoules, maximal throughput of 0.76 bits per sec and detection rate of 90.5% without packet dropping attack

Identification and characterization of unique tumoricidal genes in rat umbilical cord matrix stem cells

Master of ScienceDepartment of Anatomy & PhysiologyMasaaki TamuraRat umbilical cord matrix stem cells (UCMSC) have been shown to exhibit a remarkable ability to control rat mammary adenocarcinoma (Mat B III) cell proliferation both in vivo and in vitro. To study the underlying mechanisms and genes involved in Mat B III growth attenuation, total RNA was extracted from the naïve rat UCMSC alone and those co-cultured with Mat B III in Transwell culture dishes. Gene expression profiles of naive rat UCMSC alone and those cocultured with Mat B III cells were investigated by microarray analysis using an Illumina RatRef- 12 Expression BeadChip. The comparison of gene expression profiles between untreated and cocultured rat UCMSC identified five up-regulated candidate genes (follistatin (FST), sulfatase1 (SULF-1), glucose phosphate isomerase (GPI), HtrA serine peptidase (HTRA1), and adipocyte differentiation-related protein (ADRP)) and two down-regulated candidate genes (transforming growth factor, beta-induced, 68kDa (TGFβI) and podoplanin (PDPN)) based upon the following screening criteria: 1) expression of the candidate genes should show at least a 1.5 fold change in rat UCMSC co-cultured with Mat B III cells; 2) candidate genes encode secretory proteins; and 3) they encode cell growth-related proteins. Following confirmation of gene expression by real time-PCR, ADRP, SULF-1 and GPI were selected for further analysis. Addition of specific neutralizing antibodies against these three gene products individually in co-cultures of 1:20 rat UCMSC:Mat B III cells significantly increased cell proliferation, implying that these gene products are produced under the co-cultured condition and functionally attenuate cell growth. Immunoprecipitation followed by Western blot analysis demonstrated that these proteins are indeed secreted into the culture medium. Individual over-expression of these three genes in rat UCMSC significantly enhanced UCMSC-dependent inhibition of cell proliferation in co-culture. These results suggest that ADRP, SULF-1 and GPI act as tumor suppressor genes, and these genes might be involved in rat UCMSC-dependent growth attenuation of rat mammary tumors