Design and implementation of Threefish cipher algorithm in PNG file

This paper is presenting design and implementation of Threefish block cipher on grayscale images. Despite the fact that Threefish block cipher is one of the best secure algorithms, most studies concerning Threefish have focused on hardware implementation and have not commonly been applied on image encryption due to huge amount of data. The main contribution here was to reduce the time and the amount of data to be encrypted while maintaining encryption performance. This objective was achieved by encrypting just the most significant bits of image pixels. A 256-bit plain text blocks of the Threefish was constructed from 2n most significant bits of the pixels, where 0<n<3. Furthermore, Threefish block cipher was applied when n=3 to analyze the impact of uninvolving some bits in encryption process on the encryption performance. The results indicated that the encryption achieved good encryption quality when n=1, but it might cause some loss in decryption. In contrast, the encryption achieved high encryption quality when n=2, almost as good as the encryption of the whole pixel bits. Furthermore, the encryption time and the amount of data to be encrypted were decreased 50% as n decreased by 1. It was concluded that encrypting half of the pixel bits reduces both time and data, as well as significantly preserves the encryption quality. Finally, although the proposed method passed the statistical analysis, further work is needed to find a method resistant to the differential analysis

EFFECT OF MICROWAVE TREATED WATER ON THE GROWTH OF CORN (ZEA MAYS) AND PEPPER (CAPSICUM ANNUUM) SEEDLINGS

This paper presents the investigation of the influence of microwave treated water on the growth of the plants. For this experiment, four groups of seedlings were used and subjected to the study. We took drinking water and divided it into four parts, each group was given only one part. The first group was given water that had been heated to boiling in a glass cup on a gas stove. The second and third group was given water that had been heated in a microwave to boiling (100 C) and 60 C respectively. The fourth group of seedlings was given water that had not been heated at all and used as control. The growth of seedlings was studied for 30 days. The analysis of the results shows that corn seedlings that exposed to microwaved water show lower growth rate in comparison to the control ones. Corn seedlings when watered with normal water or with water heated on the stove grew faster and have shoot length significantly bigger than the corns which were watered with water heated in a microwave at 60 C/100 C. On the other hand, pepper seedlings watered with either microwaved water or not microwaved water were found with no significant effects on their growth characteristics

THE PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MULTI USER OFDM ORTHOGONAL CHAOTIC VECTOR SHIFT KEYING SUPPORTED BY LDPC

Recently, LDPC code have become very important research area in wireless communication due to its ability to increase the capacity in a wireless fading environment, with low implementation complexity. In this paper, LDPC are combined with Multi User OFDM Orthogonal Chaotic Vector Shift Keying (MU-OFDM-OCVSK) communication system to improve the BER performance over multi-path Rayleigh fading channels. Two types of LDPC decoder are introduced that are Log-Domain and Min-Sum decoder. The system is simulated using MATLAB program version 2019a for different scenarios which include different number of iterations, different block lengths, different number of users and different number of spreading factor. The results show that a coding gain in a range of (4.5 – 7) dB is achieved between the coded and uncoded MU-OFDM-OCVSK system. The results also show that the Min-Sum decoder outperform the Log-Domain decoder in all scenarios.

Harmful versus beneficial effects of using short-term combined oral antidiabetic therapy: ‎An open label comparative clinical trial ‎

Background: Although oral antidiabetic drugs have many beneficial pleiotropic effects, they are ‎not free from adverse reactions that may interfere with glucose homeostasis. This study aimed ‎to assess the effects of oral antidiabetic drugs as add- on-therapy to metformin, on the metabolic, ‎cardiac, and renal determinants. ‎ Material and methods: A total number of seventy-eight type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients who ‎were treated with metformin were allocated to add-on-therapy for 12 weeks, with glimepiride ‎‎(4mg/day, n=26), sitagliptin (100mg/day, n=28), and canagliflozin (300mg/day, n=24). ‎Anthropometric measurements, glycemic indices, lipid, and renal markers, were determined ‎before initiation and after the treatment. ‎ Results: All of the three treatments significantly decreased the glycemic indices, triglyceride-to-glucose index, and non-significantly altered the serum uric acid-to creatinine. Glimepiride ‎significantly increased the waist-to-height ratio (0.630±0.057 versus 0.640±0.057, p=0.040), ‎while sitagliptin and canagliflozin significantly decreased it (0.650±0.058 versus 0.640±0.054, ‎p=0.009, and 0.650±0.041 versus 0.630±0.044, p<0.001). Estimated glomerular filtration index- ‎epidemiology collaboration (ml/min/1.73m2) significantly declined by using glimepiride ‎‎(109.0±10.4 versus 103.6±10.9, p=0.001), and sitagliptin (106.1±12.4 versus 103.3±15.0, ‎p=0.013). ‎ Conclusion: Careful selection of using oral antidiabetic agents can protect T2D patients from ‎harmful events, particularly those related to cardiovascular events and renal function

Sleep habits and sleep problems among Palestinian students

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Aim</p> <p>The aim of this study was to describe sleep habits and sleep problems in a population of undergraduates in Palestine. Association between self-reported sleep quality and self-reported academic achievement was also investigated.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Sleep habits and problems were investigated using a convenience sample of students from An-Najah National University, Palestine. The study was carried out during spring semester, 2009. A self-administered questionnaire developed based on The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV criteria and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>400 students with a mean age of 20.2 ± 1.3 were studied. Reported mean duration of night sleep in the study sample was 6.4 ± 1.1 hours. The majority (58.3%) of students went to bed before midnight and 18% of the total sample woke up before 6 am. Sleep latency of more than one hour was present in 19.3% of the students. Two thirds (64.8%) of the students reported having at least one nocturnal awakening per night. Nightmares were the most common parasomnia reported by students. Daytime naps were common and reported in 74.5% of the study sample. Sleep quality was reported as "poor" in only 9.8% and was significantly associated with sleep latency, frequency of nocturnal awakenings, time of going to bed, nightmares but not with academic achievement.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Sleep habits among Palestinian undergraduates were comparable to those reported in European studies. Sleep problems were common and there was no significant association between sleep quality and academic achievement.</p

The Arab world's contribution to solid waste literature: a bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND: Environmental and health-related effects of solid waste material are considered worldwide problems. The aim of this study was to assess the volume and impact of Arab scientific output published in journals indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) on solid waste. METHODS: We included all the documents within the SCI whose topic was solid waste from all previous years up to 31 December 2012. In this bibliometric analysis we sought to evaluate research that originated from Arab countries in the field of solid waste, as well as its relative growth rate, collaborative measures, productivity at the institutional level, and the most prolific journals. RESULTS: A total of 382 (2.35 % of the overall global research output in the field of solid waste) documents were retrieved from the Arab countries. The annual number of documents published in the past three decades (1982–2012) indicated that research productivity demonstrated a noticeable rise during the last decade. The highest number of articles associated with solid waste was that of Egypt (22.8 %), followed by Tunisia (19.6), and Jordan (13.4 %). the total number of citations over the analysed years at the date of data collection was 4,097, with an average of 10.7 citations per document. The h-index of the citing articles was 31. Environmental science was the most researched topic, represented by 175 (45.8 %) articles. Waste Management was the top active journal. The study recognized 139 (36.4 %) documents from collaborations with 25 non-Arab countries. Arab authors mainly collaborated with countries in Europe (22.5 %), especially France, followed by countries in the Americas (9.4 %), especially the USA. The most productive institution was the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, with 6.3 % of total publications. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the expected increase in solid waste production from Arab world, research activity about solid waste is still low. Governments must invest more in solid waste research to avoid future unexpected problems. Finally, since solid waste is a multidisciplinary science, research teams in engineering, health, toxicology, environment, geology and others must be formulated to produce research in solid waste from different scientific aspects

Identification of Coronary Artery Diseases Using Photoplethysmography Signals and Practical Feature Selection Process

A low-cost, fast, dependable, repeatable, non-invasive, portable, and simple-to-use vascular screening tool for coronary artery diseases (CADs) is preferred. Photoplethysmography (PPG), a low-cost optical pulse wave technology, is one method with this potential. PPG signals come from changes in the amount of blood in the microvascular bed of tissue. Therefore, these signals can be used to figure out anomalies within the cardiovascular system. This work shows how to use PPG signals and feature selection-based classifiers to identify cardiorespiratory disorders based on the extraction of time-domain features. Data were collected from 360 healthy and cardiovascular disease patients. For analysis and identification, five types of cardiovascular disorders were considered. The categories of cardiovascular diseases were identified using a two-stage classification process. The first stage was utilized to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy subjects. Subjects who were found to be abnormal were then entered into the second stage classifier, which was used to determine the type of the disease. Seven different classifiers were employed to classify the dataset. Based on the subset of features found by the classifier, the Naïve Bayes classifier obtained the best test accuracy, with 94.44% for the first stage and 89.37% for the second stage. The results of this study show how vital the PPG signal is. Many time-domain parts of the PPG signal can be easily extracted and analyzed to find out if there are problems with the heart. The results were accurate and precise enough that they did not need to be looked at or analyzed further. The PPG classifier built on a simple microcontroller will work better than more expensive ones and will not make the patient nervous

Bibliometric analysis of publications on Campylobacter : (2000\u20132015)

Background: Campylobacter species are widespread zoonotic pathogens. Campylobacter jejuni causes a form of gastroenteritis called campylobacteriosis. Campylobacter drug resistance is considered a serious threat. In order to better understand national and international research output on Campylobacter, we conducted this bibliometric overview of publications on Campylobacter. This study can be used to assess extent of interaction and response of researchers, food regulators, and health policy makers to global burden of campylobacateriosis. Methods: Scopus database was used to retrieve publications with the following keywords (Campylobacter/ campylobacteriosis, C. jejuni, Campylobacter coli ). The study period was set from 2000 to 2015. All types of journal documents, excluding errata, were considered. Bibliometric indicators such as annual growth of publications, country contribution, international collaboration, and citation analysis were presented. The quality of retrieved data was indirectly assessed by Hirsch index and impact factor of journals. Results: A total of 5522 documents were retrieved with median (Q1\u2013Q3) citations of 9 (2\u201323) and h-index of 113. Annual number of publications showed a fluctuating increase. The core leading journals were Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal and Journal of Food Protection with 246 (4.46%) publications for each. The USA (1309; 23.6%) was the most productive country while Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (150; 2.7%) was the most productive institution. Half of the top ten productive countries were European. France had the lowest percentage (33.5%) of articles with international collaboration while Netherlands (57.7%) had the highest percentage of articles with international collaboration. Approximately half (50.1%) of retrieved articles were published in journals under the subject area of \u201cimmunology/microbiology\u201d. Main themes in highly cited articles were molecular biology/genetics and public health burden of campylobacteriosis. There were 728 (13.1%) articles on campylobacter-related drug resistance, and the top cited articles focused mainly on increasing resistance to quinolones and fluoroquinolones. Conclusions: There was a clear increase in number of publications on Campylobacter. Rational use of antimicrobials in humans, poultry, and animals is highly recommended. International collaboration is highly required particularly in implementing new diagnostic screening technologies to minimize global health burden of Campylobacter and ensure food safety