Cryptography: Against AI and QAI Odds

Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents prodigious technological prospects for development, however, all that glitters is not gold! The cyber-world faces the worst nightmare with the advent of AI and quantum computers. Together with Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI), they pose a catastrophic threat to modern cryptography. It would also increase the capability of cryptanalysts manifold, with its built-in persistent and extensive predictive intelligence. This prediction ability incapacitates the constrained message space in device cryptography. With the comparison of these assumptions and the intercepted ciphertext, the code-cracking process will considerably accelerate. Before the vigorous and robust developments in AI, we have never faced and never had to prepare for such a plaintext-originating attack. The supremacy of AI can be challenged by creating ciphertexts that would give the AI attacker erroneous responses stymied by randomness and misdirect them. AI threat is deterred by deviating from the conventional use of small, known-size keys and pattern-loaded ciphers. The strategy is vested in implementing larger secret size keys, supplemented by ad-hoc unilateral randomness of unbound limitations and a pattern-devoid technique. The very large key size can be handled with low processing and computational burden to achieve desired unicity distances. The strategy against AI odds is feasible by implementing non-algorithmic randomness, large and inexpensive memory chips, and wide-area communication networks. The strength of AI, i.e., randomness and pattern detection can be used to generate highly optimized ciphers and algorithms. These pattern-devoid, randomness-rich ciphers also provide a timely and plausible solution for NIST's proactive approach toward the quantum challenge

SSD Forensic: Evidence Generation And Forensic Research On Solid State Drives Using Trim Analysis

Traditional hard drives consisting of spinning magnetic media platters are becoming things of the past as with the emergence of the latest digital technologies and electronic equipment, the demand for faster, lighter, and more reliable alternate storage solutions is imperative. To attain these requirements, flash storage technologies like Solid State Drive (SSD) has overtaken traditional hard disk drives. In a forensic analysis of flash storage devices, forensic investigators are facing severe challenges for the reason that the sovereign behavior of solid-state storage media does not look favorable compared to traditional storage media devices. Wear Leveling, a fundamental mechanism in Solid State Drive (SSD), plays a severe challenge that most often destroys forensic evidence in many cases. It makes it complicated for forensic investigators to recover the necessary evidence. Persistence of deleted data in flash storage media depends on various factors like the Garbage Collection process, TRIM command, flash media type, manufacturer, capacity, file system, type of file saved, and the Operating System, etc. In view of this, extensive experiments conducted to identify the probability of data recovery and carving. Analyzed effects of Wear Leveling and Garbage Collection processes in Solid State Drive (SSD) of different manufacturers, having the same storage capacities and with a different type of files utilized. In conclusion, experimental findings established the fact that Wear Leveling in solid-state media can obfuscate digital evidence, and a conventional assumption regarding the behavior of storage media is no more valid. Moreover, data persistency also depends on the manufacturers, time-lapse of forensic analysis after data deletion, type of files, and size of files stored in Solid State Drives (SSD)

Autonomous and Collaborative Smart Home Security System (ACSHSS)

Firstly, the proposed solution provides remotely accessible integrated IoT resources for the safety and security of the building. By using Sha ort Messaging System (SMS), the age is sent to the user by the Global System for Mobile (GSM) system. An SMS alert is sent to the user in case any sensor detects an abnormality in their operation. Secondly, an authentication mechanism is deployed to enable only authorized users to access resources. Thirdly, in case of a malicious approach in accessing IoT resources, a timely alert should be received by the owner. A Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) is deployed to detect and real-time information in case of any suspicious activity while accessing the Internet of Things network.Comment: nil

Performance assessment of VoIP service over different handover mechanisms in UMTS networks

Many researchers have discussed various topics in universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) networks: the process of switching from one cell to another for the subscriber and the impact of the quality of the connection during the transition process, quality of services (QoS), the quality of the uplink and downlink carrier line, the various types of code for the voice transmitted through the Internet, especially the research that discussed voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology as voice travels from cell to cell in mobile networks, depending on the type of delivery. In this paper, a proposed scenario of a UMTS network was implemented to evaluate the multicellular VoIP movement; the proposed UMTS network was simulated using the OPNET 14.5 simulator. The calculation and analysis of the different parameters of the user while moving from one cell to another with different movement speeds considered, the best mean opinion score (MOS) value (3.19) registered for the scenario (soft handover) comparing with another type of handover (3.00)

The Effect of Agriculture Waste as Adsorbent for Heavy Metal

تم فحص التخلص من الأيونات المعدنية الثقيلة من مياه الصرف الصحي باستخدام الفول الذي تم تغييره إلى دراسة. تمت دراسة سلوك الامتصاص للأيونات المعدنية على الممتزات التي تعتمد على وقت اللمس، ودرجة الحموضة، وجرعة الراتنج، والانتباه الأولي للفولاذ في نهج الدُفعات. يشير نظام الامتزاز، الذي يعتمد على الأس الهيدروجيني، إلى الحد الأقصى للتخلص من أيونات المعادن عند درجة حموضة 4 للإدراك الأولي للأيونات المعدنية من 5-25 مجم / لتر، من خلال جرعة دمار من 0.1-1 جم وتم لمس التماثل في 1.30 ساعة. أظهرت النتائج أن التصفية المثلى كانت 95٪ عندما كان التركيز الأولي 25 مجم / لتر، والوقت 120 دقيقة، والجرعة 1 جم، ودرجة الحموضة 4. تشير النتيجة النهائية إلى أنه يمكن استخدام الفول كمواد ممتصة للأداء لإزالة أيونات المعادن الثقيلة من أيونات مياه الصرف. من بين هذه الأنواع من التقنيات، يكون الامتصاص مناسبًا اقتصاديًا وسهل الفصل تقنيًا. على عكس استخدام المواد التجارية، عمل الباحثون على مواد أرخص بما في ذلك المنتجات الطبيعية والزراعية. تضمنت العديد من الأعمال إزالة المعادن الثقيلة ولكن لوحات الهدايا تخصص المواد الماصة على أساس الكتلة الحيوية وأدائها في التخلص من المعادن الثقيلة من مياه الصرف.The elimination of heavy metallic ions from wastewater the use of fava beans changed into investigated. The sorption behavior of metallic ions on the adsorbent relying on touch time, pH, resin dosage, and initial steel attention became studied in batch approach. The adsorption system, which is pH dependent, indicates maximum elimination of metal ions at pH of 4 for preliminary metal ion awareness of 5-25 mg/l, through a dammar dosage of 0.1-1 g and the symmetry became touched in 1.30 hr. The results showed that the optimum clearance was 95% when the initial concentration was 25 mg/L, the time was 120 minutes, the dose was 1 g, and the pH was 4. The final result implies that fava beans may be used as a performance adsorbent material for the removal of heavy metallic ions from waste water ions. amongst these kinds of techniques, the adsorption is economically favorable and technically smooth to separate. as opposed to the use of business substances researchers have labored on cheaper materials including natural and agricultural products. numerous works involved the removal of heavy metals however the gift paintings make a speciality of the sorbents based totally on biomass and their performance in elimination of heavy metals from waste water

Feasibility Study of a Low Cost Saltwater Lamp for Rural Area

Renewable energy is energy generated from natural resources and cannot be depleted. Solar energy is the fastest growing source of renewable energy but the high installation and maintenance cost of a solar system has restrained the consumers from adopting this technology at their home or commercial building. This is especially true for those in developing countries. A new promising renewable energy source known as saltwater energy that takes advantage of the conductive nature of salt water to generate electricity, has intrigued many people. A study has been conducted to develop and produce saltwater-powered devices especially for rural and remote communities in Malaysia as well as worldwide. To main objective of this study is to determine the factors that affect the performance of the saltwater energy generation such as electrode’s combinations, number of cells and the durability of the electrodes. It was found that the choice of electrodes as anode and cathode does affect the voltage output. However, due to the small power produce, the number of cells must be increased to produce enough power to light up a led light and to provide power to USB port. This paper also conducted a cost analysis of using the saltwater lamp and compared it with a solar system. Although the difference in the cost per hour is very small, there are a number of disadvantages of solar system that need to be aware of. The findings obtained from these experiments will be used to design a prototype of the illumination technology for further product development

The unfinished agenda of communicable diseases among children and adolescents before the COVID-19 pandemic, 1990-2019: a systematic analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

BACKGROUND: Communicable disease control has long been a focus of global health policy. There have been substantial reductions in the burden and mortality of communicable diseases among children younger than 5 years, but we know less about this burden in older children and adolescents, and it is unclear whether current programmes and policies remain aligned with targets for intervention. This knowledge is especially important for policy and programmes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to use the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 to systematically characterise the burden of communicable diseases across childhood and adolescence. METHODS: In this systematic analysis of the GBD study from 1990 to 2019, all communicable diseases and their manifestations as modelled within GBD 2019 were included, categorised as 16 subgroups of common diseases or presentations. Data were reported for absolute count, prevalence, and incidence across measures of cause-specific mortality (deaths and years of life lost), disability (years lived with disability [YLDs]), and disease burden (disability-adjusted life-years [DALYs]) for children and adolescents aged 0-24 years. Data were reported across the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) and across time (1990-2019), and for 204 countries and territories. For HIV, we reported the mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) as a measure of health system performance. FINDINGS: In 2019, there were 3·0 million deaths and 30·0 million years of healthy life lost to disability (as measured by YLDs), corresponding to 288·4 million DALYs from communicable diseases among children and adolescents globally (57·3% of total communicable disease burden across all ages). Over time, there has been a shift in communicable disease burden from young children to older children and adolescents (largely driven by the considerable reductions in children younger than 5 years and slower progress elsewhere), although children younger than 5 years still accounted for most of the communicable disease burden in 2019. Disease burden and mortality were predominantly in low-SDI settings, with high and high-middle SDI settings also having an appreciable burden of communicable disease morbidity (4·0 million YLDs in 2019 alone). Three cause groups (enteric infections, lower-respiratory-tract infections, and malaria) accounted for 59·8% of the global communicable disease burden in children and adolescents, with tuberculosis and HIV both emerging as important causes during adolescence. HIV was the only cause for which disease burden increased over time, particularly in children and adolescents older than 5 years, and especially in females. Excess MIRs for HIV were observed for males aged 15-19 years in low-SDI settings. INTERPRETATION: Our analysis supports continued policy focus on enteric infections and lower-respiratory-tract infections, with orientation to children younger than 5 years in settings of low socioeconomic development. However, efforts should also be targeted to other conditions, particularly HIV, given its increased burden in older children and adolescents. Older children and adolescents also experience a large burden of communicable disease, further highlighting the need for efforts to extend beyond the first 5 years of life. Our analysis also identified substantial morbidity caused by communicable diseases affecting child and adolescent health across the world. FUNDING: The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Centre for Research Excellence for Driving Investment in Global Adolescent Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Measuring universal health coverage based on an index of effective coverage of health services in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019 : A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) involves all people receiving the health services they need, of high quality, without experiencing financial hardship. Making progress towards UHC is a policy priority for both countries and global institutions, as highlighted by the agenda of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and WHO's Thirteenth General Programme of Work (GPW13). Measuring effective coverage at the health-system level is important for understanding whether health services are aligned with countries' health profiles and are of sufficient quality to produce health gains for populations of all ages. Methods Based on the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019, we assessed UHC effective coverage for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019. Drawing from a measurement framework developed through WHO's GPW13 consultation, we mapped 23 effective coverage indicators to a matrix representing health service types (eg, promotion, prevention, and treatment) and five population-age groups spanning from reproductive and newborn to older adults (≥65 years). Effective coverage indicators were based on intervention coverage or outcome-based measures such as mortality-to-incidence ratios to approximate access to quality care; outcome-based measures were transformed to values on a scale of 0–100 based on the 2·5th and 97·5th percentile of location-year values. We constructed the UHC effective coverage index by weighting each effective coverage indicator relative to its associated potential health gains, as measured by disability-adjusted life-years for each location-year and population-age group. For three tests of validity (content, known-groups, and convergent), UHC effective coverage index performance was generally better than that of other UHC service coverage indices from WHO (ie, the current metric for SDG indicator 3.8.1 on UHC service coverage), the World Bank, and GBD 2017. We quantified frontiers of UHC effective coverage performance on the basis of pooled health spending per capita, representing UHC effective coverage index levels achieved in 2019 relative to country-level government health spending, prepaid private expenditures, and development assistance for health. To assess current trajectories towards the GPW13 UHC billion target—1 billion more people benefiting from UHC by 2023—we estimated additional population equivalents with UHC effective coverage from 2018 to 2023. Findings Globally, performance on the UHC effective coverage index improved from 45·8 (95% uncertainty interval 44·2–47·5) in 1990 to 60·3 (58·7–61·9) in 2019, yet country-level UHC effective coverage in 2019 still spanned from 95 or higher in Japan and Iceland to lower than 25 in Somalia and the Central African Republic. Since 2010, sub-Saharan Africa showed accelerated gains on the UHC effective coverage index (at an average increase of 2·6% [1·9–3·3] per year up to 2019); by contrast, most other GBD super-regions had slowed rates of progress in 2010–2019 relative to 1990–2010. Many countries showed lagging performance on effective coverage indicators for non-communicable diseases relative to those for communicable diseases and maternal and child health, despite non-communicable diseases accounting for a greater proportion of potential health gains in 2019, suggesting that many health systems are not keeping pace with the rising non-communicable disease burden and associated population health needs. In 2019, the UHC effective coverage index was associated with pooled health spending per capita (r=0·79), although countries across the development spectrum had much lower UHC effective coverage than is potentially achievable relative to their health spending. Under maximum efficiency of translating health spending into UHC effective coverage performance, countries would need to reach $1398 pooled health spending per capita (US$ adjusted for purchasing power parity) in order to achieve 80 on the UHC effective coverage index. From 2018 to 2023, an estimated 388·9 million (358·6–421·3) more population equivalents would have UHC effective coverage, falling well short of the GPW13 target of 1 billion more people benefiting from UHC during this time. Current projections point to an estimated 3·1 billion (3·0–3·2) population equivalents still lacking UHC effective coverage in 2023, with nearly a third (968·1 million [903·5–1040·3]) residing in south Asia. Interpretation The present study demonstrates the utility of measuring effective coverage and its role in supporting improved health outcomes for all people—the ultimate goal of UHC and its achievement. Global ambitions to accelerate progress on UHC service coverage are increasingly unlikely unless concerted action on non-communicable diseases occurs and countries can better translate health spending into improved performance. Focusing on effective coverage and accounting for the world's evolving health needs lays the groundwork for better understanding how close—or how far—all populations are in benefiting from UHC

Mapping local patterns of childhood overweight and wasting in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5) million) in 2000 to 6.0% (55.5 (44.8–67.9) million) children aged under 5 years in 2017. Areas most affected by double burden of malnutrition were located in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Our estimates provide a new perspective to researchers, policy makers and public health agencies in their efforts to address this global childhood syndemic

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens