Ali Ahmed

Introduction Despite progress in antiretroviral therapy (ART), an effective cure for HIV remains out of reach. End-of-life (EOL) research studies involving individuals with a prognosis of six months or less offers an opportunity to advance cure science but has so far been limited to observational designs focused on HIV reservoirs. As interventional approaches at the EOL are now being considered, it is essential to assess their acceptability before moving forward. Understanding how long-term survivors (LTS) of HIV perceive these potential interventions, along with their motivations and ethical considerations, is critical to guiding the design of future EOL-HIV interventional research. Methods We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 16 LTS of HIV from across regions in United States to examine their views on hypothetical interventional HIV cure research at the EOL. To ensure representation, we recruited participants through community-based organizations and HIV cure collaboratories using purposive-sampling. We conducted interviews via secure teleconferencing, transcribed the recordings, and used inductive thematic analysis to identify key themes related to motivations, acceptability, and ethical considerations surrounding interventional EOL HIV cure research. Results Participants viewed hypothetical interventional HIV cure research at the EOL as a way to contribute to science, despite expecting no personal benefit. They prioritized autonomy and informed-choice in ethical participation. Many supported latency-reversing agents but raised safety concerns; in contrast, they viewed block-and-lock strategies as promising and less risky. Participants generally welcomed immune-based approaches, though some questioned their suitability for older adults near the EOL. LTS found cell and gene-based interventions innovative but expressed caution about safety and feasibility. While they valued the scientific potential of combination strategies, they noted their complexity and burden. Opinions on analytical treatment interruptions were mixed and depended on ethical safeguards, including medical oversight and reversibility. Willingness to participate in hypothetical HIV cure research at the EOL reflected individual health status, perceived burden, and personal values. Conclusions LTS are willing to engage in interventional EOL HIV cure research but emphasize the importance of ethical safeguards and participant autonomy. As HIV cure research progresses, integrating LTS perspectives is critical to designing feasible, ethical, and scientifically impactful interventional studies at EOL.

With the rapid growth of informatics systems’ technology in this modern age, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become more valuable and vital to everyday life in many ways. IoT applications are now more popular than they used to be due to the availability of many gadgets that work as IoT enablers, including smartwatches, smartphones, security cameras, and smart sensors. However, the insecure nature of IoT devices has led to several difficulties, one of which is distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. IoT systems have several security limitations due to their disreputability characteristics, like dynamic communication between IoT devices. The dynamic communications resulted from the limited resources of these devices, such as their data storage and processing units. Recently, many attempts have been made to develop intelligent models to protect IoT networks against DDoS attacks. The main ongoing research issue is developing a model capable of protecting the network from DDoS attacks that is sensitive to various classes of DDoS and can recognize legitimate traffic to avoid false alarms. Subsequently, this study proposes combining three deep learning algorithms, namely recurrent neural network (RNN), long short-term memory (LSTM)-RNN, and convolutional neural network (CNN), to build a bidirectional CNN-BiLSTM DDoS detection model. The RNN, CNN, LSTM, and CNN-BiLSTM are implemented and tested to determine the most effective model against DDoS attacks that can accurately detect and distinguish DDoS from legitimate traffic. The intrusion detection evaluation dataset (CICIDS2017) is used to provide more realistic detection. The CICIDS2017 dataset includes benign and up-to-date examples of typical attacks, closely matching real-world data of Packet Capture. The four models are tested and assessed using Confusion Metrix against four commonly used criteria: accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure. The performance of the models is quite effective as they obtain an accuracy rate of around 99.00%, except for the CNN model, which achieves an accuracy of 98.82%. The CNN-BiLSTM achieves the best accuracy of 99.76% and precision of 98.90%.

The rise to taking over state power after elections of 2014 by majoritarian forces in India has since witnessed weakening of institutions of governance. The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party has returned to power with an enhanced parliamentary majority in the 2019 elections. The rise of hindutva, the Hindu nationalist political philosophy of the formations comprising the BJP and the Sangh parivaar or affiliates of the right wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has reshaped the discourse on the “idea of India”. Under the extensive reframing in majoritarian nationalist terms of Indian political verities, it is conceivable that the Indian military, widely regarded as a professional, apolitical and secular force, will also be impacted. There has been little academic scrutiny of the possible influence of majoritarianism on the Indian military. The paper examines impact of the onset of majoritarianism democracy on India’s military by taking a close look at the movement in civil-military relations under the BJP government. There is a shift in civil-military relations from objective civilian control, that enhances professionalism and keeps the military apolitical, to subjective civilian control, wherein the military is co-opted through subscribing to the ideologybased security perspective of the ruling party. This shift poses for the military a risk of losing their a political ethic. Erosion of the apolitical ethic of the military will open up the military’s secular ethic to modification. The conclusions are both relevant for policy and theory. The relevance for policy lies in the need for the Indian state and the military to preserve professionalism by persisting with the objective civilian control model. The theoretical relevance is in discerning limits to the concept of obedience of the military to the civilian political rulers. Where there is a threat from a political ideology or its penetration into the military’s intellectual domain with the potential to dilute the military’s professionalism, the military needs to pushback for the sake of national security.