Raquel Lacuesta

A Secure Protocol for Spontaneous Wireless Ad Hoc Networks Creation

This paper presents a secure protocol for spontaneous wireless ad hoc networks which uses an hybrid symmetric/asymmetric scheme and the trust between users in order to exchange the initial data and to exchange the secret keys that will be used to encrypt the data. Trust is based on the first visual contact between users. Our proposal is a complete self-configured secure protocol that is able to create the network and share secure services without any infrastructure. The network allows sharing resources and offering new services among users in a secure environment. The protocol includes all functions needed to operate without any external support. We have designed and developed it in devices with limited resources. Network creation stages are detailed and the communication, protocol messages, and network management are explained. Our proposal has been implemented in order to test the protocol procedure and performance. Finally, we compare the protocol with other spontaneous ad hoc network protocols in order to highlight its features and we provide a security analysis of the system.

Two secure and energy-saving spontaneous ad-hoc protocol for wireless mesh client networks

We can find many cases where a spontaneous wireless ad-hoc network must be built for a limited period of time in a wireless mesh network: meetings, conferences, etc. One of the main aspects in a spontaneous network is to provide security mechanisms to the users. Confidentially, integrity, authentication, availability and no-repudiation should be provided for all the users in the network and the information should travel ciphered through the network. This paper shows two secure spontaneous wireless ad-hoc network protocols for wireless mesh clients that are based on the computational costs: the weak and the strong one. They are based on the trust of the users and guarantee a secure protocol between the users and the mesh routers. Both protocols provide node authenticity, intermediate node authenticity, integrity checking, random checking, verification distribution and erroneous packets elimination (before they arrive to the destination). The protocol procedure, its messages and development are explained in detail. Finally, we will compare their energy consumption with other secure protocols. The comparison will prove their benefits.

A spontaneous ad hoc network to share WWW access

In this paper, we propose a secure spontaneous ad-hoc network, based on direct peer-to-peer interaction, to grant a quick, easy, and secure access to the users to surf the Web. The paper shows the description of our proposal, the procedure of the nodes involved in the system, the security algorithms implemented, and the designed messages. We have taken into account the security and its performance. Although some people have defined and described the main features of spontaneous ad-hoc networks, nobody has published any design and simulation until today. Spontaneous networking will enable a more natural form of wireless computing when people physically meet in the real world. We also validate the success of our proposal through several simulations and comparisons with a regular architecture, taking into account the optimization of the resources of the devices. Finally, we compare our proposal with other caching techniques published in the related literature. The proposal has been developed with the main objective of improving the communication and integration between different study centers of low-resource communities. That is, it lets communicate spontaneous networks, which are working collaboratively and which have been created on different physical places.

Active learning through problem based learning methodology in engineering education

The main objective of this experience lies on the development of positive learning aptitudes on engineering students. The experience presented in this paper has been carried out with the help of the problem-based learning (PBL) methodology. Solutions of medium-high complexity problems by students make them work on the development of different skills. The teaching model turns into a significant and autonomous learning model where students are conscious of their compromise with this process (learning). The obtained results are a starting point to other authors willing to use active learning methodologies within the framework of engineering degrees. Both lecturers and students involved in the experience have done a positive assessment of the methodology.

Ubiquitous Monitoring of Electrical Household Appliances

The number of appliances at home is increasing continuously, mainly because they make our lives easier. Currently, technology is integrated in all objects of our daily life. TCP/IP let us monitor our home in real time and check ubiquitously if something is happening at home. Bearing in mind this idea, we have developed a low-cost system, which can be used in any type of electrical household appliance that takes information from the appliance and posts the information to the Twitter Social network. Several sensors placed in the household appliances gather the sensed data and send them wired or wirelessly, depending on the case, using small and cheap devices to a gateway located in the home. This gateway takes decisions, based on the received data, and sends notifications to Twitter. We have developed a software application that takes the values and decides when to issue an alarm to the registered users (Twitter friends of our smart home). The performance of our system has been measured taking into account the home network (using IEEE 802.3u and IEEE 802.11g) and the data publishing in Twitter. As a result, we have generated an original product and service for any electrical household appliance, regardless of the model and manufacturer, that helps home users improve their quality of life. The paper also shows that there is no system with the same innovative features like the ones presented in this paper.

IPTV distribution network access system using WiMAX and WLAN technologies

The mobility and ubiquity for any type of device to access the IPTV network must be supplied by the service provider. The minimum bandwidth required in the access network to provide IPTV services jointly with the necessity to guarantee the Quality of Experience (QoE) to the user makes the need of algorithms to combine different wireless standards and technologies in the access network. In this paper, we propose a system that decides which type of wireless access network to connect with (for dual-band and tri-band devices) depending on the requirements of the IPTV client, the available networks, and some network parameters, such as the number of loss packets and packet delay, to provide the maximum QoE to the customer. The measurements taken in a real environment from the wireless networks allow us to know the weight of the parameters in the proposed algorithm.

Spontaneous Ad Hoc Mobile Cloud Computing Network

Cloud computing helps users and companies to share computing resources instead of having local servers or personal devices to handle the applications. Smart devices are becoming one of the main information processing devices. Their computing features are reaching levels that let them create a mobile cloud computing network. But sometimes they are not able to create it and collaborate actively in the cloud because it is difficult for them to build easily a spontaneous network and configure its parameters. For this reason, in this paper, we are going to present the design and deployment of a spontaneous ad hoc mobile cloud computing network. In order to perform it, we have developed a trusted algorithm that is able to manage the activity of the nodes when they join and leave the network. The paper shows the network procedures and classes that have been designed. Our simulation results using Castalia show that our proposal presents a good efficiency and network performance even by using high number of nodes.

TABSAOND: A technique for developing agent-based simulation apps and online tools with nondeterministic decisions

Abstract Agent-based simulators (ABSs) have successfully allowed practitioners to estimate the outcomes of certain input circumstances in several domains. Although some techniques and processes provide hints about the construction of these systems, some aspects have not been discussed yet in the literature. In this context, the current approach presents a technique for developing ABSs. Its focus is to guide practitioners in designing and implementing the decision-making processes of agents in nondeterministic scenarios. As an additional technological innovation, the ABSs are deployed as both mobile apps and online tools. This work illustrates the current approach with two case studies in the fields of (a) health and welfare and (b) tourism. These case studies have also been developed with the most similar technique from the literature for comparing both techniques. The presented technique improved the simulated outcomes in terms of their similarity with the real ones. The obtained ABSs were more efficient and reliable for large amounts of agents (e.g. 10,000 – 400,000 agents). The development time was lower. Both the framework and the implementation of a case study are freely distributed as open-source to facilitate the reproducibility of the experiments and to assist practitioners in applying the current approach.

Internet of things: where to be is to trust

Networks’ creation is getting more and more required, anytime, anywhere. Devices that can participate on these networks can be quite different among them. Sensors, mobiles, home appliances, or other type of devices will have to collaborate to increase and improve the services provided to clients. In the same way, network configuration, security mechanisms establishment, and optimal performance control must be done by them. Some of these devices could have limited resources to work, sometimes even resources restriction not existing, they must work to optimize network traffic. In this article, we center our researching on spontaneous networks. We propose a secure spontaneous ad-hoc network, based on direct peer-to-peer interaction and communities’ creation to grant a quick, easy, and secure access to users to surf the Web. Each device will have an identity in the network. Each community will also have an identity and will act as a unity on a world based on Internet connection. Security will be established in the moment they access to the network through the use of the trust chain generated by nodes. Trust is modified by each node on the basis of nodes behavior.

Factors with Negative Influence on Software Testing Practice in Spain: A Survey

Software testing is the commonest technique for software quality assurance. It is present in every development project and concentrates a large percentage of effort, there are still not many studies which address the real practice of individuals and organizations. Anyway, practitioners usually agree with the idea that software testing efficiency and effectiveness in their organizations might be improved. Two previous studies in Spain have revealed implemented testing practices in organizations and individual performance of software professionals when designing test cases should be improved. This paper presents the results of a survey designed to know if 23 factors determined by a panel of experts in 2007 may explain this situation of testing practice. Data collected reveal that none of the factors is clearly rejected as a negative influence for testing although some of them are not generally accepted. Exploratory statistical analysis reveals relations between certain pairs of items as well as a new grouping in factors.