A Software Agent for Adaptive Navigation Support in a Restricted Internet Area

This thesis deals with the development of a software system that helps a user to search for information in the World Wide Web. The particular problem considered here is support in a well-defined, restricted Web area. Two support strategies are considered. One strategy is to present a visitor views of a local hyperlink structure depending on the current position in hyper-space and previous navigation decisions. Main partial problems to realize such a support are dealt with, like the registration of user behavior, the registration of information about the Web area and the presentation of support information on the client side. In contrast to similar systems, the developed system may be applied by a large fraction of Internet users instantly. The only requirement on the client side is Java support by the browser. The second considered support strategy is an estimation of the pertinence of data objects and sequences in the Web for a specific client. This estimation is based on the client's previous navigation behavior and registered navigation behavior of other users (collaborative filtering). The approach to estimate relevant data objects in this thesis is to predict a user's future data requests. For this purpose the presented system stores user information on theserver side. User behavior is modeled by graphs, consisting of nodes representing requested data objects and edges representing transitions. A new method is presented to predict future navigation steps that is based on a distribution estimation of registered graphs and a classification of a new (partial) navigation profile with regard to the estimated distribution. The different steps of the presented algorithm are evaluated using generated and observed profiles

Stochastic user behaviour modelling and network simulation for resource management in cooperation with mobile telecommunications and broadcast networks

The latest generations of telecommunications networks have been designed to deliver higher data rates than widely used second generation telecommunications networks, providing flexible communication capabilities that can deliver high quality video images. However, these new generations of telecommunications networks are interference limited, impairing their performance in cases of heavy traffic and high usage. This limits the services offered by a telecommunications network operator to those that the operator is confident their network can meet the demand for. One way to lift this constraint would be for the mobile telecommunications network operator to obtain the cooperation of a broadcast network operator so that during periods when the demand for the service is too high for the telecommunications network to meet, the service can be transferred to the broadcast network. In the United Kingdom the most recent telecommunications networks on the market are third generation UMTS networks while the terrestrial digital broadcast networks are DVB-T networks. This paper proposes a way for UMTS network operators to forecast the traffic associated with high demand services intended to be deployed on the UMTS network and when demand requires to transfer it to a cooperating DVB-T network. The paper aims to justify to UMTS network operators the use of a DVB-T network as a support for a UMTS network by clearly showing how using a DVB-T network to support it can increase the revenue generated by their network

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