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Every year around one million human beings all over the world dies of malaria. It is one of the deadliest mosquito-borne diseases that is caused by the presence of parasites. Physicians are using microscopic analysis of patients' blood to detect malaria parasite presence in early stages, but there are problems with this approach that include the time and accuracy. With the advancement in technologies, the expertise shifted towards automated techniques to detect the presence of malaria in the human blood. This paper explores various dataset collected from relevant sources as well as handcrafted data, use of various pre-processing techniques, and substantial computational methods that were used for classification.

Data Security has become one of the major concerns in the modern world. As everything is going digital and our data is on the cloud, its security is a major research area. The various suggested method provides better security and more important integrity. However, with more advancement in technology, these proposed methods are getting snooped. This paper proposed an approach of a combination of Steganography, Cryptography, and Transposition cipher technique. In particular, it focuses on the LSB technique in another way i.e., while performing the LSB steganography technique instead of embedding data at LSB of the base image, this method takes MSB of Video Frame and LSB of Stego Image. This combination helps in providing very little distortion and higher quality of the secure image. The value of efficiency of the algorithm would be determined by the PSNR value.

Passenger safety requires that in commercial airplanes hydraulic actuators be powered by fire-resistant hydraulic fluids. As a downside, such fluids are hygroscopic which means that these tend to accumulate humidity from the environment and that the dissolved humidity tends to produce acidity which can corrode all kinds of metallic components inside a hydraulic system. As such damage in safety-critical subsystems is hard to localize and expensive to repair, sensor technologies are required which allow the state of water contamination and fluid degradation to be routinely checked and necessary maintenance actions to be scheduled in a way that causes minimum flight interruptions. The paper reviews progress that has been made in developing such sensor systems and in commissioning these into practical flight operation. Sensor technologies that proved optimally adapted to this purpose are multi-channel non-dispersive (NDIR) systems working in the mid-infrared range. Additional options concern optical absorption sensors working in the near-infrared and visible ranges as well as fluorescence sensors.

Gaucher disease (GD) results from mutations in the GBA1 gene, which encodes lysosomal glucocerebrosidase (GCase). The large number of mutations known to date in the gene lead to a heterogeneous disorder, which is divided into a non-neuronopathic, type 1 GD, and two neurological, type 2 and type 3, forms. We studied the two fly GBA1 orthologs, GBA1a and GBA1b. Each contains a Minos element insertion, which truncates its coding sequence. In the GBA1am/m flies, which express a mutant protein, missing 33 C-terminal amino acids, there was no decrease in GCase activity or substrate accumulation. However, GBA1bm/m mutant flies presented a significant decrease in GCase activity with concomitant substrate accumulation, which included C14:1 glucosylceramide and C14:0 glucosylsphingosine. GBA1bm/m mutant flies showed activation of the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) and presented inflammation and neuroinflammation that culminated in development of a neuronopathic disease. Treatment with ambroxol did not rescue GCase activity or reduce substrate accumulation; however, it ameliorated UPR, inflammation and neuroinflammation, and increased life span. Our results highlight the resemblance between the phenotype of the GBA1bm/m mutant fly and neuronopathic GD and underlie its relevance in further GD studies as well as a model to test possible therapeutic modalities.

Transportation is one of the logistical drivers in supply chains. Transportation disruption is costly in supply chains. This paper aims to assess transportation disruption risks using a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN). First, the disruption risk factors and their sub-factors were identified from the relevant articles and experts' opinions. The BBN-based model is developed to calculate the marginal probabilities of the risk factors and their sub-factors to determine the most sensitive factors/sub-factors. The framework was demonstrated using an example case of the pharmaceutical industry in Bangladesh. The findings reveal the usefulness of BBN in examining transportation disruptions in supply chains. BBN captured the interdependencies between the disruption risk factors/sub-factors effectively. The proposed model will be useful to managers for predicting transportation disruptions and to build resilient strategies to tackle them.

The advancement of the Internet of Things technology is playing a key role in developing the health sector by making it much more accessible and affordable through easy to use applications for virtual and distant interactions with patients. Taking the capability of IoT technology into account, it is possible to overcome the difficulties faced by physically unstable patients in consulting a doctor physically on a regular basis. This work has led to a prototype of IoT Based Remote Health Monitoring System for Patients. This prototype consists of three health sensors: heart pulse sensor, body temperature sensor and galvanic skin response sensor. All these sensors were merged together into a single system with Arduino Uno and Raspberry Pi combined together. The data acquired from the sensors is transferred to a cloud storage via the Raspberry Pi. The cloud storage is continuously being updated in real time database. An Android Application was developed using Android Studio which could access the database and show a graphical representation of the health parameters. IoT integrated with the health wearables can overcome the need of visiting hospitals for primary health issues. This also reduces the medical expenses for patients significantly. In addition, the doctors can prescribe necessary medications by observing the patient’s health stats over time through an application. Detailed analysis of the signals was obtained with respect to variations in physical and environmental activities to understand the functioning of the sensors used.

MANET is collection of mobile devices form a self-creating, self-organizing and self-administering wireless networks. Due to mobility of nodes it is not possible to establish fixed paths for message delivery through the network. Hence, congestion is happening and it is the key problem for MANET. Many routing protocols have been proposed to overcome the congestion in MANET. One of the popular routing protocol is AODV, but it depends on individual receivers to detect congestion and adjust their receiving rates. Another common routing protocol is EERCCP, which is better than AODV but sometimes it fails when link failure happens to relay node or if relay node moves from its current group to another group then there is no other mechanism to select an alternative relay nodes i.e. lack of cooperativeness. Consequently, we proposed a routing protocol named as EECCCP, which utilizes user cooperation to reduce congestion. The proposed energy efficient and cooperative congestion control routing protocol (EECCCP), performs well better than both the AODV and EERCCP. The proposed scheme encorporates the benefits of energy efficiency and cooperativeness which in turn reduces the congestion effectively. It also overcomes the disadvantages of existing multicast congestion control protocol. Moreover, the proposed scheme does not impose any significant changes on the queuing, scheduling or forwarding policies of existing network protocols. The simulation results have shown that our proposed protocol EECCCP has the about 95% better delivery ratio and throughput with about 85 % less delay and energy consumption when compared with the existing protocol AODV. It also has the about 65% better delivery ratio and throughput with about 60 % less delay and energy consumption when compared with the existing protocol EERCCP.

We report on an all-optical sensor system that employs InGaN/GaN nanowires (NWs) as opto-chemical transducers. The NWs, grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on low-resistivity n-type Si (1 1 1) substrates, exhibit an efficient room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) that persists up to about 200 °C. After deposition of a thin (5 nm) catalytic Pt-film onto the NWs the PL intensity rises when the NWs are exposed to small concentrations of hydrogen and hydrocarbons. The gas response of the NWs was analyzed using an integrated sensor system with fiber-coupled excitation from a GaN-based power LED emitting at 365 nm and a fiber coupled photo multiplier tube for detection. With this setup, H2 concentrations as low as 200 ppb and C2H2 concentrations as low as 5 ppm could be detected when the transducers were operated at temperatures around 80 °C. This opto-chemical transducer principle is best suited for safety-critical applications where a reliable media separation is required.

Background: Idiopatiic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a disease of dysregulated fibrogenesis with abnormal matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs) activity, angiogenesis, and profibrotic milieu wherein MMPs inhibition appears to be target-based therapy. We evaluated the role of doxycycline as a nonspecific inhibitor of MMPs in IPF patients. Materials and Methods: Patients of IPF diagnosed on the basis of ATS-ERS consensus criteria were put on oral doxycycline in an open prospective trial. They were followed up for long term with spirometry, 6 min walk test (6MWT), St. Georges respiratory questionnaire (SGRQ), forced vital capacity (FVC), and repeat bronchoscopy while on doxycycline monotherapy for over 24 weeks. Both the initial and follow-up broncho alveolar lavage fluids (BALF) from IPF patients (n = 6) and control subjects (n = 6) were looked for MMP-9, -3, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)-1 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression. Additionally, doxycycline's action on MMP activities in vitro was tested in BALF of IPF patients. Results: Doxycycline intervention showed significant improvement in IPF patients in terms of change in 6MWT, SGRQ, FVC, and quality of life. The level of MMP-9, -3, TIMP-1 and VEGF in the BALF were found significantly higher in the IPF patients compared to the controls while doxycycline therapy reduced those parameters nearer to control value. Doxycycline also showed a significant dose-dependent reduction in the in vitro MMPs activities in BALF. Conclusion: Doxycycline shows significant prospect in the treatment of IPF through its anti MMPs activities. This is the first report on a case series of long-term doxycycline monotherapy in IPF patients.

The paper discusses chemical sensor applications in commercial aircraft. Potential applications range from air quality to system health monitoring and smart maintenance. These application fields are described and suitable sensor technologies are pointed out. The use of MEMS and nanotechnologies in realizing such sensor functionalities is demonstrated by considering selected sensor examples.

The detection of mental stress by acquiring and processing EEG and EOG signal from brain and processed through Virtual Instrumentation was done in real time using LABVIEW. A GSM modem and an Arduino Uno Microcontroller has been interfaced with the system for generating SMS alert at overstressed condition and to start some relief mechanism, i.e., Video and Audio automatically to reduce the stress and fatigue. The system developed is portable and affordable in cost.

In order to fully profit from the increased sensitivity of nanoscale transducer structures appropriate readout techniques are required. In this context optical methods are highly promising as they allow parallel probing of large ensembles of nano-objects without manipulating or processing single nanostructures. Furthermore, optical readout techniques feature significant advantages for certain applications as, e.g., measurements in potentially hazardous environments that prohibit any form of electricity at the point of measurement. In this article we discuss a novel type of gas-sensitive nanophotonic probes that are based on the photoluminescence response of group III-nitride nanostructures. This material class offers manifold possibilities for the synthesis of nano-objects as well as for the realization of complex semiconductor heterostructures. The latter is inevitable to fully exploit this optical approach by utilizing band engineering methods for a targeted control of the emission properties (such as the absorption behavior, the emission wavelength and intensity, as well as the temperature stability of the emission). In recent years, significant progress in terms of gas sensing applications has been obtained using GaN/AlN quantum dot systems as well as GaN nanowire ensembles with embedded heterostructures of either GaN/AlGaN or GaN/InGaN. These nanoscale transducer structures are highly suitable for the development of optical sensor systems and proved to be fully competitive to conventional sensor concepts. The state of the art of group III-nitride opto-chemical gas sensors is reviewed in the present chapter.

The paper presents a novel concept for the realization of optochemical sensor systems which are capable of operating in harsh environments. Key components in such sensors are nanostructures formed from gallium nitride (GaN) and its alloys with aluminum (Al) and indium (In). Nanostructures of this kind emit an efficient, visible-light photoluminescence (PL) which can be excited with low-cost ultraviolet light sources and which extends up to temperatures in the order of 200°C. When exposed to various chemical environments, changes in the PL intensity occur which constitute valuable sensor signals. Due to the all-optical approach, the PL can be excited and its chemically induced changes be read out without requiring electrical wiring at the point of measurement. The present paper presents this innovative sensor concept, the nanostructures and optochemical transducer structures that form its material base, as well as several applications of such transducers in the fields of gas and fluid sensing. The applications addressed here range from the sensing of ppb concentrations of H 2 , NO 2 and O 3 in gaseous environments to the pH monitoring in aqueous solutions.

We report on InGaN/GaN nanowires (NWs) as opto-chemical transducers for the detection of H2 and hydrocarbons. The NWs exhibit a strong photoluminescence (PL) which persists up to temperatures of 150°C and above. The GaN/InGaN NWs were grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on low-resistivity n-type Si (111) substrates and covered with a semitransparent catalytic Pt-coating after deposition. With the thin Pt coating on top, the PL intensity is dependent on the concentration of hydrogen or hydrocarbons in the surrounding atmosphere. Contrary to commercially available hydrogen sensors e.g. Pd or Pt gated high electron mobility transistors or catalytically activated metaloxide-silicon-carbide FETs our all-optical sensor system allows detection of ppm concentrations of H2 at low operating temperatures (30°C-120°C).

The influential risk modellers employed by banks failed to see what could cripple the global financial system