A decentralized honeypot for IoT Protocols based on Android devices

International Journal of Information Security - The exponential growth of internet connected devices in this past year has led to a significant increase in IoT targeted attacks. The lack of proper...     

A model-driven software engineering workflow and tool architecture for servitised manufacturing

Modern manufacturing businesses increasingly engage in servitisation, by offering advanced services along with physical products, and creating “product–service systems”. Information Technology infrastructures, and especially software, are a critical part of modern service provision. However, software development in this context has not been investigated and there are no development methods or tools specifically adapted to the task of creating software for servitised businesses in general, or manufacturing in particular. In this paper, we define the requirements for software engineering in servitised manufacturing. Based on these, we describe a model-driven software engineering workflow for servitised manufacturing, supporting both structural and behavioural modelling of the service system. Furthermore, we elaborate on the architecture of an appropriate model-driven Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The proposed workflow and a prototype implementation of the IDE were evaluated in a set of industrial pilots, demonstrating improved communication and collaboration between participants in the software engineering process.     

The role of the environment in agreement technologies

The notion of Multi-Agent System environment is currently considered as a mediating entity, functioning as enabler but possibly also as a manager and constrainer of agent actions, perceptions, and interactions. In this paper, we analyze how the environment could be a first class abstraction to support the building, the development and the management of Agreements in decentralized and open systems between autonomous agents. To this aim we analyze the synergies between the environment and the foundational dimensions of agreement technologies such as semantics, norms, organizations, argumentation & negotiation, trust.     

Counting triangles in real-world networks using projections

Triangle counting is an important problem in graph mining. Two frequently used metrics in complex network analysis that require the count of triangles are the clustering coefficients and the transitivity ratio of the graph. Triangles have been used successfully in several real-world applications, such as detection of spamming activity, uncovering the hidden thematic structure of the web and link recommendation in online social networks. Furthermore, the count of triangles is a frequently used network statistic in exponential random graph models. However, counting the number of triangles in a graph is computationally expensive. In this paper, we propose the EigenTriangle and EigenTriangleLocal algorithms to estimate the number of triangles in a graph. The efficiency of our algorithms is based on the special spectral properties of real-world networks, which allow us to approximate accurately the number of triangles. We verify the efficacy of our method experimentally in almost 160 experiments using several Web Graphs, social, co-authorship, information, and Internet networks where we obtain significant speedups with respect to a straightforward triangle counting algorithm. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm based on Fast SVD which allows us to apply the core idea of the EigenTriangle algorithm on graphs which do not fit in the main memory. The main idea is a simple node-sampling process according to which node i is selected with probability \fracd_i2m{\frac{d_i}{2m}} where d _i is the degree of node i and m is the total number of edges in the graph. Our theoretical contributions also include a theorem that gives a closed formula for the number of triangles in Kronecker graphs, a model of networks which mimics several properties of real-world networks.     

Decentralized Swarm Coordination: A Combined Coverage/Connectivity Approach

Decentralized motion coordination for coverage optimization purposes in mobile sensor networks is the scope of this paper. Coordination is performed based on spatial Voronoi tessellation, while taking into consideration the limited sensing capabilities of the agents. Each node performs an independent optimization in order to increase network??s area coverage via its motion, while it attains information from its current and future Delaunay neighbors. A decentralized algorithm is proposed in order to achieve optimal network??s coverage, based on local information. Connectivity issues are analyzed in detail, while a lower bound on the communication radius of the nodes is derived, in order to attain sufficient information for performing the corresponding optimization. An agent moves inside its region of responsibility in a way that the total area surveyed by the network is a monotonically increasing function of time. The online control action makes the network adaptive to possible changes in the environment.     

Adaptive control with guaranteed transient and steady state tracking error bounds for strict feedback systems

Two robust adaptive control schemes for single-input single-output (SISO) strict feedback nonlinear systems possessing unknown nonlinearities, capable of guaranteeing prescribed performance bounds are presented in this paper. The first assumes knowledge of only the signs of the virtual control coefficients, while in the second we relax this assumption by incorporating Nussbaum-type gains, decoupled backstepping and non-integral-type Lyapunov functions. By prescribed performance bounds we mean that the tracking error should converge to an arbitrarily predefined small residual set, with convergence rate no less than a prespecified value, exhibiting a maximum overshoot less than a sufficiently small prespecified constant. A novel output error transformation is introduced to transform the original “constrained” (in the sense of the output error restrictions) system into an equivalent “unconstrained”one. It is proven that the stabilization of the “unconstrained” system is sufficient to solve the problem. Both controllers are smooth and successfully overcome the loss of controllability issue. The fact that we are only concerned with the stabilization of the “unconstrained” system, severely reduces the complexity of selecting both the control parameters and the regressors in the neural approximators. Simulation studies clarify and verify the approach.     

AmbISPDM

The need to manage embedded systems, brought forward by the wider adoption of pervasive computing, is particularly vital in the context of secure and safety-critical applications. Technology infiltrates in ordinary things, hitching intelligence and materializing smart systems. Each of these individual entities monitors a specific set of parameters and deduces a constrained local view of the surrounding environment. Many distributed devices exchange information in order to infer the real system state and achieve a consistent global view. However, conflicts may arise due to the integration of deficit pieces of local knowledge. Robust and efficient conflict resolution is essential, especial in cases of emergency where the system must contribute with timely and accurate data to the overall crisis management operation. In this paper, we present AmbISPDM – a formal framework for the management of embedded systems with a coherent conflict resolution mechanism. The process is implemented as a software agent’s reasoning behaviour and applied in the multi-agent domain. As a proof of concept, a smart university campus setting is deployed, with agents controlling embedded devices to assist living conditions in normal operation and the evacuation planning in case of fire.     

A distributed control and parameter estimation protocol with prescribed performance for homogeneous lagrangian multi-agent systems

In this paper, we consider the formation control problem for uncertain homogeneous Lagrangian nonlinear multi-agent systems in a leader-follower scheme under a directed communication protocol. A distributed adaptive control protocol of minimal complexity is proposed that achieves prescribed, arbitrarily fast and accurate formation establishment as well as synchronization of the parameter estimates of all followers. The estimation and control laws are distributed in the sense that the control signal and the update laws are calculated based solely on local relative state information. Moreover, provided that the communication graph is strongly connected and contrary to the related works on multi-agent systems, the controller-imposed transient and steady state performance bounds are fully decoupled from: (i) the underlying graph topology, (ii) the control gains selection and (iii) the agents’ model uncertainties. Finally, extensive simulation studies on the attitude control of flying spacecrafts clarify and verify the approach.     

Efficient parallel Text Retrieval techniques on Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP)/Coarse Grained Multicomputers (CGM)

In this paper, we present efficient, scalable, and portable parallel algorithms for the off-line clustering, the on-line retrieval and the update phases of the Text Retrieval (TR) problem based on the vector space model and using clustering to organize and handle a dynamic document collection. The algorithms are running on the Coarse-Grained Multicomputer (CGM) and/or the Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) model which are two models that capture within a few parameters the characteristics of the parallel machine. To the best of our knowledge, our parallel retrieval algorithms are the first ones analyzed under these specific parallel models. For all the phases of the proposed algorithms, we analytically determine the relevant communication and computation cost thereby formally proving the efficiency of the proposed solutions. In addition, we prove that our technique for the on-line retrieval phase performs very well in comparison to other possible alternatives in the typical case of a multiuser information retrieval (IR) system where a number of user queries are concurrently submitted to an IR system. Finally, we discuss external memory issues and show how our techniques can be adapted to the case when processors have limited main memory but sufficient disk capacity for holding their local data.

The Future Is Here： m-Learning in Higher Education

The way we learn has changed dramatically in the new millennium. The introduction of e-learning in higher education in the late 1990s has opened Pandora＇s Box, and brought radical changes in the way where undergraduate and postgraduate programs are designed and delivered. The rapid developments and popularity ofhandheld devices such as smart phones and tablet PCs using wireless networks and mobile Intemet have marked new developments in higher education, introducing the so-called mobile leaming （m-learning）. This means that university students can have access to their studies related content, anytime, anywhere in a personalized manner; this is what renders m-learning so popular and fashionable among university students globally. Nevertheless, instructors are now challenged as they have to adopt new pedagogies in learning and teaching. This paper discusses the concept of m-learning, as well as the current developments and challenges related to the major stakeholders （educators and students） in higher education.