IoT security: Review, blockchain solutions, and open challenges

Digital processing of speech signals

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a hardware and software communications system that permits cerebral activity alone to control computers or external devices. The immediate goal of BCI research is to provide communications capabilities to severely disabled people who are totally paralyzed or 'locked in' by neurological neuromuscular disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, brain stem stroke, or spinal cord injury. Here, we review the state-of-the-art of BCIs, looking at the different steps that form a standard BCI: signal acquisition, preprocessing or signal enhancement, feature extraction, classification and the control interface. We discuss their advantages, drawbacks, and latest advances, and we survey the numerous technologies reported in the scientific literature to design each step of a BCI. First, the review examines the neuroimaging modalities used in the signal acquisition step, each of which monitors a different functional brain activity such as electrical, magnetic or metabolic activity. Second, the review discusses different electrophysiological control signals that determine user intentions, which can be detected in brain activity. Third, the review includes some techniques used in the signal enhancement step to deal with the artifacts in the control signals and improve the performance. Fourth, the review studies some mathematic algorithms used in the feature extraction and classification steps which translate the information in the control signals into commands that operate a computer or other device. Finally, the review provides an overview of various BCI applications that control a range of devices.

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Brain Computer Interfaces, a Review

The present invention involves method and apparatus for analyzing two measured signals that are modeled as containing primary and secondary portions. Coefficients relate the two signals according to a model defined in accordance with the present invention. In one embodiment, the present invention involves utilizing a transformation which evaluates a plurality of possible signal coefficients in order to find appropriate coefficients. Alternatively, the present invention involves using statistical functions or Fourier transform and windowing techniques to determine the coefficients relating to two measured signals. Use of this invention is described in particular detail with respect to blood oximetry measurements.

Signal processing apparatus.

The Internet of Things (IoT) introduces a vision of a future Internet where users, computing systems, and everyday objects possessing sensing and actuating capabilities cooperate with unprecedented convenience and economical benefits. As with the current Internet architecture, IP-based communication protocols will play a key role in enabling the ubiquitous connectivity of devices in the context of IoT applications. Such communication technologies are being developed in line with the constraints of the sensing platforms likely to be employed by IoT applications, forming a communications stack able to provide the required power—efficiency, reliability, and Internet connectivity. As security will be a fundamental enabling factor of most IoT applications, mechanisms must also be designed to protect communications enabled by such technologies. This survey analyzes existing protocols and mechanisms to secure communications in the IoT, as well as open research issues. We analyze how existing approaches ensure fundamental security requirements and protect communications on the IoT, together with the open challenges and strategies for future research work in the area. This is, as far as our knowledge goes, the first survey with such goals.

Security for the Internet of Things: A Survey of Existing Protocols and Open Research Issues

Trends in fetal monitoring through phonocardiography: Challenges and future directions

The cooperative communication approach promises improved throughput and delay performance by effective use of spatial diversity in wireless ad hoc networks. The CoopMAC I protocol proposed by Liu picks either a direct path or a relay path based on rate comparison to enhance average throughput and delay performances. However, its performance deteriorates under fading conditions due to lower direct path or relay path reliability. UtdMAC, which was proposed by Agarwal , performs better than CoopMAC I in terms of average throughput and delay performances due to improved transmission reliability provided by the backup relay path. Although it is better than CoopMAC I, UtdMAC does not fully benefit from higher throughput relay path (compared with the direct path) since it uses relay path only as a secondary backup path. In this paper, a new cooperative medium access control (MAC) protocol, which is termed the 2rcMAC protocol, is proposed for a small-sized network. The protocol makes use of two cooperating nodes to achieve superior throughput and delay performances, compared with the existing cooperative MAC protocols. The secondary relay path is invoked as a backup path for better transmission reliability and higher throughput through the relay path. Moreover, handshaking and single-bit feedbacks resolve contentions among relay nodes in proximity at the time and further provide the source node with rate information on source-to-destination, source-to-relay, and relay-to-destination links. Performance gains achieved by the 2rcMAC protocol under fast-fading conditions over the existing cooperative MAC protocols are compared and discussed. Simulation results clearly show an average throughput improvement of 7% and 25% and an average delay improvement of 94.8% and 98.9%, compared with UtdMAC and CoopMAC I, respectively.

Two-Relay-Based Cooperative MAC Protocol for Wireless Ad hoc Networks

In order to assess the mobile ad hoc network (MANET) performance accurately, it is necessary that the mobility model used emulates closely the real life scenario. Random waypoint is generally used as the default mobility model in most network simulations, which exhibits movement patterns that are most non-humanlike. In this paper, we incorporate more realistic mobility models including entity mobility models (Manhattan grid and Gauss Markov) and group mobility models (reference point group mobility and column mobility) in a multi-path (Rayleigh) fading environment. The effects of realistic mobility characteristics like temporal and spatial dependencies of velocity and geographic restrictions on performance metrics such as energy-goodput, packet delivery ratio, and control overhead packets generated are studied in detail. The energy utilized to transmit, receive, and drop data and control packets are calculated for the various mobility models. This analysis helps in discerning the effect of mobility and fading on the performance of a MANET and further facilitates in determining the impact of mobility models on performance in various network scenarios

Impact of Realistic Mobility Models on Wireless Networks Performance

For many mission-critical related wireless sensor network applications such as military and homeland security, user's access restriction is necessary to be enforced by access control mechanisms for different access rights. Public key-based access control schemes are more attractive than symmetric-key based approaches due to high scalability, low memory requirement, easy key-addition/revocation for a new node, and no key pre-distribution requirement. Although Wang et al. recently introduced a promising access control scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), it is still burdensome for sensors and has several security limitations (it does not provide mutual authentication and is strictly vulnerable to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks). This paper presents an energy-efficient access control scheme based on ECC to overcome these problems and more importantly to provide dominant energy-efficiency. Through analysis and simulation based evaluations, we show that the proposed scheme overcomes the security problems and has far better energy-efficiency compared to current scheme proposed by Wang et al.

Ravi Sankar

Papers

Trends in fetal monitoring through phonocardiography: Challenges and future directions

Two-Relay-Based Cooperative MAC Protocol for Wireless Ad hoc Networks

Impact of Realistic Mobility Models on Wireless Networks Performance

An energy-efficient access control scheme for wireless sensor networks based on elliptic curve cryptography

Computer-Aided Mass Detection Based on Ipsilateral Multiview Mammograms