Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC)

The discovery of neighbouring active nodes is one of the most challenging problems in asynchronous ad hoc networks. Since time synchronization is extremely costly in these networks, application of asynchronous methods like quorum-based protocols have attracted increased interest for their suitability. This is because Quorum-based protocols can guarantee that two nodes with differing clock times have an intersection within at least one timeslot. A higher neighbour discovery rate of active nodes is desired, but it also results in a higher active ratio and consequently and adversely more overall power consumption of the nodes and a shorter network lifetime. There must be a trade-off between extensive neighbour discovery and active ratio in order to design high-performance and efficient protocols. In this paper, two novel asynchronous quorum-based protocols to maximize the neighbour discovery and minimize the active ratio have been designed and presented. A new metric (Quorum Efficiency Ratio: QER) has also been designed to evaluate and compare the performance of quorum-based protocols in terms of their neighbour discovery (the Expected Quorum Overlap Size: EQOS) and the active ratio. The EQOS has been theoretically derived, along with the Active Ratio and the QER values for the proposed novel protocols and the other contemporary protocols. Finally, the proposed methods have been evaluated and compared against the other methods based on the current metrics and the new metric.

The discovery of neighbouring active nodes is one of the most challenging problems in asynchronous ad hoc networks. Since time synchronization is extremely costly in these networks, application of asynchronous methods like quorum-based protocols have attracted increased interest for their suitability. This is because Quorum-based protocols can guarantee that two nodes with differing clock times have an intersection within at least one timeslot. A higher neighbour discovery rate of active nodes is desired, but it also results in a higher active ratio and consequently and adversely more overall power consumption of the nodes and a shorter network lifetime. There must be a trade-off between extensive neighbour discovery and active ratio in order to design high-performance and efficient protocols. In this paper, two novel asynchronous quorum-based protocols to maximize the neighbour discovery and minimize the active ratio have been designed and presented. A new metric (Quorum Efficiency Ratio: QER) has also been designed to evaluate and compare the performance of quorum-based protocols in terms of their neighbour discovery (the Expected Quorum Overlap Size: EQOS) and the active ratio. The EQOS has been theoretically derived, along with the Active Ratio and the QER values for the proposed novel protocols and the other contemporary protocols. Finally, the proposed methods have been evaluated and compared against the other methods based on the current metrics and the new metric.

This second part covers the implementation, testing, critical evaluation, conclusion and further study. It concentrates on the actual implementation details of hardening of network devices by referring to the hardware and software components, device operating system’s features, management controls, access-list restrictions, operational configurations and critically making sure that the data and credentials are not stored or transferred in ‘plaintext’ over the network by detailed testing and evaluation. It investigates the commands used to enable cryptography and network protocols based on encryption, in order to meet the need for essential security requirements. Substantial work is devoted to the command line details and testing of a router based on Cryptography and Security Protocols in the border router. A step-by-step hardening approach is detailed using the commands used to secure the proposed network framework’s border router. Encrypted services coupled with best practice configurations are explained and tested in an emulated environment. The use of protocol analysers, CISCO Configuration Professional’s Audit and penetration testing tools corroborated the success of the project.

The aim of this research is to explore a possible method for identifying an alphanumeric character produced by an individual with motor and vocal disabilities and whose possibilities to interact with the surrounding environment are limited to the movement of the face. The reason behind the creation of an alphanumeric character interpretation algorithm is linked to the fact that attempts to use existing algorithms (such as Tesseract) gave poor results in this scenario. The reason of the low success rate was not investigated; the focus was on finding a functional solution to the objective. Obviously subsequent studies in this sense are desirable. A Human-Computer Interaction algorithm has been developed in order to allow a person with limited mobility to interact with a computer, to which commands can be given. This project is based on three main elements: the identification of facial parameters, their tracking and the interpretation of the word expressed. A Linux based Python application has been coded to elaborate information from a camera. The main action is to identify the face of the potential user, activate tracking when the subject closes his eyes for a defined numbers of times, then follow the trajectory of a point of the face (in our case the tip of the nose), interpret the letter thus drawn, buffer the letters and finally convey the command (entire word) thus obtained. At the end, statistics on the success percentage are provided.

Diabetes is one of the chronic diseases in the world, 246 million people are inflicted by this disease and according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, this figure will increase to 380 million sufferers by 2025. Many other debilitating and critical health issues may further develop if this disease is not diagnosed or remain unidentified. Machine Learning (ML) techniques are now being used in various fields like education, healthcare, business, recommendation system, etc. Healthcare data is complex and high in dimensionality and contains irrelevant information-due to this, the prediction accuracy is low. The Pima Indians Diabetes Dataset was used in this research, it consisted of 768 records. Firstly, the missing values are replaced by the median followed by Linear Discriminant Analysis. Using the Python programming language, feature selection techniques is applied in combination with five classification algorithms: Support Vector Machine (SVM), Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), Logistic Regression, Random Forest and Decision Tree. The aim of this paper is to compare the different classification algorithms in order to predict diabetes in patients more accurately. K-fold cross-validation is applied, considering k to be 2, 4, 5 and 10. The performance parameters taken are the: accuracy, precision, recall, F Score and area under the curve. Our study found that the MLP classifier gave the highest accuracy of 78.7% with a recall of 61.26%, precision of 72.45% and F1 Score of 65.97% for k = 4.

This article presents a low power consumption, high speed multiplier, based on a lowest transistor count novel structure when compared with other traditional multipliers. The proposed structure utilizes 4×4-bit adder units, since it is the base structure of digital multipliers. The main merits of this multiplier design are that: it has the least adder unit count; ultra-low power consumption and the fastest propagation delay in comparison with other gate implementations. The figures demonstrate that the proposed structure consumes 32% less power than using the bypassing Ripple Carry Array (RCA) implementation. Moreover, its propagation delay and adder units count are respectively about 31% and 8.5% lower than the implementation using the bypassing RCA multiplier. All of these simulations were carried out using the HSPICE circuit simulation software in 0.18 µm technology at 1.8 V supply voltage. The proposed design is thus highly suitable in low power drain and high-speed arithmetic electronic circuit applications.

Since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2008, many other cryptocurrencies have been introduced and gained popularity. Lack of interoperability and scalability amongst these cryptocurrencies was-and still is-acting as a significant impediment to the general adoption of cryptocurrencies and coloured tokens. Atomic Swaps-a smart exchange protocol for cryptocurrencies-is designed to facilitate a wallet-to-wallet transfer enabling direct trades amongst different cryptocurrencies. Since swaps between cryptocurrencies are still relatively unknown, this article will investigate the operation and market development thus far and query the advantages they offer and the future challenges they face. The paper contains detailed literature and technology reviews, followed by the main analysis and findings.

Fuzzy Logic is an excellent method to incorporate for making decisions at various levels of cognitive radio under uncertain, incomplete and nonlinear environments. This is one of the most important methods to employ. It is due to the inherent characteristics of wireless channels that produce mostly inaccurate and incomplete information. Thus, the coexisting radios in a particular RF band have to make many decisions using incomplete information especially under cognitive radio access regime. This paper elaborates the concept of fuzzy logic and also investigates a review of the fuzzy logic in the domain of spectrum sensing, power control, resource management for cognitive radio applications. The survey presents the key applications as well as the benefits offered by this technology in comparison to the hard decision making logic i.e.1 and 0 for future wireless communications.

Network Security is a vital part of any corporate and enterprise network. Network attacks greatly compromise not only the sensitive data of the consumers but also cause outages to these networks. Thus inadequately protected networks need to be "hardened". The hardening of network devices refers to the hardware and software components, device operating system's features, management controls, access-list restrictions, operational configurations and above all making sure that the data and credentials are not stored or transferred in 'plaintext' over the network. This article investigates the use of cryptography and network protocols based on encryption, to meet the need for essential security requirements. Use of non-secure protocols, underrating and misconfigurations of management protection are reasons behind network devices not properly being hardened; hence leaving vulnerabilities for the intruders. The gap identified after conducting intense search and review of past work is used as the foundation to present solutions. When performing cryptography techniques by encrypting packets using tunnelling and security protocols, management level credentials are encrypted. These include password encryption and exceptional analysis of the emulated IOS (Internetwork Operating System). Necessary testing is carried out to evaluate an acceptable level of protection of these devices. In a virtual testing environment, security flaws are found mainly in the emulated IOS. The discoveries does not depend on the hardware or chassis of a networking device. Since routers primarily rely on its Operating System (OS), attackers focus on manipulating the command line configuration before initiating an attack. Substantial work is devoted to implementation and testing of a router based on Cryptography and Security Protocols in the border router. This is deployed at the core layer and acts as the first point of entry of any trusted and untrusted traffic. A step-by-step hardening approach is adopted to secure the proposed network framework's border router. Encrypted services coupled with best practice configurations are implemented and tested in an emulated environment. The use of protocol analysers, CISCO Configuration Professional's Audit and penetration testing tools corroborated the success of the project.

This paper gives an overview of electronic learning (E-Learning) and mobile learning (M-Learning) adoption and diffusion trends, as well as their particular traits, characteristics and issues, especially in terms of cross-cultural and universal usability. E-Learning and M-Learning models using web services and cloud computing, as well as associated security concerns are all addressed. The benefits and enhancements that accrue from using mobile and other internet devices for the purposes of learning in academia are discussed. The differences between traditional classroom-based learning, distance learning, E-Learning and M-Learning models are compared and some conclusions are drawn.

A Service Provider has different methods to provide a VPN service to its customers. But which method is the least complex to implement? In this paper, two architectures are described and analysed. Based on the analyses, two methods of complexity calculation are designed to evaluate the complexity of the architecture: the first method evaluates the resources consumed, the second evaluates the number of cases possible.

This paper surveys the rôle of computer networking technologies in the music industry. A comparison of their relevant technologies, their defining advantages and disadvantages; analyses and discussion of the situation in the market of network enabled audio products followed by a discussion of different devices are presented. The idea of replacing a proprietary solution with open-source and freeware software programs has been chosen as the fundamental concept of this research. The technologies covered include: native IEEE AVnu Alliance Audio Video Bridging (AVB), CobraNet®, Audinate Dante™ and Harman BLU Link.

Blockchain (BC), the technology behind the Bitcoin crypto-currency system, is considered to be both alluring and critical for ensuring enhanced security and (in some implementations, non-traceable) privacy for diverse applications in many other domains-including in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Intensive research is currently being conducted in both academia and industry applying the Blockchain technology in multifarious applications. Proof-of-Work (PoW), a cryptographic puzzle, plays a vital rôle in ensuring BC security by maintaining a digital ledger of transactions, which is considered to be incorruptible. Furthermore, BC uses a changeable Public Key (PK) to record the users' identity, which provides an extra layer of privacy. Not only in cryptocurrency has the successful adoption of BC been implemented but also in multifaceted non-monetary systems such as in: distributed storage systems, proof-of-location, healthcare, decentralized voting and so forth. Recent research articles and projects/applications were surveyed to assess the implementation of BC for enhanced security, to identify associated challenges and to propose solutions for BC enabled enhanced security systems.

The diverse range of Internet enabled devices both mobile and fixed has not only impacted the global economy but the very fabric of human communications and lifestyles. The ease of access and lowered cost has enabled hitherto diametrically opposed people to interact and influence each other globally. The consequence of which is the dire need to address the way culture affects interaction with information systems across the world. The many facets of which encompasses human behaviour, socio-economic and cultural factors including lifestyles and the way of interaction with the information system. The study group involved participants from Bangladesh and the United Kingdom to ascertain the users’ behavioural patterns and mobile broadband technology diffusion trends.