Studies on acid gradient elution of soil phosphates

Plant and Soil - Acid gradient elution technique was used at three stages with low, medium and high acid concentrations (N/10, 5 N and 10 N HCl) successively to dissolve phosphorus components of...     

Attack monitoring and localization in All-Optical Networks

An attacker’s connection can propagate quickly to different parts of a transparent All-Optical Network. Such attacks affect the normal traffic and cause a quality of service degradation or outright service denial. Attack monitors can collect the information of each link and each node to help diagnose the attacker’s exact location. Quick detection and localization of an attack source helps avoid losing large amounts of data in an all-optical network. However, to detect attack sources, it is not necessary to put monitors on all nodes. Since not every wavelength on every link is being used all the time, we propose to use the idle wavelengths to setup diagnostic connections and obtain the necessary information needed for diagnosis purposes. We show that placing a relatively small number of monitors at some key nodes in a network is sufficient to achieve level of performance. However, the monitor placement policy, routing policy, and diagnosis method are challenging problems. We, in this paper, first develop a monitor placement policy, a test connection policy, and a routing policy based on our definition of crosstalk attack and monitor node models. With these policies, we show that we can always detect and localize the malicious connections as long as there is no more than one malicious connection on each wavelength in the whole network. After this, we develop a scalable diagnosis method, which can localize the sources of the such malicious attacks in a fast manner. Arun K. Somani is currently Jerry R. Junkins Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. He earned his MSEE and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the McGill University, Montreal, Canada, in 1983 and 1985, respectively. He worked as Scientific Officer for Govt. of India, New Delhi from 1974 to 1982. From 1985 to 1997, he was a faculty member at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, where he was a Professor of EE and CSE from 1995 onwards. From 1997 to 2002, he served as David C. Nicholas Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. Professor Somani’s research interests are in the area of fault tolerant computing, computer communication and networks, wireless and optical networking, computer architecture, and parallel computer systems. Tao Wu received the B.S. and M.S.E.E. degrees in telecommunication engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Sichuan, China, in 1993 and 1996, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in computer and electrical engineering from Iowa State University, Ames, in 2003. He is currently a Software Engineer with Microsoft Corporation. His research interests are in the area of WDM-based optical networking, network security, and image processing.     

An open label,block randomized,community study of the safety and efficacy of co-administered ivermectin,diethylcarbamazine plus albendazole vs. diethylcarbamazine plus albendazole for lymphatic filariasis in India

BackgroundBetter drug regimens for mass drug administration (MDA) could accelerate the Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF). This community study was designed to compare the safety and efficacy of MDA with IDA (ivermectin, diethylcarbamazine and albendazole) or DA (diethylcarbamazine and albendazole) in India.Methodology/Principal findingsThis two-armed, open-labelled, block randomised, community study was conducted in LF endemic villages in Yadgir district, Karnataka, India. Consenting participants ≥5 years of age were tested for circulating filarial antigenemia (CFA) and microfilaremia (Mf) before treatment with a single oral dose of IDA or DA. Adverse events (AEs) were monitored actively for two days and passively for five more days. Persons with positive CFA or Mf tests at baseline were retested 12-months post-treatment to assess treatment efficacy.Baseline CFA and Mf-rates were 26.4% and 6.9% in IDA and 24.5% and 6.4% in DA villages respectively. 4758 and 4160 participants received IDA and DA. Most AEs were mild after both treatments; fewer than 0.1% of participants experienced AEs with severity > grade 1. No serious AEs were observed. Fever, headache and dizziness were the most common AEs. AE rates were slightly higher after IDA than DA (8.3% vs. 6.4%, P<0.01). AEs were more frequent in females and Mf-positives after either treatment, but significantly more frequent after IDA (40.5% vs 20.2%, P < 0.001).IDA was more effective for clearing Mf than DA (84% vs. 61.8%, P < 0.001). Geometric mean Mf counts per 60μl in retested Mf-positives decreased by 96.4% from 11.8 after IDA and by 90.0% from 9.5 after DA. Neither treatment was effective for clearing CFA.Conclusions/SignificanceIDA had an acceptable safety profile and was more effective for clearing Mf than DA. With adequate compliance and medical support to manage AEs, IDA has the potential to accelerate LF elimination in India.Trial registrationClinical Trial Registry of India (CTRI No/2016/10/007399)