Efficient and secure business model for content centric network using elliptic curve cryptography

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/dac.3839Initially, Internet has evolved as a resource sharing model where resources are identified by IP addresses. However, with rapid technological advancement, resources/hardware has become cheap and thus, the need of sharing hardware over Internet is reduced. Moreover, people are using Internet mainly for information exchange and hence, Internet has gradually shifted from resource sharing to information sharing model. To meet the recent growing demand of information exchange, Content Centric Network (CCN) is envisaged as a clean‐slate future network architecture which is specially destined for smooth content distribution over Internet. In CCN, content is easily made available using network caching mechanism which is misaligned with the existing business policy of content providers/publishers in IP‐based Internet. Hence, the transition from contemporary IP‐based Internet to CCN demands attention for redesigning the business policy of the content publishers/providers. In this paper, we have proposed efficient and secure communication protocols for flexible CCN business model to protect the existing business policies of the content publisher while maintaining the salient CCN features like in‐network content caching and Interest packet aggregation. To enhance the efficiency and security, the Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is used. The proposed ECC‐based scheme is analyzed to show that it is resilient to relevant existing cryptographic attacks. The performance analysis in terms of less computation and communication overheads and increased efficiency is given. Moreover, a formal security verification of the proposed scheme is done using widely used AVISPA simulator and BAN logic that shows our scheme is well secured

Global, regional, and national burden of neurological disorders, 1990–2016 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Background: Neurological disorders are increasingly recognised as major causes of death and disability worldwide. The aim of this analysis from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2016 is to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date estimates of the global, regional, and national burden from neurological disorders. Methods: We estimated prevalence, incidence, deaths, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs; the sum of years of life lost [YLLs] and years lived with disability [YLDs]) by age and sex for 15 neurological disorder categories (tetanus, meningitis, encephalitis, stroke, brain and other CNS cancers, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron diseases, idiopathic epilepsy, migraine, tension-type headache, and a residual category for other less common neurological disorders) in 195 countries from 1990 to 2016. DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool, was the main method of estimation of prevalence and incidence, and the Cause of Death Ensemble model (CODEm) was used for mortality estimation. We quantified the contribution of 84 risks and combinations of risk to the disease estimates for the 15 neurological disorder categories using the GBD comparative risk assessment approach. Findings: Globally, in 2016, neurological disorders were the leading cause of DALYs (276 million [95% UI 247–308]) and second leading cause of deaths (9·0 million [8·8–9·4]). The absolute number of deaths and DALYs from all neurological disorders combined increased (deaths by 39% [34–44] and DALYs by 15% [9–21]) whereas their age-standardised rates decreased (deaths by 28% [26–30] and DALYs by 27% [24–31]) between 1990 and 2016. The only neurological disorders that had a decrease in rates and absolute numbers of deaths and DALYs were tetanus, meningitis, and encephalitis. The four largest contributors of neurological DALYs were stroke (42·2% [38·6–46·1]), migraine (16·3% [11·7–20·8]), Alzheimer's and other dementias (10·4% [9·0–12·1]), and meningitis (7·9% [6·6–10·4]). For the combined neurological disorders, age-standardised DALY rates were significantly higher in males than in females (male-to-female ratio 1·12 [1·05–1·20]), but migraine, multiple sclerosis, and tension-type headache were more common and caused more burden in females, with male-to-female ratios of less than 0·7. The 84 risks quantified in GBD explain less than 10% of neurological disorder DALY burdens, except stroke, for which 88·8% (86·5–90·9) of DALYs are attributable to risk factors, and to a lesser extent Alzheimer's disease and other dementias (22·3% [11·8–35·1] of DALYs are risk attributable) and idiopathic epilepsy (14·1% [10·8–17·5] of DALYs are risk attributable). Interpretation: Globally, the burden of neurological disorders, as measured by the absolute number of DALYs, continues to increase. As populations are growing and ageing, and the prevalence of major disabling neurological disorders steeply increases with age, governments will face increasing demand for treatment, rehabilitation, and support services for neurological disorders. The scarcity of established modifiable risks for most of the neurological burden demonstrates that new knowledge is required to develop effective prevention and treatment strategies. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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

Analysis and simulation of Wiseman hypocycloid engine

This research studies an alternative to the slider-crank mechanism for internal combustion engines, which was proposed by the Wiseman Technologies Inc. Their design involved replacing the crankshaft with a hypocycloid gear assembly. The unique hypocycloid gear arrangement allowed the piston and connecting rod to move in a straight line creating a perfect sinusoidal motion, without any side loads. In this work, the Wiseman hypocycloid engine was modeled in a commercial engine simulation software and compared to slider-crank engine of the same size. The engine’s performance was studied, while operating on diesel, ethanol, and gasoline fuel. Furthermore, a scaling analysis on the Wiseman engine prototypes was carried out to understand how the performance of the engine is affected by increasing the output power and cylinder displacement. It was found that the existing 30cc Wiseman engine produced about 7% less power at peak speeds than the slider-crank engine of the same size. These results were concurrent with the dynamometer tests performed in the past. It also produced lower torque and was about 6% less fuel efficient than the slider-crank engine. The four-stroke diesel variant of the same Wiseman engine performed better than the two-stroke gasoline version. The Wiseman engine with a contra piston (that allowed to vary the compression ratio) showed poor fuel efficiency but produced higher torque when operating on E85 fuel. It also produced about 1.4% more power than while running on gasoline. While analyzing effects of the engine size on the Wiseman hypocycloid engine prototypes, it was found that the engines performed better in terms of power, torque, fuel efficiency, and cylinder brake mean effective pressure as the displacement increased. The 30 horsepower (HP) conceptual Wiseman prototype, while operating on E85, produced the most optimum results in all aspects, and the diesel test for the same engine proved to be the most fuel efficient

A Certificate Authority (CA)-based cryptographic solution for HIPAA privacy/security regulations

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) passed by the US Congress establishes a number of privacy/security regulations for e-healthcare systems. These regulations support patients’ medical privacy and secure exchange of PHI (protected health information) among medical practitioners. Three existing HIPAA-based schemes have been studied but appear to be ineffective as patients’ PHI is stored in smartcards. Moreover, carrying a smartcard during a treatment session and accessing PHI from different locations results in restrictions. In addition, authentication of the smartcard presenter would not be possible if the PIN is compromised. In this context, we propose an MCS (medical center server) should be located at each hospital and accessed via the Internet for secure handling of patients’ PHI. All entities of the proposed e-health system register online with the MCS, and each entity negotiates a contributory registration key, where public-key certificates issued and maintained by CAs are used for authentication. Prior to a treatment session, a doctor negotiates a secret session key with MCS and uploads/retrieves patients’ PHI securely. The proposed scheme has five phases, which have been implemented in a secure manner for supporting HIPAA privacy/security regulations. Finally, the security aspects, computation and communication costs of the scheme are analyzed and compared with existing methods that display satisfactory performance

ECC-EXONUM-eVOTING: A Novel Signature-Based e-Voting Scheme Using Blockchain and Zero Knowledge Property

Traditional voting systems mainly comprise of paper polling, electronic ballot system (EVM), mechanical devices, etc., and demand the physical presence of the voters. In the new age of digitization, the electronic voting system has come up with a unique facility to cast votes from any discreet place. However, the e-voting system has to face several challenges regarding security and privacy. To overcome such obstructions, blockchain is introduced in e-voting applications that preserve anonymity, security, and consistency of voter-related information with the help of Merkle tree and hash digest. Hence, any discrepancy can immediately be detected whenever the hash values of the respective block have been modified and consequently, the whole block is discarded. In this research, a novel e-voting scheme is proposed following the decentralized service-oriented architecture of Exonum private blockchain, hybrid consensus algorithm, and Elliptic Curve Diffie-Helmen (ECDH) protocol to agree upon a secure session key among different participants. Moreover, the proposed scheme (ECC-EXONUM-eVOTING) employs a zero-knowledge protocol and is customized to work over idemix technologies with a blind signature scheme. Numerous well-known cryptographic attacks are analyzed formally using the probabilistic random oracle model and informally for validating the security strength of ECC-EXONUM-eVOTING. As a result, it is found that the proposed scheme is well-defended against all potential security concerns. Furthermore, the scheme is simulated using both Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) and Scyther tools to demonstrate the proposed scheme is not prone to any security attacks. Finally, it is concluded that the proposed scheme is well-suited for secure e-voting applications

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Not AvailableRice is highly sensitive to salt stress at flowering stage. With the objective of detection of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) in multi-environment for this stage, 180 backcross-derived lines (BC3F5) from salt tolerant donor Pokkali (AC41585) and recurrent parent IR 64 were subjected to evaluation in saline (EC = 8 dSm−1) and non-saline environments in wet season of 2014 and 2015 employing a novel phenotyping protocol. Nine multi-environmental consistent QTLs for spikelet degeneration, K+ concentration in flag leaf, stress susceptibility index for grain (SSI-Grain) and spikelet sterility (SSI-STE) on chromosomes1, 2, 3, 4 and 11 with 17–42% phenotypic variances were detected. Among several digenic epistatic interactions, one was associated with the main effect QTL (qSSI-STE-11-1) over the years. Similarly genotype × environment interaction associated with two additive QTLs, qDEG-S-2-2 and qSSI-STE-2-1 had positive effect on the resultant phenotype. Functional genes encoding calmodulin-binding protein and potassium transporter were predicted inside the consistent QTLs. Detected stable QTLs, associated markers, predicted genes and derived introgression lines with these QTLs could be utilized in future breeding programme.Not Availabl