A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends

This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer. We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201

Women as social entrepreneurs in the hospitality and tourism industry: Does empowerment play a role?

This paper which is a work in progress presents a qualitative study exploring the nature, motivations and extent to which female entrepreneurs use their H&T businesses as platforms for engagement in various forms of social entrepreneurship (SE) leading to value creation, economic and community development. Although SE is seen as a key contributor to the creation and diversification of entrepreneurial activity, women empowerment and local economic development, there is limited research on the role of female H&T entrepreneurs in emerging non -western destinations. We focus on the following research questions: a) Can female entrepreneurs in H&T be considered as social entrepreneurs? b) How does the structure and organization of society shape the nature of female participation in SE? c) What are the challenges involved in mobilizing female entrepreneurs to effectively engage in SE? d) How does SE maximise value creation and higher levels of satisfaction for all participants? Concepts from women-owned H&T enterprises, SE and women empowerment are drawn upon. We argue that women are embedded in male dominated traditions/customs, community associations and government bureaucracies that may either empowered or dis-empower them. Using the case of Cameroon, we examine how embeddedness enhances the capacity of women to engage in SE in the H&T industry, thereby contributing to local economic development. Empirically we adopt a mixed methods approach using multiple case studies: a survey questionnaire, five focus groups meetings (two women -only, one male-only, and two mix of male and female entrepreneurs) and twenty-five in-depth interviews with selected female entrepreneurs (18), (non)governmental organisations (03) and beneficiaries (04) of social enterprise ventures between May 2014 and February 2015. The findings clarify the role of women in SE in H&T and policy implications for maximising social value creation through the participation of women in SE

Soft and transferable skills acquisition through organizing a doctoral conference

UIDB/00066/2020.This article presents a 10-year experience of soft and transferable skills acquisition through the involvement of PhD students in the organization of an international conference. Soft and transferable skills acquisition is currently perceived as a core component of doctoral studies. Examples include writing and communication, teamwork, time management, leadership, resource management, negotiation, problem solving, listening, planning, entrepreneurial spirit, mastering ethics awareness, etc. The need for such skills is due to the leading role that doctoral students are expected to play in society. As such, various organizations have issued recommendations for doctoral programs to include a formal component of soft skills training. In this article, an effective way of introducing soft and transferable skills acquisition in doctoral engineering education is introduced. Namely, a form of collaborative project-based learning is designed as a compulsory course. This includes a set of base lectures, a long period of parallel working groups focusing on the various aspects of organizing an international conference, running the actual conference, and performing a post-conference assessment. Results and lessons learned demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed approach.publishersversionpublishe

In-band network monitoring technique to support SDN-based wireless networks

Most industrial applications demand determinism in terms of latency, reliability, and throughput. This goes hand in hand with the increased complexity of real-time network programability possibilities. To ensure network performance low-overhead, high-granularity, and timely network verification techniques need to be deployed. The first cornerstone of network verification ability is to enable end-to-end network monitoring, including end devices too. To achieve this, this article shows a novel and low overhead in-band network telemetry and monitoring technique for wireless networks focusing on IEEE 802.11 networks. A design of in-band network telemetry enabled node architecture is proposed and its proof of concept implementation is realized. The PoC realization is used to monitor a real-life SDN-based wireless network, enabling on-the-fly (re)configuration capabilities based on monitoring data. In addition, the proposed monitoring technique is validated in terms of monitoring accuracy, monitoring overhead, and network (re)configuration accuracy. It is shown that the proposed in-band monitoring technique has 6 times lower overhead than other active monitoring techniques on a single-hop link. Besides this, it is demonstrated that (re)configuration decisions taken based on monitored data fulfill targeted application requirements, validating the suitability of the proposed monitoring technique

Serum levels of Vitamin A and Atopic Rhinoconjunctivitis in Swedish adolescents

Aim: Vitamin A plays a role in mucosal immunity and tolerance, but the association between vitamin A status and allergy is still unclear. The aim of the study was to analyze the levels of vitamin A in serum from adolescents with or without atopic rhinoconjunctivitis

Adaptive learning-enforced broadcast policy for solar energy harvesting wireless sensor networks

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. The problem of message broadcast from the base station (BS) to sensor nodes (SNs) in solar energy harvesting enabled wireless sensor networks is considered in this paper. The aim is to ensure fast and reliable broadcast without disturbing upstream communications (from SNs to BS), while taking into account constraints related to the energy harvesting (EH) environment. A new policy is proposed where from the one hand, the BS first selects the broadcast time-slots adaptively with the SNs schedules (to meet active periods that are constrained by EH conditions), and from the other hand, SNs adapt their schedules to enable optimal selection of the broadcast time-slots that minimizes the number of broadcasts per message and the latency. Compared to the existing solutions, this enables fast broadcast and eliminates the need of adding message overhead to the broadcast message. For this purpose, an analytical energy model, a Hidden Markov Model(HMM), Baum–Welch learning algorithm, and a heuristic algorithm of the minimum covering set problem (MCS) are proposed and combined in a unique solution. The proposed solution is analyzed and compared with a state-of-the-art approach. The results confirm that the former has the advantage of performing the broadcast operation more reliably and in lower delay

Interaction patterns for smart spaces: a confident interaction design solution for pervasive sensitive IoT services

Smart spaces represent a powerful tool for deploying the new pervasive sensitive services based on Internet of Things products and developed in current Information Society close to users. Researchers have focused their efforts on new techniques to improve systems and products in this area but neglecting the human factors related to psychological aspects of the user and their psycho-social relationship with the deployment space where they live. This research proposes to take into account these cognitive features in early stages of the design of smart spaces by defining a set of interaction patterns. By using this set of interaction patterns it is possible to influence over the confidence that users can develop during the use of IoT products and services based on them. An evaluative verification has been carried out to assess how this design engineering approach provide a real impact on the generation of confidence in the users of this kind of technology

Interaction patterns for smart spaces: a confident interaction design solution for pervasive sensitive IoT services

Smart spaces represent a powerful tool for deploying the new pervasive sensitive services based on Internet of Things products and developed in current Information Society close to users. Researchers have focused their efforts on new techniques to improve systems and products in this area but neglecting the human factors related to psychological aspects of the user and their psycho-social relationship with the deployment space where they live. This research proposes to take into account these cognitive features in early stages of the design of smart spaces by defining a set of interaction patterns. By using this set of interaction patterns it is possible to influence over the confidence that users can develop during the use of IoT products and services based on them. An evaluative verification has been carried out to assess how this design engineering approach provide a real impact on the generation of confidence in the users of this kind of technology

A Fire Protection Analysis of KIPP Academy of Opportunity

The purpose of this report is to analyze and assess the life safety and fire protections systems of the KIPP Academy of Opportunity (KAO) charter school located in South Los Angeles. KAO is a 3-story building with a total area of 27,429 ft2 that was originally built in 2003 to serve 400 students. Two separate fire and life safety assessments were performed in this project to ensure the building meets the requirements by the building code and fire safety standards. The prescriptive based analysis includes assessment of structural design, construction materials, egress design, fire alarm, communication system, fire suppression system, flammability analysis, and smoke management. The results of the prescriptive based analysis showed that the building complies with the requirements of the building code and fire safety standards. In the performance-based analysis, two different fire scenarios were evaluated using FDS and Pathfinder programs. The Available Safe Egress Time (ASET) and Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) were calculated for each scenario to evaluate how occupants evacuate the building during a real-life fire event. The first fire scenario in the performance-based analysis was based on the 2nd recommended scenario in the life safety code. It is based on the assumption that an arson fire starts from a cluttered space under the first-floor stairways, compromises 1 of the 2 exits, and spreads into the corridors. The RSET was calculated as 4 minutes for the first floor, 15 minutes for the second floor, and 13 minutes for the third floor. However, the ASET was calculated as 3, 2.8, and 2 minutes for the first, second, and third floor, respectively. Therefore, the first fire scenario failed because ASET was smaller than RSET. It is recommended that the egress route be kept free of clutter and stairways doors kept closed at all times as a precaution. The second fire scenario was based on the 3rd fire scenario recommended in the life safety code. This fire occurs in an unoccupied staff lounge next to a multipurpose area which is considered a high occupancy room. Using FDS, the ASET was calculated as 4 minutes for the multi-purpose area and 90 seconds for the staff lounge. Also, the RSET for the multi-purpose area is calculated as 3.7 minutes. Since detection time starts when the staff lounge smoke detector is activated, the RSET is smaller than ASET. Therefore, this design was acceptable

It's all about timing

Article for BABCP's CBT Today article outlining the potential advantages of patient-led scheduling for increasing the efficiency of the delivery of psychological therapy