The increasing use of wireless networks and the constant miniaturization of electrical devices has empowered the development of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). In these networks various sensors are attached on clothing or on the body or even implanted under the skin. The wireless nature of the network and the wide variety of sensors offer numerous new, practical and innovative applications to improve health care and the Quality of Life. The sensors of a WBAN measure for example the heartbeat, the body temperature or record a prolonged electrocardiogram. Using a WBAN, the patient experiences a greater physical mobility and is no longer compelled to stay in the hospital. This paper offers a survey of the concept of Wireless Body Area Networks. First, we focus on some applications with special interest in patient monitoring. Then the communication in a WBAN and its positioning between the different technologies is discussed. An overview of the current research on the physical layer, existing MAC and network protocols is given. Further, cross layer and quality of service is discussed. As WBANs are placed on the human body and often transport private data, security is also considered. An overview of current and past projects is given. Finally, the open research issues and challenges are pointed out.

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A survey on wireless body area networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as a paradigm in which objects equipped with sensors, actuators, and processors communicate with each other to serve a meaningful purpose. In this paper, we survey state-of-the-art methods, protocols, and applications in this new emerging area. This survey paper proposes a novel taxonomy for IoT technologies, highlights some of the most important technologies, and profiles some applications that have the potential to make a striking difference in human life, especially for the differently abled and the elderly. As compared to similar survey papers in the area, this paper is far more comprehensive in its coverage and exhaustively covers most major technologies spanning from sensors to applications.

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Internet of Things: Architectures, Protocols, and Applications

Appearing in 1st IEEE International Workshop on Sensor Net Protocols and Applications (SNPA). Anchorage, Alaska, USA. May 11, 2003. RMST: Reliable Data Transport in Sensor Networks Fred Stann, John Heidemann Abstract – Reliable data transport in wireless sensor networks is a multifaceted problem influenced by the physical, MAC, network, and transport layers. Because sensor networks are subject to strict resource constraints and are deployed by single organizations, they encourage revisiting traditional layering and are less bound by standardized placement of services such as reliability. This paper presents analysis and experiments resulting in specific recommendations for implementing reliable data transport in sensor nets. To explore reliability at the transport layer, we present RMST (Reliable Multi- Segment Transport), a new transport layer for Directed Diffusion. RMST provides guaranteed delivery and fragmentation/reassembly for applications that require them. RMST is a selective NACK-based protocol that can be configured for in-network caching and repair. Second, these energy constraints, plus relatively low wireless bandwidths, make in-network processing both feasible and desirable [3]. Third, because nodes in sensor networks are usually collaborating towards a common task, rather than representing independent users, optimization of the shared network focuses on throughput rather than fairness. Finally, because sensor networks are often deployed by a single organization with inexpensive hardware, there is less need for interoperability with existing standards. For all of these reasons, sensor networks provide an environment that encourages rethinking the structure of traditional communications protocols. The main contribution is an evaluation of the placement of reliability for data transport at different levels of the protocol stack. We consider implementing reliability in the MAC, transport layer, application, and combinations of these. We conclude that reliability is important at the MAC layer and the transport layer. MAC-level reliability is important not just to provide hop-by-hop error recovery for the transport layer, but also because it is needed for route discovery and maintenance. (This conclusion differs from previous studies in reliability for sensor nets that did not simulate routing. [4]) Second, we have developed RMST (Reliable Multi-Segment Transport), a new transport layer, in order to understand the role of in- network processing for reliable data transfer. RMST benefits from diffusion routing, adding minimal additional control traffic. RMST guarantees delivery, even when multiple hops exhibit very high error rates. 1 Introduction Wireless sensor networks provide an economical, fully distributed, sensing and computing solution for environments where conventional networks are impractical. This paper explores the design decisions related to providing reliable data transport in sensor nets. The reliable data transport problem in sensor nets is multi-faceted. The emphasis on energy conservation in sensor nets implies that poor paths should not be artificially bolstered via mechanisms such as MAC layer ARQ during route discovery and path selection [1]. Path maintenance, on the other hand, benefits from well- engineered recovery either at the MAC layer or the transport layer, or both. Recovery should not be costly however, since many applications in sensor nets are impervious to occasional packet loss, relying on the regular delivery of coarse-grained event descriptions. Other applications require loss detection and repair. These aspects of reliable data transport include the provision of guaranteed delivery and fragmentation/ reassembly of data entities larger than the network MTU. Sensor networks have different constraints than traditional wired nets. First, energy constraints are paramount in sensor networks since nodes can often not be recharged, so any wasted energy shortens their useful lifetime [2]. This work was supported by DARPA under grant DABT63-99-1-0011 as part of the SCAADS project, and was also made possible in part due to support from Intel Corporation and Xerox Corporation. Fred Stann and John Heidemann are with USC/Information Sciences Institute, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, CA, USA E-mail: fstann@usc.edu, johnh@isi.edu. 2 Architectural Choices There are a number of key areas to consider when engineering reliability for sensor nets. Many current sensor networks exhibit high loss rates compared to wired networks (2% to 30% to immediate neighbors)[1,5,6]. While error detection and correction at the physical layer are important, approaches at the MAC layer and higher adapt well to the very wide range of loss rates seen in sensor networks and are the focus of this paper. MAC layer protocols can ameliorate PHY layer unreliability, and transport layers can guarantee delivery. An important question for this paper is the trade off between implementation of reliability at the MAC layer (i.e. hop to hop) vs. the Transport layer, which has traditionally been concerned with end-to-end reliability. Because sensor net applications are distributed, we also considered implementing reliability at the application layer. Our goal is to minimize the cost of repair in terms of transmission.

RMST: Reliable Data Transport in Sensor Networks

Interest in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) has increased significantly in recent years thanks to the advances in microelectronics and wireless communications. Owing to the very stringent application requirements in terms of reliability, energy efficiency, and low device complexity, the design of these networks requires the definition of new protocols with respect to those used in general purpose wireless sensor networks. This motivates the effort in research activities and in standardisation process of the last years. This survey paper aims at reporting an overview of WBAN main applications, technologies and standards, issues in WBANs design, and evolutions. Some case studies are reported, based on both real implementation and experimentation on the field, and on simulations. These results have the aim of providing useful insights for WBAN designers and of highlighting the main issues affecting the performance of these kind of networks.

A Survey on Wireless Body Area Networks: Technologies and Design Challenges

Edge computing: A survey

When social objects collaborate

Car parking has become a serious problem of everyday occurrence for educational institutions with the decreasing parking supply, increasing enrollments and high percentage of vehicle ownership, in result causing congestion, time and money wastage. This problem is getting worse and more frustrating in Jazan University due to the fact that majority of students, faculty and staff members own cars and drive through them to the University. The most common problem is to find out people (evidence) who are responsible for the damages (hitting, scraping, scratching and dents) to other cars. Another problem is the blockage of car due to wrong car parking which takes much time to locate the owner of the car. Moreover, another difficulty that is often faced by the students/faculty is to locate their cars on forgetting their car park location. The existing cameras located at the parking lots are only for video surveillance and cannot help in such situations as there is a lack of proper car parking management and guidance system. To remedy the above mentioned problems and to ensure a better parking experience by accommodating increasing number of vehicles in a proper convenient manner, we propose an automated car parking management and monitoring system (CPMMS) which employs Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to efficiently manage, monitor and protect the parking facilities of the University. We have also conducted a survey to analyze the parking problems around the University campus faced by the students, faculty and staff members.

http://icact.org/upload/2015/0576/20150576_biography.pdf

An automated vehicle parking monitoring and management system using ANPR cameras

If stolen, personal information collected from consumers by smart consumer devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) can cause enormous harm. That's why the success and wide adoption of IoT devices will rely heavily on gaining the trust of consumers. In this article, we offer a definition of consumer trust as it relates to IoT technology, and we propose a consumer trust model to reflect the factors that will encourage consumers to purchase and use IoT products. We also highlight the security requirements that should be considered while developing IoT products and applications to gain consumer trust. Finally, we present four Ws of privacy (what, where, when, and who) that are important for earning high levels of consumer satisfaction for IoT products and applications.

Data and Privacy: Getting Consumers to Trust Products Enabled by the Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) has become a popular paradigm by digitizing our physical world, bringing appealing level of conveniences to community. Besides that consumers embrace potential IoT benefits to them, they are much more concerned about the security and privacy of their data. Since, the increased connectivity between devices and the internet in IoT presents security and privacy related challenges, and the data breach of sensitive personal information can be exploited to harm the consumers; the trust of these consumers on the IoT can be tampered. The success of IoT ultimately depends upon the consumer perceptions about security and privacy in IoT and the level of digital trust of its consumers. Since trust has been an important element to influence consumer’s behavior, thus, it can be stimulated by increased consumer perceptions of both security and privacy of IoT. In this paper we contribute to identify the evolving features of IoT and identify important security and privacy requirements from consumer perspectives. We propose a conceptual security and privacy model and highlighting important threats and challenges on various stages of this model.

Enabling Consumer Trust Upon Acceptance of IoT Technologies Through Security and Privacy Model

The rapid deployment of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and the integration of renewable energy sources have ameliorated the existing power systems and contributed to the development of greener smart communities. However, load balancing problems, security threats, privacy leakage issues, etc., remain unresolved. Many blockchain-based approaches have been used in literature to solve the aforementioned challenges. However, they are not sufficient to obtain satisfactory results because of the inefficient energy management methods and time-intensiveness of the primitive cryptographic executions on the network devices. In this paper, an efficient and secure blockchain-based Energy Trading (ET) model is proposed. It leverages the contract theory, incentive mechanism, and a reputation system for information asymmetry scenario. In order to motivate the ET entities to trade energy locally and EVs to participate in smart energy management, the proposed incentive provisioning mechanism plays a vital role. Besides, a reputation system improves the reliability and efficiency of the system and discourages the blockchain nodes from acting maliciously. A novel consensus algorithm, i.e., Proof of Work based on Reputation (PoWR), is proposed to reduce transaction confirmation latency and block creation time. Moreover, a shortest route algorithm, i.e., the Dijkstra algorithm, is implemented in order to reduce the traveling distance and energy consumption of the EVs during ET. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated using peak to average ratio, social welfare, utility of local aggregator, etc., as performance metrics. Moreover, privacy and security analyses of the system are also presented.

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Mohammed Y. Aalsalem

Papers

When social objects collaborate

An automated vehicle parking monitoring and management system using ANPR cameras

Data and Privacy: Getting Consumers to Trust Products Enabled by the Internet of Things

Enabling Consumer Trust Upon Acceptance of IoT Technologies Through Security and Privacy Model

Blockchain-Based Energy Trading and Load Balancing Using Contract Theory and Reputation in a Smart Community