Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology

About: Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology is a education organization based out in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Mel-frequency cepstrum & Wireless sensor network. The organization has 605 authors who have published 990 publications receiving 8627 citations. The organization is also known as: DA-IITCT.

Two-factor user authentication in wireless sensor networks

Abstract: Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are typically deployed in an unattended environment, where the legitimate users can login to the network and access data as and when demanded. Consequently, user authentication is a primary concern in this resource-constrained environment before accessing data from the sensor/gateway nodes. In this letter, we present a two-factor user authentication protocol for WSN, which provides strong authentication, session key establishment, and achieves efficiency.

Service Level Agreement in Cloud Computing

Abstract: Cloud computing that provides cheap and pay-as-you-go computing resources is rapidly gaining momentum as an alternative to traditional IT Infrastructure. As more and more consumers delegate their tasks to cloud providers, Service Level Agreements(SLA) between consumers and providers emerge as a key aspect. Due to the dynamic nature of the cloud, continuous monitoring on Quality of Service (QoS) attributes is necessary to enforce SLAs. Also numerous other factors such as trust (on the cloud provider) come into consideration, particularly for enterprise customers that may outsource its critical data. This complex nature of the cloud landscape warrants a sophisticated means of managing SLAs. This paper proposes a mechanism for managing SLAs in a cloud computing environment using the Web Service Level Agreement(WSLA) framework, developed for SLA monitoring and SLA enforcement in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). We use the third party support feature of WSLA to delegate monitoring and enforcement tasks to other entities in order to solve the trust issues. We also present a real world use case to validate our proposal.

Multilevel Thresholding for Image Segmentation through a Fast Statistical Recursive Algorithm

Abstract: A novel algorithm is proposed for segmenting an image into multiple levels using its mean and variance. Starting from the extreme pixel values at both ends of the histogram plot, the algorithm is applied recursively on sub-ranges computed from the previous step, so as to find a threshold level and a new sub-range for the next step, until no significant improvement in image quality can be achieved. The method makes use of the fact that a number of distributions tend towards Dirac delta function, peaking at the mean, in the limiting condition of vanishing variance. The procedure naturally provides for variable size segmentation with bigger blocks near the extreme pixel values and finer divisions around the mean or other chosen value for better visualization. Experiments on a variety of images show that the new algorithm effectively segments the image in computationally very less time.

Mobile-izing health workers in rural India

Abstract: Researchers have long been interested in the potential of ICTs to enable positive change in developing regions communities. In these environments, ICT interventions often fail because political, social and cultural forces work against the changes ICTs entail. We argue that familiar uses of ICTs for information services in these contexts are less potent than their use for persuasion and motivation in order to facilitate change. We focus on India's rural maternal health system where health workers are employed in villages to persuade pregnant women to utilize health services. Health workers face challenges due to resistance to change in the village, and because of their limited education, training and status. These factors appear to reduce the motivation of health workers and impair their performance. For two months, we deployed short videos on mobile phones designed to persuade village women and motivate health workers. We also asked health workers to record their own videos. While our results are preliminary, they show evidence that the creation and use of videos did help (1) engage village women in dialogue, (2) show positive effects toward health worker motivation and learning, and (3) motivate key community influencers to participate in promoting the health workers.