PACKET TRACING IN DISTRIBUTED NETWORK ARCHITECTURES

In a distributed network architecture, tracking the network function node instances through which a network packet traverses, the time that a packet spends in each of the network functions, and the operations that the functions perform on each packet are extremely important when troubleshooting packet processing issues. However, such distributed architectures often include legacy services which cannot be readily extended (either because of the architecture or because of the programming language used) to include solutions to facilitate the above-described tracing. Techniques are presented herein that support a novel OpenTelemetry-based packet tracing approach that facilitates data plane debugging in a distributed microservices architecture containing heterogenous services without an explicit need for services to integrate with an OpenTelemetry software development kit (SDK). Aspects of the presented techniques encompass the enrichment of log files, a filtering capability, the extension of a Radioactive Tracing-style capability to a microservices world, etc

Pattern of adverse drug reactions reported at a tertiary care teaching hospital in northern India

Background: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are among the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in hospital setup. This study was conducted with the aim of understanding the pattern and occurrence of ADRs to minimize their risk and safeguard public health.Methods: This study is a retrospective analysis of pattern of ADRs reported at ADR monitoring centre (AMC) in a tertiary care hospital. A total of 207 spontaneous ADR reports collected over a period of 18 months were analysed for pattern and type of reactions, demographic profile of patients, organ system affected by ADRs, causative drugs, route of drug administration, severity of reaction, their outcome, management and causality assessment.Results: Most common age group affected by ADRs was 41-50 years with almost equal involvement of male and female gender. Cutaneous reactions involving skin like rashes and itching were most common ADRs. The most common causative drug for ADRs were antimicrobials agents like Penicillin and Cephalosporin group of antibiotics. Orally administered drugs were most commonly involved in causing ADRs. Most of the ADRs belonged to Type A category, were non-serious and moderate in severity. Most of the patients recovered from the ADRs on stopping the suspected drug. On assessing the causality, most of the ADRs were probable with the suspected drugs.Conclusions: Most of the patients recover from ADRs with appropriate and timely intervention, but it is important to understand the pattern and occurrence of ADRs for patient safety and this is possible only with an effective and robust pharmacovigilance system

Read-copy update

Traditional operating-system locking designs tend to either be very complex, result in poor concurrency, or both. These traditional locking designs fail to take advantage of the event-driven nature of operating systems, which process many small, quickly completed units of work, in contrast to CPU-bound software such as scientific applications. This eventdriven nature can often be exploited by splitting updates into the two phases: 1) carrying out enough of each update for new operations to see the new state, while still allowing existing operations to proceed on the old state, then: 2) completing the update after all active operations have completed. Common-case code can then proceed without disabling interrupts or acquiring any locks to protect against the update code, which simplifies locking protocols, improves uniprocessor performance, and increases scalability. Examples of the application of these techniques include maintaining read-mostly data structures, such as routing tables, avoiding the need for existence locks (and hence avoiding locking hierarchies with the attendant deadlock issues), and dealing with unusual situations like module unloading.

Papaya Leaf Curl Virus (PaLCuV) Infection on Papaya (Carica papaya L.) Plants Alters Anatomical and Physiological Properties and Reduces Bioactive Components

Papaya leaves are used frequently for curing scores of ailments. The medicinal properties of papaya leaves are due to presence of certain bioactive/pharmacological compounds. However, the papaya leaf curl virus (PaLCuV), a geminivirus, is a major threat to papaya cultivation globally. During the present investigation, we observed that PaLCuV infection significantly altered the anatomy, physiology, and bioactive properties of papaya leaves. As compared to healthy leaves, the PaLCuV-infected leaves were found to have reduced stomatal density (76.83%), stomatal conductance (78.34%), photosynthesis rate (74.87%), water use efficiency (82.51%), chlorophyll (72.88%), carotenoid (46.63%), osmolality (48.55%), and soluble sugars (70.37%). We also found lower enzymatic activity (superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and catalase (CAT)—56.88%, 85.27%, and 74.49%, respectively). It was found that the size of guard cells (50%), transpiration rate (45.05%), intercellular CO2 concentration (47.81%), anthocyanin (27.47%), proline content (74.17%), malondialdehyde (MDA) (106.65%), and electrolyte leakage (75.38%) was elevated in PaLCuV-infected leaves. The chlorophyll fluorescence analysis showed that the infected plant leaves had a significantly lower value of maximal quantum yield of photosystem II (PSII (Fv/Fm), photochemical quantum yield of photosystem I (PSI (Y(I)), and effective quantum yield of PSII (Y(II)). However, in non-photochemical quenching mechanisms, the proportion of energy dissipated in heat form (Y(NPQ)) was found to be significantly higher. We also tested the bioactivity of infected and healthy papaya leaf extracts on a Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) model system. It was found that the crude extract of papaya leaves significantly enhanced the life span of C. elegans (29.7%) in comparison to virus-infected leaves (18.4%) on application of 100 µg/mL dose of the crude extract. Our research indicates that the PaLCuV-infected leaves not only had anatomical and physiological losses, but that pharmacological potential was also significantly decreased

Reconfigurable Object Detection in FLIR Image Sequences

Future surveillance operations will require easily deployable “microsensors ” that are capable of autonomous detection and identification of objects[1]. These devices will operate under severe limitations on energy consumption, to enable battery-powered operation. They will assess sensor inputs locally, transmitting data only after objects of interest have been detected and extracted from sensor data. This paper describes a prototype system that detects and tracks moving objects in image sequences obtained from an infrared video camera. Computation in the system is distributed across an FPGA and a DSP chip. The current system analyzes input images, in search of objects that meet predefined criteria. If these criteria are met, the system extracts a sub-image (or “chip”) tha