An Efficient Multi-PKG Online/Offline Identity-Based Encryption Scheme for Wireless Sensor Network

In this paper, we divide large-scale resource-constrained WSN nodes into several domains, split cryptographic operations into heavy operations and the fast lightweight operations, and present an efficient multi-PKG online/offline identity-based encryption scheme for multi-domain WSN. Most heavy computations such as pairing or exponentiation are done in the offline phase for pre-computation without the receiver's identity or the knowledge of the plaintext. Most fast lightweight operations are done in the online phase, together with the plaintext and the receiver's identity. The online encryption is extremely efficient and easy to be implemented on sensor node. We prove the security of our new scheme in the random oracle model. Compared with the existing schemes, our new scheme is more secure and efficient, which is suitable for multi-domain WSN

Coding the negative emotions of family members and patients among the high-risk preoperative conversations with the Chinese version of VR-CoDES

Abstract Background Little is known about family members' and patients' expression of negative emotions among high‐risk preoperative conversations. Objectives This study aimed to identify the occurrence and patterns of the negative emotions of family members and patients in preoperative conversations, to investigate the conversation themes and to explore the correlation between the negative emotions and the conversation themes. Methods A retrospective study was conducted using the Chinese version of Verona Coding Definitions of Emotional Sequences (VR‐CoDES‐C) to code 297 conversations on high‐risk procedures. Inductive content analysis was used to analyse the topics in which negative emotions nested. The χ2 Test was used to test the association between the cues and the conversation themes. Results The occurrence rate of family members' and patients' negative emotions was very high (85.9%), much higher when compared to most conversations under other medical settings. The negative emotions were mainly expressed by cues (96.4%), and cue‐b (67.4%) was the most frequent category. Cues and concerns were mostly elicited by family members and patients (71.6%). Negative emotions were observed among seven themes, in which ‘Psychological stress relating to illness severity, family's care and financial burden’ (30.3%) ranked the top. Cue‐b, cue‐c and cue‐d had a significant correlation (p < .001) with certain themes. Conclusions Family members and patients conveyed significantly more negative emotions in the high‐risk preoperative conversations than in other medical communications. Certain categories of cues were induced by specific emotional conversation contents. Patient Contribution Family members and patients contributed to data

How physicians respond to negative emotions in high-risk preoperative conversations

This work was supported by the China Medical Board, CMB 14-200.Objective To investigate physicians’ responses to negative emotions in high-risk preoperative conversations; and to explore the influencing factors of these responses. Methods One hundred and sixty-two audio recordings were coded using the Chinese Verona Coding Definition of Emotional Sequences (VR-CoDES). Big Five Personality Inventory Brief Version and Emotional Intelligence Scale were administered to explore the influencing factors of physicians’ responses. SPSS 24.0 and R 3.6.3 LME4 Package were used for data analysis. Results Reduce Space (83%), referring to physicians’ responses reducing the opportunities of patients to disclose emotions, was physicians’ most frequent response to patients or families’ emotions. The main responses were Information-advice (ERIa) and Ignoring (NRIa). Younger age, female, Agreeableness and Openness were factors positively associated with Explicit Provide Space (EP); Neuroticism was negatively correlated with EP. Extroversion was negatively correlated with Explicit Reduce Space (ER); Conscientiousness was negatively correlated with both EP and ER responses. Emotional intelligence had no significant influence on physicians’ responses. Conclusion The majority of physicians were inclined to reduce space by providing information advice or ignoring. Physicians’ responses were correlated with their gender, age and personality traits. Practice Implications The trainees’ gender, age and personality should be considered when conducting doctor-patient communication skills training.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Genetic diversity and association of EST-SSR and SCoT markers with rust traits in orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.)

This article belongs to the Section Molecular Diversity.Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.), is a well-known perennial forage species; however, rust diseases have caused a noticeable reduction in the quality and production of orchardgrass. In this study, genetic diversity was assessed and the marker-trait associations for rust were examined using 18 EST-SSR and 21 SCoT markers in 75 orchardgrass accessions. A high level of genetic diversity was detected in orchardgrass with an average genetic diversity index of 0.369. For the EST-SSR and SCoT markers, 164 and 289 total bands were obtained, of which 148 (90.24%) and 272 (94.12%) were polymorphic, respectively. Results from an AMOVA analysis showed that more genetic variance existed within populations (87.57%) than among populations (12.43%). Using a parameter marker index, the efficiencies of the EST-SSR and SCoT markers were compared to show that SCoTs have higher marker efficiency (8.07) than EST-SSRs (4.82). The results of a UPGMA cluster analysis and a STRUCTURE analysis were both correlated with the geographic distribution of the orchardgrass accessions. Linkage disequilibrium analysis revealed an average r2 of 0.1627 across all band pairs, indicating a high extent of linkage disequilibrium in the material. An association analysis between the rust trait and 410 bands from the EST-SSR and SCoT markers using TASSEL software revealed 20 band panels were associated with the rust trait in both 2011 and 2012. The 20 bands obtained from association analysis could be used in breeding programs for lineage selection to prevent great losses of orchardgrass caused by rust, and provide valuable information for further association mapping using this collection of orchardgrass.This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2014CB138705) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, NSFC (31101760).Peer reviewe

Global μ-Stability Analysis for Impulsive Stochastic Neural Networks with Unbounded Mixed Delays

We investigate the global μ-stability in the mean square of impulsive stochastic neural networks with unbounded time-varying delays and continuous distributed delays. By choosing an appropriate Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, a novel robust stability condition, in the form of linear matrix inequalities, is derived. These sufficient conditions can be tested by MATLAB LMI software packages. The results extend and improve the earlier publication. Two numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results

An improved pairing-free certificateless aggregate signature scheme for healthcare wireless medical sensor networks.

In healthcare wireless medical sensor networks (HWMSNs), the medical sensor nodes are employed to collect medical data which is transmitted to doctors for diagnosis and treatment. In HWMSNs, medical data is vulnerable to various attacks through public channels. In addition, leakage of patients' information happens frequently. Hence, secure communication and privacy preservation are major concerns in HWMSNs. To solve the above issues, Zhan et al. put forward a pairing-free certificateless aggregate signature (PF-CLAS) scheme. However, according to our cryptanalysis, the malicious medical sensor node (MSNi) can generate the forged signature by replacing the public key in the PF-CLAS scheme. Hence, to address this security flaw, we design the improved PF-CLAS scheme that can achieve unforgeability, anonymity, and traceability. Since we have changed the construction of the partial private key, the improved PF-CLAS scheme can resist Type I and Type II attacks under the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm assumption. In terms of the performance evaluation, the proposed scheme outperforms related CLAS schemes, which is more suitable for HWMSNs environments

A Study on the Wettability of Ion-Implanted Stainless and Bearing Steels

To satisfy the harsh service demand of stainless steel and aviation bearing steel, the anticorrosion and wettability behaviors of 9Cr18 stainless steel and M50 bearing steel tailored by ion beam surface modification technology were experimentally investigated. By controlling the ion implantation (F+, N+, N+ + Ti+) or deposition processes, different surface-modified layers and ceramic layers or composite layers with both effects (ion implantation and deposition processes) were obtained on metal surfaces. The wettability was characterized by a contact angle instrument, and the thermodynamics stabilization of ion implantation-treated metals in corrosive solution was evaluated through an electrochemical technique. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was employed for detecting the chemical bonding states of the implanted elements. The results indicated that ion implantation or deposition-induced surface-modified layers or coating layers could increase water contact angles, namely improving hydrophobicity as well as thermodynamic stabilization in corrosive medium. Meanwhile, wettability with lubricant oil was almost not changed. The implanted elements could induce the formation of new phases in the near-surface region of metals, and the wettability behaviors were closely related to the as-formed ceramic components and amorphous sublayer

Fine-Grained Task Access Control System for Mobile Crowdsensing

Mobile crowdsensing enables people to collect and process a massive amount of information by using social resources without any cost on sensor deployment or model training. Many schemes focusing on the problems of task assignment and privacy preservation have been proposed so far. However, the privacy-preserving of requesters and task access control, which are vital to mobile crowdsensing, is barely considered in the literature. To address the aforementioned issues, a fine-grained task access control system for mobile crowdsensing is proposed. In particular, the requester can decide the group of task performers who can access the task by utilizing attribute-based encryption technology. T he untrusted crowdsensing platform cannot obtain any sensitive information concerning the requester or the task, while the qualified task performers are capable of retrieving tasks within 0.85 ms. Security analysis and experimental results are presented to show the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed system

An Network Attack Modeling Method Based on MLL-AT

AbstractIn this paper, the method of modeling attack using attack tree is researched. The main goal is effectively using attack tree to model and express multi-stage network attacks. We expand and improve the traditional attack tree. The attack nodes in traditional attack tree are redefined, and the attack risk of leaf node is quantified. On those basis, the mentality and method of building MLL-AT (Multi-Level & Layer Attack Tree) are proposed. The improved attack tree can model attack more accurately, in particular to multi-stage network attacks. And the new model can also be used to evaluate system's risk, to distinguish between varying system security threat degrees caused by different attack sequences