Recent Patents on Computer Science - Volume 10, Issue 3, 2017

Background: Since the patient-related data stored in the MCPS (Medical Cyber-Physical System) play a critical role in medical diagnosis and treatment, it is essential to ensure the security of these data. Failure to obtain authentic and correct medical data will possibly prevent a patient from being treated effectively, or even lead to wrong treatments, also described in various patents. Moreover, public may not accept MCPS technology if enough attention is not paid to address various security and privacy concerns in MCPS. Especially access to patient-related data must be strictly limited only to authorized users; otherwise, the patients' privacy could be abused. Methods: In this paper, one of PSWs proposed by Shao, proxy-unprotected, is introduced in our proposed protocol. Based on this method, we propose our distributed access control based on proxy signature in medical cyber-physical systems. Results: The proposed protocol achieves the requirements for access control in the following aspects: Firstly, the authorized users are able to access the nodes in a distributed manner. Secondly, it provides an effective user authentication mechanism. Thirdly, it supports different user privileges. Fourthly, it protects the integrity of query command. The timestamp included in the query command can ensure the freshness of the query command. In addition, it can also be used to prevent replay attacks when the command exceeds the life time. Conclusion: We have proposed a novel distributed dissemination code scheme for MCPS. The security analysis show that the technique guarantees strong unforgeability, verifiability, strong identifiability, strong undeniability and prevention of misuse. Moreover, security of the proposed technique does not rely on the availability of a secure channel.

Background: The number of pedagogic web page created on the web, which corresponds to number of courses and exercises available on the web, exceeds the number of published books each year. These web documents are often too long to be easy to read, especially when important information is dispersed in various parts and often definite in a more or less formal way. Therefore, they must be described with machine-readable data, otherwise they become unusable and impossible to find. The main objectives of this paper are enhancing information sharing, improving trade and increasing interoperability on the web. Recently, few patents on semantic annotations have been published. Indeed, with the great mass of data managed throughout the world and especially with the development of the web towards semantic Web where annotations are associated with all types of documents on the web, the selection of annotation has become an important criterion in research step. In this article, we focus on the annotation of Web documents and validation of this annotation. Methods: The keywords representing the page are defined and tagged with the concepts of ontology. The words that are components of the annotation are determined from a mixed analysis: calculating the degree of similarity and the frequency. When inconsistencies are detected, the annotation is revised in a revised module. Results: The results obtained are very encouraging, which shows the importance of our validation module after the merger of the two annotation techniques in extraction of keywords. This validation creates an act of trust between the annotation systems and the search engines that take on the annotations created. Conclusion: The extraction of the words used in the annotation is a very important factor which gives a fair presentation to the documents in question. Once the annotation is made, the validation tests of stage make these consistent annotations ready to be consumed by the search engines.

Background: As one of the most popular racket sports in the world, tennis usually takes a considerable amount of repetitive training that uses a great number of tennis balls. After the training, collecting the tennis balls is an annoying, time consuming, and labor taking task. To cope with such problem, a great number of tennis ball collectors such as the stroller-based, basket-based, and wheeler-based collectors were proposed, also described in various patents. However, existing tennis ball collectors mostly require manual operation. To eliminate human intervention, a recent trend is to automate the process by electronic devices. Methods: Our new collector combines a wheeler-based collector with a smart vehicle providing both automatic programmed route and interactive remote-controlled collection. To accommodate tennis balls of various sizes, the basic collector comprises two discs of resilient material attached with four springs. By cascading a number of basic ball collectors side-by-side with an axle through their center, we may extend the basic tennis ball collector from single channel to multiple channels. Results: In order to simulate the distribution of tennis balls after a practice session, 30 tennis balls are randomly distributed over a half court at the start of each test. In interactive navigation tests, the user is requested to collect the 30 tennis balls as soon as possible by controlling the vehicle through a smartphone. The test results showed that the amount of time taken to complete the interactive collection fall into the range of 4 to 15 minutes; on the other hand, the time taken to complete automatic preprogramed route collection is around 14 to 15 minutes. Conclusion: In comparison with traditional labor work that usually takes more than 15 minutes, our novel design greatly reduces the collection time and improves the user experience by changing the tennis ball collection from a dull and painful task to an interesting one.

Background: In the modern age when electric power is one of the major energies, electrical equipment and power transformer are indispensable. Power transformer is an important electric transmission and transformation equipment in electrical power system. The failure of power transformer may induce long-term power supply interruption and large economic loss. Therefore, the diagnosis and repair of broken-down power transformer are of great urgency. This study developed a patent which could improve fault diagnosis applicability and reduce transformer faults using plant growth simulation algorithm (PSGA) in combination with neural network method. Methods: First of all, an improved PSGA model was established according to the characteristics and defects of PSGA. Secondly, the improved model was combined with neural network for the analysis of transformer faults; a back-propagation (BP) neural network fault analysis model was then established as well as given a simulation experiment. Results: Simulation results showed that such a method could accurately diagnose transformer faults. Finally, according to internal faults of transformers, a recognition mathematical model of transformer winding was established and given an experimental simulation. The simulation results indicated that the patent was enough to satisfy the synthetic fault diagnosis of power transformers. Conclusion: In conclusion, such patent provides an effective theoretical and experimental basis for the diagnosis and fixing of power transformer faults.

Background: Recently, sparse representation has been significantly used in various image inverse problems, such as image deblurring, super resolution and compressive sensing, and has shown promising results. The key issue of sparse representation is how to find a reasonable dictionary, by which the image can present more sparsity, as described in various patents. Method: In this paper, we address the image restoration and propose a novel cost function. Considering the significant difference of underlying structure within different patches, we independently train the dictionary using a set of self-similarity patches to present each patch more sparsely. Result: To solve the proposed cost function, an approach based on alternating optimization is presented to obtain the approximate solution. Conclusion: Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to many existing excellent algorithms.

Background: Over the past few years, researchers have devoted efforts to enhance the robustness and randomness of the original DES cipher. These enhancements focused on improving multiple perspectives of the algorithm to deliver robust DES variants against typical attacks. Method: Recent publications and patent databases have been reviewed to investigate the potential enhancements in DES cipher algorithm. The enhancements have targeted the main components of DES including the F-function, S-boxes arrangements, and the key length. Result: This paper introduces a DES variant named Hashed Data Encryption Standard (HDES). The main idea behind HDES cryptographic algorithm is to provide a trade-off between fast encryption while ensuring a degree of randomness in the encrypted data. HDES employs several techniques including the use of a hash function and secure arrangements of S-boxes. The idea of using the hash is to create a fingerprint of the plaintext. This fingerprint is used to generate a seed and the subsequent round seeds. Conclusion: The randomness analysis of HDES and its counterparts DES and DESX have shown performance merits of HDES in terms of entropy difference, cipher data randomness, symmetric distance and encryption time.

Background: Time synchronization between the sensor nodes to reduce average end to end delay with the increase in number of sensor nodes in a network for critical and real time data monitoring can be achieved by precisely predicting their wakeup/sleep timings and are of prime importance as described in recent patents. The idea evolves as a reduction in duty cycle and precise time scheduling of active/sleep cycles of the sensors to reduce the probability of collisions between data and control packets which prolongs the network lifetime and reduces the average end to end delay. The multihop transmissions are not always attractive in underwater communication due to high losses. The proposed Slotted Cyclic Quorum with Influence nodes (SCQI) medium access control protocol is capable of continuous monitoring of critical underwater events in a very effective manner in multihop transmission networks. This work is an attempt to mitigate multihop hidden terminal and to reduce the probability of collisions between data and control packets. Methods: The mathematical model for the path loss due to attenuation of electromagnetic wave propagation in the sea water is explained. The three path reflection model evaluating reflection loss from the air-water and water-sand interfaces as a function of distance between sensors and water depth is introduced. It is assumed that the sensors are properly anchored to limit their movement due to waves within the permissible limits to follow the proposed cyclic quorum based medium access control protocol. The fundamentals of cyclic quorum with a slotted scheme along with the influence nodes are elaborated. This paper attempts to utilize electromagnetic waves at resonance frequency of 2.4 GHz for underwater communication. The main advantages of using electromagnetic waves instead of acoustic waves are that it reduces the latency due to faster propagation speed and give a high data rate due to high frequency of the wave at the cost of reduction in communication range. Results: The results verify that the implementation of cyclic quorum based medium access control (CQ) protocol, slotted cyclic quorum based medium access control (SCQ) protocol and slotted cyclic quorum based medium access control with influence nodes (SCQI) protocol has significantly reduced the average end to end delay with the increase in number of sensor nodes and also prolongs the network lifetime making it appropriate for critical and real time data monitoring. Conclusion: This work proves the suitability of electromagnetic waves as an effective alternative for underwater wireless communication. The main objective is to optimize the network lifetime and to reduce the average end to end delay by implementing cyclic quorum based medium access control protocol in underwater wireless sensor networks and to draw the attention of researchers in this area.

Background: Energy-Efficiency is an important issue in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) since sensors are battery powered and are deployed in unattended environments. Long distance transmission is very expensive in WSNs since power consumption is proportional to dα for transmitting over distance d, where α is path loss exponent in the interval [2:6]. Thus, there is a necessary requirement of relay nodes in the network that are capable of performing data sensing, data aggregation and data routing, as described in various patents. Method: This paper presents a Layered Relay-Medium Access Control (LR-MAC) Protocol for a Personal Area Network. This protocol introduces the concept of multi-layering for the relay (routing) nodes. The protocol is validated by doing extensive simulations in QualNet 6.1 network simulator. The QoS parameters are analyzed for three different deployment strategies viz. random, grid and circular. Results: The results show that LR-MAC Protocol is an efficient technique in terms of improving network lifetime, average throughput and reducing number of packets dropped due to channel access failure in the network; while LR-MAC gives a neutral performance in terms of end-to-end delay in the network. Conclusion: LR-MAC protocol can efficiently work for random deployments as well as for wellplanned effective deployments like in smart building monitoring. The network can also be modified for large areas by increasing number of deployed sensor nodes and keeping node density constant.