Performance evaluation of LoRaWAN for Green Internet of Things

LoRa is a long-range, low power and single-hop wireless technology that has been envisioned for Internet of Things (IoT) applications having battery driven nodes. Nevertheless, increase in number of end devices and varying throughput requirements impair the performance of pure Aloha in LoRaWAN. Considering these limitations, we evaluate the performance of slotted Aloha in LoRaWAN using extensive simulations. We employed packet error rate (PER), throughput, delay, and energy consumption of devices under different payload sizes and varying number of end devices as benchmarks. Moreover, an analytical analysis of backlogged and non-backlogged under slotted Aloha LoRaWAN environment is also performed. The simulation shows promising results in terms of PER and throughput compared to the pure Aloha. However, increase in delay has been observed during experimental evaluation.Finally, we endorse slotted aloha LoRaWAN for Green IoT Environment

Distance-Based and Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) comprises small sensor nodes with limited energy capabilities. The power constraints of WSNs necessitate efficient energy utilization to extend the overall network lifetime of these networks. We propose a distance-based and low-energy adaptive clustering (DISCPLN) protocol to streamline the green issue of efficient energy utilization in WSNs. We also enhance our proposed protocol into the multi-hop-DISCPLN protocol to increase the lifetime of the network in terms of high throughput with minimum delay time and packet loss. We also propose the mobile-DISCPLN protocol to maintain the stability of the network. The modelling and comparison of these protocols with their corresponding benchmarks exhibit promising results

Probing Liquid-Ordered and Disordered Phases in Lipid Model Membranes: A Combined Theoretical and Spectroscopic Study of a Fluorescent Molecular Rotor

An integrated theoretical/experimental strategy has been applied to the study of environmental effects on the spectroscopic parameters of 4-(diphenylamino)phtalonitrile (DPAP), a fluorescent molecular rotor. The computational part starts from the development of an effective force field for the first excited electronic state of DPAP and proceeds through molecular dynamics simulations in solvents of different polarities toward the evaluation of Stokes shifts by quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) approaches. The trends of the computed results closely parallel the available experimental results thus giving confidence to the interpretation of new experimental studies of the photophysics of DPAP in lipid bilayers. In this context, results show unambiguously that both flexible dihedral angles and global rotations are significantly retarded in a cholesterol/DPPC lipid matrix with respect to the DOPC matrix, thus confirming the sensitivity of DPAP to probe different environments and, therefore, its applicability as a probe for detecting different structures and levels of plasma membrane organization

Survey on network virtualization using openflow: Taxonomy, opportunities, and open issues

The popularity of network virtualization has recently regained considerable momentum because of the emergence of OpenFlow technology. It is essentially decouples a data plane from a control plane and promotes hardware programmability. Subsequently, OpenFlow facilitates the implementation of network virtualization. This study aims to provide an overview of different approaches to create a virtual network using OpenFlow technology. The paper also presents the OpenFlow components to compare conventional network architecture with OpenFlow network architecture, particularly in terms of the virtualization. A thematic OpenFlow network virtualization taxonomy is devised to categorize network virtualization approaches. Several testbeds that support OpenFlow network virtualization are discussed with case studies to show the capabilities of OpenFlow virtualization. Moreover, the advantages of popular OpenFlow controllers that are designed to enhance network virtualization is compared and analyzed. Finally, we present key research challenges that mainly focus on security, scalability, reliability, isolation, and monitoring in the OpenFlow virtual environment. Numerous potential directions to tackle the problems related to OpenFlow network virtualization are likewise discussed

Criminal Behavior Identification Using Social Media Forensics

Human needs consist of five levels, which are: physiological needs, safety needs, love needs, esteem needs and self-actualization. All these needs lead to human behavior. If the environment of a person is positive, healthy behavior is developed. However, if the environment of the person is not healthy, it can be reflected in his/her behavior. Machines are intelligent enough to mimic human intelligence by using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques. In the modern era, people tend to post their everyday life events on social media in the form of comments, pictures, videos, etc. Therefore, social media is a significant way of knowing certain behaviors of people such as abusive, aggressive, frustrated and offensive behaviors. Behavior detection by crawling the social media profile of a person is a crucial and important idea. The challenge of behavior detection can be sorted out by applying social media forensics on social media profiles, which involves NLP and deep learning techniques. This paper is based on the study of state of the art work on behavior detection, and based on the research, a model is proposed for behavior detection. The proposed model outperformed with an F1 score of 87% in the unigram + bigram class, and in the bigram + trigram class, it gave an F1 score of 88% when compared with models applied on state of the art work. This study is a great benefit to cybercrime and cyber-security agencies in shortlisting the profiles containing certain behaviors to prevent crimes in the future

Criminal Behavior Identification Using Social Media Forensics

Human needs consist of five levels, which are: physiological needs, safety needs, love needs, esteem needs and self-actualization. All these needs lead to human behavior. If the environment of a person is positive, healthy behavior is developed. However, if the environment of the person is not healthy, it can be reflected in his/her behavior. Machines are intelligent enough to mimic human intelligence by using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques. In the modern era, people tend to post their everyday life events on social media in the form of comments, pictures, videos, etc. Therefore, social media is a significant way of knowing certain behaviors of people such as abusive, aggressive, frustrated and offensive behaviors. Behavior detection by crawling the social media profile of a person is a crucial and important idea. The challenge of behavior detection can be sorted out by applying social media forensics on social media profiles, which involves NLP and deep learning techniques. This paper is based on the study of state of the art work on behavior detection, and based on the research, a model is proposed for behavior detection. The proposed model outperformed with an F1 score of 87% in the unigram + bigram class, and in the bigram + trigram class, it gave an F1 score of 88% when compared with models applied on state of the art work. This study is a great benefit to cybercrime and cyber-security agencies in shortlisting the profiles containing certain behaviors to prevent crimes in the future

Survey on network virtualization using openflow: Taxonomy, opportunities, and open issues

The popularity of network virtualization has recently regained considerable momentum because of the emergence of OpenFlow technology. It is essentially decouples a data plane from a control plane and promotes hardware programmability. Subsequently, OpenFlow facilitates the implementation of network virtualization. This study aims to provide an overview of different approaches to create a virtual network using OpenFlow technology. The paper also presents the OpenFlow components to compare conventional network architecture with OpenFlow network architecture, particularly in terms of the virtualization. A thematic OpenFlow network virtualization taxonomy is devised to categorize network virtualization approaches. Several testbeds that support OpenFlow network virtualization are discussed with case studies to show the capabilities of OpenFlow virtualization. Moreover, the advantages of popular OpenFlow controllers that are designed to enhance network virtualization is compared and analyzed. Finally, we present key research challenges that mainly focus on security, scalability, reliability, isolation, and monitoring in the OpenFlow virtual environment. Numerous potential directions to tackle the problems related to OpenFlow network virtualization are likewise discussed

Temperature Dependence of the Structure and Dynamics of a Dye-Labeled Lipid in a Planar Phospholipid Bilayer: A Computational Study

Fluorescent probes are widely employed to label lipids for the investigation of structural and dynamic properties of model and cell membranes through optical microscopy techniques. Although the effect of tagging a lipid with an organic dye is generally assumed to be negligible, optically modified lipids can nonetheless affect the local lipid structure and, in turn, the lipid lateral mobility. To better assess this potential issue, all-atom (MD) molecular dynamics simulations have been performed to study structural and dynamic effects in a model DOPC membrane in the presence of a standard Rhodamine B-labeled DOPE lipid (RHB) as a function of temperature, i.e., 293 K, 303 K, and 320 K. As the temperature is increased, we observe similar changes in the structural properties of both pure DOPC and RHB-DOPC lipid bilayers: an increase of the area per lipid, a reduction of the membrane thickness and a decrease of lipid order parameters. The partial density profile of the RHB headgroups and their orientation within the lipid bilayer confirm the amphiphilic nature of the RHB fluorescent moiety, which mainly partitions in the DOPC glycerol backbone region at each temperature. Moreover, at all temperatures, our results on lipid lateral diffusion support a non-neutral role of the dye with respect to the unlabeled lipid mobility, thus suggesting important implications for optical microscopy studies of lipid membranes

In silico investigation of the interaction between the voltage-gated potassium channel Kv4.3 and its auxiliary protein KChIP1

The voltage-gated potassium channel Kv4.3 plays a vital role in shaping the timing, frequency, and backpropagation of electrical signals in the brain and heart by generating fast transient currents at subthreshold membrane potentials in repetitive firing neurons. To achieve its physiological function, Kv4.3 is assisted by auxiliary \u3b2-subunits that become integral parts of the native A-type potassium channels, among which there are the Kv channel-interacting proteins (KChIPs). KChIPs are a family of cytosolic proteins that, when coexpressed with Kv4, lead to higher current density, modulation of channel inactivation and faster recovery from inactivation, while the loss of KChIP function may lead to severe pathological states. Recently, the structural basis of the KChIP1-Kv4.3 interaction was reported by using two similar X-ray crystallographic structures, which supported a crucial role for KChIP1 in enhancing the stability of the Kv4.3 tetrameric assembly, thus helping the trafficking of the channel to the plasma membrane. Here, we investigate through fully atomistic simulations the structure and stability of the human Kv4.3 tetramerization (T1) domain in complex with KChIP1 upon specific mutations located in the first and second interfaces of the complex, as compared to the wild-type (WT). Our results nicely complement the available structural and biophysical information collected so far on these complex variants. In particular, the degree of structural deviations and energetic instability, from small to substantial, observed in these variants with respect to the WT model seems to parallel well the level of channel dysfunction known from electrophysiology data. Our simulations provide an octameric structure of the WT KChIP1-Kv4.3 assembly very similar to the known crystal structures, and, at the same time, highlight the importance of a previously overlooked site of interaction between KChIP1 and the Kv4.3 T1 domain