Secure Identification in Social Wireless Networks

The applications based on social networking have brought revolution towards social life and are continuously gaining popularity among the Internet users. Due to the advanced computational resources offered by the innovative hardware and nominal subscriber charges of network operators, most of the online social networks are transforming into the mobile domain by offering exciting applications and games exclusively designed for users on the go. Moreover, the mobile devices are considered more personal as compared to their desktop rivals, so there is a tendency among the mobile users to store sensitive data like contacts, passwords, bank account details, updated calendar entries with key dates and personal notes on their devices. The Project Social Wireless Network Secure Identification (SWIN) is carried out at Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) to explore the practicality of providing the secure mobile social networking portal with advanced security features to tackle potential security threats by extending the existing methods with more innovative security technologies. In addition to the extensive background study and the determination of marketable use-cases with their corresponding security requirements, this thesis proposes a secure identification design to satisfy the security dimensions for both online and offline peers. We have implemented an initial prototype using PHP Socket and OpenSSL library to simulate the secure identification procedure based on the proposed design. The design is in compliance with 3GPP‟s Generic Authentication Architecture (GAA) and our implementation has demonstrated the flexibility of the solution to be applied independently for the applications requiring secure identification. Finally, the thesis provides strong foundation for the advanced implementation on mobile platform in future

THE DETERMINANTS OF JOB SATISFACTION IN PUBLIC SERVICE ORGANIZATION

The aim of this study is to identify the impact of demographic, working environment and managerial control determinants on job satisfaction. Job satisfaction has been a major course of study long time ago. However, in Pakistani context, little focus has been made on job satisfaction of public service employees. Pakistan is country whereby working in public service organization is deemed attractive. The organizational objective behind public owned sectors is to serve the community; hence identifying the determinants of job satisfaction of public sector officials has been the major focus of this study. Data was obtained from the employees of Karachi Water Sewerage Board through structured questionnaire. Hence, beside secondary sources of data, this paper mainly depends upon primary source of data. The study find out that 95% of variance is explained by demographic, working environment and managerial control for the level of job satisfaction among employees of Karachi Water & Sewerage Board

A Cone Beam CT-Based Study For Clinical Target Definition Using Pelvic Anatomy During Post-Prostatectomy Radiotherapy

Introduction: Radiation therapy (RT) is delivered after radical prostatectomy (RP) either as salvage treatment for an elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level1-6 or as adjuvant therapy for patients with highrisk pathologic features7-8. Recent prospective data demonstrated a disease-free survival benefit of adjuvant RT for pathologic T3N0 prostate cancer9-10. Despite literature supporting the delivery of post-RP RT to the prostatic fossa (PF), no clear target definition guidelines exist for intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) or image-guided RT (IGRT)11. Visualization of the PF is limited on standard CT images, with significant interobserver variability and uncertainty in CTV definition12. Efforts to incorporate complementary imaging modalities such as MRI for PF target volume definition have generated neither demonstrably more reliable PF delineation, nor practical contouring guidelines13. Regardless of the imaging modality, direct visualization and delineation of the PF clinical target volume (CTV) is fraught with uncertainty. On the other hand, it is possible to distinguish the borders of important nearby pelvic structures, namely the bladder and the rectum. The reliability of rectal volume definition on helical CT is supported by analysis of rectal contours defined in a prospective trial, suggesting the feasibility of rectal dose-volume data collection in a multicenter setting14. Fiorino et al have described a correlation between PF CTV shift and anterior rectal wall shift for the cranial half of the rectum in their report of rectal and bladder movement during post-RP RT using weekly CT images15. These studies support the reliability of CT-defined rectum contours and a limited correlation between PF CTV and anterior rectal wall, an important tenet in the current study. Int. J. Radiation Oncol. Biol. Physics, Volume 70, Issue 2, pages 431-436, Feb. 1, 2008

Distinguishing post-treatment changes from recurrent disease in cholangiocarcinoma: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Three-dimensional techniques for radiotherapy have expanded possibilities for partial volume liver radiotherapy. Characteristic, transient radiographic changes can occur in the absence of clinical radiation-induced liver disease after hepatic radiotherapy and must be distinguished from local recurrence.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>In this report, we describe computed tomography changes after chemoradiotherapy for cholangiocarcinoma as an example of collaboration to determine the clinical significance of the radiographic finding.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Because of improved three-dimensional, conformal radiotherapy techniques, consultation across disciplines may be necessary to interpret post-treatment imaging findings.</p

Health in times of uncertainty in the eastern Mediterranean region, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013

Background: The eastern Mediterranean region is comprised of 22 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Since our Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010), the region has faced unrest as a result of revolutions, wars, and the so-called Arab uprisings. The objective of this study was to present the burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors in the eastern Mediterranean region as of 2013. Methods: GBD 2013 includes an annual assessment covering 188 countries from 1990 to 2013. The study covers 306 diseases and injuries, 1233 sequelae, and 79 risk factors. Our GBD 2013 analyses included the addition of new data through updated systematic reviews and through the contribution of unpublished data sources from collaborators, an updated version of modelling software, and several improvements in our methods. In this systematic analysis, we use data from GBD 2013 to analyse the burden of disease and injuries in the eastern Mediterranean region specifically. Findings: The leading cause of death in the region in 2013 was ischaemic heart disease (90·3 deaths per 100 000 people), which increased by 17·2% since 1990. However, diarrhoeal diseases were the leading cause of death in Somalia (186·7 deaths per 100 000 people) in 2013, which decreased by 26·9% since 1990. The leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) was ischaemic heart disease for males and lower respiratory infection for females. High blood pressure was the leading risk factor for DALYs in 2013, with an increase of 83·3% since 1990. Risk factors for DALYs varied by country. In low-income countries, childhood wasting was the leading cause of DALYs in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen, whereas unsafe sex was the leading cause in Djibouti. Non-communicable risk factors were the leading cause of DALYs in high-income and middle-income countries in the region. DALY risk factors varied by age, with child and maternal malnutrition affecting the younger age groups (aged 28 days to 4 years), whereas high bodyweight and systolic blood pressure affected older people (aged 60–80 years). The proportion of DALYs attributed to high body-mass index increased from 3·7% to 7·5% between 1990 and 2013. Burden of mental health problems and drug use increased. Most increases in DALYs, especially from non-communicable diseases, were due to population growth. The crises in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria have resulted in a reduction in life expectancy; life expectancy in Syria would have been 5 years higher than that recorded for females and 6 years higher for males had the crisis not occurred. Interpretation: Our study shows that the eastern Mediterranean region is going through a crucial health phase. The Arab uprisings and the wars that followed, coupled with ageing and population growth, will have a major impact on the region's health and resources. The region has historically seen improvements in life expectancy and other health indicators, even under stress. However, the current situation will cause deteriorating health conditions for many countries and for many years and will have an impact on the region and the rest of the world. Based on our findings, we call for increased investment in health in the region in addition to reducing the conflicts

Health in times of uncertainty in the eastern Mediterranean region, 1990�2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013

Background The eastern Mediterranean region is comprised of 22 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Since our Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010), the region has faced unrest as a result of revolutions, wars, and the so-called Arab uprisings. The objective of this study was to present the burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors in the eastern Mediterranean region as of 2013. Methods GBD 2013 includes an annual assessment covering 188 countries from 1990 to 2013. The study covers 306 diseases and injuries, 1233 sequelae, and 79 risk factors. Our GBD 2013 analyses included the addition of new data through updated systematic reviews and through the contribution of unpublished data sources from collaborators, an updated version of modelling software, and several improvements in our methods. In this systematic analysis, we use data from GBD 2013 to analyse the burden of disease and injuries in the eastern Mediterranean region specifically. Findings The leading cause of death in the region in 2013 was ischaemic heart disease (90·3 deaths per 100�000 people), which increased by 17·2 since 1990. However, diarrhoeal diseases were the leading cause of death in Somalia (186·7 deaths per 100�000 people) in 2013, which decreased by 26·9 since 1990. The leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) was ischaemic heart disease for males and lower respiratory infection for females. High blood pressure was the leading risk factor for DALYs in 2013, with an increase of 83·3 since 1990. Risk factors for DALYs varied by country. In low-income countries, childhood wasting was the leading cause of DALYs in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen, whereas unsafe sex was the leading cause in Djibouti. Non-communicable risk factors were the leading cause of DALYs in high-income and middle-income countries in the region. DALY risk factors varied by age, with child and maternal malnutrition affecting the younger age groups (aged 28 days to 4 years), whereas high bodyweight and systolic blood pressure affected older people (aged 60�80 years). The proportion of DALYs attributed to high body-mass index increased from 3·7 to 7·5 between 1990 and 2013. Burden of mental health problems and drug use increased. Most increases in DALYs, especially from non-communicable diseases, were due to population growth. The crises in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria have resulted in a reduction in life expectancy; life expectancy in Syria would have been 5 years higher than that recorded for females and 6 years higher for males had the crisis not occurred. Interpretation Our study shows that the eastern Mediterranean region is going through a crucial health phase. The Arab uprisings and the wars that followed, coupled with ageing and population growth, will have a major impact on the region's health and resources. The region has historically seen improvements in life expectancy and other health indicators, even under stress. However, the current situation will cause deteriorating health conditions for many countries and for many years and will have an impact on the region and the rest of the world. Based on our findings, we call for increased investment in health in the region in addition to reducing the conflicts. Funding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY licens

Secure Identification in Social Wireless Networks

The applications based on social networking have brought revolution towards social life and are continuously gaining popularity among the Internet users. Due to the advanced computational resources offered by the innovative hardware and nominal subscriber charges of network operators, most of the online social networks are transforming into the mobile domain by offering exciting applications and games exclusively designed for users on the go. Moreover, the mobile devices are considered more personal as compared to their desktop rivals, so there is a tendency among the mobile users to store sensitive data like contacts, passwords, bank account details, updated calendar entries with key dates and personal notes on their devices. The Project Social Wireless Network Secure Identification (SWIN) is carried out at Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) to explore the practicality of providing the secure mobile social networking portal with advanced security features to tackle potential security threats by extending the existing methods with more innovative security technologies. In addition to the extensive background study and the determination of marketable use-cases with their corresponding security requirements, this thesis proposes a secure identification design to satisfy the security dimensions for both online and offline peers. We have implemented an initial prototype using PHP Socket and OpenSSL library to simulate the secure identification procedure based on the proposed design. The design is in compliance with 3GPP’s Generic Authentication Architecture (GAA) and our implementation has demonstrated the flexibility of the solution to be applied independently for the applications requiring secure identification. Finally, the thesis provides strong foundation for the advanced implementation on mobile platform in future

A Holistic View of QoE for Multimedia Streaming

Internet access has evolved in the last decade with the availability of smart handheld devices and high bandwidth offered by mobile networks at reduced costs. Multimedia traffic primarily video became the main share of global Internet traffic due to the popularity of multimedia supported social applications, online gaming, and IPTV. Thus, the success of any network based business model is dependent on service quality and Quality of Experience (QoE) is widely accepted as a means to describe user satisfaction with a service. QoE can be influenced by numerous factors ranging from content liking to system and context-related artifacts. In this thesis, a holistic approach is adopted to evaluate the QoE of an end-user regarding video quality based on system, contextual and human factors. At the system level, an impact of the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU), and the comparison of widely used video codecs in error-prone networks is investigated by using diverse streaming protocols on an emulated network. It is found that the myth of using small MTU for better performance in high-loss scenarios comes at a cost of increased latency at the intermediate nodes and doesn’t provide any gain in video quality. The performance of the Google royalty-free VP8 codec was also shown to be on par with the widely adopted and proprietary H.264, especially in scenarios involving high jitter. At a human level, user delight towards the shown stimulus, his or her mood along with the frequency of watching online content (contextual), and their impact on quality ratings are investigated. It is found that human-related personality traits tend to influence subjective ratings and highlight the requirement of more cohesive QoE models to estimate user perception

A Holistic View of QoE for Multimedia Streaming

Internet access has evolved in the last decade with the availability of smart handheld devices and high bandwidth offered by mobile networks at reduced costs. Multimedia traffic primarily video became the main share of global Internet traffic due to the popularity of multimedia supported social applications, online gaming, and IPTV. Thus, the success of any network based business model is dependent on service quality and Quality of Experience (QoE) is widely accepted as a means to describe user satisfaction with a service. QoE can be influenced by numerous factors ranging from content liking to system and context-related artifacts. In this thesis, a holistic approach is adopted to evaluate the QoE of an end-user regarding video quality based on system, contextual and human factors. At the system level, an impact of the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU), and the comparison of widely used video codecs in error-prone networks is investigated by using diverse streaming protocols on an emulated network. It is found that the myth of using small MTU for better performance in high-loss scenarios comes at a cost of increased latency at the intermediate nodes and doesn’t provide any gain in video quality. The performance of the Google royalty-free VP8 codec was also shown to be on par with the widely adopted and proprietary H.264, especially in scenarios involving high jitter. At a human level, user delight towards the shown stimulus, his or her mood along with the frequency of watching online content (contextual), and their impact on quality ratings are investigated. It is found that human-related personality traits tend to influence subjective ratings and highlight the requirement of more cohesive QoE models to estimate user perception

Secure Identification in Social Wireless Networks

The applications based on social networking have brought revolution towards social life and are continuously gaining popularity among the Internet users. Due to the advanced computational resources offered by the innovative hardware and nominal subscriber charges of network operators, most of the online social networks are transforming into the mobile domain by offering exciting applications and games exclusively designed for users on the go. Moreover, the mobile devices are considered more personal as compared to their desktop rivals, so there is a tendency among the mobile users to store sensitive data like contacts, passwords, bank account details, updated calendar entries with key dates and personal notes on their devices. The Project Social Wireless Network Secure Identification (SWIN) is carried out at Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) to explore the practicality of providing the secure mobile social networking portal with advanced security features to tackle potential security threats by extending the existing methods with more innovative security technologies. In addition to the extensive background study and the determination of marketable use-cases with their corresponding security requirements, this thesis proposes a secure identification design to satisfy the security dimensions for both online and offline peers. We have implemented an initial prototype using PHP Socket and OpenSSL library to simulate the secure identification procedure based on the proposed design. The design is in compliance with 3GPP’s Generic Authentication Architecture (GAA) and our implementation has demonstrated the flexibility of the solution to be applied independently for the applications requiring secure identification. Finally, the thesis provides strong foundation for the advanced implementation on mobile platform in future