Assessment of nutritional status of preschool children of Gumbrit, North West Ethiopia

Background: Economically Ethiopia remains one of the poorest countries in the world and malnutrition is one of the major and most pressing health problems; especially among children. Objective: To assess the nutritional status of preschool children in a rural locality of Northwest Ethiopia Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a rural locality called Gumbrit. Weight and height of the study children were measured and the socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects were collected using a questionnaire. Results: The overall prevalence of malnutrition in the community was high with 28.5% of the children being underweight, 24% stunted and 17.7% wasted. Among the socio-economic variables included in the study only family income was significantly associated with malnutrition. Conclusion: The nutritional status of children in rural communities is affected by low family income. To improve nutritional status of children the full implementation of the poverty alleviation programmes should be considered and appropriate measures need to be taken to support needy families with children.The Ethiopian Journal of Health Development Vol. 21 (2) 2007: pp. 125-12

Factors associated with outcome of liver surgery and hepatocellular carcinoma

Chronic liver disease resulting in fibrosis and cirrhosis is associated with morbidity and mortality, irrespective of the etiology. Although major progress has been made in the medical management of patients with liver diseases, liver surgery remains the only curative treatment strategy for many conditions. Yet, factors such as perioperative bleeding, and the capacity of remnant liver to regenerate may affect the outcome following the liver surgery. In this thesis we conducted clinical and pre-clinical studies that aimed to gain better understanding of factors influencing the outcome of liver surgery. In addition, we evaluate if the development of HCC in patients with cirrhosis is associated with activation of primary hemostasis and whether or not the bioactive molecules within the platelets are altered in cirrhotic patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In addition, we studied the paradoxical relation of gamma glutamyl-transferase (GGT) with outcome in liver transplantation patients and in patients admitted to the intensive care unit

Investigating network services abstraction in 5G enabled device-to-device (D2D) communications

The increased demand of data rate by mobile users has led to the evolution of mobile network technologies from the fourth generation to fifth generation (5G). 5G mobile network will support various technologies that will be able to provide low latency, offload traffic and connect vertical industries. Device-to-device (D2D) communications will be used as the underlay technology for 5G network in the offloading of traffic from the cellular network and pushing content closer to the user. With D2D communication, various network services can be implemented to improve spectral efficiency and reduce energy consumption of mobile devices. This paper gives a brief overview of D2D communication and discusses different D2D applications. It proposes a network services abstraction and suggests the mapping of existing studies with the network service abstraction which can be used in the harnessing the development and implementation of D2D communication applications in 5G network. The paper also highlights possible future research for D2D communication in 5G network

An introduction of a modular framework for securing 5G networks and beyond

Fifth Generation Mobile Network (5G) is a heterogeneous network in nature, made up of multiple systems and supported by different technologies. It will be supported by network services such as device-to-device (D2D) communications. This will enable the new use cases to provide access to other services within the network and from third-party service providers (SPs). End-users with their user equipment (UE) will be able to access services ubiquitously from multiple SPs that might share infrastructure and security management, whereby implementing security from one domain to another will be a challenge. This highlights a need for a new and effective security approach to address the security of such a complex system. This article proposes a network service security (NSS) modular framework for 5G and beyond that consists of different security levels of the network. It reviews the security issues of D2D communications in 5G, and it is used to address security issues that affect the users and SPs in an integrated and heterogeneous network such as the 5G enabled D2D communications network. The conceptual framework consists of a physical layer, network access, service and D2D security levels. Finally, it recommends security mechanisms to address the security issues at each level of the 5G-enabled D2D communications network

The case for federated identity management in 5G communications

The heterogeneous nature of fifth generation mobile network (5G) makes the access and provision of network services very difficult and raises security concerns. With multi-users and multi-operators, Service-Oriented Authentication (SOA) and authorization mechanisms are required to provide quick access and interaction between network services. The users require seamless access to services regardless of the domain, type of connectivity or security mechanism used. Hence a need for Identity and Access Management (IAM) mechanism to complement the improved user experience promised in 5G. Federated Identity Management (FIdM) a feature of IAM, can provide a user with use Single Sign On (SSO) to access services from multiple Service Providers (SP). This addresses security requirements such as authentication, authorization and user’s privacy from the end user perspectives, however 5G networks access lacks such solution. We propose a Network Service Federated Identity (NS-FId) model that address these security requirements and complements the 5G Service- Based Architecture (SBA). We present different scenarios and applications of the proposed model. We also discuss the benefits of identity management in 5G

DCSS protocol for data caching and sharing security in a 5G network

Fifth Generation mobile networks (5G) promise to make network services provided by various Service Providers (SP) such as Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and third-party SPs accessible from anywhere by the end-users through their User Equipment (UE). These services will be pushed closer to the edge for quick, seamless, and secure access. After being granted access to a service, the end-user will be able to cache and share data with other users. However, security measures should be in place for SP not only to secure the provisioning and access of those services but also, should be able to restrict what the end-users can do with the accessed data in or out of coverage. This can be facilitated by federated service authorization and access control mechanisms that restrict the caching and sharing of data accessed by the UE in different security domains. In this paper, we propose a Data Caching and Sharing Security (DCSS) protocol that leverages federated authorization to provide secure caching and sharing of data from multiple SPs in multiple security domains. We formally verify the proposed DCSS protocol using ProVerif and applied pi-calculus. Furthermore, a comprehensive security analysis of the security properties of the proposed DCSS protocol is conducted

Formal verification of authentication and service authorization protocols in 5G-enabled device-to-device communications using ProVerif

Device-to-Device (D2D) communications will be used as an underlay technology in the Fifth Generation mobile network (5G), which will make network services of multiple Service Providers (SP) available anywhere. The end users will be allowed to access and share services using their User Equipments (UEs), and thus they will require seamless and secured connectivity. At the same time, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) will use the UE to offload traffic and push contents closer to users relying on D2D communications network. This raises security concerns at different levels of the system architecture and highlights the need for robust authentication and authorization mechanisms to provide secure services access and sharing between D2D users. Therefore, this paper proposes a D2D level security solution that comprises two security protocols, namely, the D2D Service security (DDSec) and the D2D Attributes and Capability security (DDACap) protocols, to provide security for access, caching and sharing data in network-assisted and non-network-assisted D2D communications scenarios. The proposed solution applies Identity-based Encryption (IBE), Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES) and access control mechanisms for authentication and authorization procedures. We formally verified the proposed protocols using ProVerif and applied pi calculus. We also conducted a security analysis of the proposed protocols

Formal verification and analysis of primary authentication based on 5G-AKA protocol

Fifth generation mobile network (5G) is intended to solve future constraints for accessing network services. The user and network operator depend on security assurances provided by the Authentication and Key Agreement protocols (AKA) used. For 5G network, the AKA has been standardized and 5GAKA protocol is one of the primary authentication methods that have been defined. This paper models the protocol and provides comprehensive formal analysis on 5G-AKA protocol as specified by The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard. Using ProVerif a security protocol verification tool, we perform a full systematic evaluation of the 5G-AKA protocol based on the latest 5G specifications. We present security assumptions and properties that assists on the analysis based on two taxonomies, we find out that some important security properties are not achieved and related work ignored some crucial protocol flaws. Finally, we make some recommendations to address the issues found by our security analysis