Darknet Traffic Analysis A Systematic Literature Review

The primary objective of an anonymity tool is to protect the anonymity of its users through the implementation of strong encryption and obfuscation techniques. As a result, it becomes very difficult to monitor and identify users activities on these networks. Moreover, such systems have strong defensive mechanisms to protect users against potential risks, including the extraction of traffic characteristics and website fingerprinting. However, the strong anonymity feature also functions as a refuge for those involved in illicit activities who aim to avoid being traced on the network. As a result, a substantial body of research has been undertaken to examine and classify encrypted traffic using machine learning techniques. This paper presents a comprehensive examination of the existing approaches utilized for the categorization of anonymous traffic as well as encrypted network traffic inside the darknet. Also, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of methods of darknet traffic using machine learning techniques to monitor and identify the traffic attacks inside the darknet.Comment: 35 Pages, 13 Figure

Ruptured hepatoblastoma treated with primary surgical resection

The aim of this study was to review two cases of ruptured hepatoblastoma treated with primary surgical resection. Hepatoblastoma is the most common primary liver malignancy of childhood, although it remains infrequent. A rare, but serious condition is when the tumor presents with spontaneous rupture. This is a well-known phenomenon; however, it is rarely reported in the literature, and the long-term outcomes of various management strategies are currently unclear. We present two cases of patients in whom primary surgical resection was performed and discuss outcomes, and also present a current literature review. Children with ruptured hepatoblastoma treated with emergency primary surgical resection, followed by adjuvant chemotherapy, may have favorable outcomes.Keywords: hepatoblastoma, rupture, surgical resectio

A Study of Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Body Area Networks

The seamless integration of low-power, miniaturised, invasive/non-invasive lightweight sensor nodes have contributed to the development of a proactive and unobtrusive Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). A WBAN provides long-term health monitoring of a patient without any constraint on his/her normal dailylife activities. This monitoring requires low-power operation of invasive/non-invasive sensor nodes. In other words, a power-efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol is required to satisfy the stringent WBAN requirements including low-power consumption. In this paper, we first outline the WBAN requirements that are important for the design of a low-power MAC protocol. Then we study low-power MAC protocols proposed/investigated for WBAN with emphasis on their strengths and weaknesses. We also review different power-efficient mechanisms for WBAN. In addition, useful suggestions are given to help the MAC designers to develop a low-power MAC protocol that will satisfy the stringent WBAN requirements.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 7 table

Investigations of Acacia modesta Wall. leaves for in vitro anti‑diabetic, proliferative and cytotoxic effects

The leaves of Acacia modesta Wall. have been shown to possess diverse pharmacological properties. Therefore, we aimed at evaluating anti-diabetic, cytotoxic and proliferative effects of extracts of Acacia modesta Wall. leaves. After evaluating the primary and secondary metabolites, anti-diabetic activity of various extracts was assessed by α-amylase inhibition, glucose uptake by yeast cells and non-enzymatic glycosylation of hemoglobin assay. Cytotoxicity and proliferative potential was assessed by MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) and short term proliferation assays, respectively, using human liver carcinoma cell line, HepG2. Among other extracts, chloroform extract exhibited 34.16% inhibition of α-amylase, 90.65% inhibition of hemoglobin glycosylation and 94.75% glucose uptake employing α-amylase inhibition, non-enzymatic glycosylation of hemoglobin and glucose uptake by yeast cells assays, respectively. Moreover, extracts exhibited no significant effects on HepG2 cell viability and proliferation. So, this data suggested that chloroform extract of leaves of Acacia modesta Wall., exhibited higher anti-hyperglycemic activity in comparison to extracts in other solvents, while no extract demonstrated cytotoxic and proliferation effects when tested using HepG2 cell line

Stability indicating HPLC method for the simultaneous determination of moxifloxacin and prednisolone in pharmaceutical formulations

BACKGROUND: A simple, specific, and fast stability indicating reverse phase liquid chromatographic method was established for instantaneous determination of moxifloxacin and prednisolone in bulk drugs and pharmaceutical formulations. RESULTS: Optimum chromatographic separations among the moxifloxacin, prednisolone and stress-induced degradation products were achieved within 10 minutes by use of BDS Hypersil C8 column (250 X 4.6 mm, 5 μm) as stationary phase with mobile phase consisted of a mixture of phosphate buffer (18 mM) containing 0.1% (v/v) triethylamine, at pH 2.8 (adjusted with dilute phosphoric acid) and methanol (38:62 v/v) at a flow rate of 1.5 mL min(-1). Detection was performed at 254 nm using diode array detector. The method was validated in accordance with ICH guidelines. Response was a linear function of concentrations over the range of 20–80 μg mL(-1) for moxifloxacin (r2 ≥ 0.998) and 40–160 μg mL(-1) for prednisolone (r2 ≥ 0.998). The method was resulted in good separation of both the analytes and degradation products with acceptable tailing and resolution. The peak purity index for both the analytes after all types of stress conditions was ≥ 0.9999 indicated a complete separation of both the analyte peaks from degradation products. The method can therefore, be regarded as stabilityindicating. CONCLUSIONS: The developed method can be applied successfully for simultaneous determination of moxifloxacin and prednisolone in pharmaceutical formulations and their stability studies

Influence of Socio-demographic Variables on Prevalence of Hypertension in Lahore Division, Pakistan

Hypertension is a growing public health issue at global level and it is considered as a potent factor for cardiovascular ailments. But various socio-demographic factors are root causes to provoke this physiological disorder. In current study, through cross sectional survey, performa based data of 100 persons was collected from cities Lahore division, Pakistan. The results showed that males are more suffering than females and fall in age range of 20-40yrs. Most frequently reported initial symptoms are fatigue, irregular heartbeat and difficulty in breathing. Whereas district wise comparison indicated higher prevalence level in Lahore and Kasur than Shiekhupura and Nankana Sahib.   Similarly, ANOVA results highlighted that economic status matters the most, parallel to the extent of awareness among masses, that’s why; mediocre is suffering more than upper or lower class. Thus cost effective treatments based findings should be our future goal to control this growing disease

Biogas Production Optimization from Palm Oil Mill Effluent: Experiments with Anaerobic Reactor

The research domain of this work is the implementation of waste-to-energy [WtE] strategy for achieving sustainability in renewable energy supply and environment. This paper aims to present a research conducted on biogas production performance of anaerobic digestion process of palm oil mill effluent (POME). This research attempts to address the problem relating to poor biogas production performance of anaerobic digester experienced by industries with POME. Various published papers have suggested that the performance of the currently available continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) based anaerobic reactor is significantly poor and not technically and financially feasible to use. A two-stage CSTR has been used with carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) enriched inoculum at different pH for the POME digestion. The anaerobic reactor was operated at temperature 35 ℃ with various range of inputs. The Design Expert software is used to determine the range and levels of inputs and to determine the number of experimental runs with different combinations of inputs factors. The findings of this research demonstrate that the optimum biogas production was achieved at significant (p-value<0.05) level of organic materials utilization (R2=62.26%) in digestion process at organic loading rate (OLR) of 5 g.VSS/L.d, C/N of 30.5, and pH of 6.6. This study concludes that the biogas production performance of CSTR could be improved by using optimum level of C/N and OLR based POME substrate. The findings of this research would be useful in palm oil mills for optimizing biogas production from POME as WtE. The novelty of this research is the use of C/N enriched inoculum (11<C/N<40) prepared from banana peel in the POME substrate for producing biogas

Simultaneous RP-HPLC determination of sparfloxacin and dexamethasone in pharmaceutical formulations

O presente estudo descreve o desenvolvimento e a subsequente validação de indicador de estabilidade simples e acurada por RP-HPLC para a determinação de esparfloxacino e dexametasona em formulações farmacêuticas na presença de produtos de degradação induzidos por estresse. Tanto os fármacos quanto os produtos de degradação induzidos pelo estresse foram separados em 10 minutos, utilizando coluna C8 e mistura de methanol e tampão fosfato 0,02 M, pH 3,0 (60:40 v/v, respectivamente) como fase móvel e detector de arranjo de diodo a 270 nm, A análise de regressão mostrou linearidade na faixa de 15-105 µg/mL para esparfloxacino e 5-35 µg/mL para a dexametsona. Todos os analitos foram resolvidos adequadamente com tailing aceitável. O pico de pureza dos dois foi maior que 0.9999, não mostrando picos de co-eluição. O método desenvolvido foi aplicado para a determinação simultânea de esparfloxacino e dexametasona em formulações farmacêuticas e para estudos de estabilidade.The present study describes the development and subsequent validation of simple and accurate stability indicating RP-HPLC method for the determination of sparfloxacin and dexamethasone in pharmaceutical formulations in the presence of their stress-induced degradation products. Both the drugs and their stress-induced degradation products were separated within 10 minutes using C8 column and mixture of methanol and 0.02 M phosphate buffer pH 3.0 (60:40 v/v, respectively) as mobile phase at 270 nm using diode array detector. Regression analysis showed linearity in the range of 15-105 µg/mL for sparfloxacin and 5-35 µg/mL for dexamethasone. All the analytes were adequately resolved with acceptable tailing. Peak purity of the two drugs was also greater than 0.9999, showing no co-elution peaks. The developed method was applied for simultaneous determination of sparfloxacin and dexamethasone in pharmaceutical formulations for stability studies

A high-resolution and low-cost mesoscale tactile force sensor based on mode-localization effect and fabricated using rapid prototyping

This paper presents a novel design of a high resolution and low-cost tactile force sensor, based on the concept of mode-localization in two weakly coupled resonators (WCRs). The sensor is fabricated at mesoscale by utilizing rapid prototyping techniques. The two WCRs in the sensor are operated at resonance by using an electrostatic ac-tuation. Change in the oscillation amplitude ratios and resonant frequency shift, corresponding to an input force is utilized as an output metric for the measurement of force. The application of an applied force on the WCRs in-duced electrostatic strain, which acted as a negative stiffness perturbation. The outer body of sensor is manufac-tured using a soft silicone elastomer and shaped using molds based on laser cutting technique. The proposed tac-tile force sensor is analyzed numerically through finite-element-method (FEM) based simulations. For the testing of tactile force sensor, an actuation and sensing electronics scheme is developed. The experimental results re-vealed that the sensor is capable of measuring input force up to 20 mN with a relative amplitude ratio (AR) and resonant frequency shift based sensitivity of 27040 ppm/mN and 3553 ppm/mN respectively. The experimen-tally evaluated resolution for the sensor is 7.3 µN. The sensor shows the stability in response to the thermal varia-tions and low-frequency vibrational environments

Relationship of sociodemographic factors with serum levels of vitamin D in a healthy population of Pakistan

High prevalence of vitamin D deficiency has been reported from Pakistan. Association of sociodemographic factors with vitamin D status has received little attention in this region. Therefore, we embarked on investigating the relationship of sociodemographic factors with vitamin D levels in a healthy Pakistani population. Venous blood from 226 healthy participants (age range 19-69 years) was collected and analyzed for serum concentrations of 25(OH) vitamin D [25(OH)D] and other related biomarkers. Demographic characteristics of the study participants were collected. Vitamin D deficiency (25(OH)D levels less than 20 ng/ml) was found to be 75% in this cohort. Gender, sunlight exposure and monthly household income emerged as predictors of hypovitaminosis D. Mean serum 25(OH)D levels in the groups with monthly household income less than Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 20,000, between PKR 20,000-50,000 and above PKR 50,000 were found to be 11.0±7.5, 13.9±9.6 and16.9±11.7 ng/ml, respectively. Using logistic regression the odds of having vitamin D deficiency was 3.22 (95% CI, 1.65-6.28) in the group with household income less than PKR 50,000 per month compared to the group with household income more than PKR 50,000 per month when the model was adjusted for gender and exposure to sunlight. There is an association between household income and hypovitaminosis D in a healthy Pakistani population