Privacy Preserving Auction Based Virtual Machine Instances Allocation Scheme for Cloud Computing Environment

Cloud Computing Environment provides computing resources in the form of Virtual Machines (VMs), to the cloud users through Internet. Auction-based VM instances allocation allows different cloud users to participate in an auction for a bundle of Virtual Machine instances where the user with the highest bid value will be selected as the winner by the auctioneer (Cloud Service Provider) to gain more. In this auction mechanism, individual bid values are revealed to the auctioneer in order to select the winner as a result of which privacy of bid values are lost. In this paper, we proposed an auction scheme to select the winner without revealing the individual bid values to the auctioneer to maintain privacy of bid values. The winner will get the access to the bundle of VM instances. This  scheme relies on a set of cryptographic protocols including Oblivious Transfer (OT) protocol and Yao’s protocol to maintain privacy of bid values

In vitro Adoption and Propagation of High Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) Virus Subtype H5N1 in non-avian Host System

The paradigmatic, fatal and devastating ailment called avian influenza or bird flu is a highly contagious viral disease caused by type A influenza virus, It primarily affects the respiratory, digestive and/or nervous system of chickens, turkeys, guinea fowls and other avian species and less commonly pigs and other species of mammals including human. In India, The first pandemic outbreak of Avian Influenza was reported during 2006. In this study, we selected an isolate of high pathogenic avian influenza (A/Ck/Jalgaon/India/12419/2006) H5N1 virus and propagated in chicken embryo fibroblast. Later this virus was adopted and propagated in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells (MDCK) and Vero cells. Infected non-avian cells with an avian virus shown cytopathic effects like rounding, cytoplasmic elongation, syncytia formation and later stages fluffing from the attached surface. The harvested virus suspension shown increased haemagglutination titre (HA) than viral suspension from chicken embryo fibroblast culture and the presence of virus was confirmed by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The obtained result reveals that virus had capacity to adopt for the invitro culture and propagate in non avian host cells with higher titre. This infers the chance of virus to cross the host barrier and probable chance of infection in human being

Antagonistic activity of cellular components of Pseudomonas species against Aeromonas hydrophila

Antagonistic effects of Pseudomonas fluorescens, P. aeruginosa and P. putida were studied against 12 strains of Aeromonas hydrophila (Ah1–Ah12). Four different fractions of cellular component (i.e. whole cell product, heat killed whole cell product, intra cellular product and extra cellular product) of all Pseudomonas species were equally effective in reducing growth of A. hydrophila strains, as measured by the zone of inhibition in an in vitro sensitivity test and have potential action against A. hydrophila infection in fishes

A single amino acid change resulting in loss of fluorescence of eGFP in a viral fusion protein confers fitness and growth advantage to the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus

Using a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus encoding eGFP fused in-frame with an essential viral replication protein, the phosphoprotein P, we show that during passage in culture, the virus mutates the nucleotide C289 within eGFP of the fusion protein PeGFP to A or T, resulting in R97S/C amino acid substitution and loss of fluorescence. The resultant non-fluorescent virus exhibits increased fitness and growth advantage over its fluorescent counterpart. The growth advantage of the non-fluorescent virus appears to be due to increased transcription and replication activities of the PeGFP protein carrying the R97S/C substitution. Further, our results show that the R97S/C mutation occurs prior to accumulation of mutations that can result in loss of expression of the gene inserted at the G-L gene junction. These results suggest that fitness gain is more important for the recombinant virus than elimination of expression of the heterologous gene

Genetic and antigenic variation of foot-and-mouth disease virus during persistent infection in naturally infected cattle and Asian buffalo in India

Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The role of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) persistently infected ruminants in initiating new outbreaks remains controversial, and the perceived threat posed by such animals hinders international trade in FMD-endemic countries. In this study we report longitudinal analyses of genetic and antigenic variations of FMDV serotype O/ME-SA/Ind2001d sublineage during naturally occurring, persistent infection in cattle and buffalo at an organised dairy farm in India. The proportion of animals from which FMDV RNA was recovered was not significantly different between convalescent (post-clinical) and sub-clinically infected animals or between cattle and buffalo across the sampling period. However, infectious virus was isolated from a higher proportion of buffalo samples and for a longer duration compared to cattle. Analysis of the P1 sequences from recovered viruses indicated fixation of mutations at the rate of 1.816 x 10-2substitution/site/year (s/s/y) (95% CI 1.362–2.31 x 10−2 s/s/y). However, the majority of point mutations were transitional substitutions. Within individual animals, the mean dN/dS (ω) value for the P1 region varied from 0.076 to 0.357, suggesting the selection pressure acting on viral genomes differed substantially across individual animals. Statistical parsimony analysis indicated that all of the virus isolates from carrier animals originated from the outbreak virus. The antigenic relationship value as determined by 2D-VNT assay revealed fluctuation of antigenic variants within and between carrier animals during the carrier state which suggested that some carrier viruses had diverged substantially from the protection provided by the vaccine strain. This study contributes to understanding the extent of within-host and within-herd evolution that occurs during the carrier state of FMDV

The Minor Envelope Glycoproteins GP2a and GP4 of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus Interact with the Receptor CD163

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) contains the major glycoprotein, GP5, as well as three other minor glycoproteins, namely, GP2a, GP3, and GP4, on the virion envelope, all of which are required for generation of infectious virions. To study their interactions with each other and with the cellular receptor for PRRSV, we have cloned each of the viral glycoproteins and CD163 receptor in expression vectors and examined their expression and interaction with each other in transfected cells by coimmunoprecipitation (co-IP) assay using monospecific antibodies. Our results show that a strong interaction exists between the GP4 and GP5 proteins, although weak interactions among the other minor envelope glycoproteins and GP5 have been detected. Both GP2a and GP4 proteins were found to interact with all the other GPs, resulting in the formation of multiprotein complex. Our results further show that the GP2a and GP4 proteins also specifically interact with the CD163 molecule. The carboxy-terminal 223 residues of the CD163 molecule are not required for interactions with either the GP2a or the GP4 protein, although these residues are required for conferring susceptibility to PRRSV infection in BHK-21 cells. Overall, we conclude that the GP4 protein is critical for mediating interglycoprotein interactions and, along with GP2a, serves as the viral attachment protein that is responsible for mediating interactions with CD163 for virus entry into susceptible host cell

Influence of the nuclear matter equation of state on the r-mode instability using the finite-range simple effective interaction

The characteristic physical properties of rotating neutron stars under the r-mode oscillation are evaluated using the finite-range simple effective interaction. Emphasis is given on examining the influence of the stiffness of both the symmetric and asymmetric parts of the nuclear equation of state on these properties. The amplitude of the r-mode at saturation is calculated using the data of particular neutron stars from the considerations of 'spin equilibrium' and 'thermal equilibrium'. The upper limit of the r-mode saturation amplitude is found to lie in the range 10−8-10−6, in agreement with the predictions of earlier work

160 Mohapatra et al Indian

Abstract : Thrombocytopenia is an associated phenomenon of Pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH). But the accurate count of platelets either by manual, (direct or indirect methods) or by automated cell counters is not feasible for all patients at all hospitals. Therefore we have adopted the method of platelet estimation, not platelet count as an alternate procedure to estimate the degree of thrombocytopenia in patients with PIH cases. We included 30 normal pregnant women and 90 pregnant women with v a r y i n g d e g r e e o f P I H . B l o o d p l a t e l e t s w e r e e s t i m a t e d b y a n a c c e p t e d manual method. Platelet numbers were found to be 2.38 lacs/mm 3 ± 0.33 in control group, 2.23 lacs/mm 3 ± 0.19 in mild PIH, 1.82 lakhs/mm 3 ± 0.45 in pre eclampsia and 1.21 lacs/ mm 3 ± 0.49 in eclampsia. This indicated that there is an inverse relationship between the severity of PIH and platelet numbers. So this method of platelet estimation is useful as a rapid method of assessment in PIH. This method is not only rapid and cheap but can be done even in rural hospital settings