Network traffic analysis for threats detection in the Internet of Things

As the prevalence of the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to increase, cyber criminals are quick to exploit the security gaps that many devices are inherently designed with. Users cannot be expected to tackle this threat alone, and many current solutions available for network monitoring are simply not accessible or can be difficult to implement for the average user, which is a gap that needs to be addressed. This article presents an effective signature-based solution to monitor, analyze, and detect potentially malicious traffic for IoT ecosystems in the typical home network environment by utilizing passive network sniffing techniques and a cloud application to monitor anomalous activity. The proposed solution focuses on two attack and propagation vectors leveraged by the infamous Mirai botnet, namely DNS and Telnet. Experimental evaluation demonstrates the proposed solution can detect 98.35 percent of malicious DNS traffic and 99.33 percent of Telnet traffic for an overall detection accuracy of 98.84 percent

Evaluation of Escherichia coli as indicator of point-of-use chlorination efficiency of drinking water

In this study, the relevance of the presence of Escherichia coli in drinking water as an indicator of point-of-use chlorination efficiency is examined. The survival of clinical isolates of human enteric pathogenic bacteria (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi, Shigella dysenteriae, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus faecalis and Vibrio cholerae) as well as E. coli was monitored as a function of effective germicidal concentration and contact time. The  inactivation kinetics indicated that the minimum effective dose for three-log units (99.9%) inactivation of E. coli (C·T99.9% = 10 mgl-1-min) can sufficiently  eliminate the other pathogens (C·T99.9% ranged from 5.6–10.5 mgl-1-min); the exception being K. pneumoniae, which required more than 1.4-times higher dose. In general, the results implied that the branded hypochlorite solution should effectively inactivate almost all vegetative  bacteria in household drinking water at the manufacturer’s recommended dosage of 0.5 mgl-1 after at least 30 minutes contact time. The application of point-of-use chemical disinfectants to drinking water in households will significantly reduce the incidence of water-borne infections  particularly in rural communities where central treatment of water is mostly unavailable.Keywords: Effective dose; Point-of-use disinfectants; Indicator bacteria; Pathogen; Escherichia coli; Chlorinatio

Fatigue Behaviour of Medium Carbon Steel of Different Grain Structures

This paper investigated the effect of heat treatment operations on the fatigue resistance of low carbon steel. Specimens after preparation for fatigue testing were subjected to annealing, normalizing and quenching heat treatment. Results show that the annealed specimen had the largest number of cycles to failure, indicating a high fatigue resistance. The microstructure of the specimens was examined in other to corroborate the obtained property with the microstructure. When compared with the untreated specimen, the annealed specimen (with optimum fatigue resistance) shows a large grains size of pearlite which was distributed across the entire surface of the microstructure. Generally, it was found that the size and distribution of specimens’ grains affect the resistance of the low carbon steel to fatigue failure. Keywords: fatigue, low carbon steel, heat treatment, microstructur

Physical And Mechanical Characteristics Of Charcoal, Sawdust And Sugarcane Bagasse As Solid Fuel Materials

This paper reports on the physical and mechanical characteristics of briquettes produced from charcoal, sawdust and sugarcane bagasse using molasses with sodium silicate as binders. Charcoal, sawdust and sugarcane bagasse were mixed in respective ratio of 20:20:60, 20:30:50, 20:40:40, 20:50:30 and 20:60:20. The briquettes were produced using Budenberg dial gauge compression machine, with pressure of 64 MPa at 120 seconds dwell time. Physical properties (relaxation ratio, compaction ratio and shattering index) and mechanical property (compressive strength) of the produced briquettes were investigated. Results show that briquette with sample composition of 20:30:50 has better physical properties with relaxation ratio of 1.562, compaction ratio of 7.573 and shatter index of 99.6%, while sample with ratio 20:40:40 has highest compressive strength of 55.43 kN/m2

STUDIES ON THE ANTIBACTERIAL AND ANTICORROSIVE PROPERTIES OF SYNTHESIZED HYBRID POLYURETHANE COMPOSITES FROM CASTOR SEED OIL

Castor seed oil (Ricinus communis) is a prominent feed stock towards the generation of renewable materials for industrial production. The reach presence of ricinoleic fatty acid at 87.5% provides pendant hydroxyl functional groups, which is an essential site for chemical formulations. This paper presents the synthesis, characterization, and evaluations on antibacterial and anticorrosive activities of synthesized hybrid composites from Ricinus communis seed oil. N,N'-bis(2-hydroxy ethyl)-12-hydroxy Ricinus communis oil fatty amide (HERCA) was synthesized via aminolysis polyol formation route. Upon reacting HERCA with succinic acid at a high temperature of about 145 ºC, a polyesteramide (RCPEA) was formed. This ester product undergoes urethanation and subsequently interfaced with modified hybrid material. The synthesized composites were characterized using spectroscopic methods such as FTIR, 1H-NMR, and 13C-NMR. Selected physicochemical parameters were also carried out on the products. Coating performance on cured resins was examined

Physico-chemical, microbial and sensory properties of kunu zaki beverage sweetened with black velvet tamarind (Dialium guineense)

This work determined the physicochemical, microbial and sensory characteristics of kunu zaki sweetened with black velvet tamarind (Dialium guinnense) flour. The outer covering and seed of black velvet was removed while the pulp was pulverized to obtain the flour. The tamarind pulp was analysed for its proximate and sugar contents. Kunu zaki was prepared according to standard method and 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 g of the black velvet pulp was added to 1000 ml each of kunu zaki along with a control sample. The kunu zaki samples were stored at refrigeration temperature (4 ºC) for a period of 5 days. The physico-chemical properties (pH, ºbrix, total titratable acidity), color, beta-carotene and vitamin C, microbial load and sensory attributes of the kunu zaki were analysed. The black velvet tamarind pulp had 42.01 g/100 g of total solid. The addition of black velvet tamarind (Dialium guinnense) to kunu zaki lowered the pH, thereby improving the keeping quality of the kunu zaki samples. The pH of kunu zaki ranged from 2.69-4.15 while the titratable acidity ranged from 5.44-10.06 %, the beta-carotene and vitamin C content were high with a range of 3.10–36.6 mg/100 g and 4.73–47.25 mg/100 g respectively. The bacterial count ranged from 1-8.8 × 103 cfu/mL and a fungal count of 1-4.9 × 103 cfu/mL. Kunu zaki with 50 g of black velvet tamarind was the most preferred in terms of taste, appearance, aroma and general acceptability

A Service-Oriented Approach for Sensing in the Internet of Things: Intelligent Transportation Systems and Privacy Use Cases

This paper presents a Sensing-as-a-Service run-time Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), called 3SOA, for the development of Internet of Things (IoT) applications. 3SOA aims to allow interoperability among various IoT platforms and support service-oriented modelling at high levels of abstraction where fundamental SOA theories and techniques are fully integrated into a practical software engineering approach. 3SOA abstracts the dependencies of the middleware programming model from the application logic. This abstraction allows the development efforts to focus on writing the application logic independently from hardware platforms, middleware, and languages in which applications are programmed. To achieve this result, IoT objects are treated as independent entities that may interact with each other using a well-defined message exchange sequence. Each object is defined by the services it provides and the coordination protocol it supports. Objects are then able to coordinate their resources to address the global objectives of the system. To practically validate our proposals, we demonstrate an intelligent transportation system and data privacy functional prototypes as proof of concepts. The use cases show that 3SOA and the presented abstraction language allow the amalgamation of macroprogramming and node-centric programming to develop real-time and efficient applications over IoT

Finite Element Modeling of Resonance in Polycrystalline Materials for Resonance Ultrasound Spectroscopy

Validation of models that predict the performance of aerospace engine materials depends on the ability to obtain accurate single crystal elastic constants. Resonance Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS) is a nondestructive technique in which the natural resonances of a material are utilized to obtain these constants. Traditional RUS utilizes an analytic approach to determine the resonance frequencies of a specimen given an initial guess set of elastic constants. A nonlinear optimization process then fits the elastic constants to experimentally measured data. This approach is limited both in its ability to handle specimens with complex geometry and to handle polycrystalline materials. These more complex scenarios can be approached by utilizing a finite element forward model to obtain sample resonances. A finite element forward model is being developed utilizing COMSOL Multiphysics to compute specimen resonance frequencies. Elastic constants are obtained utilizing a bounded nonlinear optimization routine in MATLAB by way of COMSOL\u27s LiveLink for MATLAB interface. Validation of this forward model has been performed on single crystal specimens, including a nickel superalloy parallelepiped and a fused silica cylinder with a chamfer, ultimately producing lower residual error after optimization than the traditional RUS approach. Model validation is also being performed on a Nickel Aluminide (NiAl) bicrystal. This paper presents the details of this validation process. Also presented is an examination of error sources and the impact they can play in the ability to accurately obtain elastic constants

Pharmacoeconomics in Africa: needs, prospect and challenges

Africa as a continent has experienced a continuous increase in the cost of healthcare as its demands increase. With many of these African countries living below the poverty threshold, Africans continue to die from preventable and curable diseases. Population increases have led to an increase in demands for healthcare, which unfortunately have been met with inequitable distribution of drugs. Hence, the outcomes from healthcare interventions are frequently not maximized. These problems notably call for some economic principles and policies to guide medication selection, procurement, or donation for population prioritization or health insurance. Pharmacoeconomics drives efficient use of scarce or limited resources to maximize healthcare benefits and reduce costs. It also brings to play tools that rate therapy choice based on the quality of life added to the patient after a choice of intervention was made over an alternative. In this paper, we commented on the needs, prospect, and challenges of pharmacoeconomics in Africa