Abid Khan

Smart Cities: A Survey on Security Concerns

A smart city is developed, deployed and maintained with the help of Internet of Things (IoT). The smart cities have become an emerging phenomena with rapid urban growth and boost in the field of information technology. However, the function and operation of a smart city is subject to the pivotal development of security architectures. The contribution made in this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims to provide a detailed, categorized and comprehensive overview of the research on security problems and their existing solutions for smart cities. The categorization is based on several factors such as governance, socioeconomic and technological factors. This classification provides an easy and concise view of the security threats, vulnerabilities and available solutions for the respective technologies areas that are proposed over the period 2010-2015. Secondly, an IoT testbed for smart cities architecture, i.e., SmartSantander is also analyzed with respect to security threats and vulnerabilities to smart cities. The existing best practices regarding smart city security are discussed and analyzed with respect to their performance, which could be used by different stakeholders of the smart cities.

Genotyping of HCV RNA Reveals That 3a Is the Most Prevalent Genotype in Mardan, Pakistan

The clinical outcomes of patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) range from acute resolving hepatitis to chronic liver diseases such as liver cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. Identification of the infecting virus genotype is indispensable for the exploration of many aspects of HCV infection, including epidemiology, pathogenesis, and response to antiviral therapy. 1419 individuals were screened for anti-HCV in this study, of which 166 (11.7%) were found reactive by ICT (Immunochromatographic test). These 166 anti-HCV positive and 26 normal individuals were further analyzed. RNA was extracted from serum and reverse-transcribed to cDNA and the core region of HCV genome was targeted and amplified by multiplex PCR. HCV RNA was detected in 121 individuals, of which 87 were male and 34 were female. Genotype 3a was the most prevalent among all the genotypes observed followed by 3b. Genotypes 1a, 2a, and 2b were found in 10.89%, 13.22%, and 6.61% patients, respectively. 25.41% of the HCV RNA positive samples were not typed. 6.05% of patients were found having mixed genotypes. These findings will not only help the physicians to prescribe more appropriate treatment for the HCV infection but will also draw the attention of health-related policy makers to devise strategies to curb the disease more effectively.

Genetic etiology of oral cancer

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer worldwide. It accounts for 2.5% of all new cancer cases and 1.9% of all cancer deaths annually. More than 90% of oral cancers (occurring in the mouth, lip, and tongue) are oral squamous cell carcinoma. The incidence rate of oral cancer varies widely throughout the world, with an evident prevalence in South Asian countries. This high incidence occurs in correlation with oral cancer-associated behaviors such as alcohol, tobacco use. Researchers have reported that these behaviors lead to genetic variations in tumor suppressor genes (APC, p53), proto-oncogenes (Myc), oncogene (Ras) and genes controlling normal cellular processes (EIF3E, GSTM1). Processes such as segregation of chromosomes, genomic copy number, loss of heterozygosity, telomere stabilities, regulations of cell-cycle checkpoints, DNA damage repairs and defects in notch signaling pathways are involved in causing oral cancer. In order to develop preventive and therapeutic options, it is necessary to comprehend the basic molecular mechanisms forcing oral tumorigenesis. This review examines, in detail, the mechanisms of genetic alteration which are considered to be responsible for the initiation of oral cancer.

Android Malware Detection & Protection: A Survey

Android has become the most popular smartphone operating system. This rapidly increasing adoption of Android has resulted in significant increase in the number of malwares when compared with previous years. There exist lots of antimalware programs which are designed to effectively protect the users’ sensitive data in mobile systems from such attacks. In this paper, our contribution is twofold. Firstly, we have analyzed the Android malwares and their penetration techniques used for attacking the systems and antivirus programs that act against malwares to protect Android systems. We categorize many of the most recent antimalware techniques on the basis of their detection methods. We aim to provide an easy and concise view of the malware detection and protection mechanisms and deduce their benefits and limitations. Secondly, we have forecast Android market trends for the year up to 2018 and provide a unique hybrid security solution and take into account both the static and dynamic analysis an android application.

Trustworthy data: A survey, taxonomy and future trends of secure provenance schemes

Abstract Data is a valuable asset for the success of business and organizations these days, as it is effectively utilized for decision making, risk assessment, prioritizing the goals and performance evaluation. Extreme reliance on data demands quality assurance and trust on processes. Data Provenance is information that can be used to reason about the current state of a data object. Provenance can be broadly described as the information that explains where a piece of data object came from, how it was derived or created, who was involved in said creation, manipulations involved, processes applied, etc. It consists of information that had an effect on the data, evolving to its present state. Provenance has been used widely for the authenticity of data and processes. Despite having such a wide range of uses and applications, provenance poses vexing privacy and integrity challenges. Provenance data itself is, therefore, critical and it must be secured. Over the years, a number of secure provenance schemes have been proposed. This paper aims to enhance the understanding of secure provenance schemes and its associated security issues. In this paper, we have discussed why secure provenance is needed, what are its essential characteristics, and what objectives it serves? We describe the lifecycle of secure provenance and highlighted how trust is achieved in different domains by its application. Firstly, a detailed taxonomy of existing secure provenance schemes is presented. Then, a comparative analysis of existing secure provenance schemes, which highlights their strengths and weaknesses is also provided. Furthermore; we highlight future trends, which should be focused upon by the research community.

Genome-Wide Identification, Expression Diversication of Dehydrin Gene Family and Characterization of CaDHN3 in Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.).

Dehydrins (DHNs) play a crucial role in enhancing abiotic stress tolerance in plants. Although DHNs have been identified and characterized in many plants, there is little known about Capsicum annuum L., one of the economically important vegetable crops. In this study, seven CaDHNs in the pepper genome were identified, which could be divided into two classes: YnSKn- and SKn-type, based on their highly conserved domains. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) results showed that the seven DHN genes were expressed in all tissues and might be involved in the growth and development of pepper. The gene expression profiles analysis suggested that most of the CaDHN genes were induced by various stresses (low temperature, salt and mannitol) and signaling molecules (ABA, SA and MeJA). Furthermore, the CaDHN3 (YSK2)-silenced pepper plants showed obvious lower resistance to abiotic stresses (cold, salt and mannitol) than the control plants (TRV2:00). So the CaDHN3 might act as a positive role in resisting abiotic stresses. This study lays the foundation for further studies into the regulation of their expression under various conditions.

τ-safety: A privacy model for sequential publication with arbitrary updates

The dissemination of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) can be extremely beneficial for multidimensional medical research perspectives leveraging patient diagnoses to reliable prescription, clinical trials to disease surveillance and immunization to disease prevention. However, privacy preservation on anonymous release–shared with medical researchers (or intended recipients)-demands a privacy model that must be able to meet three challenges: 1) it should be able to strike a balance between the privacy and utility of released dataset; 2) it should be able to preserve the individual-based privacy; 3) it should be able to thwart the adversary in the presence of arbitrary updates (i.e. with any consistent insert/update/delete sequence) and especially chainable-auxiliary information. The main objective of this work is to propose a privacy model that meets these three criteria. In this work, we propose τ-safety privacy model for sequential publication that is able to meet all above-mentioned challenges. τ (events list) refers to the type of operations (e.g., insert, update, delete) that can be performed on an individuals record in any release. The results of our experiments prove that the proposed scheme achieves better anonymization quality and query accuracy in comparison with m-invariance against τ attacks in external and internal updates.

Comparative Study of Heavy Metals in Dried and Fluid Milk in Peshawar by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry

Various essential and toxic heavy metals (Ca, Mg, Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn, Pb, Cd, Cr, and Ni) contents in various types of dried (infant formula and powdered) and fluid (fresh and processed) cow milk were assessed by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The milk samples were collected from local markets of different parts of Peshawar city, Pakistan. Heavy metal concentrations varied significantly depending upon the type of milk. The heavy metal concentrations in most of the samples were within normal and permissible ranges. It was observed that the samples contained considerable amounts of calcium, while magnesium levels were well above the required levels. The results also revealed that copper levels were slightly lower than the permissible limits. The concentration of zinc in dried milk samples was greater than the values for the liquid milk types. Infant milk formulae had higher iron levels as compared to other milk samples because of the added constituents. Significant differences were observed in the mean values of manganese and cadmium in different types of milk. The toxic metals were within the acceptable limits and did not show significant levels leading to toxicity.

Region based cooperative routing in underwater wireless sensor networks

Cooperative routing is an appealing challenge in underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs). In this paper, we propose a region based cooperative routing protocol (RBCRP) for amplify and forward (AF) technique over Rayleigh faded channels in UWSNs. The source node sends the sensed signal to the destination and available relay nodes. At the destination node, bit error rate (BER) is checked on the basis of which, either positive or negative acknowledgement (ACK or NACK) is sent to the source and relay nodes. We also use mobile sinks (MSs) and energy harvesting techniques to further prolong the network lifetime and maximize the throughput. Our derived mathematical equations for the SNR gain and outage probability are verified by simulations. Results show that RBCRP performs better than the existing incremental best relay technique (IBRT) in terms of throughput, network lifetime and outage probability.

DNA barcoding for species identification in the Palmae family.

DNA barcoding is a promising tool for species identification at the molecular level. The barcoding system is well established for species differentiation in animals, while it is less common in plants. We evaluated 2 barcoding regions, maturase K (matK) and ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase (rbcL), to compare species of Palmae according to amplification success, discrimination power, and inter- and intra-specific divergence. Both regions appear to have potential to discriminate most species of Palmae, but 2 species, Phoenix dactylifera and Phoenix sylvestris, did not show variation in the nucleotides of the barcode genes. P. sylvestris is said to be the sister species of P. dactilyfera according to its morphological and genetic proximity to the cultivated date palm. Thus, the status of these 2 species needs to be re-evaluated considering more genes as barcodes. Furthermore, rbcL has a higher discrimination power (90%) than matK (66.6%) and can thus be potentially used as a standard barcode to discriminate the species of Palmae.