Muhammad Iqbal Naveed - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Muhammad Iqbal Naveed

Pharmaceutics, 2022

This work aimed to develop lomustine (LOM) and n-propyl gallate (PG)-loaded liposomes suitable fo... more This work aimed to develop lomustine (LOM) and n-propyl gallate (PG)-loaded liposomes suitable for targeting glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) via the auspicious nose-to-brain drug delivery pathway. The therapeutical effect of LOM, as a nitrosourea compound, can be potentiated by PG suitable for enhanced anti-cancer therapy. Nose-to-brain delivery of PG and LOM combined in liposomes can overcome the poor water solubility, absorption properties, and toxicity issues in the systemic circulation. Optimization and characterization of the liposomal carrier with binary drug contents were carried out in order to achieve adequate encapsulation efficiency, loading capacity, drug release, and ex vivo permeation. The optimized liposome co-encapsulated with both drugs showed suitable Z-average (127 ± 6.9 nm), size distribution (polydispersity index of 0.142 ± 0.009), zeta potential (−34 ± 1.7 mV), and high encapsulation efficacy (63.57 ± 1.3% of PG and 73.45 ± 2.2% of LOM, respectively) meeting the ...

IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch., 2021

Publish-subscribe protocols enable real-timemulti-pointto-multi-point communications for many dis... more Publish-subscribe protocols enable real-timemulti-pointto-multi-point communications for many dispersed computing systems like Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Recent interest has focused on adding processing to such publish-subscribe protocols to enable computation over real-time streams such that the protocols can provide functionalities such as sensor fusion, compression, and other statistical analysis on raw sensor data. However, unlike pure publish-subscribe protocols, which can be easily deployed with end-to-end transport layer encryption, it is challenging to ensure security in such publishprocess-subscribe protocols when the processing is carried out on an untrusted third party. In this work, we present XYZ, a secure publish-process-subscribe system that can preserve the confidentiality of computations and support multi-publisher-multi-subscriber settings.WithinXYZ, we design two distinct schemes: the first using Yao’s garbled circuits (the GC-Based Scheme) and the sec...

Human Genomics, 2021

Whether microRNAs (miRNAs) from plasma exosomes might be dysregulated in patients with depression... more Whether microRNAs (miRNAs) from plasma exosomes might be dysregulated in patients with depression, especially treatment-resistant depression (TRD), remains unclear, based on study of which novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets could be discovered. To this end, a small sample study was performed by isolation of plasma exosomes from patients with TRD diagnosed by Hamilton scale. In this study, 4 peripheral plasma samples from patients with TRD and 4 healthy controls were collected for extraction of plasma exosomes. Exosomal miRNAs were analyzed by miRNA sequencing, followed by image collection, expression difference analysis, target gene GO enrichment analysis, and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. Compared with the healthy controls, 2 miRNAs in the plasma exosomes of patients with TRD showed significant differences in expression, among which has-miR-335-5p were significantly upregulated and has-miR-1292-3p were significantly downregulated. Go and KEGG analysis showed that dysregul...

Thermal Science, 2022

This paper investigates the heat transport phenomenon by utilizing Cattaneo- Christov heat flux m... more This paper investigates the heat transport phenomenon by utilizing Cattaneo- Christov heat flux model on magnetic nanoparticles through a semi porous curved wall channel, incorporated with generalized slip condition and bent in a circle of radius, Rc. In addition, the energy equations takes into account the impacts of heat generation and Joule heating. To construct the flow model, a curvilinear co-ordinate scheme is used. The derived PDE are converted into system of ODE by incorporating appropriate similarity variables. Numerical simulation is used to achieve a numerical solution of the flow equations by using shooting technique. The influence of various parameters on temperature, rate of heat transfer, velocity and surface drag force are analyze and discussed in detail by using graphs and table. Also a well-known finite difference technique known as Keller box method is also used to verify and validate the obtained numerical results.

Emerging Contaminants and Associated Treatment Technologies, 2020

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are universal toxic chemicals produced mainly due to impr... more Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are universal toxic chemicals produced mainly due to improper combustion of organic substances like wood, coal, petrol, oil, etc. Release of these pollutants into the environment is because of various activities including open air burning, natural losses, leakage of various chemicals, accidental fire, and many more. The most common sources of PAH production are household heating systems, plants using coal for gasification and liquefaction, various industries and factories manufacturing different livelihood products, petroleum refineries, and automobile exhaust. In the environment, PAHs exist in gaseous-phase and sorbet to aerosols. The movement of PAH from atmosphere to humans is strongly dependent on its phase in the air and the route of entry to human body. Soil and water are the main sources of PAHs deposition in the ecosystem. Many PAHs act as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) having a strong blow on the regulation of endocrine dependent functions including metabolism, growth, reproduction, immune system, and may also have toxic and carcinogenic properties. After exposure, PAHs enter into the human body through different routes, get absorbed, and metabolized via cytochrome P450 oxidation system. PAHs are obesogens causing dysregulation of hormonal network controlling appetite and endocrine tissues which changes insulin sensitivity and lipid metabolism. The time of obesogens exposure (prenatal, postnatal, early childhood, and young) possesses

IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch., 2015

Known Oblivious RAM (ORAM) constructions achieve either optimal bandwidth blowup or optimal laten... more Known Oblivious RAM (ORAM) constructions achieve either optimal bandwidth blowup or optimal latency (as measured by online roundtrips), but not both. We are the first to demonstrate an ORAM scheme, called Bucket ORAM, which attains the best of both worlds. Bucket ORAM simultaneously achieves a single online roundtrip as well as constant overall bandwidth blowup.

Pakistan Journal of Information Management & Libraries, 2020

This research aimed to explore the actual situation of information accessibility for university s... more This research aimed to explore the actual situation of information accessibility for university students with visual impairment at higher academic institutions of Lahore, Pakistan. This research adopted a qualitative research design using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to investigate the proposed phenomenon. The participants were recruited with purposive sampling from higher academic institutions for data collection. Face to face interview of 15 visually impaired students was conducted using an interview guide. The participants were debriefed for data authentication and verification at the end. Each interview was transcribed and analyzed carefully using IPA. The results indicated that these students utilized interpersonal relationships as the primary source of their academic information. The other available facilities for information access included the internet, disability resources center (if available at the institution), and the university library. The major barr...

Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, 2021

Mobile crowdsourcing services (MCS), enable fast and economical data acquisition at scale and fin... more Mobile crowdsourcing services (MCS), enable fast and economical data acquisition at scale and find applications in a variety of domains. Prior work has shown that Foursquare and Waze (a locationbased and a navigation MCS) are vulnerable to different kinds of data poisoning attacks. Such attacks can be upsetting and even dangerous especially when they are used to inject improper inputs to mislead users. However, to date, there is no comprehensive study on the extent of improper input validation (IIV) vulnerabilities and the feasibility of their exploits in MCSs across domains. In this work, we leverage the fact that MCS interface with their participants through mobile apps to design tools and new methodologies embodied in an end-to-end feedback-driven analysis framework which we use to study 10 popular and previously unexplored services in five different domains. Using our framework we send tens of thousands of API requests with automatically generated input values to characterize their IIV attack surface. Alarmingly, we found that most of them (8/10) suffer from grave IIV vulnerabilities which allow an adversary to launch data poisoning attacks at scale: 7400 spoofed API requests were successful in faking online posts for robberies, gunshots, and other dangerous incidents, faking fitness activities with supernatural speeds and distances among many others. Lastly, we discuss easy to implement and deploy mitigation strategies which can greatly reduce the IIV attack surface and argue for their use as a necessary complementary measure working toward trustworthy mobile crowdsourcing services. CCS CONCEPTS • Security and privacy → Mobile and wireless security; Web application security.

Optimum planting date is an important factor for achieving improved mungbean production in differ... more Optimum planting date is an important factor for achieving improved mungbean production in different agro-ecological zones of the world. To determine the effects of different planting dates on the performance of mungbean cultivars under rainfed conditions, a split plot experiment consisting of eight planting dates (May 26th, June 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th and July 7th, 14th) and two cultivars (AZRI.M-2006 & NM-2006) was conducted during May-October 2011 and 2012 at Gram Breeding Research Substation, Kallurkot, Bhakkar, Pakistan. Results revealed a productivity difference of 1766 kg/ha between the best (June 2nd) and worst (July 14th) planting date. Maximum plant height, pods per plant, pod length, seeds per pod, 1000 grain weight, seed yield and fewer incidence of MYMV belonged to June 2nd planting followed by May 26th while beyond this, there was a gradual decrease in yield and relevant components and increase in MYMV incidence, being the highest on July 14th planted crop. Highest...

The study depicts the variations in the hydromagnetics flow of a Careau fluid in a semi permeable... more The study depicts the variations in the hydromagnetics flow of a Careau fluid in a semi permeable curved channel with convective boundary condition. Furthermore, Rosseland approximation is also considered to analyze the nonlinear thermal radiation effects. Curvilinear coordinates system has been adopted for the mathematical modeling of the flow equations. The attained set of governing equation are then converted into nonlinear dimensionless differential equations, by making use of similarity variables which are later treated by shooting method. In addition, the Newton‘s Raphson method is also incepted to improve the accuracy of the obtained numerical result. The velocity field and temperature distributions are affected by various involved parameter which are presented in graphs and in table form. It is noticed that the velocity profiles are influenced by the change in the Weissenberg number

Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 2016

We develop a systematic approach for analyzing client-server applications that aim to hide sensit... more We develop a systematic approach for analyzing client-server applications that aim to hide sensitive user data from untrusted servers. We then apply it to Mylar, a framework that uses multi-key searchable encryption (MKSE) to build Web applications on top of encrypted data. We demonstrate that (1) the Popa-Zeldovich model for MKSE does not imply security against either passive or active attacks; (2) Mylar-based Web applications reveal users' data and queries to passive and active adversarial servers; and (3) Mylar is generically insecure against active attacks due to system design flaws. Our results show that the problem of securing client-server applications against actively malicious servers is challenging and still unsolved. We conclude with general lessons for the designers of systems that rely on property-preserving or searchable encryption to protect data from untrusted servers.

Agronomy, 2020

Low bioavailability of phosphorus (P) in alkaline/calcareous soils leads to low yields due to its... more Low bioavailability of phosphorus (P) in alkaline/calcareous soils leads to low yields due to its precipitation/fixation with calcium (Ca). An effective method to enhance phosphorus use efficiency (PUE) and its availability to plants is the application of alginate bioaugmented coated di-ammonium phosphate (DAP). In this study, the pre-isolated P solubilizing Paraburkholderia phytofirmans (PsJN) coated with different concentrations of polymer (alginate) on DAP with and without carbon source was tested in incubation, pot, and field experiments to investigate microbial survival, Olsen P release, and its availability to plants. Results indicated that the maximum recovery of PsJN loaded on alginate at 30 days incubation with and without carbon source was 199 × 1010 and 82 × 106 CFU mL−1 respectively. Application of alginate bioaugmented DAP released 962 mg kg−1 Olsen P after 60 days of incubation compared to 280 and 370 mg kg−1 Olsen P released by uncoated and simple alginate coated DAP,...

Proceedings of the 27th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, 2019

Mobile devices with rich features can record videos, traffic parameters or air quality readings a... more Mobile devices with rich features can record videos, traffic parameters or air quality readings along user trajectories. Although such data may be valuable, users are seldom rewarded for collecting them. Emerging digital marketplaces allow owners to advertise their data to interested buyers. We focus on geo-marketplaces, where buyers search data based on geo-tags. Such marketplaces present significant challenges. First, if owners upload data with revealed geo-tags, they expose themselves to serious privacy risks. Second, owners must be accountable for advertised data, and must not be allowed to subsequently alter geo-tags. Third, such a system may be vulnerable to intensive spam activities, where dishonest owners flood the system with fake advertisements. We propose a geo-marketplace that addresses all these concerns. We employ searchable encryption, digital commitments, and blockchain to protect the location privacy of owners while at the same time incorporating accountability and spam-resilience mechanisms. We implement a prototype with two alternative designs that obtain distinct trade-offs between trust assumptions and performance. Our experiments on real location data show that one can achieve the above design goals with practical performance and reasonable financial overhead. CCS CONCEPTS • Security and privacy → Domain-specific security and privacy architectures.

Webology, 2020

This study provides an overview of the historical background of information anxiety, critically r... more This study provides an overview of the historical background of information anxiety, critically reviews the existing framework, and proposes a new framework for information anxiety that goes beyond information retrieval and information seeking in the contemporary information environment to inform policy and practice. The proposed framework comprises of six dimensions, namely: task conceptualization; need recognition; finding information; evaluating information; accessing information; and using information. This study also outlines certain correlatives of information anxiety based on the existing research. It also outlines theoretical and practical implications of information anxiety on information retrieval and information literacy (IL) instructions. It concludes with directions for future research on information anxiety considering the contemporary information landscape. This study would be a worthy contribution in the existing research on information anxiety as no such study appeared so far.

Plants, 2020

One of the major challenges in agriculture is to ensure sufficient and healthy food availability ... more One of the major challenges in agriculture is to ensure sufficient and healthy food availability for the increasing world population in near future. This requires maintaining sustainable cultivation of crop plants under varying environmental stresses. Among these stresses, salinity is the second most abundant threat worldwide after drought. One of the promising strategies to mitigate salinity stress is to cultivate halotolerant crops such as quinoa. Under high salinity, performance can be improved by plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB). Among PGPB, endophytic bacteria are considered better in stimulating plant growth compared to rhizosphere bacteria because of their ability to colonize both in plant rhizosphere and plant interior. Therefore, in the current study, a pot experiment was conducted in a controlled greenhouse to investigate the effects of endophytic bacteria i.e., Burkholderia phytofirmans PsJN on improving growth, physiology and yield of quinoa under salinity stress. ...

Alexandria Engineering Journal, 2020

The present article describes the fully developed natural convective flow on a conducting viscous... more The present article describes the fully developed natural convective flow on a conducting viscous fluid towards a vertical parallel porous plates channel. Furthermore, the velocity slip and temperature jump conditions are implemented on both the vertical walls of the channel. Besides, the effects of the applied magnetic field along with thermal radiation are also considered. We employ the entropy generation method (EGM) to discuss the thermodynamic optimization. To model the flow equations, the Cartesian coordinates system is used. Closed-form solutions of the resulting coupled differential equations describing the flow behavior are obtained for velocity and temperature distribution. The obtained exact form solution is also validated to examine the accuracy by two different numerical approaches namely, Keller-box and shooting method, and found in good agreement. A comprehensive analysis of the influence of velocity slip and temperature jump condition in the presence of the magnetic field, thermal radiation and suction or injection parameters on the velocity field, volumetric flow rate, temperature distribution, skin friction coefficients, and the rate of entropy generation was carried out. The obtained results reveal that by taking the specific value of the velocity slip and temperature jump conditions, change in the magnetic and suction or injection parameter affects the fluid velocity at the solid-fluid interface.

Water, 2020

The phytoremediation potential of macrophytic species has made them an inevitable component of co... more The phytoremediation potential of macrophytic species has made them an inevitable component of constructed wetlands (CWs) for the treatment of industrial effluents. The macrophytes must have tolerance for the harsh conditions imposed by effluents for an effective establishment of the CW system. In this context, the basic purpose of this work was to investigate the efficacy of five indigenous emergent macrophytes (Brachiaria mutica, Canna indica, Cyperus laevigatus, Leptochloa fusca, and Typha domingensis) for the remediation of tannery effluent in vertical subsurface flow CWs. The ability of each macrophytic species to tolerate pollution load and to remove pollutants from the effluent was assessed. The effect of tannery effluent on the survival and growth of macrophytes was also studied. The treated tannery effluent samples were analyzed for electrical conductivity (EC), pH, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended...

Thermal Science, 2019

The study depicts the variations in the hydromagnetics flow of a Careau fluid in a semi permeable... more The study depicts the variations in the hydromagnetics flow of a Careau fluid in a semi permeable curved channel with convective boundary condition. Furthermore, Rosseland approximation is also considered to analyze the non-linear thermal radiation effects. Curvilinear co-ordinates system has been adopted for the mathematical modeling of the flow equations. The attained set of governing equation are then converted into non-linear dimensionless differential equations, by making use of similarity variables which are later treated by shooting method. In addition, the Newton?s Raphson method is also incepted to improve the accuracy of the obtained numerical result. The velocity field and temperature distributions are affected by various involved parameter which are presented in graphs and in table form. It is noticed that the velocity profiles are influenced by the change in the Weissenberg number.

Electronics, 2019

This research focuses on intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based, real-time video surveil... more This research focuses on intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based, real-time video surveillance to ensure better monitoring and security of remote locations over 4G-LTE cellular networks by maximizing end-user quality of experience (QoE). We propose a novel server-based crosslayer rate-adaptive scheme (SCRAS) for real-time video surveillance over 4G-LTE networks using UAVs. Our key contributions are: (1) In SCRAS, mobile UAVs having preprogrammed flight co-ordinates act as servers, streaming real-time video towards a remote client; (2) server-side video rate adaptation occurs in 4G-LTE based on the physical characteristics of the received signal conditions due to variations in the wireless channel and handovers; (3) SCRAS is fully automated and independent of client assistance for rate adaptation, as it is intended for real-time, mission-critical surveillance applications; (4) SCRAS ensures that during rate adaptation, the current video frame should not be damaged by completi...

IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, 2019

Pharmaceutics, 2022

This work aimed to develop lomustine (LOM) and n-propyl gallate (PG)-loaded liposomes suitable fo... more This work aimed to develop lomustine (LOM) and n-propyl gallate (PG)-loaded liposomes suitable for targeting glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) via the auspicious nose-to-brain drug delivery pathway. The therapeutical effect of LOM, as a nitrosourea compound, can be potentiated by PG suitable for enhanced anti-cancer therapy. Nose-to-brain delivery of PG and LOM combined in liposomes can overcome the poor water solubility, absorption properties, and toxicity issues in the systemic circulation. Optimization and characterization of the liposomal carrier with binary drug contents were carried out in order to achieve adequate encapsulation efficiency, loading capacity, drug release, and ex vivo permeation. The optimized liposome co-encapsulated with both drugs showed suitable Z-average (127 ± 6.9 nm), size distribution (polydispersity index of 0.142 ± 0.009), zeta potential (−34 ± 1.7 mV), and high encapsulation efficacy (63.57 ± 1.3% of PG and 73.45 ± 2.2% of LOM, respectively) meeting the ...

IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch., 2021

Publish-subscribe protocols enable real-timemulti-pointto-multi-point communications for many dis... more Publish-subscribe protocols enable real-timemulti-pointto-multi-point communications for many dispersed computing systems like Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Recent interest has focused on adding processing to such publish-subscribe protocols to enable computation over real-time streams such that the protocols can provide functionalities such as sensor fusion, compression, and other statistical analysis on raw sensor data. However, unlike pure publish-subscribe protocols, which can be easily deployed with end-to-end transport layer encryption, it is challenging to ensure security in such publishprocess-subscribe protocols when the processing is carried out on an untrusted third party. In this work, we present XYZ, a secure publish-process-subscribe system that can preserve the confidentiality of computations and support multi-publisher-multi-subscriber settings.WithinXYZ, we design two distinct schemes: the first using Yao’s garbled circuits (the GC-Based Scheme) and the sec...

Human Genomics, 2021

Whether microRNAs (miRNAs) from plasma exosomes might be dysregulated in patients with depression... more Whether microRNAs (miRNAs) from plasma exosomes might be dysregulated in patients with depression, especially treatment-resistant depression (TRD), remains unclear, based on study of which novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets could be discovered. To this end, a small sample study was performed by isolation of plasma exosomes from patients with TRD diagnosed by Hamilton scale. In this study, 4 peripheral plasma samples from patients with TRD and 4 healthy controls were collected for extraction of plasma exosomes. Exosomal miRNAs were analyzed by miRNA sequencing, followed by image collection, expression difference analysis, target gene GO enrichment analysis, and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. Compared with the healthy controls, 2 miRNAs in the plasma exosomes of patients with TRD showed significant differences in expression, among which has-miR-335-5p were significantly upregulated and has-miR-1292-3p were significantly downregulated. Go and KEGG analysis showed that dysregul...

Thermal Science, 2022

This paper investigates the heat transport phenomenon by utilizing Cattaneo- Christov heat flux m... more This paper investigates the heat transport phenomenon by utilizing Cattaneo- Christov heat flux model on magnetic nanoparticles through a semi porous curved wall channel, incorporated with generalized slip condition and bent in a circle of radius, Rc. In addition, the energy equations takes into account the impacts of heat generation and Joule heating. To construct the flow model, a curvilinear co-ordinate scheme is used. The derived PDE are converted into system of ODE by incorporating appropriate similarity variables. Numerical simulation is used to achieve a numerical solution of the flow equations by using shooting technique. The influence of various parameters on temperature, rate of heat transfer, velocity and surface drag force are analyze and discussed in detail by using graphs and table. Also a well-known finite difference technique known as Keller box method is also used to verify and validate the obtained numerical results.

Emerging Contaminants and Associated Treatment Technologies, 2020

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are universal toxic chemicals produced mainly due to impr... more Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are universal toxic chemicals produced mainly due to improper combustion of organic substances like wood, coal, petrol, oil, etc. Release of these pollutants into the environment is because of various activities including open air burning, natural losses, leakage of various chemicals, accidental fire, and many more. The most common sources of PAH production are household heating systems, plants using coal for gasification and liquefaction, various industries and factories manufacturing different livelihood products, petroleum refineries, and automobile exhaust. In the environment, PAHs exist in gaseous-phase and sorbet to aerosols. The movement of PAH from atmosphere to humans is strongly dependent on its phase in the air and the route of entry to human body. Soil and water are the main sources of PAHs deposition in the ecosystem. Many PAHs act as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) having a strong blow on the regulation of endocrine dependent functions including metabolism, growth, reproduction, immune system, and may also have toxic and carcinogenic properties. After exposure, PAHs enter into the human body through different routes, get absorbed, and metabolized via cytochrome P450 oxidation system. PAHs are obesogens causing dysregulation of hormonal network controlling appetite and endocrine tissues which changes insulin sensitivity and lipid metabolism. The time of obesogens exposure (prenatal, postnatal, early childhood, and young) possesses

IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch., 2015

Known Oblivious RAM (ORAM) constructions achieve either optimal bandwidth blowup or optimal laten... more Known Oblivious RAM (ORAM) constructions achieve either optimal bandwidth blowup or optimal latency (as measured by online roundtrips), but not both. We are the first to demonstrate an ORAM scheme, called Bucket ORAM, which attains the best of both worlds. Bucket ORAM simultaneously achieves a single online roundtrip as well as constant overall bandwidth blowup.

Pakistan Journal of Information Management & Libraries, 2020

This research aimed to explore the actual situation of information accessibility for university s... more This research aimed to explore the actual situation of information accessibility for university students with visual impairment at higher academic institutions of Lahore, Pakistan. This research adopted a qualitative research design using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to investigate the proposed phenomenon. The participants were recruited with purposive sampling from higher academic institutions for data collection. Face to face interview of 15 visually impaired students was conducted using an interview guide. The participants were debriefed for data authentication and verification at the end. Each interview was transcribed and analyzed carefully using IPA. The results indicated that these students utilized interpersonal relationships as the primary source of their academic information. The other available facilities for information access included the internet, disability resources center (if available at the institution), and the university library. The major barr...

Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, 2021

Mobile crowdsourcing services (MCS), enable fast and economical data acquisition at scale and fin... more Mobile crowdsourcing services (MCS), enable fast and economical data acquisition at scale and find applications in a variety of domains. Prior work has shown that Foursquare and Waze (a locationbased and a navigation MCS) are vulnerable to different kinds of data poisoning attacks. Such attacks can be upsetting and even dangerous especially when they are used to inject improper inputs to mislead users. However, to date, there is no comprehensive study on the extent of improper input validation (IIV) vulnerabilities and the feasibility of their exploits in MCSs across domains. In this work, we leverage the fact that MCS interface with their participants through mobile apps to design tools and new methodologies embodied in an end-to-end feedback-driven analysis framework which we use to study 10 popular and previously unexplored services in five different domains. Using our framework we send tens of thousands of API requests with automatically generated input values to characterize their IIV attack surface. Alarmingly, we found that most of them (8/10) suffer from grave IIV vulnerabilities which allow an adversary to launch data poisoning attacks at scale: 7400 spoofed API requests were successful in faking online posts for robberies, gunshots, and other dangerous incidents, faking fitness activities with supernatural speeds and distances among many others. Lastly, we discuss easy to implement and deploy mitigation strategies which can greatly reduce the IIV attack surface and argue for their use as a necessary complementary measure working toward trustworthy mobile crowdsourcing services. CCS CONCEPTS • Security and privacy → Mobile and wireless security; Web application security.

Optimum planting date is an important factor for achieving improved mungbean production in differ... more Optimum planting date is an important factor for achieving improved mungbean production in different agro-ecological zones of the world. To determine the effects of different planting dates on the performance of mungbean cultivars under rainfed conditions, a split plot experiment consisting of eight planting dates (May 26th, June 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th and July 7th, 14th) and two cultivars (AZRI.M-2006 & NM-2006) was conducted during May-October 2011 and 2012 at Gram Breeding Research Substation, Kallurkot, Bhakkar, Pakistan. Results revealed a productivity difference of 1766 kg/ha between the best (June 2nd) and worst (July 14th) planting date. Maximum plant height, pods per plant, pod length, seeds per pod, 1000 grain weight, seed yield and fewer incidence of MYMV belonged to June 2nd planting followed by May 26th while beyond this, there was a gradual decrease in yield and relevant components and increase in MYMV incidence, being the highest on July 14th planted crop. Highest...

The study depicts the variations in the hydromagnetics flow of a Careau fluid in a semi permeable... more The study depicts the variations in the hydromagnetics flow of a Careau fluid in a semi permeable curved channel with convective boundary condition. Furthermore, Rosseland approximation is also considered to analyze the nonlinear thermal radiation effects. Curvilinear coordinates system has been adopted for the mathematical modeling of the flow equations. The attained set of governing equation are then converted into nonlinear dimensionless differential equations, by making use of similarity variables which are later treated by shooting method. In addition, the Newton‘s Raphson method is also incepted to improve the accuracy of the obtained numerical result. The velocity field and temperature distributions are affected by various involved parameter which are presented in graphs and in table form. It is noticed that the velocity profiles are influenced by the change in the Weissenberg number

Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 2016

We develop a systematic approach for analyzing client-server applications that aim to hide sensit... more We develop a systematic approach for analyzing client-server applications that aim to hide sensitive user data from untrusted servers. We then apply it to Mylar, a framework that uses multi-key searchable encryption (MKSE) to build Web applications on top of encrypted data. We demonstrate that (1) the Popa-Zeldovich model for MKSE does not imply security against either passive or active attacks; (2) Mylar-based Web applications reveal users' data and queries to passive and active adversarial servers; and (3) Mylar is generically insecure against active attacks due to system design flaws. Our results show that the problem of securing client-server applications against actively malicious servers is challenging and still unsolved. We conclude with general lessons for the designers of systems that rely on property-preserving or searchable encryption to protect data from untrusted servers.

Agronomy, 2020

Low bioavailability of phosphorus (P) in alkaline/calcareous soils leads to low yields due to its... more Low bioavailability of phosphorus (P) in alkaline/calcareous soils leads to low yields due to its precipitation/fixation with calcium (Ca). An effective method to enhance phosphorus use efficiency (PUE) and its availability to plants is the application of alginate bioaugmented coated di-ammonium phosphate (DAP). In this study, the pre-isolated P solubilizing Paraburkholderia phytofirmans (PsJN) coated with different concentrations of polymer (alginate) on DAP with and without carbon source was tested in incubation, pot, and field experiments to investigate microbial survival, Olsen P release, and its availability to plants. Results indicated that the maximum recovery of PsJN loaded on alginate at 30 days incubation with and without carbon source was 199 × 1010 and 82 × 106 CFU mL−1 respectively. Application of alginate bioaugmented DAP released 962 mg kg−1 Olsen P after 60 days of incubation compared to 280 and 370 mg kg−1 Olsen P released by uncoated and simple alginate coated DAP,...

Proceedings of the 27th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, 2019

Mobile devices with rich features can record videos, traffic parameters or air quality readings a... more Mobile devices with rich features can record videos, traffic parameters or air quality readings along user trajectories. Although such data may be valuable, users are seldom rewarded for collecting them. Emerging digital marketplaces allow owners to advertise their data to interested buyers. We focus on geo-marketplaces, where buyers search data based on geo-tags. Such marketplaces present significant challenges. First, if owners upload data with revealed geo-tags, they expose themselves to serious privacy risks. Second, owners must be accountable for advertised data, and must not be allowed to subsequently alter geo-tags. Third, such a system may be vulnerable to intensive spam activities, where dishonest owners flood the system with fake advertisements. We propose a geo-marketplace that addresses all these concerns. We employ searchable encryption, digital commitments, and blockchain to protect the location privacy of owners while at the same time incorporating accountability and spam-resilience mechanisms. We implement a prototype with two alternative designs that obtain distinct trade-offs between trust assumptions and performance. Our experiments on real location data show that one can achieve the above design goals with practical performance and reasonable financial overhead. CCS CONCEPTS • Security and privacy → Domain-specific security and privacy architectures.

Webology, 2020

This study provides an overview of the historical background of information anxiety, critically r... more This study provides an overview of the historical background of information anxiety, critically reviews the existing framework, and proposes a new framework for information anxiety that goes beyond information retrieval and information seeking in the contemporary information environment to inform policy and practice. The proposed framework comprises of six dimensions, namely: task conceptualization; need recognition; finding information; evaluating information; accessing information; and using information. This study also outlines certain correlatives of information anxiety based on the existing research. It also outlines theoretical and practical implications of information anxiety on information retrieval and information literacy (IL) instructions. It concludes with directions for future research on information anxiety considering the contemporary information landscape. This study would be a worthy contribution in the existing research on information anxiety as no such study appeared so far.

Plants, 2020

One of the major challenges in agriculture is to ensure sufficient and healthy food availability ... more One of the major challenges in agriculture is to ensure sufficient and healthy food availability for the increasing world population in near future. This requires maintaining sustainable cultivation of crop plants under varying environmental stresses. Among these stresses, salinity is the second most abundant threat worldwide after drought. One of the promising strategies to mitigate salinity stress is to cultivate halotolerant crops such as quinoa. Under high salinity, performance can be improved by plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB). Among PGPB, endophytic bacteria are considered better in stimulating plant growth compared to rhizosphere bacteria because of their ability to colonize both in plant rhizosphere and plant interior. Therefore, in the current study, a pot experiment was conducted in a controlled greenhouse to investigate the effects of endophytic bacteria i.e., Burkholderia phytofirmans PsJN on improving growth, physiology and yield of quinoa under salinity stress. ...

Alexandria Engineering Journal, 2020

The present article describes the fully developed natural convective flow on a conducting viscous... more The present article describes the fully developed natural convective flow on a conducting viscous fluid towards a vertical parallel porous plates channel. Furthermore, the velocity slip and temperature jump conditions are implemented on both the vertical walls of the channel. Besides, the effects of the applied magnetic field along with thermal radiation are also considered. We employ the entropy generation method (EGM) to discuss the thermodynamic optimization. To model the flow equations, the Cartesian coordinates system is used. Closed-form solutions of the resulting coupled differential equations describing the flow behavior are obtained for velocity and temperature distribution. The obtained exact form solution is also validated to examine the accuracy by two different numerical approaches namely, Keller-box and shooting method, and found in good agreement. A comprehensive analysis of the influence of velocity slip and temperature jump condition in the presence of the magnetic field, thermal radiation and suction or injection parameters on the velocity field, volumetric flow rate, temperature distribution, skin friction coefficients, and the rate of entropy generation was carried out. The obtained results reveal that by taking the specific value of the velocity slip and temperature jump conditions, change in the magnetic and suction or injection parameter affects the fluid velocity at the solid-fluid interface.

Water, 2020

The phytoremediation potential of macrophytic species has made them an inevitable component of co... more The phytoremediation potential of macrophytic species has made them an inevitable component of constructed wetlands (CWs) for the treatment of industrial effluents. The macrophytes must have tolerance for the harsh conditions imposed by effluents for an effective establishment of the CW system. In this context, the basic purpose of this work was to investigate the efficacy of five indigenous emergent macrophytes (Brachiaria mutica, Canna indica, Cyperus laevigatus, Leptochloa fusca, and Typha domingensis) for the remediation of tannery effluent in vertical subsurface flow CWs. The ability of each macrophytic species to tolerate pollution load and to remove pollutants from the effluent was assessed. The effect of tannery effluent on the survival and growth of macrophytes was also studied. The treated tannery effluent samples were analyzed for electrical conductivity (EC), pH, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended...

Thermal Science, 2019

The study depicts the variations in the hydromagnetics flow of a Careau fluid in a semi permeable... more The study depicts the variations in the hydromagnetics flow of a Careau fluid in a semi permeable curved channel with convective boundary condition. Furthermore, Rosseland approximation is also considered to analyze the non-linear thermal radiation effects. Curvilinear co-ordinates system has been adopted for the mathematical modeling of the flow equations. The attained set of governing equation are then converted into non-linear dimensionless differential equations, by making use of similarity variables which are later treated by shooting method. In addition, the Newton?s Raphson method is also incepted to improve the accuracy of the obtained numerical result. The velocity field and temperature distributions are affected by various involved parameter which are presented in graphs and in table form. It is noticed that the velocity profiles are influenced by the change in the Weissenberg number.

Electronics, 2019

This research focuses on intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based, real-time video surveil... more This research focuses on intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based, real-time video surveillance to ensure better monitoring and security of remote locations over 4G-LTE cellular networks by maximizing end-user quality of experience (QoE). We propose a novel server-based crosslayer rate-adaptive scheme (SCRAS) for real-time video surveillance over 4G-LTE networks using UAVs. Our key contributions are: (1) In SCRAS, mobile UAVs having preprogrammed flight co-ordinates act as servers, streaming real-time video towards a remote client; (2) server-side video rate adaptation occurs in 4G-LTE based on the physical characteristics of the received signal conditions due to variations in the wireless channel and handovers; (3) SCRAS is fully automated and independent of client assistance for rate adaptation, as it is intended for real-time, mission-critical surveillance applications; (4) SCRAS ensures that during rate adaptation, the current video frame should not be damaged by completi...

IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, 2019