Sustainable cloud service provider development by a Z-number-based DNMA method with Gini-coefficient-based weight determination

The sustainable development of cloud service providers (CSPs) is a significant multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problem, involving the intrinsic relations among multiple alternatives, (quantitative and qualitative) decision criteria and decision-experts for the selection of trustworthy CSPs. Most existing MCDM methods for CSP selection incorporated only one normalization technique in benefit and cost criteria, which would mislead the decision results and limit the applications of these methods. In addition, these methods did not consider the reliability of information given by decision-makers. Given these research gaps, this study introduces a Z-number-based double normalization-based multiple aggregation (DNMA) method to tackle quantitative and qualitative criteria in forms of benefit, cost, and target types for sustainable CSP development. We extend the original DNMA method to the Z-number environment to handle the uncertain and unreliability information of decision-makers. To make trade-offs between normalized criteria values, we develop a Gini-coefficient based weighting method to replace the mean-square-based weighting method used in the original DNMA method to enhance the applicability and isotonicity of the DNMA method. A case study is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Furthermore, comparative analysis and sensitivity analysis are implemented to test the stability and applicability of the proposed method.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An Open Source Grid Based Render Farm for Blender 3D

Growing demand for scientific simulations that visualise results through 3D graphics requires high quality 3D models and animations. Better quality 3D models, e.g. more complex geometry and photo-realistic rendering, always need more time and computational power for rendering. The rendering process assumes time and power are inversely proportional to each other, the less computational power you have the more time you require to render and the more power you have the less time you need to render. Traditionally, a render farm requires a cluster of computers to perform satisfactory rendering in terms of computational power and time, but not every scientific organization can afford such clusters. This paper presents an open source Grid based render farm, which can be plugged into Blender 3D as a tool bar that exploits a Condor based Grid

Collaborative 3D digital content creation exploiting a Grid network

The increase in ease of the production of computer simulated graphics has opened new opportunities in the 3D industry. There are unlimited applications for the delivery of 3D Graphics especially concerning 3D multimedia presentation of digital content. Apart from aesthetic and entertaining reasons, experts apply computer simulations to visualize environments and to identify early errors or costs in order to limit the need of making real prototypes. Thus, 3D Graphics also minimize the time required for developing the final product. Existing 3D applications give partial support to users to engage in collaborative contribution for the production of a 3D model. However, when 3D artists are required to collaboratively produce a high quality 3D model based on thousands of polygons, they have to integrate the different parts of the model when the modelling process has been completed, which is a slow tedious process. This paper investigates how to dynamically and simultaneously apply changes to the same 3D model based on a collaborative network exploiting a Grid infrastructure

An Anonymous Device to Device Authentication Protocol Using ECC and Self Certified Public Keys Usable in Internet of Things Based Autonomous Devices

Two party authentication schemes can be good candidates for deployment in Internet of Things (IoT)-based systems, especially in systems involving fast moving vehicles. Internet of Vehicles (IoV) requires fast and secure device-to-device communication without interference of any third party during communication, and this task can be carried out after registration of vehicles with a trusted certificate issuing party. Recently, several authentication protocols were proposed to enable key agreement in two party settings. In this study, we analyze two recent protocols and show that both protocols are insecure against key compromise impersonation attack (KCIA) as well as both lack of user anonymity. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved protocol that does not only resist KCIA and related attacks, but also offers comparable computation and communication. The security of proposed protocol is tested under formal model as well as using well known Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic along with a discussion on security features. While resisting the KCIA and related attacks, proposed protocol also provides comparable trade-of between security features and efficiency and completes a round of key agreement in just 13.42 ms, which makes it a promising candidate to be deployed in IoT environments

A Privacy Preserving Authentication Scheme for Roaming in IoT-Based Wireless Mobile Networks

The roaming service enables a remote user to get desired services, while roaming in a foreign network through the help of his home network. The authentication is a pre-requisite for secure communication between a foreign network and the roaming user, which enables the user to share a secret key with foreign network for subsequent private communication of data. Sharing a secret key is a tedious task due to underneath open and insecure channel. Recently, a number of such schemes have been proposed to provide authentication between roaming user and the foreign networks. Very recently, Lu et al. claimed that the seminal Gopi-Hwang scheme fails to resist a session-specific temporary information leakage attack. Lu et al. then proposed an improved scheme based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) for roaming user. However, contrary to their claim, the paper provides an in-depth cryptanalysis of Lu et al.’s scheme to show the weaknesses of their scheme against Stolen Verifier and Traceability attacks. Moreover, the analysis also affirms that the scheme of Lu et al. entails incorrect login and authentication phases and is prone to scalability issues. An improved scheme is then proposed. The scheme not only overcomes the weaknesses Lu et al.’s scheme but also incurs low computation time. The security of the scheme is analyzed through formal and informal methods; moreover, the automated tool ProVerif also verifies the security features claimed by the proposed scheme

Reanimating Cultural Heritage through Service Orientation, Workflows, Social Networking and Mashups

This paper presents an approach for creating a digital heritage resource that utilizes web services, workflows, social networks and Web 2.0 mashup technologies to innovate 'digital curatorship' in relation to collections dispersed in a global museumscape; community participation is achieved through social networking. We propose the integration of social networking technologies with a system called ARCO to allow communities to build digital heritage exhibitions online. With our system, digital heritage objects are reanimated in digital space through images, video clips, sounds, texts and other media (including 3D) within a virtual exhibition space, and thereby given new life. The focus of this paper is to primarily show how we can effectively integrate user generated heritage content with museum collections online; reconnecting objects in collections to disparate communities