Internet of vehicles for e-health applications : a potential game for optimal network capacity
- Authors: Lin, Din , Tang, Yu , Labeau, Fabrice , Yao, Yuanzhe , Imran, Muhammad , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: IEEE Systems Journal Vol. 11, no. 3 (2017), p. 1888-1896
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- Description: Wireless technologies are pervasive to support ubiquitous healthcare applications. However, a critical issue of using wireless communications under a healthcare scenario rests at the electromagnetic interference (EMI) caused by RF transmission, and a high level of EMI may lead to a critical malfunction of medical sensors. In view of EMI on medical sensors, we propose a power control algorithm under a noncooperative game theoretic framework to schedule data transmission. Our objective is to ensure that the noncooperative game of power control can achieve a network-level objective - the optimal network capacity, although the wireless users are selfish and only interested in optimizing their own channel capacity. To obtain this objective, we show that our proposed noncooperative game is a potential game and propose the best-response-dynamics algorithm which can ensure that the game strategy of each user is induced to the optimal solution to the problem of network-level optimal capacity. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed algorithm can achieve an enhancement of 8% of network performance than the existing algorithm against the variations of mobile hospital environments. © 2007-2012 IEEE.
Design and analysis of an efficient energy algorithm in wireless social sensor networks
- Authors: Xiong, Naixue , Zhang, Longzhen , Zhang, Wei , Vasilakos, Athanasios , Imran, Muhammad
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sensors (Switzerland) Vol. 17, no. 10 (2017), p.
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- Description: Because mobile ad hoc networks have characteristics such as lack of center nodes, multi-hop routing and changeable topology, the existing checkpoint technologies for normal mobile networks cannot be applied well to mobile ad hoc networks. Considering the multi-frequency hierarchy structure of ad hoc networks, this paper proposes a hybrid checkpointing strategy which combines the techniques of synchronous checkpointing with asynchronous checkpointing, namely the checkpoints of mobile terminals in the same cluster remain synchronous, and the checkpoints in different clusters remain asynchronous. This strategy could not only avoid cascading rollback among the processes in the same cluster, but also avoid too many message transmissions among the processes in different clusters. What is more, it can reduce the communication delay. In order to assure the consistency of the global states, this paper discusses the correctness criteria of hybrid checkpointing, which includes the criteria of checkpoint taking, rollback recovery and indelibility. Based on the designed Intra-Cluster Checkpoint Dependence Graph and Inter-Cluster Checkpoint Dependence Graph, the elimination rules for different kinds of checkpoints are discussed, and the algorithms for the same cluster checkpoints, different cluster checkpoints, and rollback recovery are also given. Experimental results demonstrate the proposed hybrid checkpointing strategy is a preferable trade-off method, which not only synthetically takes all kinds of resource constraints of Ad hoc networks into account, but also outperforms the existing schemes in terms of the dependence to cluster heads, the recovery time compared to the pure synchronous, and the pure asynchronous checkpoint advantage. © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Characterizing the role of vehicular cloud computing in road traffic management
- Authors: Ahmad, Iftikhar , Noor, Rafidah , Ali, Ihsan , Imran, Muhammad , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks Vol. 13, no. 5 (2017), p.
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- Description: Vehicular cloud computing is envisioned to deliver services that provide traffic safety and efficiency to vehicles. Vehicular cloud computing has great potential to change the contemporary vehicular communication paradigm. Explicitly, the underutilized resources of vehicles can be shared with other vehicles to manage traffic during congestion. These resources include but are not limited to storage, computing power, and Internet connectivity. This study reviews current traffic management systems to analyze the role and significance of vehicular cloud computing in road traffic management. First, an abstraction of the vehicular cloud infrastructure in an urban scenario is presented to explore the vehicular cloud computing process. A taxonomy of vehicular clouds that defines the cloud formation, integration types, and services is presented. A taxonomy of vehicular cloud services is also provided to explore the object types involved and their positions within the vehicular cloud. A comparison of the current state-of-the-art traffic management systems is performed in terms of parameters, such as vehicular ad hoc network infrastructure, Internet dependency, cloud management, scalability, traffic flow control, and emerging services. Potential future challenges and emerging technologies, such as the Internet of vehicles and its incorporation in traffic congestion control, are also discussed. Vehicular cloud computing is envisioned to have a substantial role in the development of smart traffic management solutions and in emerging Internet of vehicles. © The Author(s) 2017.
Value-based caching in information-centric wireless body area networks
- Authors: Al-Turjman, Fadi , Imran, Muhammad , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sensors (Switzerland) Vol. 17, no. 1 (2017), p.
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- Description: We propose a resilient cache replacement approach based on a Value of sensed Information (VoI) policy. To resolve and fetch content when the origin is not available due to isolated in-network nodes (fragmentation) and harsh operational conditions, we exploit a content caching approach. Our approach depends on four functional parameters in sensory Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). These four parameters are: age of data based on periodic request, popularity of on-demand requests, communication interference cost, and the duration for which the sensor node is required to operate in active mode to capture the sensed readings. These parameters are considered together to assign a value to the cached data to retain the most valuable information in the cache for prolonged time periods. The higher the value, the longer the duration for which the data will be retained in the cache. This caching strategy provides significant availability for most valuable and difficult to retrieve data in the WBANs. Extensive simulations are performed to compare the proposed scheme against other significant caching schemes in the literature while varying critical aspects in WBANs (e.g., data popularity, cache size, publisher load, connectivity-degree, and severe probabilities of node failures). These simulation results indicate that the proposed VoI-based approach is a valid tool for the retrieval of cached content in disruptive and challenging scenarios, such as the one experienced in WBANs, since it allows the retrieval of content for a long period even while experiencing severe in-network node failures. © 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
On connectivity of wireless sensor networks with directional antennas
- Authors: Wang, Qiu , Dai, Hong-Ning , Zheng, Zibin , Imran, Muhammad , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sensors (Switzerland) Vol. 17, no. 1 (2017), p.
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- Description: In this paper, we investigate the network connectivity of wireless sensor networks with directional antennas. In particular, we establish a general framework to analyze the network connectivity while considering various antenna models and the channel randomness. Since existing directional antenna models have their pros and cons in the accuracy of reflecting realistic antennas and the computational complexity, we propose a new analytical directional antenna model called the iris model to balance the accuracy against the complexity. We conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the analytical framework. Our results show that our proposed analytical model on the network connectivity is accurate, and our iris antenna model can provide a better approximation to realistic directional antennas than other existing antenna models. © 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Handover based IMS registration scheme for next generation mobile networks
- Authors: Tahira, Shireen , Sher, Muhammad , Ullah, Ata , Imran, Muhammad , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Vol. 2017, no. (2017), p.
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- Description: Next generation mobile networks aim to provide faster speed and more capacity along with energy efficiency to support video streaming and massive data sharing in social and communication networks. In these networks, user equipment has to register with IPMultimedia Subsystem (IMS) which promises quality of service to the mobile users that frequently move across different access networks. After each handover caused due to mobility, IMS provides IPSec Security Association establishment and authentication phases. The main issue is that unnecessary reregistration after every handover results in latency and communication overhead. To tackle these issues, this paper presents a lightweight Fast IMS Mobility (FIM) registration scheme that avoids unnecessary conventional registration phases such as security associations, authentication, and authorization. FIM maintains a flag to avoid deregistration and sends a subsequent message to provide necessary parameters to IMS servers after mobility. It also handles the change of IP address for user equipment and transferring the security associations from old to new servers.We have validated the performance of FIM by developing a testbed consisting of IMS servers and user equipment. The experimental results demonstrate the performance supremacy of FIM. It reduces media disruption time, number of messages, and packet loss up to 67%, 100%, and 61%, respectively, as compared to preliminaries. © 2017 Shireen Tahira et al.
A quantitative risk assessment model involving frequency and threat degree under line-of-business services for infrastructure of emerging sensor networks
- Authors: Jing, Xu , Hu, Hanwen , Yang, Huijun , Au, Man , Li, Shuqin , Xiong, Naixue , Imran, Muhammad , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sensors (Switzerland) Vol. 17, no. 3 (2017), p.
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- Description: The prospect of Line-of-Business Services (LoBSs) for infrastructure of Emerging Sensor Networks (ESNs) is exciting. Access control remains a top challenge in this scenario as the service provider’s server contains a lot of valuable resources. LoBSs’ users are very diverse as they may come from a wide range of locations with vastly different characteristics. Cost of joining could be low and in many cases, intruders are eligible users conducting malicious actions. As a result, user access should be adjusted dynamically. Assessing LoBSs’ risk dynamically based on both frequency and threat degree of malicious operations is therefore necessary. In this paper, we proposed a Quantitative Risk Assessment Model (QRAM) involving frequency and threat degree based on value at risk. To quantify the threat degree as an elementary intrusion effort, we amend the influence coefficient of risk indexes in the network security situation assessment model. To quantify threat frequency as intrusion trace effort, we make use of multiple behavior information fusion. Under the influence of intrusion trace, we adapt the historical simulation method of value at risk to dynamically access LoBSs’ risk. Simulation based on existing data is used to select appropriate parameters for QRAM. Our simulation results show that the duration influence on elementary intrusion effort is reasonable when the normalized parameter is 1000. Likewise, the time window of intrusion trace and the weight between objective risk and subjective risk can be set to 10 s and 0.5, respectively. While our focus is to develop QRAM for assessing the risk of LoBSs for infrastructure of ESNs dynamically involving frequency and threat degree, we believe it is also appropriate for other scenarios in cloud computing. © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Delay and energy consumption analysis of priority guaranteed MAC protocol for wireless body area networks
- Authors: Rasheed, Muhammad , Javaid, Nadeem , Imran, Muhammad , Khan, Zahoor , Qasim, Umar , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Wireless Networks Vol. 23, no. 4 (2017), p. 1249-1266
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- Description: Wireless body area networks are captivating growing interest because of their suitability for wide range of applications. However, network lifetime is one of the most prominent barriers in deploying these networks for most applications. Moreover, most of these applications have stringent QoS requirements such as delay and throughput. In this paper, the modified superframe structure of IEEE 802.15.4 based MAC protocol is proposed which addresses the aforementioned problems and improves the energy consumption efficiency. Moreover, priority guaranteed CSMA/CA mechanism is used where different priorities are assigned to body nodes by adjusting the data type and size. In order to save energy, a wake-up radio based mechanism to control sleep and active modes of body sensors are used. Furthermore, a discrete time finite state Markov model to find the node states is used. Analytical expressions are derived to model and analyze the behavior of average energy consumption, throughput, packet drop probability, and average delay during normal and emergency data. Extensive simulations are conducted for analysis and validation of the proposed mechanism. Results show that the average energy consumption and delay are relatively higher during emergency data transmission with acknowledgment mode due to data collision and retransmission. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
A novel framework for G/M/1 queuing system based on scheduling-cum-polling mechanism to analyze multiple classes of self-similar and LRD traffic
- Authors: Iftikhar, Mohsin , Mathkour, Hassan , Imran, Muhammad , Bedaiwi, Abdullah , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Wireless Networks Vol. 22, no. 4 (2016), p. 1269-1284
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- Description: Provisioning guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) in multiservice wireless internet is challenging due to diverse nature of end-user traffic (e.g., voice, streaming video, interactive gaming) passing through heterogeneous interconnected domains with their own policies and procedures. Numerous studies have shown that multimedia traffic carried in wireless internet possesses self-similar and long-range dependent characteristics. Nonetheless, published work on wireless traffic modeling is merely based on traditional Poisson traffic distribution which fails to capture these characteristics and hence yield misleading results. Moreover, existing work related to self-similar traffic modeling is primarily based on conventional queuing and scheduling combinations which are simple approximations.This paper presents a novel analytical framework for G/M/1 queuing system based on realistic internet traffic distribution to provide guaranteed QoS. We analyze the behavior of multiple classes of self-similar traffic based on newly proposed scheduling-cum-polling mechanism (i.e., combination of priority scheduling and limited service polling model). We formulate the Markov chain for G/M/1 queuing system and present closed form expressions for different QoS parameters i.e., packet delay, packet loss rate, bandwidth, jitter and queue length. We develop a customized discrete event simulator to validate the performance of the proposed analytical framework. The proposed framework can help in building comprehensive service level agreements for heterogeneous wireless domains. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
Formal verification and validation of a movement control actor relocation algorithm for safety–critical applications
- Authors: Imran, Muhammad , Zafar, Nazir , Alnuem, Mohammed , Aksoy, Mehmet , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Wireless Networks Vol. 22, no. 1 (2016), p. 247-265
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- Description: Wireless sensor and actor networks (WSAN) are captivating significant attention because of their suitability for safety–critical applications. Efficient actor placement in such applications is extremely desirable to perform effective and timely action across the deployment region. Nonetheless, harsh application environment inherently favors random placement of actors that leads to high concentration deployment and strangles coverage. Moreover, most of the published schemes lack rigorous validation and entirely rely on informal techniques (e.g., simulation) for evaluating nonfunctional properties of algorithms. This paper presents a localized movement control actor relocation (MCAR) algorithm that strives to improve connected coverage while minimizing movement overhead. MCAR pursues post-deployment actor repositioning in such a way that actors repel each other for better coverage while staying connected. We employ complementary formal and informal techniques for MCAR verification and validation. We model WSAN as a dynamic graph and transform MCAR to corresponding formal specification using Z notation. The resulting specification is analyzed and validated using Z eves tool. We simulate the specification to quantitatively demonstrate the efficiency of MCAR. Simulation results confirm the efficiency of MCAR in terms of movement overhead and connected coverage compared to contemporary schemes. The results show that MCAR can reduce distance movement up to 32 % while improving coverage up to 29 % compared to published schemes. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
Secure authentication for remote patient monitoring withwireless medical sensor networks
- Authors: Hayajneh, Taier , Mohd, Bassam , Imran, Muhammad , Almashaqbeh, Ghada , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sensors (Switzerland) Vol. 16, no. 4 (2016), p.
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- Description: There is broad consensus that remote health monitoring will benefit all stakeholders in the healthcare system and that it has the potential to save billions of dollars. Among the major concerns that are preventing the patients from widely adopting this technology are data privacy and security. Wireless Medical Sensor Networks (MSNs) are the building blocks for remote health monitoring systems. This paper helps to identify the most challenging security issues in the existing authentication protocols for remote patient monitoring and presents a lightweight public-key-based authentication protocol for MSNs. In MSNs, the nodes are classified into sensors that report measurements about the human body and actuators that receive commands from the medical staff and perform actions. Authenticating these commands is a critical security issue, as any alteration may lead to serious consequences. The proposed protocol is based on the Rabin authentication algorithm, which is modified in this paper to improve its signature signing process, making it suitable for delay-sensitive MSN applications. To prove the efficiency of the Rabin algorithm, we implemented the algorithm with different hardware settings using Tmote Sky motes and also programmed the algorithm on an FPGA to evaluate its design and performance. Furthermore, the proposed protocol is implemented and tested using the MIRACL (Multiprecision Integer and Rational Arithmetic C/C++) library. The results show that secure, direct, instant and authenticated commands can be delivered from the medical staff to the MSN nodes. © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
An adaptive and efficient buffer management scheme for resource-constrained delay tolerant networks
- Authors: Moetesum, Momina , Hadi, Fazle , Imran, Muhammad , Minhas, Abid , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Wireless Networks Vol. 22, no. 7 (2016), p. 2189-2201
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- Description: Provisioning buffer management mechanism is especially crucial in resource-constrained delay tolerant networks (DTNs) as maximum data delivery ratio with minimum overhead is expected in highly congested environments. However, most DTN protocols do not consider resource limitations (e.g., buffer, bandwidth) and hence, results in performance degradation. To strangle and mitigate the impact of frequent buffer overflows, this paper presents an adaptive and efficient buffer management scheme called size-aware drop (SAD) that strives to improve buffer utilization and avoid unnecessary message drops. To improve data delivery ratio, SAD exactly determines the requirement based on differential of newly arrived message(s) and available space. To vacate inevitable space from a congested buffer, SAD strives to avoid redundant message drops and deliberate to pick and discard most appropriate message(s) to minimize overhead. The performance of SAD is validated through extensive simulations in realistic environments (i.e., resource-constrained and congested) with different mobility models (i.e., Random Waypoint and disaster). Simulation results demonstrate the performance supremacy of SAD in terms of delivery probability and overhead ratio besides other metrics when compared to contemporary schemes based on Epidemic (DOA and DLA) and PRoPHET (SHLI and MOFO). © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
Mobile crowd sensing for traffic prediction in internet of vehicles
- Authors: Wan, Jiafu , Liu, Jianqi , Shao, Zehui , Vasilakos, Athanasios , Imran, Muhammad , Zhou, Keliang
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sensors (Switzerland) Vol. 16, no. 1 (2016), p.
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- Description: The advances in wireless communication techniques, mobile cloud computing, automotive and intelligent terminal technology are driving the evolution of vehicle ad hoc networks into the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) paradigm. This leads to a change in the vehicle routing problem from a calculation based on static data towards real-time traffic prediction. In this paper, we first address the taxonomy of cloud-assisted IoV from the viewpoint of the service relationship between cloud computing and IoV. Then, we review the traditional traffic prediction approached used by both Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communications. On this basis, we propose a mobile crowd sensing technology to support the creation of dynamic route choices for drivers wishing to avoid congestion. Experiments were carried out to verify the proposed approaches. Finally, we discuss the outlook of reliable traffic prediction. © 2016 by the authors, licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Security in software-defined networking : threats and countermeasures
- Authors: Shu, Zhaogang , Wan, Jiafu , Li, Di , Lin, Jiaxiang , Vasilakos, Athanasios , Imran, Muhammad
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Mobile Networks and Applications Vol. 21, no. 5 (2016), p. 764-776
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- Description: In recent years, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has been a focus of research. As a promising network architecture, SDN will possibly replace traditional networking, as it brings promising opportunities for network management in terms of simplicity, programmability, and elasticity. While many efforts are currently being made to standardize this emerging paradigm, careful attention needs to be also paid to security at this early design stage. This paper focuses on the security aspects of SDN. We begin by discussing characteristics and standards of SDN. On the basis of these, we discuss the security features as a whole and then analyze the security threats and countermeasures in detail from three aspects, based on which part of the SDN paradigm they target, i.e., the data forwarding layer, the control layer and the application layer. Countermeasure techniques that could be used to prevent, mitigate, or recover from some of such attacks are also described, while the threats encountered when developing these defensive mechanisms are highlighted. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
Efficient data gathering in 3D linear underwater wireless sensor networks using sink mobility
- Authors: Akbar, Mariam , Javaid, Nadeem , Khan, Ayesha , Imran, Muhammad , Shoaib, Muhammad , Vasilakos, Athanasios
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sensors (Switzerland) Vol. 16, no. 3 (2016), p.
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- Description: Due to the unpleasant and unpredictable underwater environment, designing an energy-efficient routing protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) demands more accuracy and extra computations. In the proposed scheme, we introduce a mobile sink (MS), i.e., an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), and also courier nodes (CNs), to minimize the energy consumption of nodes. MS and CNs stop at specific stops for data gathering; later on, CNs forward the received data to the MS for further transmission. By the mobility of CNs and MS, the overall energy consumption of nodes is minimized. We perform simulations to investigate the performance of the proposed scheme and compare it to preexisting techniques. Simulation results are compared in terms of network lifetime, throughput, path loss, transmission loss and packet drop ratio. The results show that the proposed technique performs better in terms of network lifetime, throughput, path loss and scalability. © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.