Awni Itradat

ANALYSIS AND MODELING OF FPGA IMPLEMENTATIONS OF SPATIAL STEGANOGRAPHY METHODS

Steganography has become an important method for concealed communication especially through image files. Recent proposed steganographic methods employ multiple levels of complex techniques. Hence, there is an increasing significance for hardware implementation and its performance metrics. The objective of this article is to analyze and model the performance of FPGA hardware implementations of several spatial steganography methods, including: least significant bit (LSB), random LSB, mix-bit LSB and texture method. This paper presents innovative models to estimate energy-to-embed-secret-bit, peak signal-to-noise-ratio (PSNR) energy cost, power and resources in complex systems. Examining the performance results of the FPGA implementations shows that embedding misalignment degrades the performance, and random embedding increases resources by 43% and power by 13%. Furthermore, the mix-bit method has the best results in terms of balancing the energy consumption and PSNR. Moreover, the accuracy of the model to predict the energy to embed a single secret bit is 2%, and the accuracy of the model to predict complex system performance is 1% for hardware resources and 16.6% for power.

Incorporation of ISO 25010 with machine learning to develop a novel quality in use prediction system (QiUPS)

Guided by the eagerness to fulfill business objectives, quality assurance has become one of the highlighted topics in software engineering. With the rise of globalization and free markets, software users are becoming increasingly powerful with their ability to buy or reject computer software. While there is agreement over achieving quality, there is debate over the definition of quality. To illustrate, literature shows inconsistencies between a software development team definition to quality and a user definition to quality. Recently, there is a tendency amongst researchers to appreciate the need for studying quality from a user prospective. Following a systematic approach, this research attempts to develop a QiUPS, an expert system for predicting quality in use in early software development phases. With the scariness of research data in this field, the research generates a dataset from the documentation of Information, Communication, and E-learning Technology Centre software projects. The research methodology followed a comparative approach as it statistically compared four different classification algorithms (CAs) in terms of accuracy in classifying the research dataset. After that, the research results led the researchers to compare the performance of artificial neural networks with convolutional neural networks in three empirical experiments, which is rarely researched. Finally, the research incorporated the best CA with ISO 25010 in order to develop the novel QiUPS. The research results are consistent and contributive to this rarely researched area.

A Masters Programme in telecommunications management – demand-based curriculum design

This paper presents a curriculum design approach for a Masters Programme in Telecommunications Management based on demand data obtained from surveying the needs of potential students of the proposed programme. Through online surveys disseminated at telecom companies in Jordan, it was possible to measure the demand for such a programme and to determine the required programme contents and specifications. The curriculum design is based on definition of programme outcomes and on using a house of quality approach (HOQ) to determine the list of courses required in the programme. Surveyed competencies are mapped to a long list of proposed courses in a HOQ in order to determine the importance of each of these courses. A final list of core and elective courses is then developed considering the contribution to programme outcomes and the academic standards.

Spectrum trading for routing in a multi service cognitive mesh network

Cognitive networks CNs enable providing service to unlicensed users secondary users, SUs by trading the unused spectrum. In our work, SUs compete with each other for accessing the unused spectrum. PUs rent the surplus spectrum to get some reward. The paper proposes a path discovery based on the cost of spectrum. Minimising the cost of spectrum renting is the key objective for SUs. In our work, the proposed adaptive trading approach for the PU is based on the gain maximising. In this spectrum market, the PU has to decide what price it should charge SUs. The PU changes the price of the spectrum over time based on the demand of spectrum and the competition with other service providers. On the other hand, SUs rent spectrum based on the cost of spectrum. The effectiveness of our routing algorithm in terms of cost minimisation is verified through extensive simulations.

Exact Error Rate Analysis of MIMO-MRC System under Cochannel Interference and Imperfect Channel State Information

In this paper, we derive closed-form solution for the bit error rate of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system with maximum ratio combining. We consider binary PSK modulation suffers from cochannel interference (CCI) and imperfect channel state information (CSI). We assume a propagation model wherein the desired and interfering signals undergo independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels. Furthermore, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain penalty caused by the interference signals and the root mean square of the CSI were demonstrated. The numerical results presented in this paper demonstrate the system performance under very realistic propagation and detection conditions including MIMO system, CCI, imperfect CSI, generalized fading channels, and AWGN. Hence our results are expected to be of significant practical use for such scenarios.