Seyed A Shahrestani

The Role of Fuzzy Awareness Modelling in Cooperative Management

Cooperative management is concerned with the management of networks and services involving the cooperation of a number of human/organizational entities. One of the prerequisites for efficient management of these complex systems is related to understanding of the roles of humans and the ways hey interact with each other. Cooperative management Methodology for Enterprise Networks (CoMEN) achieves these objectives by defining an abstract measure of cooperation called Awareness level that is based on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) concepts and techniques. In view of the abstract nature of the awareness level definitions, it is not clear how abstract awareness levels can be accurately translated into equivalent cooperative management design parameters. This paper explores the notion of fuzzy sets that enables the use of linguistic values for awareness levels. This is aimed at unveiling of the deficiencies in the existing collaborative support tools with a view to developing more effective cooperative applications. We also model the CSCW tools in terms of repositories and communication mechanisms using fuzzy notions with a view to arrive at a formal design methodology for cooperative management systems. The idea has been illustrated with a case study in a large telecom organization.

A contextual-adaptive Location Disclosure Agent for general devices in the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to transform our daily lives and societies. This is, at least in part, due to its massively distributed and ubiquitous nature. To realize the benefits of the IoT, security and privacy issues associated with the use of the IoT need to be identified and addressed properly. In this paper, our focus is on protecting the privacy of the users of location-based services in the IoT. To achieve this protection, we propose a context-aware adaptive approach for general devices in the IoT, where the general devices are used by users in accessing the location-based services. The proposed approach is based on developing and utilizing an agent to manage location privacy in the context of requested network-based services. The results of an experiment conducted to show the effectiveness and efficiency of this approach are also reported.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS: NEW INTEROPERABILITY , MANAGEMENT AND SECURITY CHALLENGES

The Internet of Things (IoT) brings connectivity to about every objects found in the physical space. It extends connectivity to everyday objects. From connected fridges, cars and cities, the IoT creates opportunities in numerous domains. However, this increase in connectivity creates many prominent challenges. This paper provides a survey of some of the major issues challenging the widespread adoption of the IoT. Particularly, it focuses on the interoperability, management, security and privacy issues in the IoT. It is concluded that there is a need to develop a multifaceted technology approach to IoT security, management, and privacy.

Adaptive recognition by specialized grouping of classes

An algorithm for establishment of class membership conditions, based on making evident the differences among patterns in a labeled training set, is described. Classes in the training set are grouped together in such a way that their exclusive feature values within a group become evident. By making use of these distinctive features and their values, classification of all patterns will be achieved. Identification of faults in a power distribution network is taken as a test case, where after a thorough training, very fast and successful recognition is achieved.

A Smart Home Application Based on the Internet of Things Management Platform

The Internet of Things is an emerging research area promising many interesting solutions to various problems encountered in various domains. The ever-expanding networks of sensors, actuators and smart devices on the Internet of Things, will raise interesting challenges for service and network management. This paper explores these challenges and expands on an already proposed management platform for the Internet of Things. The platform offers a management solution for things, specifically constrained things that suffer from limited computation and power resources. Also, this work introduces and demonstrates some of the monitoring and control management capabilities provided by the proposed platform. The results of a smart home experiment conducted to show the advantages of this platform are also reported.

A review of mobile location privacy in the Internet of Things

The goal of Internet of Things (IoT) research is to extend computing and connectivity to anything, anyone, anywhere and anytime. While there are apparent benefits in using IoT systems, the convergence of technologies has begun to challenge the privacy of users. Powered by location based services, these systems have the potential to enable a systematic mass surveillance and to impinge on the personal privacy of users, especially their location privacy. This paper overviews some of the existing location privacy issues found on mobile devices. Particular attention is paid to the current access permission mechanism used on the Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile platforms. It is anticipated that the current privacy issues in mobile platforms are more likely to be inherited if not magnified in the IoT.

A semantic obfuscation technique for the Internet of Things

Although some people might willingly reveal their location information in order to obtain location-based services, few would be comfortable having their locations collected and profiled by the billions of things envisioned in the Internet of Things (IoT), at all time and in all situations. The diffusion of wireless communication networks and the technical advancements of location positioning techniques, power things of the IoT with the capabilities of automatically sensing, communicating, and processing the information about a persons location, with a high degree of spatial and temporal precision. In this work, we address the location privacy issue by introducing the Semantic Obfuscation technique (S-Obfuscation). This technique, compared to classical geometric-based obfuscation techniques, relies on geographic knowledge to produce obfuscated locations that are harder to be detected as fake or obfuscated by an adversary. The obfuscation process is supported by our novel use of ontological classification of locations based on a geographical knowledge.

Wireless VPNs: an evaluation of QoS metrics and measures

In this paper, the analysis and experimental results for an evaluation of the quality of service (QoS) of virtual private networks (VPNs) over an IEEE 802.11b wireless network are presented. A comprehensive set of measurements on the application throughput, packet loss, CPU utilisation, and round-trip delay for different traffic conditions are obtained and analysed. These results and analysis further indicate the degree of contribution made by the packet generation rate, the payload data size, and the CPU processing power on the overall performance of a wireless VPN under general enough circumstances.

Neural-net-based nonlinear control for prevention of voltage collapse

In this paper, power system stability is addressed which includes the regular, generator-angle, transient stability and load-driven voltage instability. Flexible ac transmission systems (FACTS) devices are utilized for improvement of power transfer capability as well as enhancement of power system stability. Techniques are developed for synthesis of nonlinear neural controllers to deal with the situation where generator dynamics and load dynamics are interlinked so that voltage instability or even voltage collapse is more likely to occur. The simulations illustrate the performance of the synthesized neural controllers. The techniques developed can be readily generalized to more general nonlinear power systems.

Quality of service concerns in wireless and cellular networks

The increasing popularity of wireless and cellular networks multimedia traffic among the consumers has raised new demands for investigation of their underlying Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of experience (QoE) requirements. In this work, we carry out an application-based analysis of such requirements. Using this approach, we can properly take into account the heterogeneous nature of the underlying networks and the diversity of their traffic. There are several other reasons that justify the use of this approach. For instance, different QoS expectations and user Quality of Experience (QoE) in developed and developing countries can be mentioned. Many parts of the developing world are highly dependent on wireless and cellular technologies, while the provision of socioeconomic services in industrialized countries is generally based on conventional broadband and advanced cellular systems. Clearly, the variations of the underlying networking technologies perturb the QoS and QoE. So, we also examine the relationship between network QoS and QoE to propose a conceptual mapping between them. To achieve these aims, we first evaluate QoS requirements for network-based applications over different access technologies. To reach tangible outcomes, we then focus on UMTS based 3G cellular networks and WiMAX, and analyze several network-based applications with different path loss models, varying number of active users, and diverse types of traffic. The results exhibit that variant technologies, network congestions, user perceptions, and radio channel conditions affect QoS and QoE parameters to a certain extent.