Nutrient deficiencies in soil-crop contexts and inappropriate managements are the important reasons for low crop productivity, reduced nutritional quality of agricultural produce and animal/human ...malnutrition, across the world. The present investigation was carried out to evaluate nutrient deficiencies of sulphur (S) and micronutrients zinc (Zn), boron (B), iron (Fe), copper (Cu) and manganese (Mn) in agricultural soils of India for devising effective management strategies to achieve sustainable crop production, improved nutritional quality in crops and better animal/human health. A total of 2,42,827 surface (0-15 cm depth) soil samples were collected from agriculture fields of 615 districts lying in 28 states of India and were analysed for available S and micronutrients concentration. The study was carried out under the aegis of All India Coordinated Research Project on Micro- and Secondary-Nutrients and Pollutant Elements in Soils and Plants. The mean concentrations were 27.0 ± 29.9 mg kg
for available S, 1.40 ± 1.60 mg kg
for available Zn and 1.40 ± 4.70 mg kg
for available B, 31.0 ± 52.2 mg kg
for available Fe, 2.30 ± 3.50 mg kg
for available Cu and 17.5 ± 21.4 mg kg
for available Mn. There were variable and widespread deficiencies of S and micronutrients in different states. The deficiencies (acute deficient + deficient + latent deficiency) of S (58.6% of soils), Zn (51.2% of soils) and B (44.7% of soils) were higher compared to the deficiencies of Fe (19.2% of soils), Cu (11.4% of soils) and Mn (17.4% of soils). Out of 615 districts, > 50% of soils in 101, 131 and 86 districts were deficient in available S, available Zn and available B, respectively. Whereas, > 25% of soils in 83, 5 and 41 districts had deficiencies of available Fe, available Cu and available Mn, respectively. There were occurrences of 2-nutrients deficiencies such S + Zn (9.30% of soils), Zn + B (8.70% of soils), S + B (7.00% of soils) and Zn + Fe (5.80% of soils) to a greater extent compared to the deficiencies of Zn + Mn (3.40% of soils), S + Fe (3.30% of soils), Zn + Cu (2.80% of soils) and Fe + B (2.70% of soils). Relatively lower % of soils were deficient in 3-nutrients (namely S + Zn + B, S + Zn + B and Zn + Fe + B), 4-nutrients (namely Zn + Fe + Cu + Mn) and 5-nutrients (namely Zn + Fe + Cu + Mn + B) simultaneously. The information regarding the distribution of deficiencies of S and micronutrients (both single and multi-nutrients) could be used by various stakeholders for production, supply and application of right kind of fertilizers in different districts, states and agro-ecological regions of India for better crop production, crop nutritional quality, nutrient use efficiency, soil health and for tackling human and animal malnutrition.
Ransomware is a type of malicious program or software that encrypts the contents on a hard disc and prevents the users from accessing them unless they pay an amount (called a ransom). Most of the ...organizations, such as financial institutes and healthcare sectors (i.e., smart healthcare) are targeted by ransomware attacks. Ransomware assaults are among the most frightening types of cyber-attacks, and they are not confined to a specific sector or the countries. Blockchain is a tamper-proof technology, which is more secure, robust and decentralized in nature. Features of blockchain can add more security for detection and mitigation of ransomware more effectively. In this paper, we propose a new blockchain-enabled security framework to detect and defend the ransomware attacks for smart healthcare (in short, BSFR-SH). The conducted security analysis proves the security of the proposed BSFR-SH against the ransomware attacks. The performance of BSFR-SH is significantly better than the other similar existing mechanisms as it achieves better accuracy and F1-score than other compared mechanisms. Furthermore, the practical demonstration of BSFR-SH is provided to estimate the impact on important performance parameters.
Wearable devices are used in various applications to collect information including step information, sleeping cycles, workout statistics, and health-related information. Due to the nature and ...richness of the data collected by such devices, it is important to ensure the security of the collected data. This paper presents a new lightweight authentication scheme suitable for wearable device deployment. The scheme allows a user to mutually authenticate his/her wearable device(s) and the mobile terminal (e.g., Android and iOS device) and establish a session key among these devices (worn and carried by the same user) for secure communication between the wearable device and the mobile terminal. The security of the proposed scheme is then demonstrated through the broadly accepted real-or-random model, as well as using the popular formal security verification tool, known as the Automated validation of Internet security protocols and applications. Finally, we present a comparative summary of the proposed scheme in terms of the overheads such as computation and communication costs, security and functionality features of the proposed scheme and related schemes, and also the evaluation findings from the NS2 simulation.
Advanced combinatorial treatments of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy do not have any effect on the enhancement of a 5-year survival rate of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The discovery ...of early diagnostic non-invasive biomarkers is required to improve the survival rate of OSCC patients. Recently, it has been reported that oral microbiome has a significant contribution to the development of OSCC. Oral microbiome induces inflammatory response through the production of cytokines and chemokines that enhances tumor cell proliferation and survival. The study aims to develop saliva-based oral microbiome and cytokine biomarker panel that screen OSCC patients based on the level of the microbiome and cytokine differences. We compared the oral microbiome signatures and cytokine level in the saliva of OSCC patients and healthy individuals by 16S rRNA gene sequencing targeting the V3/V4 region using the MiSeq platform and cytokine assay, respectively. The higher abundance of
Prevotella melaninogenica
,
Fusobacterium
sp.,
Veillonella parvula
,
Porphyromonas endodontalis
,
Prevotella pallens
,
Dialister
,
Streptococcus anginosus
,
Prevotella nigrescens
,
Campylobacter ureolyticus
,
Prevotella nanceiensis
,
Peptostreptococcus anaerobius
and significant elevation of IL-8, IL-6, TNF-α, GM-CSF, and IFN-γ in the saliva of patients having OSCC. Oncobacteria such as
S. anginosus
,
V. parvula
,
P. endodontalis
, and
P. anaerobius
may contribute to the development of OSCC by increasing inflammation via increased expression of inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, IFN-γ, and GM-CSF. These oncobacteria and cytokines panels could potentially be used as a non-invasive biomarker in clinical practice for more efficient screening and early detection of OSCC patients.
Physically unclonable function (PUF) is a physical unit fabricated inside a sensor and generally considered as an assurance anchor of resource inhibited device. Essentially, the function is based on ...the cryptographic approach, where a key is created and utilized such that it cannot be cloned. More specifically, it is an arbitrary function, which maps inherent properties of the hardware devices to a unique bit stream of information. Authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocols are widely used in electronic commerce, electronic stock trading, and many secured business transaction platforms, because they allow the communicating devices to mutually authenticate each other while exchanging authenticated session key (or secret key) that can be used subsequently to establish a secured communication channel. Yet, these protocols are also vulnerable to a broad range of security outbreaks. In light of these notions and practical applications, this article is intended to: 1) provide an overview of AKA protocols, PUF plus the combined PUF-based AKA; 2) systematically and taxonomically examine and discuss with pros and cons of AKA applications to the fast growing areas of Internet of Things, wireless sensor networks, and smart grids based on a meticulous survey of the existing literature; 3) summarize the challenges to deployment and potential security risks of the underlying technologies and possible remedies or mitigation strategies; and 4) to conduct and report a comparative performance and security analysis with respect to the three focused areas.
Recent trends in peripheral nerve regeneration are directed toward the development of nerve guidance channels to assist the regeneration of the nerves across critical size defects. Advanced nerve ...guidance channels (aNGCs) should possess multifunctional properties to direct the axonal regeneration from proximal to distal end, allow the concentration of growth factors secreted by the injured nerve end, and attenuate the ingrowth of scar tissue at the site of injury. The design of the nerve guidance channel (NGC) is critical for providing the necessary topographical, chemotactic, as well as haptotactic cues for efficient nerve regeneration. In this study, we have designed and fabricated clinically relevant aNGCs comprising an antioxidant polyurethane (PUAO) conduit filled with aligned chitosan-gelatin (CG) cryogel filler for peripheral nerve regeneration. The effects of temperature, polymer concentration, and cross-linker concentration on the physicochemical properties of the CG cryogel filler were studied. The synthesized scaffolds were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and compression testing to obtain the matrix best suited to form the aNGC. The nanofibrous PUAO conduit was fabricated by electrospinning with a wall thickness of 114.16 ± 26.91 μm, which was filled with CG (1.2/6.4%)-aligned cryogel matrix to obtain the aNGCs. The aNGCs with 2.01 ± 0.04 mm internal diameter, 15 mm length, and internal CG filler with a pore diameter of 29.60 ± 9.83 μm were fabricated. The aNGCs were evaluated by SEM and in vitro neuronal culture for biocompatibility and cellular alignment. In vitro dorsal root ganglion cultures showed the aligned growth and cellular migration along the aligned pores of aNGCs. With this study, we conclude that this clinically relevant aligned porous aNGC will have a promising effect in repair and regeneration of peripheral nerve injuries.
Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is an intelligent application of Internet of Things (IoT) in smart transportation that takes intelligent commitments to the passengers to improve traffic safety and ...efficiency, and generate a more enjoyable driving and riding environment. Fog cloud-based IoV is another variant of mobile cloud computing where vehicular cloud and Internet can co-operate in more effective way in IoV. However, more increasing dependence on wireless communication, control, and computing technology makes IoV more dangerous to prospective attacks. For secure communication among vehicles, road-side units, fog and cloud servers, we design a secure authenticated key management protocol in fog computing-based IoV deployment, called AKM-IoV. In the designed AKM-IoV, after mutual authentication between communicating entities in IoV they establish session keys for secure communications. AKM-IoV is tested for its security analysis using the formal security analysis under the widely accepted real-or-random (ROR) model, informal, and formal security verification using the broadly accepted automated validation of Internet security protocols and applications (AVISPAs) tool. The practical demonstration of AKM-IoV is shown using the NS2 simulation. In addition, a detailed comparative study is conducted to show the efficiency and functionality and security features supported by AKM-IoV as compared to other existing recent protocols.
Global industry is undergoing major transformations with the genesis of a new paradigm known as the Internet of Things (IoT) with its underlying technologies. Many company leaders are investing more ...effort and money in transforming their services to capitalize on the benefits provided by the IoT. Thereby, the decision makers in public waste management do not want to be outdone, and it is challenging to provide an efficient and real-time waste management system. This paper proposes a solution (hardware, software, and communications) that aims to optimize waste management and include a citizen in the process. The system follows an IoT-based approach where the discarded waste from the smart bin is continuously monitored by sensors that inform the filling level of each compartment, in real-time. These data are stored and processed in an IoT middleware providing information for collection with optimized routes and generating important statistical data for monitoring the waste collection accurately in terms of resource management and the provided services for the community. Citizens can easily access information about the public waste bins through the Web or a mobile application. The creation of the real prototype of the smart container, the development of the waste management application and a real-scale experiment use case for evaluation, demonstration, and validation show that the proposed system can efficiently change the way people deal with their garbage and optimize economic and material resources.
The design and development of sub-Terahertz (sub-THz) cellular systems entail the need for new channel models that can precisely predict channel characteristics beyond 100 GHz in outdoor and dynamic ...environments. This work proposes a novel multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) channel model for cellular communication, developed within the framework of a class of spatio-temporal stochastic processes called ambit-process. The modeling methodology effectively captures the typicalities of sub-THz propagation like molecular absorption and scattering of the evolving multipaths while accounting for the propagation delay of electromagnetic waves across large array apertures deployed at the transmitter and the receiver. This allows for an accurate characterization of the spatial-wideband effect along with other relevant spatio-temporal attributes of the channel. Numerical simulations indicate a good level of agreement between the spectral efficiency and spatio-temporal correlation of the proposed model against a state-of-the-art stochastic Terahertz (THz) channel model and measurements reported in the literature.
Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of all devices that can be accessed through the Internet. These devices can be remotely accessed and controlled using existing network infrastructure, thus ...allowing a direct integration of computing systems with the physical world. This also reduces human involvement along with improving accuracy and efficiency, resulting in economic benefit. The devices in IoT facilitate the day-to-day life of people. However, the IoT has an enormous threat to security and privacy due to its heterogeneous and dynamic nature. Authentication is one of the most challenging security requirements in the IoT environment, where a user (external party) can directly access information from the devices, provided the mutual authentication between user and devices happens. In this paper, we present a new signature-based authenticated key establishment scheme for the IoT environment. The proposed scheme is tested for security with the help of the widely used Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic, informal security analysis, and also the formal security verification using the broadly accepted automated validation of Internet security protocols and applications tool. The proposed scheme is also implemented using the widely accepted NS2 simulator, and the simulation results demonstrate the practicability of the scheme. Finally, the proposed scheme provides more functionality features, and its computational and communication costs are also comparable with other existing approaches.
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