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Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was established after Indias 1974 nuclear tests. Only signatories of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) can fulfill the criteria for NSG membership. India is not a signatory of NPT. India, however, is getting support from the US for entry into the NSG. Since Pakistan is a nuclear power and a non-NPT signatory so, it also applied for membership of the NSG along with India in 2016. Pakistan took the stance of criteria-based membership - entry either for all or none. China opposed membership of India into the group based on the NPT signatory grounds. Thus, Indias membership was vetoed. This article analyzes NSGs membership case of India and Pakistan. It further discusses the nuclear doctrines of India and Pakistan. In Indias membership case, it highlights the role of the US and Grossis proposal. In Pakistans membership case, it discusses Chinas role briefly

The 9p21 ANRIL (antisense non-coding RNA in INK4 locus) polymorphisms had reported association with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and its induced macro/microvascular complications. However, the ANRIL single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1333049 has never been studied for its role in diabetic retinopathy; we therefore assessed its role in Pakistani population suffering from diabetes-induced retinopathy. The rs1333049 was genotyped in 806 individuals including 504 T2DM cases [206 patients without retinopathy (DNR) and 298 with retinopathy (DR) (non-proliferative DR (NPDR):147; proliferative DR (PDR): 151)] and 302 unaffected controls using allele-refractory mutation system (ARMS) polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The statistical analysis including genetic power estimation, χ2 test and Fisher's exact test were performed for the studied panel. Genetic power estimation showed that 504 T2DM cases and 302 controls had > 80% power to detect the association between ANRIL rs1333049 variant and diabetes patients with retinopathy in Pakistani population. An association was found between rs1333049 CC genotype and T2DM [χ2 = 13.9 (p = 0.0015); recessive model (RM): odds ratio (OR) = 2.36, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) = 1.42–3.95, p = 0.001], DNR [χ2 = 14.2 (p = 0.00081); RM: p = 0.001, OR = 2.66, 95%CI = 1.48–4.79, dominant model (DM): p = 0.02 OR = 1.68, 95%CI = 1.07–2.63], DR: (χ2 = 6.5, p = 0.0381; OR = 2.16, 95%CI = 1.23–3.79, p = 0.006), NPDR (χ2 = 4.25, p = 0.03; OR = 2.02, 95%CI = 1.03–3.96, p = 0.03) and PDR (χ2 = 8.11, p = 0.02; OR = 2.29, 95%CI = 1.19–4.39, p = 0.01) when compared with the healthy control subjects. The minor allele C was found to be associated with T2DM (OR = 1.32, 95%CI = 1.07–1.63, p = 0.009) and DNR (OR = 1.49, 95%CI = 1.15–1.94, p = 0.002). The ANRIL rs1333049 CC genotype is found to have a pathogenic role in the onset of T2DM and its induced retinopathy complication.

Background: Adrenal incidentalomas are mostly non-functioning adrenal tumors (NFAT) or adenomas with mild autonomous cortisol excess (MACE), of which the natural history is unclear. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to study the long-term follow-up of NFAT and MACE to determine: (i) proportion of tumor growth and malignant transformation, (ii) incident change of hormone function, and (iii) incident cardio-metabolic comorbidities and mortality. Methods: Literature search of multiple databases including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, and Scopus (January 1990 to February 2018). We included studies of adults with NFAT or MACE (as defined by authors), with ≥20 patients undergoing conservative management, and reported outcomes of interest at baseline and after ≥12 months follow-up. Results: We included 31 studies reporting on 4138 patients with incidental NFAT and MACE; 61.9% females, mean age 60.1 years, and mean follow-up 48.9 months. Overall, the data quality was medium-high, but there was significant heterogeneity in MACE and comorbidities definitions. Mean tumor growth in NFAT and MACE was 1.8mm over 60.6 months, which was similar between both groups. Adenomas were less likely to grow when the baseline mean size was ≥2.5cm, compared to smaller adenomas (

Blockchain is a distributed network based ledger that is secured by the methods of cryptographic proof. It enables the creation of self-executable digital contracts i.e. smart contracts. This technology is working in collaboration with major areas of research including governance, IoT, health, banking and education. It has anticipated revolutionary ways, which helps us to overcome the problems of governance such as human error, voting, privacy of data, security and food safety. In governance, there is a need to ameliorate the services and facilities with the assistance of blockchain technology. This paper aims to explore the issues of governance which can be resolved with the assistance of Blockchain features. Furthermore this paper also provides the future work directions.

Distributed agile software development faces difficulties for instance lack of visibility across development and delivery processes, complex and disjointed development processes, inability to capitalize on business opportunities, lack of communication agility between disconnected owners, development teams, and users or clients. However these difficulties are solved with the help of cloud computing services. This study proposes a framework to provide a skeletal or structural environment for distributed agile software development in cloud computing environment. The framework guide towards the best tooling to deliver a consistent, automated, governed, and unified agile software development process with reduced technical debt, and minimized project backlog. In addition to this, the study highlights the benefits of cloud computing in agile software development.

Tumor segmentation inside the brain MRI is one of the trickiest and demanding subjects for the research community due to the complex nature and structure of the human brain and the different types of abnormalities that grow inside the brain. A Few common types of tumors are CNS Lymphoma, Meningioma, Glioblastoma, and Metastases. In this research work, our aim is to segment and classify the four most commonly diagnosed types of brain tumors. To segment the four most common brain tumors, we are proposing a new demanding dataset comprising of multimodal MRI along with healthy brain MRI images. The dataset contains 2000 images collected from online sources of about 80 patient cases. Segmentation method proposed in this research is based on histogram differencing with rank filter. Morphology at post-processing is practically implemented to detect the brain tumor more evidently. The KNN classification is applied to classify tumor values into their respective category (i.e. benign and malignant) based on the size value of tumor. The average rate of True Classification Rate (TCR) achieved is 97.3% and False Classification Rate (FCR) is 2.7%.

Objective: Antibiotic resistance is a global problem and is more prevalent in developing countries. Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) are recognized as important pathogen for nosocomial infections. This study was carried out to identify CoNS in various clinical specimens and to determine its antimicrobial susceptibility pattern. Methods: A total of 2989 specimens of blood, pus and wound swab were collected from wards, casualty, ICU and OPD, out of these, staphylococci were isolated in 1000 specimens, of which 381 were identified as CoNS. Culture, gram stain, catalase, coagulase test and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern were done according to clinical manual of microbiology. A total of fourteen antibiotics were used in this study. Susceptibility testing was done by Kirby Bauer disc diffusion technique. Results: Antimicrobial resistance of CoNS were Oxacillin (70.3%), Amoxicillin (74.8%), Amoxicillin+clavulanate (32.8%), Ciprofloxacin (35.2%), Ofloxacin (33.6%), Ceftriaxone (30.4%), Erythromycin (58.3%), Clindamycin (16.3%), Daptomycin (42.5%), Kanamycin (52.2%), Fusidic acid (41.7%), Doxycycline (24.7%), Vancomycin (2.6%) and Linezolid (0.8%). Maximum Oxacillin resistance was between 80 to 90 percent in a group of patients having age of 45 to 65 years and those suffering from cancer or admitted in ICU. Conclusion: The study concluded that CoNS showed significant level of resistance against most of the widely used therapeutic agents.

Short Messaging Service (SMS) has removed difference between near and far. Because of guaranteed delivery, people use it on daily basis for connectivity. Not only humans but Information Systems have also utilized it to connect, known as automated messaging. Although automated messaging holds prominent SMS market share but full potential was not reached because of the fact that SMS has no security at all. Any SMS sent or received can be intercepted and manipulated by Man In The Middle (MITM). To resist MITM in next generation smartphones we have proposed a new framework which can be used to secure both human and automated messaging. This new framework use HTTPS for secure key exchange, ECC, RSA as encryption algorithm and GSM network to send and receive encrypted messages.

Introduction There is increasing evidence that lowering HR in cardiovascular disease may be beneficial. Recent trials have documented heart rate (HR) using supine ECG and the NICE guideline for heart failure[1,2] suggests lowering HR below 75 bpm but without specifying how HR should be measured. There is no published data on how HR measured by supine ECG compares to “real world” measurement in the clinic or surgery and any discrepancy might lead to overzealous introduction of HR lowering treatment. Method HR was measured in 136 consecutive patients attending a new cardiology OP clinic. Three methods of measuring HR were compared in the following sequence: Supine HR measured by ECG “real world” measurement by the nurse using Dynamat (auto) Manually over 30 sec during examination (Dr). Patients with dysrhythmia were excluded. Findings HR measured using these 3 methods has been presented separately and has shown a significant difference with ECG HR slower on average by >6bpm vs. either auto or Dr Measurement. The table shows the number and % of patients where HR was either ≥ 70bpm (Shift evidence) or ≥ 75 bpm (Nice guidelines) measured by one or two methods but not all three. Conclusion Real world HR measurement is consistently higher than supine ECG HR and may therefore lead to over inclusive treatment according to guideline recommendations. The method used to measure HR should be defined both in clinical trials and in published guidelines. Supine ECG is suggested as the preferred method for documenting HR prior to initiating rate lowering therapy. References Hardman SM. Ivabradine in heart failure: NICE guidance. Heart, 2013 Simel DL. NICE guideline for management of chronic heart failure in adults. Ann Intern Med . 2012;156(1 Pt 1): p. 69-70; author reply 70