Management and Security of IoT systems using Microservices

Devices that assist the user with some task or help them to make an informed decision are called smart devices. A network of such devices connected to internet are collectively called as Internet of Things (IoT). The applications of IoT are expanding exponentially and are becoming a part of our day to day lives. The rise of IoT led to new security and management issues. In this project, we propose a solution for some major problems faced by the IoT devices, including the problem of complexity due to heterogeneous platforms and the lack of IoT device monitoring for security and fault tolerance. We aim to solve the above issues in a microservice architecture. We build a data pipeline for IoT devices to send data through a messaging platform Kafka and monitor the devices using the collected data by making real time dashboards and a machine learning model to give better insights of the data. For proof of concept, we test the proposed solution on a heterogeneous cluster, including Raspberry Pi’s and IoT devices from different vendors. We validate our design by presenting some simple experimental results

Secularism vs. Sectarianism

Tharun Venkat explores the root causes of modern-day conflicts in India over political-religious questions and the role of the consititutional principle of secularism

Digital Labeling and Narrative Mapping in Mobile Remote Audio Signage: Verbalization of Routes and Generation of New Verbal Route Descriptions from Existing Route Sets

Independent navigation is a great challenge for people with visual impairments. In this project, we have designed and implemented an assisted navigation solution based on the ability of visually impaired travelers to interpret and contextualize verbal route descriptions. Previous studies have validated that if a route is verbally described in sufficient and appropriate manner then VI can use their orientation and mobility skills to successfully follow the route. In this project, we do not consider the issue how the VI will interpret the route descriptions, but we aim to identify and generate new verbal route descriptions from the existing route descriptions. We discuss different algorithms that we have used for extracting the landmarks, building graphs and generation of new route descriptions from existing route info

Prequalification in municipal solid waste management public-private partnerships of India

Prequalification (PQ) is a significant process in the selection of private sector for the delivery of civil infrastructure projects.  But, the extant literature, for the most part, focused on PQ of construction projects.  The need for setting proper PQ, i.e., criteria and corresponding limits in public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects, especially municipal solid waste (MSW) projects is still a lacuna in the body of knowledge of Indian PPPs.  To this end, this paper identified PQ criteria using content analysis of the sample of MSW projects. These identified criteria were subjected to regression modeling. These results were compared with the results of well-matured highway sector to draw comparison with MSW projects.  The practical implications are that urban local bodies (ULBs) are but less competent and less uniform in the rationale of setting the PQ criteria and limits.  This paper suggests that lowering the technical and financial PQ limits considering the market orientation will help in bringing more competitive bidders into the bidding.   Since MSW is in a very nascent stage of application of PPP, the study results could lay directions for future project procurement to discern right limits for right project sizes

Argumentation among self-driving vehicles

In this day and age where the number of vehicles that are being used on highways and roads has been increasing considerably, there is a need for a global driving technique, or a driving phenomenon, where the vehicles can communicate with each other and maintain efficient driving positions by automating the process without the help of a human driver. With the available technology, self-driving cars are already under the spotlight, but these vehicles only offer limited support to the driver and they require human input in the process of driving. Argumentation techniques can be used to develop an efficient algorithm to resolve the conflicts between Agents i.e vehicles to allow safer travel, reduced emissions and better traffic distribution over road networks. Considering the importance of cooperative driving. platoon transition that has been overlooked in the existing research, our implementation tests the use of an Argumentation technique, on top of the platoons, providing an edge over the existing work related to self-driving vehicles. Utilizing the Argumentation allowed an effective way in resolving the conflicts among platoon leaders allowing a smoother transition of platoon groups. The conducted experiment compared the traffic flow of vehicles between two scenarios namely cooperative driving and non-cooperative driving, deriving the results that showcase the advantages of cooperative driving and also the role of argumentation in conflict resolution among vehicle agents