An Effective Private Data storage and Retrieval System using Secret sharing scheme based on Secure Multi-party Computation

Privacy of the outsourced data is one of the major challenge.Insecurity of the network environment and untrustworthiness of the service providers are obstacles of making the database as a service.Collection and storage of personally identifiable information is a major privacy concern.On-line public databases and resources pose a significant risk to user privacy, since a malicious database owner may monitor user queries and infer useful information about the customer.The challenge in data privacy is to share data with third-party and at the same time securing the valuable information from unauthorized access and use by third party.A Private Information Retrieval(PIR) scheme allows a user to query database while hiding the identity of the data retrieved.The naive solution for confidentiality is to encrypt data before outsourcing.Query execution,key management and statistical inference are major challenges in this case.The proposed system suggests a mechanism for secure storage and retrieval of private data using the secret sharing technique.The idea is to develop a mechanism to store private information with a highly available storage provider which could be accessed from anywhere using queries while hiding the actual data values from the storage provider.The private information retrieval system is implemented using Secure Multi-party Computation(SMC) technique which is based on secret sharing. Multi-party Computation enable parties to compute some joint function over their private inputs.The query results are obtained by performing a secure computation on the shares owned by the different servers.Comment: Data Science & Engineering (ICDSE), 2014 International Conference, CUSA

Intravenous doxycycline, azithromycin, or both for severe scrub typhus

BACKGROUND: The appropriate antibiotic treatment for severe scrub typhus, a neglected but widespread reemerging zoonotic infection, is unclear. METHODS: In this multicenter, double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, we compared the efficacy of intravenous doxycycline, azithromycin, or a combination of both in treating severe scrub typhus. Patients who were 15 years of age or older with severe scrub typhus with at least one organ involvement were enrolled. The patients were assigned to receive a 7-day course of intravenous doxycycline, azithromycin, or both (combination therapy). The primary outcome was a composite of death from any cause at day 28, persistent complications at day 7, and persistent fever at day 5. RESULTS: Among 794 patients (median age, 48 years) who were included in the modified intention-to-treat analysis, complications included those that were respiratory (in 62%), hepatic (in 54%), cardiovascular (in 42%), renal (in 30%), and neurologic (in 20%). The use of combination therapy resulted in a lower incidence of the composite primary outcome than the use of doxycycline (33% and 47%, respectively), for a risk difference of −13.3 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI], (21.6 to −5.1; P=0.002). The incidence with combination therapy was also lower than that with azithromycin (48%), for a risk difference of −14.8 percentage points (95% CI, −23.1 to −6.5; P<0.001). No significant difference was seen between the azithromycin and doxycycline groups (risk difference, 1.5 percentage points; 95% CI, −7.0 to 10.0; P=0.73). The results in the per-protocol analysis were similar to those in the primary analysis. Adverse events and 28-day mortality were similar in the three groups. CONCLUSIONS: Combination therapy with intravenous doxycycline and azithromycin was a better therapeutic option for the treatment of severe scrub typhus than monotherapy with either drug alone. (Funded by the India Alliance and Wellcome Trust; INTREST Clinical Trials Registry–India number, CTRI/2018/08/015159.

Omecamtiv mecarbil in chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, GALACTIC‐HF: baseline characteristics and comparison with contemporary clinical trials

Aims: The safety and efficacy of the novel selective cardiac myosin activator, omecamtiv mecarbil, in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is tested in the Global Approach to Lowering Adverse Cardiac outcomes Through Improving Contractility in Heart Failure (GALACTIC‐HF) trial. Here we describe the baseline characteristics of participants in GALACTIC‐HF and how these compare with other contemporary trials. Methods and Results: Adults with established HFrEF, New York Heart Association functional class (NYHA) ≥ II, EF ≤35%, elevated natriuretic peptides and either current hospitalization for HF or history of hospitalization/ emergency department visit for HF within a year were randomized to either placebo or omecamtiv mecarbil (pharmacokinetic‐guided dosing: 25, 37.5 or 50 mg bid). 8256 patients [male (79%), non‐white (22%), mean age 65 years] were enrolled with a mean EF 27%, ischemic etiology in 54%, NYHA II 53% and III/IV 47%, and median NT‐proBNP 1971 pg/mL. HF therapies at baseline were among the most effectively employed in contemporary HF trials. GALACTIC‐HF randomized patients representative of recent HF registries and trials with substantial numbers of patients also having characteristics understudied in previous trials including more from North America (n = 1386), enrolled as inpatients (n = 2084), systolic blood pressure &lt; 100 mmHg (n = 1127), estimated glomerular filtration rate &lt; 30 mL/min/1.73 m2 (n = 528), and treated with sacubitril‐valsartan at baseline (n = 1594). Conclusions: GALACTIC‐HF enrolled a well‐treated, high‐risk population from both inpatient and outpatient settings, which will provide a definitive evaluation of the efficacy and safety of this novel therapy, as well as informing its potential future implementation

The temperature effect on the glycine decomposition induced by 2 keV electron bombardment in space analog conditions

Glycine is the simplest proteinaceous amino acid that has been extensively detected in carbonaceous meteorites and was recently observed in the cometary samples returned to Earth by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft. In space, such species is exposed to several radiation fields at different temperatures. In aqueous solutions, this species appears mainly as zwitterionic glycine (+NH3CH2COO−) however, in solid phase, it may be found in amorphous or crystalline forms. Here, we present an experimental study on the destruction of two zwitterionic glycine crystals (α- and β-form) at two different temperatures (300 K and 14 K) by 2 keV electrons in an attempt to test the behavior and stability of this molecular species in different space environments. The samples were analyzed in situ by Fourier transform infrared spectrometry at electron fluences. The experiments were carried out under ultra-high vacuum conditions at the Molecular Physics Laboratory at the Open University at Milton Keynes, UK. The dissociation cross section of glycine is approximately 5 times higher for the 14 K samples when compared to the 300 K samples. In contrast, no significant differences emerged between the dissociation cross sections of α- and β-forms of glycine for fixed temperature experiments. We therefore conclude that the destruction cross section is more heavily dependent on temperature than the phase of the condensed glycine material. This may be associated with the opening of additional reaction routes in the frozen samples involving the trapped daughter species (e.g. CO2 and CO). The half-life of studied samples extrapolated to space conditions shows that glycine molecules on the surface of interstellar grains has less survivability and they are highly sensitive to ambient radiations, however, they can survive extended period of time in the solar system like environments. Survivability increases by a factor of 5 if the samples are at 300 K when compared to low temperature experiments at 14 K and is independent of the crystalline structure. In addition, this survival would increase if the molecular species were protected by several layers of other molecular species as trapped in comet mantles or embedded within regolith in asteroids/lunar surfaces. The understanding of the excitation and dissociation processes of organic compounds in space simulation is highly required to put constrains in the puzzle over the origin of life in the primitive Earth