SecureSurgiNET:a framework for ensuring security in telesurgery

The notion of surgical robotics is actively being extended to enable telesurgery, where both the surgeon and patient are remotely located and connected via a public network, which leads to many security risks. Being a safety-critical application, it is highly important to make telesurgery robust and secure against active and passive attacks. In this article, we propose the first complete framework, called SecureSurgiNET, for ensuring security in telesurgery environments. SecureSurgiNET is primarily based on a set of well-established protocols to provide a fool-proof telesurgical robotic system. For increasing the efficiency of secured telesurgery environments, the idea of a telesurgical authority is introduced that ensures the integrity, identity management, authentication policy implementation, and postoperative data security. An analysis is provided describing the security and throughput of Advanced Encryption Standard during the intraoperative phase of SecureSurgiNET. Moreover, we have tabulated the possible attacks on SecureSurgiNET along with the devised defensive measures. Finally, we also present a time complexity analysis of the SecureSurgiNET through simulations. © The Author(s) 2019

Overcrowding in the emergency departments: challenges and opportunities for improvement

With the advent of Emergency Medicine, one can observe an increase in the number of Emergency Departments (ED) across the country. However, most EDs struggle due to an overwhelming number of patients. Overcrowding can lead to delays in patient care. For a city like Karachi which is an active disaster zone, preemptive preparedness is required in the face of terror threats and such overcrowding needs to be decreased to a bare minimum. The most frequent causes of prolonged length of stay (LOS) in the ED include non-availability of in-hospital beds, delays in response to subspecialty consultations and escalating medical expenses. All of these can negatively impact patient care by putting patient safety at risk and patient care in jeopardy. There is an increased risk of unintentional medical errors and a concomitant increase in unwanted lawsuits. A few simple interventions which may help alleviate this situation to some extent have been discussed

Usability Evaluation of Online Educational Applications in COVID-19

COVID-19 is a pandemic faced by almost every country in the world, this has resulted in health crisis. Due to COVID-19, all the countries around the world have decided to close all educational institutes to prevent this pandemic. Educational institutes have taken every possible measure to minimize the impact of the closure of schools and introduce the concept of an online education system which is not only a massive shock for parents but it also affects the children's learning process and social life. The educational applications (Apps) are very important, because they offer more opportunities for development and growth to society. In this pandemic situation, educational Apps like Zoom, HEC LMS, Google Classroom, and Skype, etc. are the need of the hour when everything goes online. In this paper, the usability features of online educational Apps are thoroughly discussed including the effectiveness and usability for students. Using the results obtained from the survey, this paper observes the student's perspective of usefulness of online educational Apps in student’s learning process of different age groups. It also analyzes the easiness for students to understand, interact and use these Apps

A Concurrence Study on Interoperability Issues in IoT and Decision Making Based Model on Data and Services being used during Inter-Operability

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) has become an important topic among researchers owing to its potential to change the way we live and use smart devices. In recent years, many research work found in the world are interrelated and convey via the existing web structure which makes a worldwide system called IoT. This study focused on the significant improvement of answers for a wider scope of gadgets and the Internet of Things IoT stages in recent years. In any case, each arrangement gives its very own IoT framework, gadgets, APIs, and information configurations promoting interoperability issues. These issues are the outcome of numerous basic issues, difficulty to create IoT application uncovering cross-stage, and additionally cross-space, trouble in connecting non-interoperable IoT gadgets to various IoT stages, what's more, eventually averts the development of IoT innovation at an enormous scale. To authorize consistent data sharing between various IoT vendors, endeavors by a few academia, industrial, and institutional groups have accelerated to support IoT interoperability. This paper plays out a far-reaching study on the cutting-edge answers for encouraging interoperability between various IoT stages. Likewise, the key difficulties in this theme are introduced

Combination of AHP and TOPSIS methods for the ranking of information security controls to overcome its obstructions under fuzzy environment

The organizations utilizing the cloud computing services are required to select suitable Information Security Controls (ISCs) to maintain data security and privacy. Many organizations bought popular products or traditional tools to select ISCs. However, selecting the wrong information security control without keeping in view severity of the risk, budgetary constraints, measures cost, and implementation and mitigation time may lead to leakage of data and resultantly, organizations may lose their user’s information, face financial implications, even reputation of the organization may be damaged. Therefore, the organizations should evaluate each control based on certain criteria like implementation time, mitigation time, exploitation time, risk, budgetary constraints, and previous effectiveness of the control under review. In this article, the authors utilized the methodologies of the Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to help the cloud organizations in the prioritization and selection of the best information security control. Furthermore, a numerical example is also given, depicting the step by step utilization of the method in cloud organizations for the prioritization of the information security controls

Paraneoplastic thrombocytosis in ovarian cancer

<p>Background: The mechanisms of paraneoplastic thrombocytosis in ovarian cancer and the role that platelets play in abetting cancer growth are unclear.</p> <p>Methods: We analyzed clinical data on 619 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer to test associations between platelet counts and disease outcome. Human samples and mouse models of epithelial ovarian cancer were used to explore the underlying mechanisms of paraneoplastic thrombocytosis. The effects of platelets on tumor growth and angiogenesis were ascertained.</p> <p>Results: Thrombocytosis was significantly associated with advanced disease and shortened survival. Plasma levels of thrombopoietin and interleukin-6 were significantly elevated in patients who had thrombocytosis as compared with those who did not. In mouse models, increased hepatic thrombopoietin synthesis in response to tumor-derived interleukin-6 was an underlying mechanism of paraneoplastic thrombocytosis. Tumorderived interleukin-6 and hepatic thrombopoietin were also linked to thrombocytosis in patients. Silencing thrombopoietin and interleukin-6 abrogated thrombocytosis in tumor-bearing mice. Anti–interleukin-6 antibody treatment significantly reduced platelet counts in tumor-bearing mice and in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer. In addition, neutralizing interleukin-6 significantly enhanced the therapeutic efficacy of paclitaxel in mouse models of epithelial ovarian cancer. The use of an antiplatelet antibody to halve platelet counts in tumor-bearing mice significantly reduced tumor growth and angiogenesis.</p> <p>Conclusions: These findings support the existence of a paracrine circuit wherein increased production of thrombopoietic cytokines in tumor and host tissue leads to paraneoplastic thrombocytosis, which fuels tumor growth. We speculate that countering paraneoplastic thrombocytosis either directly or indirectly by targeting these cytokines may have therapeutic potential. </p&gt

Therapeutic Targeting of ATP7B in Ovarian Carcinoma.

PURPOSE: Resistance to platinum chemotherapy remains a significant problem in ovarian carcinoma. Here, we examined the biological mechanisms and therapeutic potential of targeting a critical platinum resistance gene, ATP7B, using both in vitro and in vivo models. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Expression of ATP7A and ATP7B was examined in ovarian cancer cell lines by real-time reverse transcription-PCR and Western blot analysis. ATP7A and ATP7B gene silencing was achieved with targeted small interfering RNA (siRNA) and its effects on cell viability and DNA adduct formation were examined. For in vivo therapy experiments, siRNA was incorporated into the neutral nanoliposome 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphatidylcholine (DOPC). RESULTS: ATP7A and ATP7B genes were expressed at higher levels in platinum-resistant cells compared with sensitive cells; however, only differences in ATP7B reached statistical significance. ATP7A gene silencing had no significant effect on the sensitivity of resistant cells to cisplatin, but ATP7B silencing resulted in 2.5-fold reduction of cisplatin IC(50) levels and increased DNA adduct formation in cisplatin-resistant cells (A2780-CP20 and RMG2). Cisplatin was found to bind to the NH(2)-terminal copper-binding domain of ATP7B, which might be a contributing factor to cisplatin resistance. For in vivo therapy experiments, ATP7B siRNA was incorporated into DOPC and was highly effective in reducing tumor growth in combination with cisplatin (70-88% reduction in both models compared with controls). This reduction in tumor growth was accompanied by reduced proliferation, increased tumor cell apoptosis, and reduced angiogenesis. CONCLUSION: These data provide a new understanding of cisplatin resistance in cancer cells and may have implications for therapeutic reversal of drug resistance