Security in Ad-Hoc Routing Protocols

Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) are becoming increasingly popular as more and more mobile devices find their way to the public, besides traditional" uses such as military battlefields and disaster situations they are being used more and more in every-day situations. With this increased usage comes the need for making the networks secure as well as efficient, something that is not easily done as many of the demands of network security conflicts with the demands on mobile networks due to the nature of the mobile devices (e.g. low power consumption, low processing load). The concept and structure of MANETs make them prone to be easily attacked using several techniques often used against wired networks as well as new methods particular to MANETs. Security issues arise in many different areas including physical security, key management, routing and intrusion detection, many of which are vital to a functional MANET. In this paper we focus on the security issues related to ad hoc routing protocols in particular. The routing in ad hoc networks remains a key issue since without properly functioning routing protocols, the network simply will not work the way it's intended to. Unfortunately, routing may also be one of the most difficult areas to protect against attacks because of the ad hoc nature of MANETs. We will present the main security risks involved in ad-hoc routing as well as the solutions to these problems that are available today.

The homeostatic ensemble for cells

Cells are quintessential examples of out of equilibrium systems but they maintain a homeostatic state over a timescale of hours to days. As a consequence, the statistics of all observables is remarkably consistent. Here, we develop a statistical mechanics framework for living cells by including the homeostatic constraint that exists over the interphase period of the cell cycle. The consequence is the introduction of the concept of a homeostatic ensemble and an associated homeostatic temperature, along with a formalism for the (dynamic) homeostatic equilibrium that intervenes to allow living cells to evade thermodynamic decay. As a first application, the framework is shown to accurately predict the observed effect of the mechanical environment on the in-vitro response of smooth muscle cells. This includes predictions that both the mean values as well as diversity/variability in the measured values of observables such as cell area, shape and tractions decrease with decreasing stiffness of the environment. Thus, we argue that the observed variabilities are inherent to the entropic nature of the homeostatic equilibrium of cells and not a result of in-vitro experimental errors.Royal Societ

Simulation of the cytoskeletal response of cells on grooved or patterned substrates.

We analyse the response of osteoblasts on grooved substrates via a model that accounts for the cooperative feedback between intracellular signalling, focal adhesion development and stress fibre contractility. The grooved substrate is modelled as a pattern of alternating strips on which the cell can adhere and strips on which adhesion is inhibited. The coupled modelling scheme is shown to capture some key experimental observations including (i) the observation that osteoblasts orient themselves randomly on substrates with groove pitches less than about 150 nm but they align themselves with the direction of the grooves on substrates with larger pitches and (ii) actin fibres bridge over the grooves on substrates with groove pitches less than about 150 nm but form a network of fibres aligned with the ridges, with nearly no fibres across the grooves, for substrates with groove pitches greater than about 300 nm. Using the model, we demonstrate that the degree of bridging of the stress fibres across the grooves, and consequently the cell orientation, is governed by the diffusion of signalling proteins activated at the focal adhesion sites on the ridges. For large groove pitches, the signalling proteins are dephosphorylated before they can reach the regions of the cell above the grooves and hence stress fibres cannot form in those parts of the cell. On the other hand, the stress fibre activation signal diffuses to a reasonably spatially homogeneous level on substrates with small groove pitches and hence stable stress fibres develop across the grooves in these cases. The model thus rationalizes the responsiveness of osteoblasts to the topography of substrates based on the complex feedback involving focal adhesion formation on the ridges, the triggering of signalling pathways by these adhesions and the activation of stress fibre networks by these signals.A.V. and V.S.D. acknowledge the Royal Society for supporting A.V. through a Newton International Fellowship.This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface (Vigliotti A, McMeeking RM, Deshpande VS, J. R. Soc. Interface 2015, 12, 20141320, doi:10.1098/rsif.2014.1320). The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.1320

Multi-axial response of idealized cermets

The yield response of two idealized cermets comprising mono and bi-disperse steel spheres in a Sn/Pb solder matrix has been investigated for a range of axisymmetric stress states. Proportional stress path experiments are reported, from which are extracted the initial yield surfaces and their evolution with increasing plastic strain. The initial yield strength is nearly independent of the hydrostatic pressure but the strain hardening rate increases with stress triaxiality up to a critical value. For higher triaxialities, the responses are independent of hydrostatic pressure. Multi-axial measurements along with X-ray tomography were used to demonstrate that the deformation of these idealized cermets occurs by two competing mechanisms: (i) a granular flow mechanism that operates at low levels of triaxiality, where volumetric dilation occurs under compressive stress states, and (ii) a plastically incompressible mechanism that operates at high stress triaxialities. A phenomenological viscoplastic constitutive model that incorporates both deformation mechanisms is presented. While such multi-axial measurements are difficult for commercial cermets with yield strengths on the order of a few GPa, the form of their constitutive relation is expected to be similar to that of the idealized cermets presented here

The effect of inclination and stand-off on the dynamic response of beams impacted by slugs of a granular material

The dynamic response of end-clamped sandwich and monolithic beams to impact by highvelocity tungsten carbide (WC) particle columns (slugs) has been measured with the aim of developing an understanding of the interaction of ejecta from a shallow-buried explosion with structures. The monolithic beams were made from stainless steel, while the sandwich beams of equal areal mass comprised stainless steel face sheets and an aluminium honeycomb core. High-speed imaging was used to measure the transient transverse deflection of the beams, to record the dynamic modes of deformation, and to observe the flow of the WC particles upon impact. The experiments show that sandwich beams deflect less than the monolithic beams both in normal and inclined impact situations. Moreover, the deflections of all beams in the inclined orientation were less than their respective deflections in the normal orientation at the same slug velocity. Intriguingly, the ratio of the deflection of the sandwich to monolithic beams remains approximately constant with increasing slug velocity for inclined impact but increases for normal impact; i.e. inclined sandwich beams retain their advantage over monolithic beams with increasing slug velocity. Dynamic force measurements reveal that (i) the momentum transferred from the impacting slug to both monolithic and sandwich beams is the same, and (ii) the interaction between the impacting particles and the dynamic deformation of the inclined monolithic and sandwich beams results in a momentum transfer into these beams that is equal to or greater than the momentum of the slug. These experimental findings demonstrate that contrary to intuition and widespread belief, the performance enhancement obtained from employing beam inclination is not due to a reduction in transferred momentum. Finally, we show that increasing the stand-off distance decreases beam deflections. This is because the slugs lengthen as they traverse towards their target and thus the duration of loading is extended with increasing stand-off. However, combining increased stand-off with sandwich construction does not yield the synergistic benefits of sandwich construction combined with beam inclination.The work was supported by the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-09-1-0573 (Program manager, Dr. David Shifler) and the Defense Advanced Projects Agency under grant number W91CRB-11-1-0005 (Program manager, Dr. J. Goldwasser).This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020768314004466

A constitutive model for self-reinforced ductile polymer composites

Self-reinforced polymer composites are gaining increasing interest due to their higher ductility compared to traditional glass and carbon fibre composites. Here we consider a class of PET composites comprising woven PET fibres in a PET matrix. While there is a significant literature on the development of these materials and their mechanical properties, little progress has been reported on constitutive models for these composites. Here we report the development of an anisotropic visco-plastic constitutive model for PET composites that captures the measured anisotropy, tension/compression asymmetry and ductility. This model is implemented in a commercial finite element package and shown to capture the measured response of PET composite plates and beams in different orientations to a high degree of accuracy.We are grateful to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Grant Number W91CRB-10-1-005) for the financial support for this research. C. Schneider was funded by the Centre of ECO2 Vehicle Design and the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA). The authors would like to acknowledge the support from the material supplier Comfil.This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, Volume 71, April 2015, Pages 32–39, doi:10.1016/j.compositesa.2015.01.003

Failure mechanisms of a notched CFRP laminate under multi-axial loading

A quasi-isotropic CFRP laminate, containing a notch or circular hole, is subjected to combined tension and shear, or compression. The measured failure strengths of the specimens are used to construct failure envelopes in stress space. Three competing failure mechanisms are observed, and for each mechanism splitting within the critical ply reduces the stress concentration from the hole or notch: (i) a tension-dominated mode, with laminate failure dictated by tensile failure of the 0° plies, (ii) a shear-dominated mode entailing microbuckling of the -45° plies, and (iii) microbuckling of the 0° plies under remote compression. The net section strength (for all stress states investigated) is greater for specimens with a notch than a circular hole, and this is associated with greater split development in the load-bearing plies. The paper contributes to the literature by reporting sub-critical damage modes and failure envelopes under multi-axial loading for two types of stress raiser.Financial support from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and the US Office of Naval Research are gratefully acknowledged.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesa.2015.06.00

Finite versus small strain discrete dislocation analysis of cantilever bending of single crystals

© 2017, The Author(s). Plastic size effects in single crystals are investigated by using finite strain and small strain discrete dislocation plasticity to analyse the response of cantilever beam specimens. Crystals with both one and two active slip systems are analysed, as well as specimens with different beam aspect ratios. Over the range of specimen sizes analysed here, the bending stress versus applied tip displacement response has a strong hardening plastic component. This hardening rate increases with decreasing specimen size. The hardening rates are slightly lower when the finite strain discrete dislocation plasticity (DDP) formulation is employed as curving of the slip planes is accounted for in the finite strain formulation. This relaxes the back-stresses in the dislocation pile-ups and thereby reduces the hardening rate. Our calculations show that in line with the pure bending case, the bending stress in cantilever bending displays a plastic size dependence. However, unlike pure bending, the bending flow strength of the larger aspect ratio cantilever beams is appreciably smaller. This is attributed to the fact that for the same applied bending stress, longer beams have lower shear forces acting upon them and this results in a lower density of statistically stored dislocations

An exploration of the ballistic resistance of multilayer graphene polymer composites

The response of multilayer graphene/polyvinyl alcohol (MLG/PVA) films were studied under quasi-static (Q.S.) and dynamic edge-clamped transverse loading. The 10 μm thick films, reinforced by ∼35 vol.% MLG and measuring 85 mm square were fabricated by liquid exfoliation of the graphene followed by filtration of the MLG/PVA dispersion. The responses of the MLG/PVA films were compared with those of equal areal mass films of pure PVA and aluminum. The moderately conductive (∼10−2 S cm−1) MLG/PVA films had a Young’s modulus approximately twice that of PVA and a low strain rate (10−3 s−1) peak strength that was about 50% higher. Moreover, while the MLG/PVA films had a tensile strength lower than the Al films, they had a higher load carrying capacity compared to the Al films and were stiffer than the PVA films under Q.S. transverse loading. The ballistic limit of the MLG/PVA films was ∼50% higher than the Al films but the higher ductility of the parent PVA resulted in the pure PVA films having a higher ballistic resistance. The ballistic resistance of the MLG/PVA is well predicted by a membrane stretching analysis and this enables us to present an outlook on the ballistic resistance potential of graphene/PVA composites comprising aligned large flakes.The work was supported by the Office of Naval Research Grant N62909-15-1-N058 (Program manager, Dr. Judah Goldwasser). Dr. B.P. Russell was supported by a Ministry of Defence/Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship (Grant Number RG60007)

Bayesian inference of the spatial distributions of material properties

The inverse problem of estimating the spatial distributions of elastic material properties from noisy strain measurements is ill-posed. However, it is still typically treated as an optimisation problem to maximise a likelihood function that measures the agreement between the measured and theoretically predicted strains. Here we propose an alternative approach employing Bayesian inference with Nested Sampling used to explore parameter space and compute Bayesian evidence. This approach not only aids in identifying the basis function set (referred to here as a model) that best describes the spatial material property distribution but also allows us to estimate the uncertainty in the predictions. Increasingly complex models with more parameters generate very high likelihood solutions and thus are favoured by a maximum likelihood approach. However, these models give poor predictions of the material property distributions with a large associated uncertainty as they overfit the noisy data. On the other hand, the Bayes’ factor peaks for a relatively simple model and indicates that this model is most appropriate even though its likelihood is comparatively low. Intriguingly, even for the appropriate model that has a unique maximum likelihood solution, the measurement noise is amplified to give large errors in the predictions of the maximum likelihood solution. By contrast, the mean of the posterior probability distribution reduces the effect of noise in the data and predicts the material properties with significantly higher fidelity. Simpler model selection criteria such as the Bayesian information criterion are shown to fail due to the non-Gaussian nature of the posterior distribution of the parameters. This makes accurate evaluation of the posterior distribution and the associated Bayesian evidence integral (by Nested Sampling or other means) imperative for this class of problems. The output of the Nested Sampling algorithm is also used to construct likelihood landscapes. These landscapes show the existence of multiple likelihood maxima when there is paucity of data and/or for overly complex models. They thus graphically illustrate the pitfalls in using optimisation methods to search for maximum likelihood solutions in such inverse problems.Royal Societ