Behavioral Attestation for Web Services using access policies

Service Oriented Architecture with underlying technologies like web services and web service orchestration opens new vistas for integration among business processes operating in heterogeneous environments. However, such dynamic collaborations require a highly secure environment at each respective business partner site. Existing web services standards address the issue of security only on the service provider platform. The partner platforms to which sensitive information is released have till now been neglected. Remote Attestation is a relatively new field of research which enables an authorized party to verify that a trusted environment actually exists on a partner platform. To incorporate this novel concept in to the web services realm, a new mechanism called WS-Attestation has been proposed. This mechanism provides a structural paradigm upon which more fine-grained solutions can be built. In this paper, we present a novel framework, Behavioral Attestation for Web Services, in which XACML is built on top of WS-Attestation in order to enable more flexible remote attestation at the web services level. We propose a new type of XACML policy called XACML behavior policy, which defines the expected behavior of a partner platform. Existing web service standards are used to incorporate remote attestation at the web services level and a prototype is presented, which implements XACML behavior policy using low-level attestation techniques.     

Human-centered design of a wearable kinesthetic haptic device for surgical teleoperation

Artificial Life and Robotics - This paper describes the design and performance evaluation of a flexible wearable haptic device that aims to realize full kinesthetic haptic feedback for application...     

Thermophysical Properties of Porous Sandstones: Measurements and Comparative Study of Some Representative Thermal Conductivity Models

The thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity of porous consolidated sandstones have been measured simultaneously by the transient-plane source (TPS) technique in the temperature range from 280 to 330 K at ambient pressure using air as the saturant. The porosity and density parameters are measured using standard American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) methods at 307 ± 1 K. Data are presented for five types of samples ranging in porosity from 8 to 17 vol. %, taken from various positions above the baseline. The thermal conductivity and constituents of the minerals vary with porosity as well as with the position of the sample from the baseline. The thermal conductivity data are discussed in the framework of simple mixing laws and empirical models. Simple correlations between the effective density and porosity, and between the effective thermal conductivity and porosity, are also established     

Influence of thermal radiation on the boundary layer flow due to an exponentially stretching sheet

The effect of radiation on the boundary layer flow and heat transfer of a viscous fluid over an exponentially stretching sheet is studied. The homotopy analysis method (HAM) is employed to determine the convergent series expressions of velocity and temperature. The physical interpretation to these expressions is assigned through graphs. It is found that the effects of Prandtl and radiation numbers on the temperature are opposite.     

A multi‐objective evolutionary optimization of fuzzy controller for energy conservation in air conditioning systems

This paper presents the use of evolutionary optimization approach to design and tune smart fuzzy controllers for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems or HVAC. The objective is to optimize energy consumption while accounting for user comfort requirements. The problem of energy conservation in air conditioning systems becomes a multi‐objective optimization constrained problem, which enlarges the solution search space. To solve this problem, a multi‐objective evolutionary optimization technique based on genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed. A physical experimental setup is constructed for data collection and formulation of mathematical model. A fuzzy controller is initially designed through expert knowledge, and GA is then used to tune the rules and membership functions of the fuzzy controller in order to optimize multiple objectives. Simulations and real experiments are compared to determine the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. As compared to the controller present in the real experimental air conditioner, approximately 15% energy is successfully saved with no increase in average individual dissatisfaction or discomfort index. Also, a decrease in peak individual dissatisfaction or discomfort index from 91% to 62% is observed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.