Residential access control system using QR code and the IoT

This paper presents a residential access control system (RACs) using QR codes and the internet of things (IoT) to improve security and help house owners. The contribution of this paper is that it proposes two mechanisms in the authentication phase and the verification phase, respectively, to enhance residential access control. The main idea is using cryptography between smartphones and access control devices. The cryptography compares secret codes on the key server via the internet. The RACs can notify a user of the residential access status through the LINE application and show the statuses of devices through the network platform for the internet of everything (NETPIE) in real-time. We compare this system’s performance with that of the current access control methods in terms of security and access speed. The results show that this system has more security and has an access speed of 5.63 seconds. Moreover, this system is safer and more flexible than the comparative methods and suitable for contactless authentication

Heuristic Evaluation and Usability Testing of G-MoMo Applications

Financial technology (FinTech) has swiftly revolutionized mobile money as one of the ways of accessing financial services in developing countries. Numerous mobile money applications were developed to access mobile money services but are hindered by severe authentication security challenges, thus, forcing the researchers to design a secure multi-factor authentication (MFA) algorithm for mobile money applications. Three prototypes of native mobile money applications (G-MoMo applications) were developed to confirm that the algorithm provides high security and is feasible. This study, therefore, aimed to evaluate the usability of the G-MoMo applications using heuristic evaluation and usability testing to identify potential usability issues and provide recommendations for improvement. Heuristic evaluation and usability testing methods were used to evaluate the G-MoMo applications. The heuristic evaluation was carried out by five experts that used the 10 principles proposed by Jakob Nielsen with a five-point severity rating scale to identify the usability problems. While the usability testing was conducted with forty participants selected using a purposive sampling method to validate the usability of the G-MoMo applications by performing tasks and filling out the post-test questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed in RStudio software. Sixty-three usability issues were identified during heuristic evaluation, where 33 were minor and 30 were major. The most violated heuristic items were “help and documentation”, and “user control and freedom”, while the least violated heuristic items were “aesthetic and minimalist design” and “visibility of system status”. The usability testing findings revealed that the G-MoMo applications’ performance proved good in learnability, effectiveness, efficiency, memorability, and errors. It also provided user satisfaction, ease of use, aesthetics, usefulness, integration, and understandability. Therefore, it was highly recommended that the developers of G-MoMo applications fix the identified usability problems to make the applications more reliable and increase overall user satisfaction.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

QR code based authentication method for IoT applications using three security layers

A quick response code-based authentication method (QRAM) is proposed. QRAM is applicable for lots of internet of things (IoT) applications. QRAM aims to verify requests of such an access to IoT applications. Requests are made using a quick response code (QRC). To authenticate contents of QRC, users will scan QRC to access IoT applications. To authenticate contents of QRC, three procedures are applied. QRAM contributes to IoT automatic access systems or smart applications in terms of authentication and safety of access. QRAM is evaluated in term of security factors (e.g., authentication). Computation time of authentication procedures for several IoT applications has become a considerable issue. QRAM aims to reduce computation time consumed to authenticate each QRC. Some authentication techniques still face difficulties when an IoT application requires fast response to users; therefore, QRAM aims to enhance so to meet real-time applications. Thus, QRAM is compared to several competitive methods used to verify QRC in term of computation time. Results confirmed that QRAM is faster than other competitive techniques. Besides, results have shown a high level of complexity in term of decryption time needed to deduce private contents of QRC. QRAM also is robust against unauthorized requests of access

Selected Computing Research Papers Volume 7 June 2018

Contents Critical Evaluation of Arabic Sentimental Analysis and Their Accuracy on Microblogs (Maha Al-Sakran) Evaluating Current Research on Psychometric Factors Affecting Teachers in ICT Integration (Daniel Otieno Aoko) A Critical Analysis of Current Measures for Preventing Use of Fraudulent Resources in Cloud Computing (Grant Bulman) An Analytical Assessment of Modern Human Robot Interaction Systems (Dominic Button) Critical Evaluation of Current Power Management Methods Used in Mobile Devices (One Lekula) A Critical Evaluation of Current Face Recognition Systems Research Aimed at Improving Accuracy for Class Attendance (Gladys B. Mogotsi) Usability of E-commerce Website Based on Perceived Homepage Visual Aesthetics (Mercy Ochiel) An Overview Investigation of Reducing the Impact of DDOS Attacks on Cloud Computing within Organisations (Jabed Rahman) Critical Analysis of Online Verification Techniques in Internet Banking Transactions (Fredrick Tshane

Supporting Facility Management Processes through End-Users' Integration and Coordinated BIM-GIS Technologies

The integration of facility management and building information modelling (BIM) is an innovative and critical undertaking process to support facility maintenance and management. Even though recent research has proposed various methods and performed an increasing number of case studies, there are still issues of communication processes to be addressed. This paper presents a theoretical framework for digital systems integration of virtual models and smart technologies. Based on the comprehensive analysis of existing technologies for indoor localization, a new workflow is defined and designed, and it is utilized in a practical case study to test the model performance. In the new workflow, a facility management supporting platform is proposed and characterized, featuring indoor positioning systems to allow end users to send geo-referenced reports to central virtual models. In addition, system requirements, information technology (IT) architecture and application procedures are presented. Results show that the integration of end users in the maintenance processes through smart and easy tools can overcome the existing limits of barcode systems and building management systems for failure localization. The proposed framework offers several advantages. First, it allows the identification of every element of an asset including wide physical building elements (walls, floors, etc.) without requiring a prior mapping. Second, the entire cycle of maintenance activities is managed through a unique integrated system including the territorial dimension. Third, data are collected in a standard structure for future uses. Furthermore, the integration of the process in a centralized BIM-GIS (geographical information system) information management system admit a scalable representation of the information supporting facility management processes in terms of assets and supply chain management and monitoring from a spatial perspective

Organizational-Economic Measures and Tools for the Multifunctional Use of Aquaculture Facilities in Ukraine

Introduction. The world is aware of the importance of preserving natural resources and is shifting its focus to a social perspective, reflecting the acceptance of sustainable development principles. Aquaculture management must consider the impacts on the ecosystem and community, ensuring a balance in the use of water resources. Aquaculture can become a sustainable way to generate economic resources, and has recreational and cultural applications. This study examines the possibilities of using aquaculture in educational and cultural activities, public leisure, aesthetic education, and the development of park areas, as well as for other multifunctional purposes that contribute to improving water environment management and creating new ecological jobs. Aim and tasks. The study aims to develop a conceptual vision of multifunctional aquaculture facilities as innovative and recreational centres for new jobs and the development of the local economy, considering socio-ecological and economic motivational mechanisms and effects that have not been previously investigated. Results. The variability of directions for the development of aquaculture activities in the context of implementing marine strategies, Sustainable Development Goals, and reduction of the negative consequences of water pollution due to military actions. Socio-ecological and economic motivational mechanisms have been developed to form aquaculture facilities as centres of a green corridor or a concentration of ecologically safe zones to integrate them into urban and rural spaces. Measures for integrating aquaculture into tourism activities and the scientific concept of the concentration of ecologically safe territories with an aquaculture core in terms of organizational measures and possible effects are proposed. Conclusions. A conceptual vision of multifunctional aquaculture facilities with the functions of reproduction, education and cultural-recreational enlightenment in terms of scientific and educational, decorative and circular facilities was proposed. The scientific concept of the concentration of ecologically safe territories with an aquaculture core in terms of organizational measures and possible effects was proposed

FinBook: literary content as digital commodity

This short essay explains the significance of the FinBook intervention, and invites the reader to participate. We have associated each chapter within this book with a financial robot (FinBot), and created a market whereby book content will be traded with financial securities. As human labour increasingly consists of unstable and uncertain work practices and as algorithms replace people on the virtual trading floors of the worlds markets, we see members of society taking advantage of FinBots to invest and make extra funds. Bots of all kinds are making financial decisions for us, searching online on our behalf to help us invest, to consume products and services. Our contribution to this compilation is to turn the collection of chapters in this book into a dynamic investment portfolio, and thereby play out what might happen to the process of buying and consuming literature in the not-so-distant future. By attaching identities (through QR codes) to each chapter, we create a market in which the chapter can ‘perform’. Our FinBots will trade based on features extracted from the authors’ words in this book: the political, ethical and cultural values embedded in the work, and the extent to which the FinBots share authors’ concerns; and the performance of chapters amongst those human and non-human actors that make up the market, and readership. In short, the FinBook model turns our work and the work of our co-authors into an investment portfolio, mediated by the market and the attention of readers. By creating a digital economy specifically around the content of online texts, our chapter and the FinBook platform aims to challenge the reader to consider how their personal values align them with individual articles, and how these become contested as they perform different value judgements about the financial performance of each chapter and the book as a whole. At the same time, by introducing ‘autonomous’ trading bots, we also explore the different ‘network’ affordances that differ between paper based books that’s scarcity is developed through analogue form, and digital forms of books whose uniqueness is reached through encryption. We thereby speak to wider questions about the conditions of an aggressive market in which algorithms subject cultural and intellectual items – books – to economic parameters, and the increasing ubiquity of data bots as actors in our social, political, economic and cultural lives. We understand that our marketization of literature may be an uncomfortable juxtaposition against the conventionally-imagined way a book is created, enjoyed and shared: it is intended to be

Back-compatible Color QR Codes for colorimetric applications

Color correction techniques in digital photography often rely on the use of color correction charts, which require including this relatively large object in the field of view. We propose here to use QR Codes to pack these color charts in a compact form factor, in a fully compatible manner with conventional black and white QR Codes; this is, without losing any of their easy location, sampling and digital data storage features. First, we present an algorithm to build these new colored QR Codes that preserves the original QR Code functionality - much more than other coloring proposals based on the random substitution of black and white pixels by colors - that relies on the ability of the native CRC code to correct and counteract these alterations. Second, we demonstrate that, as a result, these QR Codes can allocate far many more colors than the conventional color correction charts, enabling much more accurate color correction schemes in a more convenient and usable format

Knowing one's place: a free-energy approach to pattern regulation.

Understanding how organisms establish their form during embryogenesis and regeneration represents a major knowledge gap in biological pattern formation. It has been recently suggested that morphogenesis could be understood in terms of cellular information processing and the ability of cell groups to model shape. Here, we offer a proof of principle that self-assembly is an emergent property of cells that share a common (genetic and epigenetic) model of organismal form. This behaviour is formulated in terms of variational free-energy minimization-of the sort that has been used to explain action and perception in neuroscience. In brief, casting the minimization of thermodynamic free energy in terms of variational free energy allows one to interpret (the dynamics of) a system as inferring the causes of its inputs-and acting to resolve uncertainty about those causes. This novel perspective on the coordination of migration and differentiation of cells suggests an interpretation of genetic codes as parametrizing a generative model-predicting the signals sensed by cells in the target morphology-and epigenetic processes as the subsequent inversion of that model. This theoretical formulation may complement bottom-up strategies-that currently focus on molecular pathways-with (constructivist) top-down approaches that have proved themselves in neuroscience and cybernetics

Detection of Drug Interactions via Android Smartphone: Design and Implementation

Despite the morbidity and cases of widespread drug poisoning, clinical guidelines are largely written by taking into account only one treatment at a time. The cumulative impact of multiple treatments is rarely considered. Drug treatment for people with several diseases produces a complex regimen called “polypharmacy” with a potential combination of harmful and even lethal drugs that can be prevented. This polypharmacy causes in many cases the death of some people due to drug interactions. The vast majority of these deaths can be prevented by detecting interactions before taking these medications. But the problem is that such information exists in a state that is difficult to access for the general public, much less for people with little knowledge in the field. Although the pharmacist is unmistakable and most viable source to avoid such a problem, he cannot know what the patient does not mention because he is not aware of what may affect his treatment. To remedy this, we aim in this paper to develop an ergonomic Android application that will inform the patient about the potential risks of such drug interactions. The application is optimized to handle various databases and operate automation of QR code