Road Oriented Traffic Information System for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks

Over the last few years, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have gained popularity for their interesting applications. To make efficient routing decisions, VANET routing protocols require road traffic density information for which they use density estimation schemes. This paper presents a distributed mechanism for road vehicular density estimation that considers multiple road factors, such as road length and junctions. Extensive simulations are carried out to analyze the effectiveness of the proposed technique. Simulation results suggested that, the proposed technique is more accurate compared to the existing technique. Moreover, it facilitate VANET routing protocols to increase packet delivery ratio and reduce end-to-end delay.     

An extended access control model for permissioned blockchain frameworks

Wireless Networks - In distributed environment, a digital transaction or operation requires transparency and trust among multiple stakeholders. Several approches address such...     

High-power operation of III-N MOSHFET RF switches

We describe a large-signal performance of novel high-power radio frequency (RF) switches based on III-nitride insulated gate metal-oxide semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistors (MOSHFETs). The maximum switching powers for a single MOSHFET with only 1-mm gate width exceed 50W at 10GHz, more than an order of magnitude higher than those achievable using GaAs transistors. In the ON state, the highest powers are determined by the device peak drain currents, 1-2A/mm for the state-of-the art III-N MOSHFETs; in the OFF state their maximum powers are limited by the breakdown voltage, normally well above 100V. Our experimental data are in close agreement with large-signal simulations and the proposed simple analytical model. We also show that the insulating gate design allows for broader bandwidth and higher switching powers and better stability as compared to conventional Schottky gate transistors.     

Optical and electrical properties of electrochemically deposited polyaniline-CeO2 hybrid nanocomposite film

This paper reports the optical and electrical properties of electrochemically deposited polyaniline (PANI)-cerium oxide (CeO2) hybrid nano-composite film onto indium-tin-oxide (ITO) glass substrate. UV–visible spectroscopy and I-V characteristic were performed to study the optical and electrical parameters of the electrochemically deposited film. The film exhibited a strong absorption below 400 nm (3.10 eV) with a well defined absorbance peak at around 285nm (4.35 eV). The estimated band gap of the CeO2 sample was 3.44 eV and this value is higher than bulk CeO2 powder (Eg = 3.19 eV) due to quantum confinement effect.     

Velocity-image model for online signature verification.

In general, online signature capturing devices provide outputs in the form of shape and velocity signals. In the past, strokes have been extracted while tracking velocity signal minimas. However, the resulting strokes are larger and complicated in shape and thus make the subsequent job of generating a discriminative template difficult. We propose a new stroke-based algorithm that splits velocity signal into various bands. Based on these bands, strokes are extracted which are smaller and more simpler in nature. Training of our proposed system revealed that low- and high-velocity bands of the signal are unstable, whereas the medium-velocity band can be used for discrimination purposes. Euclidean distances of strokes extracted on the basis of medium velocity band are used for verification purpose. The experiments conducted show improvement in discriminative capability of the proposed stroke-based system.     

Analysis and Implementation of Multiple–Input, Multiple–Output VBLAST Receiver From Area and Power Efficiency Perspective

This paper presents an analysis of the vertical Bell Laboratories layered space time (VBLAST) receiver used in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless system from the hardware implementation perspective and identifies those processing elements that consume more area and power due to complex signal processing. This paper models a scalable VBLAST receiver based on minimum mean square error (MMSE) nulling criteria assuming a block flat fading channel. After identifying the major area and power consuming blocks, this paper proposes two area and power efficient VLSI architectures for the block that computes pseudoinverse of the channel matrix. This paper discusses different tradeoff issues in both architectures and compares them with the architectures in the literature     

Structural and opto-electrical properties of pyrolized ZnO-CdO crystalline thin films

A series of ZnO-CdO thin films of different molar ratios of Zn and Cd have been deposited on glass substrate at substrate temperature ~ 360 ℃ by the spray pyrolysis technique at an ambient atmosphere. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies confirmed the polycrystalline nature of the film and modulated crystal structures of wurtzite (ZnO) and cubic (CdO) are formed. The evaluated lattice parameters, and crystallite size are consistent with literature. Dislocation density and strain increased in the film as the grain sizes of ZnO and CdO are decreased. The band gap energy varies from 3.20 to 2.21 eV depending on the Zn/Cd ratios in the film. An incident photon intensity dependent I-V study confirmed that the films are highly photosensitive. Current increased with the increase of the intensity of the light beam. The optical conductivity and the optical constants, such as extinction coefficient, refractive index and complex dielectric constants are evaluated from transmittance and reflectance spectra of the films and these parameters are found to be sensitive to photon energy and displayed intermediate optical properties between ZnO and CdO, making it preferable for applications as the buffer and window layers in solar cells.     

Performance analysis of an opportunistic multi‐user cognitive network with multiple primary users

Consider a multi‐user underlay cognitive network where multiple cognitive users concurrently share the spectrum with a primary network with multiple users. The channel between the secondary network is assumed to have independent but not identical Nakagami‐m fading. The interference channel between the secondary users (SUs) and the primary users is assumed to have Rayleigh fading. A power allocation based on the instantaneous channel state information is derived when a peak interference power constraint is imposed on the secondary network in addition to the limited peak transmit power of each SU. The uplink scenario is considered where a single SU is selected for transmission. This opportunistic selection depends on the transmission channel power gain and the interference channel power gain as well as the power allocation policy adopted at the users. Exact closed form expressions for the moment‐generating function, outage performance, symbol error rate performance, and the ergodic capacity are derived. Numerical results corroborate the derived analytical results. The performance is also studied in the asymptotic regimes, and the generalized diversity gain of this scheduling scheme is derived. It is shown that when the interference channel is deeply faded and the peak transmit power constraint is relaxed, the scheduling scheme achieves full diversity and that increasing the number of primary users does not impact the diversity order. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of ‘a robust smart‐card‐based remote user password authentication scheme’

With the use of smart card in user authentication mechanisms, the concept of two‐factor authentication came into existence. This was a forward move towards more secure and reliable user authentication systems. It elevated the security level by requiring a user to possess something in addition to know something. In 2010, Sood et al. and Song independently examined a smart‐card‐based authentication scheme proposed by Xu et al. They showed that in the scheme of Xu et al., an internal user of the system can turn hostile to impersonate other users of the system. Both of them also proposed schemes to improve the scheme of Xu et al. Recently, Chen et al. identified some security problems in the improved schemes proposed by Sood et al. and Song. To fix these problems, Chen et al. presented another scheme, which they claimed to provide mutual authentication and withstand lost smart card attack. Undoubtedly, in their scheme, a user can also verify the legitimacy of server, but we find that the scheme fails to resist impersonation attacks and privileged insider attack. We also show that the scheme does not provide important features such as user anonymity, confidentiality to air messages, and revocation of lost/stolen smart card. Besides, the scheme defies the very purpose of two‐factor security. Furthermore, an attacker can guess a user's password from his or her lost/stolen smart card. To meet these challenges, we propose a user authentication method with user anonymity. We show through analysis and comparison that the proposed scheme exhibits enhanced efficiency in contrast to related schemes, including the scheme of Chen et al. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.