PADS: Practical Attestation for Highly Dynamic Swarm Topologies

Remote attestation protocols are widely used to detect device configuration (e.g., software and/or data) compromise in Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios. Unfortunately, the performances of such protocols are unsatisfactory when dealing with thousands of smart devices. Recently, researchers are focusing on addressing this limitation. The approach is to run attestation in a collective way, with the goal of reducing computation and communication. Despite these advances, current solutions for attestation are still unsatisfactory because of their complex management and strict assumptions concerning the topology (e.g., being time invariant or maintaining a fixed topology). In this paper, we propose PADS, a secure, efficient, and practical protocol for attesting potentially large networks of smart devices with unstructured or dynamic topologies. PADS builds upon the recent concept of non-interactive attestation, by reducing the collective attestation problem into a minimum consensus one. We compare PADS with a state-of-the art collective attestation protocol and validate it by using realistic simulations that show practicality and efficiency. The results confirm the suitability of PADS for low-end devices, and highly unstructured networks.Comment: Submitted to ESORICS 201

Topical nanoemulsion of turmeric oil for psoriasis: characterization, ex vivo and in vivo assessment

Psoriasis is a chronic; T lymphocyte mediated autoimmune inflammatory disorder characterized by well-defined erythematous (reddish) plaques with large adherent silvery scales that affects the skin and other parts of the body. The essential oil in turmeric is anti-inflammatory and effective in treating chronic disorders like psoriasis that have inflammation as a root symptom. Nanoemulsions are isotropic, thermodynamically stable transparent (or translucent) systems of oil, water, surfactant and co-surfactant with a droplet size usually in the range of 20–200 nm. Their long-term stability and ease of preparation (spontaneous emulsification) make it promising tool for drug delivery. The aim of this study was to obtain nanoemulsions of turmeric oil for psoriasis and to evaluate their physical stability, irritation potential and in vivo inflammatory activity. For the preparation of nanoemulsion titration method was used which was composed of 15% turmeric oil, 42 % Smix (1:1) and 43 % distilled water. The nanoemulsion was stable during the period of study and was found to be practically non-irritating in the organotypic HET-CAM model. The anti inflammatory activity of optimized nonoemulsion was carried out by carragennen induced paw edema and found to be 70.35 % inhibition

VRF IN HEATING MODE

Variable refrigerant flow (VRF) air conditioning system has become attractive due to better energy performances than traditional air conditioning systems. However, the shortcoming of no outdoor air (OA) intake has not been solved thoroughly. A new VRF and outdoor air processing unit combined air conditioning system is proposed and simulated. The first obstacle is that there is no well-known simulation tool for VRF unit in heating mode. A VRF model of condenser-number independence is developed and validated first. The combined system is modeled by integrating the individual sub-system or component models into a complete system. The average error of the developed model to predict heating capacity, input power and COP are 7.87%, 12.45% and 6.19% respectively

DC Networks on the Distribution Level – New Trend or Vision?

"DC networks on Distribution Level – are they a new trend or a Vision?" That is the question that has focused the efforts of the Working Group the last two years, and whose consideration is summarized in this report. This report represents the first phase evaluation of this topic and is focused primarily on medium (MVDC) and low voltage (LVDC) level applications

The International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce (INPST) and the power of Twitter networking exemplified through #INPST hashtag analysis

Background: The development of digital technologies and the evolution of open innovation approaches have enabled the creation of diverse virtual organizations and enterprises coordinating their activities primarily online. The open innovation platform titled "International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce" (INPST) was established in 2018, to bring together in collaborative environment individuals and organizations interested in natural product scientific research, and to empower their interactions by using digital communication tools. Methods: In this work, we present a general overview of INPST activities and showcase the specific use of Twitter as a powerful networking tool that was used to host a one-week "2021 INPST Twitter Networking Event" (spanning from 31st May 2021 to 6th June 2021) based on the application of the Twitter hashtag #INPST. Results and Conclusion: The use of this hashtag during the networking event period was analyzed with Symplur Signals (https://www.symplur.com/), revealing a total of 6,036 tweets, shared by 686 users, which generated a total of 65,004,773 impressions (views of the respective tweets). This networking event's achieved high visibility and participation rate showcases a convincing example of how this social media platform can be used as a highly effective tool to host virtual Twitter-based international biomedical research events

Remote Attestation for Secure Internet of Things

The Internet of things (IoT) are increasingly exposed to a wide range of security threats. Despite the enormous opportunities that IoT world offers, IoT devices are prone to many cyberattacks. One effective security mechanism to identify malicious entities in an IoT system is Remote Attestation. Remote Attestation is an interactive protocol that allows a remote trusted Verifier to assess the integrity of an untrusted device by typically checking whether the received measurement conforms to an expected legitimate configuration. In this thesis, we provide a four-fold contribution, (1) we review working mechanisms of state-of-the-art Collective Remote Attestation (CRA) techniques 2) we address the problem of device mobility during attestation and asynchronous attestation of IoT services, (3) we propose a novel configurable-hardware enabled remote attestation techniques for low-end embedded devices, and, (4) we show how remote attestation can be employed to provide security and safe operation to other traditional applications

Remote Attestation for Secure Internet of Things

The Internet of things (IoT) are increasingly exposed to a wide range of security threats. Despite the enormous opportunities that IoT world offers, IoT devices are prone to many cyberattacks. One effective security mechanism to identify malicious entities in an IoT system is Remote Attestation. Remote Attestation is an interactive protocol that allows a remote trusted Verifier to assess the integrity of an untrusted device by typically checking whether the received measurement conforms to an expected legitimate configuration. In this thesis, we provide a four-fold contribution, (1) we review working mechanisms of state-of-the-art Collective Remote Attestation (CRA) techniques 2) we address the problem of device mobility during attestation and asynchronous attestation of IoT services, (3) we propose a novel configurable-hardware enabled remote attestation techniques for low-end embedded devices, and, (4) we show how remote attestation can be employed to provide security and safe operation to other traditional applications

Rising materialism in the developing economy: Assessing materialistic value orientation in contemporary Bangladesh

Measuring people’s values Orientation for Materialism has been a popular area for the research in social sciences since 1990’s. Among the plethora of materialism scales, perhaps Marsha Richins and Scott Dawson formulated scale for measuring materialism is the most popular and widely used. This research examines the consumerism of Bangladesh using Richins’ Scale of seventeen items categorized in three variables to measure materialism. Exploratory Research Design is applied to address the clusters of attitudes that may emerge from the data gathered by mall intercept from a convenience sample of 1,259. “Factor analysis” was conducted to devise a valid scale to measure consumerism in this culture. Research findings suggest that a new set of items can measure the level of materialism with acceptable reliability and validity for the culture of Bangladesh. When the relationships between demographics and materialism were assessed, with the exception of age, a non-consistent pattern emerged. Hardly any effort has made so far to unveil the nature of consumerism in the developing economy context; hence, the research may benefit to outline the value shift that leans toward materialism value orientation

The Effect of Materialistic Value-Orientation on Religiosity in Bangladesh: An Empirical Investigation

The rising middle-class of the developing nations is found to be emphasizing more on the acquisition of goods and property in the pursuit of the good life. This often leads towards the materialistic value-orientation and form materialism. Religiosity, conversely, implies restraining from the earthy pleasure in the form of happy life, and often imposes prohibitory behavioral rules in the economic sphere. Hence, ‘Materialism’ and ‘Religiosity’ are two of the most incompatible yet dominant components of normative value-systems that are always in contention with each other. Literature is abundant to relate ‘Emotional Connection’, ‘Subjective Well-Being’, ‘Happiness’ or ‘Life Satisfaction’ with that of ‘Materialism’ and ‘Religiosity’; nonetheless, what is hardly addressed is the effect of materialistic value-orientation to the religiosity in the transitional societies. This paper investigates materialism and religiosity in the developing economy context like Bangladesh and outlines the underlying relationships between the constructs. A survey on a sample of four hundred and twelve (412) respondents using self-administered questionnaires is the source of quantitative information that is used to formulate the tentative explanations of the variables of interest. Age is considered as a moderator. A negative relationship between the level of materialism and religiosity is found, if materialism is considered as a reflective construct, and religiosity is treated as a second-order formative construct in the structural equation modeling

Impact of Renal Dysfunction And Outcomes After on Pump Coronary Revascularization Surgery

25th Annual Meeting of the Asian Society for Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery (ASCVTS 2017