AODVSEC: A Novel Approach to Secure Ad Hoc on-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing Protocol from Insider Attacks in MANETs

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes that can communicate with each other using multihop wireless links without requiring any fixed based-station infrastructure and centralized management. Each node in the network acts as both a host and a router. In such scenario, designing of an efficient, reliable and secure routing protocol has been a major challenging issue over the last many years. Numerous schemes have been proposed for secure routing protocols and most of the research work has so far focused on providing security for routing using cryptography. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to secure Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol from the insider attacks launched through active forging of its Route Reply (RREP) control message. AODV routing protocol does not have any security provision that makes it less reliable in publicly open ad hoc network. To deal with the concerned security attacks, we have proposed AODV Security Extension (AODVSEC) which enhances the scope of AODV for the security provision. We have compared AODVSEC with AODV and Secure AODV (SAODV) in normal situation as well as in presence of the three concerned attacks viz. Resource Consumption (RC) attack, Route Disturb (RD) attack, Route Invasion (RI) attack and Blackhole (BH) attack. To evaluate the performances, we have considered Packet Delivery Fraction (PDF), Average End-to-End Delay (AED), Average Throughput (AT), Normalized Routing Load (NRL) and Average Jitter and Accumulated Average Processing Time.Comment: 20 Pages, 24 Figure

An Unusual Pulmonary Complication of Statin Medication

Statins or hydroxyl-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors have proven efficacy at decreasing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Although statins have been prescribed safely, there should be more awareness of the possible adverse effects. Recently, we encountered a patient who had unexplained dyspnea, weakness, and immobility. The patient’s symptoms were alleviated after discontinuing the statin medication. Although we have no concrete evidence that her symptoms were due to the medication, the temporal relationship of symptom improvement upon discontinuation of the statin, led us to the conclusion that it could potentially have been the cause. Unexplained dyspnea is not listed as an adverse effect in the prescribing information, but interstitial lung disease is listed as a possible complication of statins and there are a few other case reports of statin related unexplained dyspnea in the literature. Physicians should be aware of statins as a possible cause of unexplained dyspnea and consider a drug holiday as a therapeutic trial

Impacts and Industrial Applications of Phytic Acid and Phytase

Phytic acid is an antinutritional compound that chelates P and essential divalent cations such as Fe, Ca, and Zn in cereals and major staple crops such as wheat, maize, rice, and sorghum. As a result, these cations cannot be absorbed by monogastric animals or humans: phytic acid has an inhibitory effect on nutrient uptake and its levels are negatively correlated with protein and starch digestibility. However, phytic acid can be degraded by the action of the enzyme phytase. Phytase plays important roles in the degradation of phytic acid and in increasing the nutritional quality of staple foods. Microbial phytase is a versatile enzyme that is beneficial for humans, animals, the environment, and the industry. In this review, we summarise the interaction of phytic acid with micronutrients, various approaches to enhancing the nutritional profile of staple foods by reducing the phytic acid content, and current knowledge of microbial-based phytase as a potential reducer of phytic acid

Post spinal anaesthesia shivering- incidence and associated risk factors in patients undergoing lower limb and abdominal surgeries

Background: This study was conducted to evaluate the incidence of shivering and likely associated risk factors following spinal anaesthesia in patients undergoing lower abdominal and lower limb surgeries.Methods: The present study was conducted in MMIMSR, Department of anaesthesia from December 2016 to September 2018. It was an observational study which was conducted over a period of 2 years. Patients who were scheduled to undergo elective lower abdominal and lower limb surgeries under spinal anaesthesia were included in study.Results: The present study depicts a high incidence of post spinal shivering, which was 42.8%. Majority of the patients belonged to the young age group between 20-30 years. The mean time of onset of shivering, was around 25 mins. Duration of shivering was observed between 15-75 minutess with a mean of 43.75 and SD±19.39.Conclusions: Shivering is one of the distressing complications of spinal block, which may be deleterious to the patients with poor cardio-respiratory reserve

An Unusual Pulmonary Complication of Statin Medication

Statins or hydroxyl-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors have proven efficacy at decreasing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Although statins have been prescribed safely, there should be more awareness of the possible adverse effects. Recently, we encountered a patient who had unexplained dyspnea, weakness, and immobility. The patient’s symptoms were alleviated after discontinuing the statin medication. Although we have no concrete evidence that her symptoms were due to the medication, the temporal relationship of symptom improvement upon discontinuation of the statin, led us to the conclusion that it could potentially have been the cause. Unexplained dyspnea is not listed as an adverse effect in the prescribing information, but interstitial lung disease is listed as a possible complication of statins and there are a few other case reports of statin related unexplained dyspnea in the literature. Physicians should be aware of statins as a possible cause of unexplained dyspnea and consider a drug holiday as a therapeutic trial

From research to practice: Lay adherence counsellors' fidelity to an evidence-based intervention for promoting adherence to antiretroviral treatment in the Western Cape, South Africa

In the Western Cape, lay counsellors are tasked with supporting antiretroviral (ARV) adherence in public healthcare clinics. Thirty-nine counsellors in 21 Cape Town clinics were trained in Options for Health (Options), an evidence-based intervention based on motivational interviewing (MI). We evaluated counsellors’ ability to deliver Options for addressing poor adherence following 5 days training. Audio-recordings of counselling sessions collected following training were transcribed and translated into English. Thirty-five transcripts of sessions conducted by 35 counsellors were analysed for fidelity to the Options protocol, and using the Motivational Interviewing Treatment and Integrity (MITI) code. Counsellors struggled with some of the strategies associated with MI, such as assessing readiness-to-change and facilitating change talk. Overall, counsellors failed to achieve proficiency in the approach of MI according to the MITI. Counsellors were able to negotiate realistic plans for addressing patients’ barriers to adherence. Further efforts aimed at strengthening the ARV adherence counselling programme are needed.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Development, validation and application of single molecule molecular inversion probe based novel integrated genetic screening method for 29 common lysosomal storage disorders in India

Abstract Background Current clinical diagnosis pathway for lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) involves sequential biochemical enzymatic tests followed by DNA sequencing, which is iterative, has low diagnostic yield and is costly due to overlapping clinical presentations. Here, we describe a novel low-cost and high-throughput sequencing assay using single-molecule molecular inversion probes (smMIPs) to screen for causative single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and copy number variants (CNVs) in genes associated with 29 common LSDs in India. Results 903 smMIPs were designed to target exon and exon–intron boundaries of targeted genes (n = 23; 53.7 kb of the human genome) and were equimolarly pooled to create a sequencing library. After extensive validation in a cohort of 50 patients, we screened 300 patients with either biochemical diagnosis (n = 187) or clinical suspicion (n = 113) of LSDs. A diagnostic yield of 83.4% was observed in patients with prior biochemical diagnosis of LSD. Furthermore, diagnostic yield of 73.9% (n = 54/73) was observed in patients with high clinical suspicion of LSD in contrast with 2.4% (n = 1/40) in patients with low clinical suspicion of LSD. In addition to detecting SNVs, the assay could detect single and multi-exon copy number variants with high confidence. Critically, Niemann-Pick disease type C and neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis-6 diseases for which biochemical testing is unavailable, could be diagnosed using our assay. Lastly, we observed a non-inferior performance of the assay in DNA extracted from dried blood spots in comparison with whole blood. Conclusion We developed a flexible and scalable assay to reliably detect genetic causes of 29 common LSDs in India. The assay consolidates the detection of multiple variant types in multiple sample types while having improved diagnostic yield at same or lower cost compared to current clinical paradigm