RCD: Rapid Close to Deadline Scheduling for Datacenter Networks

Datacenter-based Cloud Computing services provide a flexible, scalable and yet economical infrastructure to host online services such as multimedia streaming, email and bulk storage. Many such services perform geo-replication to provide necessary quality of service and reliability to users resulting in frequent large inter- datacenter transfers. In order to meet tenant service level agreements (SLAs), these transfers have to be completed prior to a deadline. In addition, WAN resources are quite scarce and costly, meaning they should be fully utilized. Several recently proposed schemes, such as B4, TEMPUS, and SWAN have focused on improving the utilization of inter-datacenter transfers through centralized scheduling, however, they fail to provide a mechanism to guarantee that admitted requests meet their deadlines. Also, in a recent study, authors propose Amoeba, a system that allows tenants to define deadlines and guarantees that the specified deadlines are met, however, to admit new traffic, the proposed system has to modify the allocation of already admitted transfers. In this paper, we propose Rapid Close to Deadline Scheduling (RCD), a close to deadline traffic allocation technique that is fast and efficient. Through simulations, we show that RCD is up to 15 times faster than Amoeba, provides high link utilization along with deadline guarantees, and is able to make quick decisions on whether a new request can be fully satisfied before its deadline.Comment: World Automation Congress (WAC), IEEE, 201

Implementing a lightweight Schmidt-Samoa cryptosystem (SSC) for sensory communications

One of the remarkable issues that face wireless sensor networks (WSNs) nowadays is security. WSNs should provide a way to transfer data securely particularly when employed for mission-critical purposes. In this paper, we propose an enhanced architecture and implementation for 128-bit Schmidt-Samoa cryptosystem (SSC) to secure the data communication for wireless sensor networks (WSN) against external attacks. The proposed SSC cryptosystem has been efficiently implemented and verified using FPGA modules by exploiting the maximum allowable parallelism of the SSC internal operations. To verify the proposed SSC implementation, we have synthesized our VHDL coding using Quartus II CAD tool targeting the Altera Cyclone IV FPGA EP4CGX22CF19C7 device. Hence, the synthesizer results reveal that the proposed cryptographic FPGA processor recorded an attractive result in terms of critical path delay, hardware utilization, maximum operational frequency FPGA thermal power dissipation for low-power applications such as the wireless sensor networks

Patterns of suicide and self-harm in Pakistan: a retrospective descriptive study protocol

Introduction Suicide is a major global public health problem. Low-income and middle-income countries contribute 78% of all suicidal deaths. Pakistan, a South Asian country, lacks official statistics on suicides at national level. Statistics on suicide are neither collected nationally nor published in the annual national morbidity and mortality surveys. Medicolegal reports on suicides and self-harm are extremely rich and important source of information but greatly underused in Pakistan. We aim to examine the patterns of suicides and self-harm retrospectively in patients who were registered with medicolegal centres (MLCs) in Karachi, during the period January 2017 to December 2021. Methods and analysis Using retrospective descriptive design, the data will be collected from the medical records maintained at the main office of the Karachi police surgeon. Data from all nine MLCs of Karachi are collated and stored at the main office of Police surgeon. Information on suicide and self-harm cases will be extracted from records of all MLCs. The data will be collected using structured proforma and it will be analysed using descriptive and inferential analysis. Ethics and dissemination The study was approved for exemption from Aga Khan University, Ethical Review Committee. The findings of the study will be disseminated by conducting seminars for healthcare professionals and stakeholders including psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, medicolegal officers, police surgeons, mental health nurses, general and public health physicians and policy makers. Findings will be published in local and international peer-reviewed scientific journals

RSV associated hospitalizations in children in Karachi, Pakistan: Implications for vaccine prevention strategies

Major progress is being made in vaccines against Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), with multiple vaccine candidates currently in the clinical phase of development. Making an investment case for public sector financing of RSV vaccine will require estimation of burden, cost-effectiveness, and impact. The aim of this study is to determine the proportion, age distribution and clinical spectrum of RSV associated hospitalizations in children in Karachi, Pakistan. A three years prospective study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, a city of 20 million in south Pakistan, from August 2009 to June 2012. Children less than five years old admitted with acute respiratory infections (ARI) were enrolled. Throat swabs were collected and tested for RSV using real-time PCR. Multivariable log binomial regression analysis was performed to identify the associated factors of RSV infection. Out of 1150 children enrolled, RSV was detected among 223 (19%). Highest rate of RSV detection was in young infants less than 3 months of age (48/168, 29%), which accounted for 22% of all RSV detected. Most common diagnosis in RSV positive infants (age) was bronchiolitis followed by pneumonia, while in older children between the ages of one and 5 years of age, pneumonia and asthma were the most common diagnosis. Although identified year-round, RSV was most prevalent from August to October with peak in September, coinciding with the rainy season. This study identified RSV to be independently associated with younger age (P = 0.036), rainy season (P \u3c 0.001), post-tussive emesis (P = 0.008), intubation (P = 0.003), and discharge diagnosis of bronchiolitis (P = 0.004). Vaccines against RSV that target this age group are likely to yield remarkable benefit

Effectiveness of 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine against vaccine-type invasive pneumococcal disease in Pakistan

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV10) against invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) due to vaccine serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae post introduction of the vaccine into the routine immunization program in Pakistan.Methods: A matched case-control study was conducted at 16 hospitals in Sindh Province, Pakistan. Children aged (eligible to receive PCV10) who presented with radiographically confirmed pneumonia and/or meningitis were enrolled as cases. PCR for the lytA gene was conducted on blood (for radiographic pneumonia) and cerebrospinal fluid (for meningitis) samples to detect S. pneumoniae. The proportion of IPD due to vaccine serotypes (including vaccine-related serogroups) was determined through serial multiplex PCR. For each case, at least five controls were enrolled from children hospitalized at the same institution, matched for age, district, and season.Results: Of 92 IPD patients enrolled during July 2013 to March 2017, 24 (26.0%) had disease caused by vaccine serotypes. Most case (87.5% of 24) and control (66.4% of 134) children had not received any PCV10 doses. The estimated effectiveness of PCV10 against vaccine-type IPD was 72.7% (95% confidence interval (CI) -7.2% to 92.6%) with at least one dose, 78.8% (95% CI -11.9% to 96.0%) for at least two doses, and 81.9% (95% CI -55.7% to 97.9%) for all three doses of vaccine.Conclusion: The vaccine effectiveness point estimates for PCV10 were high and increased with increasing number of doses. However, vaccine effectiveness estimates did not reach statistical significance, possibly due to low power. The findings indicate the likely impact of vaccine in reducing the burden of vaccine-type IPD if vaccine uptake can be improved

Global burden of respiratory infections associated with seasonal influenza in children under 5 years in 2018: A systematic review and modelling study

Background: Seasonal influenza virus is a common cause of acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) in young children. In 2008, we estimated that 20 million influenza-virus-associated ALRI and 1 million influenza-virus-associated severe ALRI occurred in children under 5 years globally. Despite this substantial burden, only a few low-income and middle-income countries have adopted routine influenza vaccination policies for children and, where present, these have achieved only low or unknown levels of vaccine uptake. Moreover, the influenza burden might have changed due to the emergence and circulation of influenza A/H1N1pdm09. We aimed to incorporate new data to update estimates of the global number of cases, hospital admissions, and mortality from influenza-virus-associated respiratory infections in children under 5 years in 2018.Methods: We estimated the regional and global burden of influenza-associated respiratory infections in children under 5 years from a systematic review of 100 studies published between Jan 1, 1995, and Dec 31, 2018, and a further 57 high-quality unpublished studies. We adapted the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale to assess the risk of bias. We estimated incidence and hospitalisation rates of influenza-virus-associated respiratory infections by severity, case ascertainment, region, and age. We estimated in-hospital deaths from influenza virus ALRI by combining hospital admissions and in-hospital case-fatality ratios of influenza virus ALRI. We estimated the upper bound of influenza virus-associated ALRI deaths based on the number of in-hospital deaths, US paediatric influenza-associated death data, and population-based childhood all-cause pneumonia mortality data in six sites in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.Findings: In 2018, among children under 5 years globally, there were an estimated 109·5 million influenza virus episodes (uncertainty range [UR] 63·1-190·6), 10·1 million influenza-virus-associated ALRI cases (6·8-15·1); 870 000 influenza-virus-associated ALRI hospital admissions (543 000-1 415 000), 15 300 in-hospital deaths (5800-43 800), and up to 34 800 (13 200-97 200) overall influenza-virus-associated ALRI deaths. Influenza virus accounted for 7% of ALRI cases, 5% of ALRI hospital admissions, and 4% of ALRI deaths in children under 5 years. About 23% of the hospital admissions and 36% of the in-hospital deaths were in infants under 6 months. About 82% of the in-hospital deaths occurred in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.Interpretation: A large proportion of the influenza-associated burden occurs among young infants and in low-income and lower middle-income countries. Our findings provide new and important evidence for maternal and paediatric influenza immunisation, and should inform future immunisation policy particularly in low-income and middle-income countries.Funding: WHO; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Factors Responsible for the Prolonged Stay of Surgical Neonates in Intensive Care Units

Objectives: The length of hospital stay (HS) for patients is a major concern due to its social, economic and administrative implications; this is particularly important for neonates admitted to intensive care units (ICUs). This study aimed to determine the factors responsible for prolonged HS in surgical neonates. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, in Muscat, Oman. The medical records of 95 neonates admitted to the neonatal ICU who underwent general surgical procedures between July 2009 and June 2013 were reviewed. Mann-Whitney U and Pearson’s Chi-squared tests were used for non-parametric numerical and categorical variables, respectively. A multiple regression analysis was performed to find a relationship between the variables and to detect the most important factor responsible for prolonged HS. A P value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Gestational age, birth weight, number of days on a ventilator and postoperative morbidity were associated with prolonged HS. Furthermore, the age of neonates at first full enteral feed was associated with increased HS using both independent and multiple regression analyses. Conclusion: Prolonged HS can occur as a result of many factors. In this study, a number of factors were identified, including low gestational age, low birth weight, increased number of days on a ventilator and postoperative morbidity. Additionally, neonate age at first full enteral feeds also correlated with increased HS. Further research on this topic is suggested to explore this correlation in more detail and to inform future practices