Icmapen: an icmetric based security framework for sleep apnea monitoring

Smart devices are becoming increasingly powerful which is why they are being used for point of care health services. Wearable devices can be purchased which allow continuous monitoring of a wearers vital signs. The data is generated, processed and stored remotely where it can be readily accessible to health professionals. Recent attacks on healthcare systems and health data shows that the systems are insecure and that security is a major hurdle in their wide adoption. Conventional cryptographic systems rely on stored keys for the provision of security. The stored keys can be captured in many ways which leads to the system being exposed. The ICMetric technology remedies this by eliminating the need for stored keys. Thus, the ICMetric technology functions as a key theft deterrent and as a basis for cryptographic services. This paper studies the design and implementation of an ICMetric based health monitoring system for people diagnosed with sleep apnea. The proposed system provides key generation, authentication and confidentiality by using the novel ICMetric technology. The proposed scheme is constituent of a cloud computing component which enables remote monitoring and data storage for access by health professionals.  This paper studies the performance of the proposed schemes by studying the running time. The security of the scheme has also been studied to show that the system provides high levels of security without resource compromise.Keywords: ICMetric; Sleep apnea; Cloud computing; Authentication; Confidentialit

A secure cloud framework for ICMetric based IoT health devices.

Wearable devices are an important part of internet of things (IoT)with many applications in healthcare. Prevalent security concerns create a compelling case for a renewed approach by incorporating the ICMetric technology in IoT healthcare. The ICMetric technology is a novel security approach and uses the features of a device to form the basis of cryptographic services like key generation, authentication and admission control. Cryptographic systems designed using ICMetric technology use unique measurable device features to form a root of trust. This paper uses the MEMS bias in a body wearable Shimmer sensor to create a device ICMetric. The ICMetric identity is used to generate cryptographic key to perform encryption and decryption of patients data which is being communicated to health professionals. The cloud based component of the proposed framework provides much needed distributed data processing and availability. The proposed schemes have been simulated and tested for conformance to high levels of security and performance

Fuzzy keywords enabled ranked searchable encryption scheme for a public Cloud environment

Searchable Encryption allows a user or organization to outsource their encrypted documents to a Cloud-based storage service, while maintaining the ability to perform keyword searches over the encrypted text. However, most of the existing search schemes do not take the almost certain presence of typographical errors in the documents under consideration, when trying to obtain meaningful and accurate results. This paper presents a novel ranked searchable encryption scheme that addresses this issue by supporting fuzzy keywords. The proposed construction is based on probabilistic trapdoors that help resist distinguishability attacks. This paper for the first time proposes Searchable Encryption as a Service (SEaaS). The proposed construction is deployed on the British Telecommunication’s public Cloud architecture and evaluated over a real-life speech corpus. Our security analysis yields that the construction satisfies strong security guarantees and is also quiet lightweight, by analyzing its performance over the speech corpus

Implementation of Quality Improvement Tools In Brass Industry To Improve Quality & Enhance Productivity

Significance of quality with increased productivity at an affordable cost is out of question. In this regard, applications of Statistical Quality Tools go a long way not only to improve the quality of a product but also to eliminate the causes, which gave birth to Non – Conforming units. In engineering production units where workforce is unaware to Quality Management system (QMS) it is very difficult to manage production with in acceptable quality standard. Heavy input costs at shrunk/ reduced outputs are no longer sustainable. In most of the production units the rejection of components is never analyzed and resultantly factors causing these high rejection percentages are not rooted out. The focus of study here has been Brass Industry with special emphasis on reducing rejection percentage to a lower possible limit in 70:30 Brass strip and Gilding Metal Claded Steel (GMCS Strip). Initially, data regarding rejection in Brass and GMCS Strip was collected for complete analysis. The process of applying relevant Statistical Quality Tools was started in order to find out the major defects and the root causes of the same. The analysis made so far revealed that existing rejection percentage in Brass and GMCS Strip has been in the range of Fifteen percent (15%) and Twenty one percent (21%) respectively, which is an alarming situation. The ultimate end of the study was to reduce the existing rejection percentage to a range of 8 – 10 % in Brass, and 12 – 14 % in GMCS, and thereby improve the quality, savings, enhance productivity and hence to reduce the wastages. Keywords: Quality improvement tools, brass industry, productivity and qualit

Cargo cult agile: Use of information technology by senior executives for decision making activities

Cargo cult agile is a metaphorical notion for senior executives (SEs’) who have latest and costly information tools at workplace but their use for decision making is very limited. The study initiated to measure the use of information technology (IT) by senior executives for decision making activities. For this very purpose, territory of Islamabad, Pakistan were chosen for survey. Target population were top ranked officers or executives from the public organizations. Access to these executives were a big challenge, so the snowball sampling was the only technique which were employed in this study.  A semi structured interview technique was used for data collection. This semi structured interview was divided into four portions. In first portion, simple and direct questions were asked about the routine tasks performed by senior executives while using their personal computers or laptops. Second portion consisted of questions related to hardware knowledge while the third portion have the questions about use of web, emails or blogs. The fourth and utmost important portion of this semi structured interview consisted of questions related to decision making activities. All responses were recorded on piece of papers in hard form and later transformed into percentages. It was found that most of the senior executives use their personal computers or laptops for drafting or for instant communication using internet. The real essence or tasks of these executives are impugned in decision making activities as per the title or resources they availed. But unfortunately, they have been stuck in minion jobs of IT which can be easily performed by their subordinates. The study highlighted and identified the cult of this modern era and urged the senior executives to effectively utilize the IT for decision making activities

A parallelized disjunctive query based searchable encryption scheme for big data

Searchable Encryption (SE) allows a client to search over large amounts of encrypted data outsourced to the Cloud. Although, this helps to maintain the confidentiality of the outsourced data but achieving privacy is a difficult and resource intensive task. With the increase in the query effectiveness, i.e., by shifting from single keyword SE to multi-keyword SE there is a notable drop in the efficiency. This motivates to make use of the advances in the multi-core architectures and multiple threads where the search can be delegated across different threads to perform search in a parallel fashion. The proposed scheme is based on probabilistic trapdoors that are formed by making use of the property of modular inverses. The use of probabilistic trapdoors helps resist distinguishability attacks. The rigorous security analysis helps us to appreciate the advantage of having a probabilistic trapdoor. Furthermore, to validate the performance of the proposed scheme, it is implemented and deployed onto the British Telecommunication's Public Cloud offering and tested over a real speech corpus. The implementation is also extended to anticipate the performance gain by using the multi-core architecture that helps to maintain the lightweight property of the scheme

Development of Threshold Levels and a Climate-Sensitivity Model of the Hydrological Regime of the High-Altitude Catchment of the Western Himalayas, Pakistan

Water shortages in Pakistan are among the most severe in the world, and its water resources are decreasing significantly due to the prevailing hydro-meteorological conditions. We assessed variations in meteorological and hydrological variables using innovative trend analysis (ITA) and traditional trend analysis methods at a practical significance level, which is also of practical interest. We developed threshold levels of hydrological variables and developed a non-parametric climate-sensitivity model of the high-altitude catchment of the western Himalayas. The runoff of Zone I decreased, while the temperature increased and the precipitation increased significantly. In Zone II, the runoff and temperature increased but the precipitation decreased. A two-dimensional visualization of the Pardé coefficient showed extreme drought events, and indicated greater sensitivity of the hydrological regime to temperature than to precipitation. The threshold levels of runoff for Zones I and II were 320 and 363 mm using the Q80 fixed method, while the mean runoff amounts were estimated to be 79.95 and 55.61 mm, respectively. The transient threshold levels varied by month, and the duration of droughts in Zones I and II ranged from 26.39 to 78.98 days. The sensitivity of the hydrological regime was estimated based on a modified climate-elasticity model (εp = 0.11–0.23, εt = −0.04–2.39) for Zones I and II, respectively. These results highlight the sensitivity of the hydrological regime to temperature, which influences the melting process. However, it is important to establish thresholds for hydrological variables and understand the climate sensitivity of the hydrological regime of the entire basin, so that policy makers and water managers can make sustainable water-resource-management decisions for this region

Rehabilitation of Acute and Chronic Ankle Sprain for Male Cricketers through Mixedbag (Hydrotherapy and Land-Based) Exercises

Ninety-five amateur cricketers of age, 15-35 years with confirmed acute or chronic ankle sprain, selected from four different cities of the Punjab, Pakistan were evaluated through Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT), Single Leg Balance test (SLB) and subject to a set of progressively increasing exercises on ground and in water as well known as MixedBag rehab exercises which consisted of Hydro, Isometric, Isotonic and proprioception protocols. Another group of same level cricketer (n = 40) served as control. Comparisons of pre and post-exercise values showed significant increase (p \u3c 0.001) in Lateral direction reach and Posteromedial direction while the rest of the six directions showed non-significant results. MixedBag Rehab Group showed an overall improvement of 14.3 % and 9.2 % with an increase (cm) of 9.6 and 6.3 for the non-injured and injured leg respectively. However, the range of improvement in percentage for all eight directions lies between 5.5-6.3 and 7.7-11.8 for the non-injured and injured leg, respectively. Similarly, the difference between pre and post-exercise difference of two positions of non-injured leg and injured leg in seconds were 2.9, 12.1 and 4.1, 27.7. The results indicated that MixedBag exercises improved isometric and isotonic muscular strength, proprioception and stability that ultimately helped to recover, regaining strength and reinstall proprioception. After completing the MixedBag Rehab plan, the subjects were followed for four months to check the recurrence and it was found that the recurrence of Control Injured Group and MixedBag Rehab Group was 17.5 % and 7.5 %, respectively

Role of ICT in Community-Oriented Policing in South Asia: Challenges and Opportunities

Community-oriented policing (COP) as a model has found widespread acceptance throughout the world both in developed and developing countries. Similarly, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been embraced by many developed countries to augment COP initiatives. However, very little is known about the application of ICTs in COP in developing countries, particularly South Asia. In this article, we review the current ICT-based COP initiatives by focusing on some of the selected projects from developed countries and South Asia. The paper has used COP in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan as a case. While meaningful insights can be derived through learning from the experiences of developed countries, we highlight some major issues and challenges that are likely to be faced while implementing ICT based COP in South Asia. Moreover, we provide an overview of some exciting opportunities that arise as a result of embracing ICTs to enhance COP efforts for building trusting community-police relations and hence improving human security in the region

Privacy-preserving COVID-19 Contact Tracing Blockchain

The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has caused widespread panic and global initiatives are geared towards treatment and limiting its spread. With technological advancements, several mechanisms and mobile applications have been developed that attempt to trace the physical contact made by a person with someone who has been tested COVID-19 positive. While designing these apps, user's privacy has been an afterthought and has resulted in mass violations of privacy of the public and the patients. A total of 32 countries have designed apps and rely on them as a strategy to flatten the pandemic curve. Along with lack of privacy, these methodologies are centralized, where they are fully controlled by the government and the healthcare providers. Owing to these and many other concerns, people are hesitant in the adoption of these technologies. This paper presents a detailed analysis of user tracking apps belonging to 32 countries, thus demonstrating that they collect personal data and are a gross violation of user privacy. This paper presents a novel architecture for the efficient, effective and privacy-preserving contact tracing of COVID-19 patients using blockchain. The proposed architecture preserves the privacy of individuals and their contact history by encrypting all the data specific to an individual using a privacy-preserving Homomorphic encryption scheme and storing it on a permissioned blockchain network. The contacts made with a COVID-19 positive patient are identified by performing search queries directly over the Homomorphic encrypted data stored in the blocks. Therefore, only those contacts that are suspected to be COVID-19 positive may be decrypted by the healthcare professional or government for further contact tracing/diagnosis and COVID-19 testing; thereby leading to enhanced privacy