ElfStore: A Resilient Data Storage Service for Federated Edge and Fog Resources

Edge and fog computing have grown popular as IoT deployments become wide-spread. While application composition and scheduling on such resources are being explored, there exists a gap in a distributed data storage service on the edge and fog layer, instead depending solely on the cloud for data persistence. Such a service should reliably store and manage data on fog and edge devices, even in the presence of failures, and offer transparent discovery and access to data for use by edge computing applications. Here, we present Elfstore, a first-of-its-kind edge-local federated store for streams of data blocks. It uses reliable fog devices as a super-peer overlay to monitor the edge resources, offers federated metadata indexing using Bloom filters, locates data within 2-hops, and maintains approximate global statistics about the reliability and storage capacity of edges. Edges host the actual data blocks, and we use a unique differential replication scheme to select edges on which to replicate blocks, to guarantee a minimum reliability and to balance storage utilization. Our experiments on two IoT virtual deployments with 20 and 272 devices show that ElfStore has low overheads, is bound only by the network bandwidth, has scalable performance, and offers tunable resilience.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, To appear in IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS), Milan, Italy, 201

Effect of growth and yield parameters on Indian-mustard genotypes under varying environmental conditions in western Haryana

An experiment was conducted in Rabi season of year 2014-15 at Research Farm, Department of Agril. Meteorology, CCSHAU Hisar, Haryana and field area was adjacent to agrometeorological observatory at 290 10' N latitude, 750 46' E longitude and altitude of 215.2 m with Split Plot Design as main plot treatments consisted of three date of sowing viz.26thOctober, 5thNovember, and 15th November and sub-plots consisted of three varieties (Kranti, RH 406 and RH 0749) with four replications. Various growth and yield parameters such as plant height, LAI, dry matter accumulation, partitioning and yield attributes were higher in 26thOctober sown crop as compared to 5th and 15th November at all the growth intervals. The crop sown on 26th October (1870.3 kg/ha) produced highest seed yield as compared to 5th (1525.5 kg/ha) and 15th November (1099.8 kg/ha). Among varieties, RH0749 recorded highest seed yield because LAI, biomass accumulates were performed better as compared to RH 406 and Kranti. There was significant interaction between growing environment and varieties with respect to growth and yield parameters. From the above study it was concluded that normal or early sowing of Indian mustard may be practisized for achieving higher seed yield and improved growth and yield attributes in western Haryana conditions

Effects of heavy metals on seed protein fractions in chickpea, Cicer arietinum (L.)

Worldwide, different abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, and heavy metals, harm crop productivity. Legumes, compared to cereals, are more susceptible to these stresses. The current work aimed to provide more insights into the effects of Cd and Pb on various seed protein characteristics of two cultivars of chickpea (Cicer arietinum), HC1 and HC5. At the highest concentrations of Cd, the total seed proteins decreased from 25.2% (control) to 7.1% (30 mg/kg soil), while in the case of the maximum concentration of Pb, 300 mg/kg soil, the protein content decreased to 16.1% from 25.2%. The content of each of the four seed protein fractions viz. albumins, globulins, glutelins and prolamins decreased with an increase in the concentration levels of both heavy metals. The dominating protein fraction, globulins, was reduced by 21.7% in HC1 under Cd stress, while it was reduced by 11.9% in Pb-treated genotype HC5. Electrophoretic analysis of four seed protein fractions on SDS-gels showed only quantitative changes in the polypeptide patterns under varying concentrations of Pb with few qualitative alterations under Cd treatment. The contents of the amino acids tryptophan, cysteine and methionine also decreased with increasing concentrations of heavy metals. Compared to Pb, Cd was found to be more detrimental concerning its influence on seed protein quality. Thus, our analysis revealed how heavy metals impact the quality of chickpea seed proteins by decreasing the content of essential amino acids

Consumer online purchase behaviour: perception versus expectation

Conceptualising online customer behaviour is very important, as more and more customers are interested in buying products through online. To capture online customer behaviour, this study has conducted empirical research in Bangladesh among general online customers who have experience in online buying or have an intention to buy from online boutique websites in Bangladesh. In this regard, the quality-purchase interaction model that was developed, based on both customer perception and the expectation of buying online from business-to-consumer electronic-commerce in Bangladesh, was used to capture actual customer behaviour or behavioural intention for online purchasing. We conducted path analysis through LISREL to reveal the causal relation between independent and dependent variables. There are some significant differences between online buying behaviour and the behavioural intention to buy online, that is between customers who have experience of online buying from a boutique website and those who have the intention to buy online but have not yet gotten an online buying experience

Service delivery through mobile-government (mGov): Driving factors and cultural impacts

The mobile-Government (mGov) service system is conducted through an open network, and it is virtual. This service mode and pattern change inevitably necessitates a behavioral change in citizen attitudes and intentions. Nevertheless, this new pattern of service delivery through mGov has hardly been systematically investigated by any researchers. The objective of this current research is twofold. First, we attempt to reveal the sources of beliefs for developing intention toward the mGov (ITM) system. Then, as the second objective, we investigate cultural influence as the reason for a difference in consumer attitudes and intentions toward mGov. In this regard, the empirical study was conducted in Bangladesh and the USA, which have potential differences in the cultural traits listed by Hofstede. From our statistical analysis, we have identified the sources of beliefs for both Bangladeshi and USA consumers.We observed clear differences in sources of beliefs and their influence on attitudes leading to intention, which demonstrates support for our second objective which was designed to verify the cultural impacts on belief-attitude relations.We understand that these different sources of beliefs influence cognitive, affective, and connative attitudes toward mGov in different ways

A study on the response of Indian dip and low latitude ionospheric regions to a limb centred X9.0 class solar flare

In this paper, we present how Indian dip equatorial and low latitude ionospheric system responded to a limb centred X9.0 class of solar flare event using GPS-TEC, Ionosonde and magnetometer measurements. The limb centred X9.0 solar flare was materialise on 05 December 2006 at the heliography coordinate S07E68 and NOAA 10930 active region, started at 10:18 UT (15:48 IST), peaked at 10:35 UT (16:05 IST), and decayed by 10:45 UT (16:15 IST). The measurements of the total electron content (TEC) of 30 s time resolutions from a series of GPS receivers installed near the dip and low latitude regions does not show TEC enhancement during peak flare hours, 10:35 UT (16:05 IST). An appreciable enhancement in the TEC units (∼5 TEC units) is noticeable during post flare hours, 13:00 UT (18:30 IST) which is high at dip equatorial compare to low latitude regions. The Ionosonde measurement of 15 min time resolution at dip equatorial station shows an increase in the plasma density at the F-region while the E-region did not show any impact during peak flare hours, 10:35 UT (16:05 IST). The analysis of horizontal component of geomagnetic field (H) of 1 min time resolution data obtained from the INTERMAGNET shows sudden rise in electron density in the E-region of the ionosphere and intensification in the ionospheric current system in eastward direction at the dip equatorial and reverse in direction at low latitude regions at 10:35 UT (16:05 IST). Present analyses contribute our understanding about plasma dynamics during flare and post flare hours in the E and F-regions of Indian dip and low latitude Ionosphere

A Hierarchical Framework of Challenges for Blockchain Adoption in Public Services. Implications for decision-makers

This study attempts to identify critical challenges for blockchain adoption in government, particularly public-service delivery in India, a developing country context. Through an extensive literature review and focus-group discussions with policymakers and blockchain experts, we have identified 12 adoption challenges for Blockchain in public service delivery. We then collected data and analysed using interpretive structural modeling and Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) Analysis to develop a hierarchical framework of the challenges. Our findings indicate that governments must first ensure legislative support for blockchain-based transactions. This research contributes to information systems strategic planning literature and provides a framework for policymakers to craft a strategic approach to facilitate blockchain adoption