Shabana Mehfuz

Securing Software as a Service Model of Cloud Computing: Issues and Solutions

Cloud computing, undoubtedly, has become the buzzword in the IT industry today. Looking at the potential impact it has on numerous business applications as well as in our everyday life, it can certainly be said that this disruptive technology is here to stay. Many of the features that make cloud computing attractive, have not just challenged the existing security system, but have also revealed new security issues. This paper provides an insightful analysis of the existing status on cloud computing security issues based on a detailed survey carried by the author. It also makes an attempt to describe the security challenges in Software as a Service (SaaS) model of cloud computing and also endeavors to provide future security research directions.

Swarm intelligent power-aware detection of unauthorized and compromised nodes in MANETs

Characteristics of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) such as lack of central coordination, mobility of hosts, and limited availability of resources make quality of service (QoS) provisioning very challenging. Limited resource availability such as battery power and insecure medium is one of the major QoS issues to be dealt with. In this paper, we have proposed a new secure power-aware ant routing algorithm (SPA-ARA) for mobile ad hoc networks that is inspired from ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms which are a swarm intelligent technique. In this algorithm, we have introduced a new metric, next-hop availability, which is a combination of two metrics. It maximizes path availability and minimizes travel time of packets, and therefore it offers a good balance between selection of fast paths and a better use of network resources. The protocol also incorporates a trust model which helps in detection of unauthorized and compromised nodes in MANETs.

Exploring the factors influencing the cloud computing adoption: a systematic study on cloud migration

Today, most of the organizations trust on their age old legacy applications, to support their business-critical systems. However, there are several critical concerns, as maintainability and scalability issues, associated with the legacy system. In this background, cloud services offer a more agile and cost effective platform, to support business applications and IT infrastructure. As the adoption of cloud services has been increasing recently and so has been the academic research in cloud migration. However, there is a genuine need of secondary study to further strengthen this research. The primary objective of this paper is to scientifically and systematically identify, categorize and compare the existing research work in the area of legacy to cloud migration. The paper has also endeavored to consolidate the research on Security issues, which is prime factor hindering the adoption of cloud through classifying the studies on secure cloud migration. SLR (Systematic Literature Review) of thirty selected papers, published from 2009 to 2014 was conducted to properly understand the nuances of the security framework. To categorize the selected studies, authors have proposed a conceptual model for cloud migration which has resulted in a resource base of existing solutions for cloud migration. This study concludes that cloud migration research is in seminal stage but simultaneously it is also evolving and maturing, with increasing participation from academics and industry alike. The paper also identifies the need for a secure migration model, which can fortify organization’s trust into cloud migration and facilitate necessary tool support to automate the migration process.

Intelligent probabilistic broadcasting in mobile ad hoc network: a PSO approach

MANETs are collection of independent nodes, which communicate with each other to perform a task. Broadcasting methods are widely used in this infrastructureless networks. Although broadcasting is easy to implement and a method to perform routing and safety functions, in a wide and high mobility MANET it is a difficult and expensive task to achieve. It is required that the underlying algorithm used for communication must consider parameters such as neighborhood density, the size and shape of the network, and the efficient use of channel. Probabilistic strategies are frequently used, as they do not introduce additional latency. Several researchers have proposed using various parameter instances which are managed dynamically, for instance, the change in the number of neighbor nodes and corresponding change in retransmission probability. But the authors did not optimize the parameters for specific environments. The proposed work in this research article suggests and determines the most efficient strategy for each node to decide the retransmission probability according to its neighborhood density, available bandwidth and remaining energy of a node. It describes a tool combining a network simulator (ns-2) and a particle swarm optimization algorithm. Then, it is applied to the MANET broadcasting problem. The simulation results show that the proposed particle swarm optimization probabilistic broadcasting (PSOPB) scheme is reliable and efficient in comparison with the other artificial intelligence broadcasting schemes such as elitist simulated binary evolutionary algorithm (ESBEA), multi-objective problems with Pareto front solution (MOP_PF) and efficient fuzzy logic-based probabilistic broadcasting (EFPB).

A hybrid recognition system for off-line handwritten characters

Computer based pattern recognition is a process that involves several sub-processes, including pre-processing, feature extraction, feature selection, and classification. Feature extraction is the estimation of certain attributes of the target patterns. Selection of the right set of features is the most crucial and complex part of building a pattern recognition system. In this work we have combined multiple features extracted using seven different approaches. The novelty of this approach is to achieve better accuracy and reduced computational time for recognition of handwritten characters using Genetic Algorithm which optimizes the number of features along with a simple and adaptive Multi Layer Perceptron classifier. Experiments have been performed using standard database of CEDAR (Centre of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition) for English alphabet. The experimental results obtained on this database demonstrate the effectiveness of this system.

Efficient Fuzzy Logic Based Probabilistic Broadcasting for Mobile Ad hoc Network

AbstractIn Mobile Ad hoc networks broadcasting is the one of the most important and crucial phenomenon. Broadcasting can be taken up in many ways and the simplest method of broadcasting is simple flooding which can significantly increase the overheads and can result in redundant messages which can further cause the Broadcasting Strom problem. In this paper, we propose an efficient fuzzy logic based probabilistic broadcasting for AODV protocol in order to reduce overheads. The fuzzy based logic criteria make decisions which are based on some of the important parameters affecting broadcasting like number of neighbors, bandwidth available and remaining energy. The simulation result shows that the proposed algorithm is efficient and reliable with respect to the consumed power, throughput, overhead, collision rate and it also maintains low normalized routing load as compared to AODV and other routing protocols proposed in the literature in which simple flooding or fixed probability broadcasting is used.

Wireless Body Area Networks: A Review with Intelligent Sensor Network-Based Emerging Technology

The increasing interest and the constant miniaturization of intelligent wireless sensor based devices have empowered the development of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). Recent evolution in wearable and implantable sensors and rapid growth in the low power, energy efficient and short range wireless communication technologies are enabling the implementation of WBANs. The design of these networks requires the new protocols with respect to those used in general purpose wireless sensor networks. This survey paper aims at reporting an overview of the concept of WBANs with applications, characteristics, hardware design issues and supporting short range radio technologies and standards. A brief overview of the existing and past projects is also discussed. Finally, this article highlights some of the design challenges and open research issues that still need to be addressed to make WBANs truly ubiquitous for a wide range of applications.

Evolutionary Computing Techniques in Off-Line Handwritten Character Recognition: A Review

Handwritten character recognition is always a frontier area of research in the field of pattern recognition and image processing and there is a large demand for OCR on hand written documents. This paper provides a comprehensive review of existing works in handwritten character recognition based on Evolutionary computing technique during the past decade. KeywordsHandwritten Character recognition, On-Line and OffLine Character Recognition, Neural Network, Fuzzy-Logic, Evolutionary Computation Technique.

Ad Hoc Based Secure Architecture for Survivable and Reliable Substation Automation System

This paper presents an ad hoc based secure architecture for survivable and reliable substation automation system (SAS). Various security attacks with existing routing protocols are presented and a new secure wireless routing protocol is proposed to identify malicious and unauthorized nodes and counter these attacks on substation automation systems networks. Performance of the proposed protocol is tested and analysed with the embedded security model using SWANS (scalable wireless ad-hoc network simulator). Simulation results show that the proposed secure protocol performs better than the existing secure protocols for SAS networks.

Intelligent decision support algorithm for distribution system restoration

Distribution system is the means of revenue for electric utility. It needs to be restored at the earliest if any feeder or complete system is tripped out due to fault or any other cause. Further, uncertainty of the loads, result in variations in the distribution network’s parameters. Thus, an intelligent algorithm incorporating hybrid fuzzy-grey relation, which can take into account the uncertainties and compare the sequences is discussed to analyse and restore the distribution system. The simulation studies are carried out to show the utility of the method by ranking the restoration plans for a typical distribution system. This algorithm also meets the smart grid requirements in terms of an automated restoration plan for the partial/full blackout of network.