Ali Tufail

An enhanced backbone-assisted reliable framework for wireless sensor networks.

An extremely reliable source to sink communication is required for most of the contemporary WSN applications especially pertaining to military, healthcare and disaster-recovery. However, due to their intrinsic energy, bandwidth and computational constraints, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) encounter several challenges in reliable source to sink communication. In this paper, we present a novel reliable topology that uses reliable hotlines between sensor gateways to boost the reliability of end-to-end transmissions. This reliable and efficient routing alternative reduces the number of average hops from source to the sink. We prove, with the help of analytical evaluation, that communication using hotlines is considerably more reliable than traditional WSN routing. We use reliability theory to analyze the cost and benefit of adding gateway nodes to a backbone-assisted WSN. However, in hotline assisted routing some scenarios where source and the sink are just a couple of hops away might bring more latency, therefore, we present a Signature Based Routing (SBR) scheme. SBR enables the gateways to make intelligent routing decisions, based upon the derived signature, hence providing lesser end-to-end delay between source to the sink communication. Finally, we evaluate our proposed hotline based topology with the help of a simulation tool and show that the proposed topology provides manifold increase in end-to-end reliability.

Reliable Latency-Aware Routing for Clustered WSNs

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are persistently evolving from merely a notion of microelectronics to a new realm of practical applications. Certain critical applications like disaster management, healthcare, and military not only require exceptionally reliable but also a low-latency source to sink communication. Nevertheless, low source to sink latency is of utmost importance in these kinds of applications. In this paper, a unique latency-sensitive reliable routing protocol for WSNs has been proposed. This protocol uses the concept of hotlines (highly reliable links) and also utilizes alternative routes to reduce the number of hops from the source to the sink. This reduction of hops not only reduces the end-to-end latency but also increases the reliability manifold. The proposed protocol is evaluated with the help of simulation. The simulation suggests that the proposed routing protocol outperforms previously suggested routing protocols in terms of average end-to-end latency and reliability.

An empirical study to analyze the feasibility of WIFI for VANETs

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are the relevant form of ubiquitous computing. Several protocols are being developed for V2R (vehicle to road side) and V2V (vehicle to vehicle) communication and the notion of intelligent vehicles is nurturing very rapidly. We have tested the existing WIFI protocol for V2V communication especially at high speed. We have proved, with the help of real life experiments and analytical justification, that WIFI is a successful means of communication between vehicles even at very high speed (i.e. 120 mph relative). Furthermore, several useful and novel applications (like parking, tourist information center, congestion control, advertisement campaign, shortest route, weather reporting, file sharing and on-board gaming) are suggested.

WEAMR — A Weighted Energy Aware Multipath Reliable Routing Mechanism for Hotline-Based WSNs

Reliable source to sink communication is the most important factor for an efficient routing protocol especially in domains of military, healthcare and disaster recovery applications. We present weighted energy aware multipath reliable routing (WEAMR), a novel energy aware multipath routing protocol which utilizes hotline-assisted routing to meet such requirements for mission critical applications. The protocol reduces the number of average hops from source to destination and provides unmatched reliability as compared to well known reactive ad hoc protocols i.e., AODV and AOMDV. Our protocol makes efficient use of network paths based on weighted cost calculation and intelligently selects the best possible paths for data transmissions. The path cost calculation considers end to end number of hops, latency and minimum energy node value in the path. In case of path failure path recalculation is done efficiently with minimum latency and control packets overhead. Our evaluation shows that our proposal provides better end-to-end delivery with less routing overhead and higher packet delivery success ratio compared to AODV and AOMDV. The use of multipath also increases overall life time of WSN network using optimum energy available paths between sender and receiver in WDNs.

A Hotline-Based Reliable Topology for Wireless Sensor Networks

Many anticipated deployment scenarios, in particular military, healthcare, and disaster-recovery applications, of Wireless Sensor Networks require reliable source to sink communication. In this paper, we introduce a novel reliable topology that uses hotlines between sensor gateways to enhance the reliability of end-to-end transmissions. These hotlines reduce the number of average hops from source to the sink and serve as reliable and efficient backbone routing alternatives. We show analytically that communication using hotlines is noticeably more reliable than traditional Wireless Sensor Networks routing.

Analyzing Potential of SVM Based Classifiers for Intelligent and Less Invasive Breast Cancer Prognosis

Accurate and less invasive personalized predictive medicine relieves many breast cancer patients from agonizingly complex surgical treatments, their colossal costs and primarily letting the patient to forgo the morbidity of a treatment that proffers no benefit. Cancer prognosis estimates recurrence of disease and predict survival of patient; hence resulting in improved patient management. Support Vector Machines (SVMs) are shown to be powerful tools for analyzing data sets where there are complicated nonlinear interactions between the input data and the information to be predicted. In this paper, we have targeted this strength of SVMs to analyze the potential of classification through feature vectors for predicting the survival chances of a breast cancer patient. Experiments were performed using different types of SVM algorithms analyzing their classification efficiency using different kernel parameters. SEER breast cancer data set (1973-2003), the most comprehensible source of information on cancer incidence in United States, is considered. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy parameters along with RoC curves have been used to explain the performance of each SVM algorithm with different kernel types.

A survey of prediction models for breast cancer survivability

Breast cancer prognosis poses a great challenge to the researchers. Recently, there have been breakthroughs in the field of bioinformatics and because of that a new realm of breast cancer prognosis has opened. The use of machine learning and data mining techniques has revolutionized the whole process of breast cancer prognosis. In this paper we present a survey of those models that are being used to enhance the breast cancer prognosis prediction. Firstly, we introduce these models and secondly we give an overview of the current research being carried out using these models. We specify different level of accuracies being claimed by different researchers. Lastly, we conclude that despite the ongoing research efforts towards achieving better capabilities for prediction system, we still need much more to build a more accurate and less invasive prognostic system that can benefit the mankind.

On the reliability of backbone-assisted end-to-end transmissions in WSNs

Many anticipated deployment scenarios, in particular military, healthcare, and disaster-recovery applications, of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) require reliable source to sink communication. Since transmission range of sensors is quite limited, to achieve higher end-to-end transmission reliability, WSNs generally employ intermediate backbone links (wired or wireless) that can deliver packets at larger distances. In this paper, we evaluate the reliability of backbone-assisted routing and dissemination in WSNs. In particular, we use reliability theory to investigate two important problems: a) if sensor node to backbone/gateway node ratio is fixed in a unit area, what is the maximum achievable reliability? b) How many wired hops or gateway nodes are required to achieve a given reliability? Finally we analyze the cost and benefit incurred by adding gateway nodes to a backbone-assisted WSN and observe that after a certain threshold adding more backbone nodes to the WSN provides negligible improvement in the overall end-to-end reliability.

A Reliable and Secure Hybrid Key Management Scheme for WSNs

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have shown a tremendous growth by evolving from merely a concept to a multifaceted realm of real world applications. This increase in growth and popularity is due to the fact that WSNs provide potentially low cost and cutting edge solutions to a range of critical problems like in healthcare, disaster management. Nevertheless, WSNs have some intrinsic security threats due to the wireless communication, unattended nature of deployment and sometimes harsh environment. Therefore, securing the WSN communication is a major concern. Public Key Cryptography (PKC) holds the capacity to provide much needed security to WSN; however, it is considered to be an expensive option for a resource constrained network. Symmetric Key Cryptography (SKC) is thought to be lightweight and therefore can be considered ideal for resource starved WSN, nevertheless, it has downsides too. In this paper, we exploit the strengths of both PKC and SKC and present a distinctive secure and reliable key management scheme for the backbone assisted WSNs. We make use of PKC for the node authentication and communication between the resource rich nodes i.e. gateway nodes. SKC is primarily used by the resource constrained sensor nodes. We prove that our scheme facilitates in discovering and minimizing the effect of various attacks like selective forwarding attack, sinkhole attack, and wormhole attack. We evaluate performance of our proposed scheme and compare it with the existing approaches. We prove that our scheme performs much better and incurs very less memory, computation and communication overhead as compared to the existing key management schemes.

Relay Node Deployment for a Reliable and Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been increasingly deployed for ambient data reporting for varied settings. Certain applications like industrial monitoring, healthcare and military require a highly reliable source to the sink communication link. Due to limited energy WSNs pose additional challenge to the reliable source to the sink communication. Fast energy drainage can cause a link failure, hence affecting the overall reliability. In this paper, a novel three tiered multi-hop scheme has been introduced. At first level there are sensor nodes for sensing, at second level there are relay nodes for relaying and at the third level there are gateway nodes for managing the cluster and communicating to and from the cluster. By distributing the load among these three tiered nodes, overall node and network lifetime can be greatly increased. With the help of reduced energy consumption and less end-to-end hops this schemes guarantees a reliable source to the sink communication.