A Quantum Key Distribution Network Through Single Mode Optical Fiber

Quantum key distribution (QKD) has been developed within the last decade that is provably secure against arbitrary computing power, and even against quantum computer attacks. Now there is a strong need of research to exploit this technology in the existing communication networks. In this paper we have presented various experimental results pertaining to QKD like Raw key rate and Quantum bit error rate (QBER). We found these results over 25 km single mode optical fiber. The experimental setup implemented the enhanced version of BB84 QKD protocol. Based upon the results obtained, we have presented a network design which can be implemented for the realization of large scale QKD networks. Furthermore, several new ideas are presented and discussed to integrate the QKD technique in the classical communication networks.Comment: This paper has been submitted to the 2006 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems (CTS 2006)May 14-17, 2006, Las Vegas, Nevada, US

A multi-channel soft biometrics framework for seamless border crossings

As the number of passengers at border entry points such as airports and rail stations increases, so does the demand for seamless, secure, and fast biometric technologies for verification purposes. Although fingerprints are currently useful biometric technologies, they are intrusive and slow down the end-to-end verification process, increasing the chances of tampering. Emerging as an alternative technology, soft biometrics have proven successful for non-intrusive and rapid verification. Soft biometrics consists of a large set of features from three different modalities of the human body, including the face, body, and essential & auxiliary attachments. This paper proposes a multi-channel soft biometrics framework that leverages soft biometrics technology over traditional biometrics. The framework encapsulates four distinct components: ApparelNet, which verifies essential and auxiliary attachments; A-Net, which measures anthropometric soft biometrics; OneDetect, which predicts global soft biometrics; and RSFS, which develops a set of highly relevant and supportive soft biometrics for verification. The proposed framework addresses several critical limitations of existing biometrics technologies during the verification process at border entry points, such as intrusive behavior, response time, biometric tampering, and privacy issues. The proposed multi-channel soft biometrics framework has been evaluated using several benchmark datasets in the field, such as Front-view Gait (FVG), Pedestrian Attribute Recognition At Far Distance (PETA), and Multimedia and Vision (MMV) Pedestrian. Using heterogeneous datasets enables the testing of each framework component or channel against numerous constrained and unconstrained scenarios. The outcome of the envisioned multi-channel soft biometrics framework is presented based on distinct outcomes from each channel, but it remains focused on determining a single cumulative verification score for verification at border control. In addition, this multi-channel soft biometrics framework has extended applications in several fields, including crowd surveillance, the fashion industry, and e-learning

Association between perioperative hypothermia and surgical site infection after elective abdominal surgery: A prospective cohort study

Introduction: Surgical site infections (SSIs) account for 14-16% of nosocomial infections and are one of the major causes of increased morbidity, hospital stay, cost of care, and even mortality. Hypothermia as a risk factor for SSI is debated but there is lack of conclusive evidence. The present study explores the association of hypothermia with SSI.Methodology: This is a prospective cohort study conducted on adult patients who underwent elective laparotomy. Patients were divided into two cohorts, the Hypothermia Cohort and the Normothermia Cohort, based upon episodes of hypothermia of \u3c360C in the perioperative period. SSI was diagnosed based upon criteria defined by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Postoperative follow-up to detect SSI was done until 30 days after the operation.Results: A total of 183 patients met the selection criteria and were included in the study. Ninety patients (49%) had perioperative hypothermia and were followed in the Hypothermia Cohort, while 93 patients (51%) who remained normothermic in the perioperative period were followed in the Normothermia Cohort. Mean age of the patients was 49.77 +/- 14.82 years. Almost two-thirds of the participants were females (63.9%). Patients who developed hypothermia were significantly older and had lower BMI. Also the proportion of female patients was significantly higher in the Normothermic Cohort.Rate of SSI was similar in both groups (10% versus 10.8%) with p-value of 0.867. Multivariable regression analysis also failed to show any significant association between hypothermia and SSI.Conclusion: Our study failed to show any statistically significant association between hypothermia and surgical site infection

Multi-Organs-on-Chips for Testing Small-Molecule Drugs: Challenges and Perspectives.

Organ-on-a-chip technology has been used in testing small-molecule drugs for screening potential therapeutics and regulatory protocols. The technology is expected to boost the development of novel therapies and accelerate the discovery of drug combinations in the coming years. This has led to the development of multi-organ-on-a-chip (MOC) for recapitulating various organs involved in the drug-body interactions. In this review, we discuss the current MOCs used in screening small-molecule drugs and then focus on the dynamic process of drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion. We also address appropriate materials used for MOCs at low cost and scale-up capacity suitable for high-performance analysis of drugs and commercial high-throughput screening platforms

Recent Covid-19 infection Is associated With increased Mortality in the ambulatory Surgery Population

BACKGROUND: The effect of COVID-19 infection on post-operative mortality and the optimal timing to perform ambulatory surgery from diagnosis date remains unclear in this population. Our study was to determine whether a history of COVID-19 diagnosis leads to a higher risk of all-cause mortality following ambulatory surgery. METHODS: This cohort constitutes retrospective data obtained from the Optum dataset containing 44,976 US adults who were tested for COVID-19 up to 6 months before surgery and underwent ambulatory surgery between March 2020 to March 2021. The primary outcome was the risk of all-cause mortality between the COVID-19 positive and negative patients grouped according to the time interval from COVID-19 testing to ambulatory surgery, called the Testing to Surgery Interval Mortality (TSIM) of up to 6 months. Secondary outcome included determining all-cause mortality (TSIM) in time intervals of 0-15 days, 16-30 days, 31-45 days, and 46-180 days in COVID-19 positive and negative patients. RESULTS: 44,934 patients (4297 COVID-19 positive, 40,637 COVID-19 negative) were included in our analysis. COVID-19 positive patients undergoing ambulatory surgery had higher risk of all-cause mortality compared to COVID-19 negative patients (OR = 2.51, p \u3c 0.001). The increased risk of mortality in COVID-19 positive patients remained high amongst patients who had surgery 0-45 days from date of COVID-19 testing. In addition, COVID-19 positive patients who underwent colonoscopy (OR = 0.21, p = 0.01) and plastic and orthopedic surgery (OR = 0.27, p = 0.01) had lower mortality than those underwent other surgeries. CONCLUSIONS: A COVID-19 positive diagnosis is associated with significantly higher risk of all-cause mortality following ambulatory surgery. This mortality risk is greatest in patients that undergo ambulatory surgery within 45 days of testing positive for COVID-19. Postponing elective ambulatory surgeries in patients that test positive for COVID-19 infection within 45 days of surgery date should be considered, although prospective studies are needed to assess this

Hazardous traditional practices during postnatal care in low resource setting: A cross sectional study

Postnatal care has a positive impact on maternal as well as child health. This period is culturally as well as traditionally sensitive; which is clearly reflected in WHO 1998 theme "Pregnancy is special, let’s keep it safe". Objective To determine the existing postnatal care practices in rural community of Vantamuri primary health centre (PHC). Materials and Methods A total of 390 women who delivered in the three sub centres of Vantamuri PHC, Belagavi district between 1st November 2009 to 31st October 2010 were interviewed at home. Predesigned and pretested questionnaire was used to collect the information. Results It was found that 29% women discarded colostrums. Only 26% women initiated breastfeeding within 1 hour and 47% women applied some traditional mixture on the umbilical cord. Conclusion Postnatal care is not free from hazardous traditional practices in the study area

Assessing emergency medical care in low income countries: A pilot study from Pakistan

Background: Emergency Medical Care is an important component of health care system. Unfortunately it is however, ignored in many low income countries. We assessed the availability and quality of facility-based emergency medical care in the government health care system at district level in a low income country - Pakistan. Methods: We did a quantitative pilot study of a convenience sample of 22 rural and 20 urban health facilities in 2 districts - Faisalabad and Peshawar - in Pakistan. The study consisted of three separate cross-sectional assessments of selected community leaders, health care providers, and health care facilities. Three data collection instruments were created with input from existing models for facility assessment such as those used by the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Hospitals and the National Center for Health Statistics in USA and the Medical Research Council in Pakistan. Results: The majority of respondents 43/44(98%), in community survey were not satisfied with the emergency care provided. Most participants 36/44(82%) mentioned that they will not call an ambulance in health related emergency because it does not function properly in the government system. The expenses on emergency care for the last experience were reported to be less than 5,000 Pakistani Rupees (equivalent to US$ 83) for 19/29(66%) respondents. Most health care providers 43/44(98%) were of the opinion that their facilities were inadequately equipped to treat emergencies. The majority of facilities 31/42(74%) had no budget allocated for emergency care. A review of medications and equipment available showed that many critical supplies needed in an emergency were not found in these facilities. Conclusion: Assessment of emergency care should be part of health systems analysis in Pakistan. Multiple deficiencies in emergency care at the district level in Pakistan were noted in our study. Priority should be given to make emergency care responsive to needs in Pakistan. Specific efforts should be directed to equip emergency care at district facilities and to organize an ambulance network

Remaining idle time aware intelligent channel bonding schemes for cognitive radio sensor networks

Channel bonding (CB) is a technique used to provide larger bandwidth to users. It has been applied to various networks such as wireless local area networks, wireless sensor networks, cognitive radio networks, and cognitive radio sensor networks (CRSNs). The implementation of CB in CRSNs needs special attention as primary radio (PR) nodes traffic must be protected from any harmful interference by cognitive radio (CR) sensor nodes. On the other hand, CR sensor nodes need to communicate without interruption to meet their data rate requirements and conserve energy. If CR nodes perform frequent channel switching due to PR traffic then it will be difficult to meet their quality of service and data rate requirements. So, CR nodes need to select those channels which are stable. By stable, we mean those channels which having less PR activity or long remaining idle time and cause less harmful interference to PR nodes. In this paper, we propose two approaches remaining idle time aware intelligent channel bonding (RITCB) and remaining idle time aware intelligent channel bonding with interference prevention (RITCB-IP) for cognitive radio sensor networks which select stable channels for CB which have longest remaining idle time. We compare our approaches with four schemes such as primary radio user activity aware channel bonding scheme, sample width algorithm, cognitive radio network over white spaces and AGILE. Simulation results show that our proposed approaches RITCB and RITCB-IP decrease harmful interference and increases the life time of cognitive radio sensor nodes

Innovations to reduce demand and crowding in emergency care; a review study

Emergency Department demand continues to rise in almost all high-income countries, including those with universal coverage and a strong primary care network. Many of these countries have been experimenting with innovative methods to stem demand for acute care, while at the same time providing much needed services that can prevent Emergency Department attendance and later hospital admissions. A large proportion of patients comprise of those with minor illnesses that could potentially be seen by a health care provider in a primary care setting. The increasing number of visits to Emergency Departments not only causes delay in urgent care provision but also increases the overall cost. In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) has made a number of efforts to strengthen primary healthcare services to increase accessibility to healthcare as well as address patients¿ needs by introducing new urgent care services. In this review, we describe efforts that have been ongoing in the UK and France for over a decade as well as specific programs to target the rising needs of emergency care in both England and France. Like many such programs, there have been successes, failures and unintended consequences. Thus, the urgent care system of other high-income countries can learn from these experiments