Simulation of a Pulsating Bed Using Eulerian Approach

A numerical study of the effect of gas pulsation on the flow pattern of solid particles in a two-dimensional gas-solid fluidized bed was conducted using the Eulerian granular kinetic theory. Our simulated bed dynamics agreed well with the experimental work of Koksal and Vural, and with the Discrete Element Method (DEM) model simulations of Tsuji et al

Unlinkable Updatable Databases and Oblivious Transfer with Access Control

An oblivious transfer with access control protocol (OTAC) allows us to protect privacy of accesses to a database while enforcing access control policies. Existing OTAC have several shortcomings. First, their design is not modular. Typically, to create an OTAC, an adaptive oblivious transfer protocol (OT) is extended ad-hoc. Consequently, the security of the OT is reanalyzed when proving security of the OTAC, and it is not possible to instantiate the OTAC with any secure OT. Second, existing OTAC do not allow for policy updates. Finally, in practical applications, many messages share the same policy. However, existing OTAC cannot take advantage of that to improve storage efficiency. We propose an UC-secure OTAC that addresses the aforementioned shortcomings. Our OTAC uses as building blocks the ideal functionalities for OT, for zero-knowledge (ZK) and for an \emph{unlinkable updatable database} (\UUD), which we define and construct. \UUD is a protocol between an updater \fuudUpdater and multiple readers \fuudReader_k. \fuudUpdater sets up a database and updates it. \fuudReader_k can read the database by computing UC ZK proofs of an entry in the database, without disclosing what entry is read. In our OTAC, \UUD is used to store and read the policies. We construct an \UUD based on subvector commitments (SVC). We extend the definition of SVC with update algorithms for commitments and openings, and we provide an UC ZK proof of a subvector. Our efficiency analysis shows that our \UUD is practical

Arthroscopic assisted fixation of central depressed lateral tibial plateau fracture: case report

Arthroscopic assisted fixation has become the gold standard for managing Schatzker III tibial plateau fractures. There are different techniques available to reduce and fix the central depression. We present one such case of a 41 years old female who had good outcome following arthroscopic assisted fixation using anterior cruciate ligament guide, dilators and calcium hydroxyapatite bone substitute

Depression and its Association with Housing conditions and Family among Pregnant Women of Rural Varanasi

Background: Depressive disorders were the second leading cause of years lost due to disability in 2010 after low back pain and leading cause of disability adjusted life years (WHO 2010). Gestational depression may lead to low birth weight, premature births etc. Housing and family are important aspects of one daily life which if are unsatisfactory can increase stress level of its members. Aims & Objectives: The aim of this study is to see the relationship of housing and family with depression among pregnant women. Material & Methods: This is a community based cross sectional study of 220 pregnant women in 10 randomly selected villages of Chiraigaon, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh during one year period; using predesigned, pretested and semi structured interview schedule for assessing housing and family conditions. Results: Depression was found to be more in women living in kutcha house, nuclear family and illiterate husband, husband as head of family and belonging to lower socio-economic status. Increasing number of female child also increases depression. Conclusion: Housing structure, education of husband, socio-economic status and number of daughters should be assessed in every pregnant woman as these affect depressive state of pregnant women which can adversely affect the outcome of pregnancy

Comparing and combining measurement-based and driven-dissipative entanglement stabilization

We demonstrate and contrast two approaches to the stabilization of qubit entanglement by feedback. Our demonstration is built on a feedback platform consisting of two superconducting qubits coupled to a cavity which are measured by a nearly-quantum-limited measurement chain and controlled by high-speed classical logic circuits. This platform is used to stabilize entanglement by two nominally distinct schemes: a "passive" reservoir engineering method and an "active" correction based on conditional parity measurements. In view of the instrumental roles that these two feedback paradigms play in quantum error-correction and quantum control, we directly compare them on the same experimental setup. Further, we show that a second layer of feedback can be added to each of these schemes, which heralds the presence of a high-fidelity entangled state in realtime. This "nested" feedback brings about a marked entanglement fidelity improvement without sacrificing success probability.Comment: 40 pages, 12 figure

UC Priced Oblivious Transfer with Purchase Statistics and Dynamic Pricing

Priced oblivious transfer (POT) is a cryptographic protocol that can be used to protect customer privacy in e-commerce applications. Namely, it allows a buyer to purchase an item from a seller without disclosing to the latter which item was purchased and at which price. Unfortunately, existing POT schemes have some drawbacks in terms of design and functionality. First, the design of existing POT schemes is not modular. Typically, a POT scheme extends a k-out-of-N oblivious transfer (OT) scheme by adding prices to the items. However, all POT schemes do not use OT as a black-box building block with certain security guarantees. Consequently, security of the OT scheme needs to be reanalyzed while proving security of the POT scheme, and it is not possible to swap the underlying OT scheme with any other OT scheme. Second, existing POT schemes do not allow the seller to obtain any kind of statistics about the buyer's purchases, which hinders customer and sales management. Moreover, the seller is not able to change the prices of items without restarting the protocol from scratch. We propose a POT scheme that addresses the aforementioned drawbacks. We prove the security of our POT in the UC framework. We modify a standard POT functionality to allow the seller to receive aggregate statistics about the buyer's purchases and to change prices dynamically. We present a modular construction for POT that realizes our functionality in the hybrid model. One of the building blocks is an ideal functionality for OT. Therefore, our protocol separates the tasks carried out by the underlying OT scheme from the additional tasks needed by a POT scheme. Thanks to that, our protocol is a good example of modular design and can be instantiated with any secure OT scheme as well as other building blocks without reanalyzing security from scratch

Study to monitor the adverse effects by different HAART regimens in HIV patients with tuberculosis

Background: In the modern era, AIDS is not less than a disaster for the human race. More than two-third of HIV-infected individuals have an associated infectious pulmonary disease. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is more virulent than most of other opportunistic pathogen causing latent infection. HIV is characterized by a profound immunodeficiency resulting from a progressive, quantitative and qualitative deficiency of the subset of CD4 T lymphocytes referred to as helper T cells leading to the patient at high risk of developing a variety of opportunistic infections. At present AIDS is incurable but some of the drugs have shown to decrease the mortality and morbidity of the disease. These are called as Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART). However, these drugs are associated with a significant number of side effects. This work has been conducted in order to study the demographic profile of HIV patients with TB and monitor the adverse effects of different HAART regimens among them.Methods: A total of 3078 patients screened for the study. Those who were diagnosed with HIV were enrolled. Pretreatment parameters like, CD4, CD8 + lymphocyte count and their ratio, haemogram etc. were recorded. Patients were divided into four groups and were started with different HAART regimens. They were monitored regularly for the appearance of any adverse effects.Results: The prevalence of HIV sero-positivity was found to be 3.60%. Out of them, 71.18% were males and 28.82% were females. The highest prevalence (43.29%) was in the age group of 21-50 years. The sero-positive rate was found more in married males as compared to married females and unmarried cases. Side effects were present in all the groups. The most common side effect was GI intolerance and was most frequent in Group I. Anemia and neutropenia occurred in the Zidovudine containing groups (group I, III and IV). Peripheral neuropathy occurred most commonly in cases of Group II. Rashes occurred in nevirapine containing groups. Liver function derangement was noticed more in group I and II. 71.4% of patients on HAART regimen showed improvement in symptoms while 28.57% did not show any improvement.Conclusions: The prevalence of HIV sero-positivity in our study was 3.60%. The rate of sero-positivity was more in males as compared to females while it was highest in the individuals of 21-50 years of age. The most common side effect was GI intolerance and was most frequent in Group I. Anemia and neutropenia occurred most frequently in Zidovudine containing groups. Peripheral neuropathy occurred most commonly in cases of Group II (Stavudine + Lamivudine + Nevirapine). Deranged lipid profile was found to occur due to indinavir in patients of Group IV. After starting on HAART regimens, 74.4% showed significant improvement in symptoms