Internet of Things for the Future of Smart Agriculture: A Comprehensive Survey of Emerging Technologies

This paper presents a comprehensive review of emerging technologies for the internet of things (IoT)-based smart agriculture. We begin by summarizing the existing surveys and describing emergent technologies for the agricultural IoT, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, wireless technologies, open-source IoT platforms, software defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV) technologies, cloud/fog computing, and middleware platforms. We also provide a classification of IoT applications for smart agriculture into seven categories: including smart monitoring, smart water management, agrochemicals applications, disease management, smart harvesting, supply chain management, and smart agricultural practices. Moreover, we provide a taxonomy and a side-by-side comparison of the state-of-the-art methods toward supply chain management based on the blockchain technology for agricultural IoTs. Furthermore, we present real projects that use most of the aforementioned technologies, which demonstrate their great performance in the field of smart agriculture. Finally, we highlight open research challenges and discuss possible future research directions for agricultural IoTs.      

Integrated analysis and design in stochastic optimization

An integrated analysis and design approach for stochastic optimization of structures is presented. The proposed procedure employs a first order second moment (FOSM) method for evaluating the constraints associated with structural safety.Two variants of the new approach are presented. The idea is to integrate the nested iterative procedures for constraint evaluation and optimum search into one. The new approach is applied to simple design examples. The results are compared to those obtained by classical stochastic optimization using the FOSM method to evaluate the constraints. Both methods are robust to a satisfactory degree and substantially reduce the computational effort.     

High performance,low complexity cooperative caching for wireless sensor networks

During the last decade, Wireless Sensor Networks have emerged and matured at such point that they currently support several applications such as environment control, intelligent buildings, target tracking in battlefields. The vast majority of these applications require an optimization to the communication among the sensors so as to serve data in short latency and with minimal energy consumption. Cooperative data caching has been proposed as an effective and efficient technique to achieve these goals concurrently. The essence of these protocols is the selection of the sensor nodes which will take special roles in running the caching and request forwarding decisions. This article introduces two new metrics to aid in the selection of such nodes. Based on these metrics, we propose two new cooperative caching protocols, PCICC and scaPCICC, which are compared against the state-of-the-art competing protocol, namely NICoCa. The proposed solutions are evaluated extensively in an advanced simulation environment and the results confirm that the proposed caching mechanisms prevail over its competitor. The evaluation attests also that the best policy is always scaPCICC, achieving the shortest latency and the least number of transmitted messages.     

Throughput Scalability of Wireless Hybrid Networks over a Random Geometric Graph

In this paper, we consider the transport capacity of ad hoc networks with a random flat topology under the present support of an infinite capacity infrastructure network. Such a network architecture allows ad hoc nodes to communicate with each other by purely using the remaining ad hoc nodes as their relays. In addition, ad hoc nodes can also utilize the existing infrastructure fully or partially by reaching any access point (or gateway) of the infrastructure network in a single or multi-hop fashion. Using the same tools as in [9], we show that the per source node capacity of Θ(W/log(N)) can be achieved in a random network scenario with the following assumptions: (i) The number of ad hoc nodes per access point is bounded above, (ii) each wireless node, including the access points, is able to transmit at W bits/sec using a fixed transmission range, and (iii) N ad hoc nodes, excluding the access points, constitute a connected topology graph. This is a significant improvement over the capacity of random ad hoc networks with no infrastructure support which is found as in [9]. We also show that even when less stringent requirements are imposed on topology connectivity, a per source node capacity figure that is arbitrarily close to Θ(1) cannot be obtained. Nevertheless, under these weak conditions, we can further improve per node throughput significantly. We also provide a limited extension on our results when the number of ad hoc nodes per access point is not bounded.Ulaş C. Kozat was born in 1975, in Adana, Turkey. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey and his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University, Washington D.C. in 1997 and 1999 respectively. He has received his Ph.D. degree in May 2004 from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Maryland, College Park. He has conducted research under the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) and Center for Hybrid and Satellite Networks (CSHCN) at the same university. He worked at HRL Laboratories and Telcordia Technologies Applied Research as a research intern. His current research interests primarily focus on wireless and hybrid networks that span multiple communication layers and networking technologies. Mathematical modelling, resource discovery and allocation, vertical integration of wireless systems and communication layers, performance analysis, architecture and protocol development are the main emphasis of his work. E-mail: kozat@isr.umd.eduLeandros Tassiulas (S′89, M′91) was born in 1965, in Katerini, Greece. He obtained the Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece in 1987, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1989 and 1991 respectively.He is Professor in the Dept. of Computer and Telecommunications Engineering, University of Thessaly, Greece and Research Professor in the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Eng and the Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland College Park since 2001. He has held positions as Assistant Professor at Polytechnic University New York (1991–95), Assistant and Associate Professor University of Maryland College Park (1995–2001) and Professor University of Ioannina Greece (1999–2001).His research interests are in the field of computer and communication networks with emphasis on fundamental mathematical models, architectures and protocols of wireless systems, sensor networks, high-speed internet and satellite communications.Dr. Tassiulas received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Initiation Award in 1992, an NSF CAREER Award in 1995 an Office of Naval Research, Young Investigator Award in 1997 and a Bodosaki Foundation award in 1999 and the INFOCOM′94 best paper award. E-mail: leandros@isr.umd.edu     

Influence of ground and corona currents on dielectric behavior of small air gaps

This paper investigates the influence of grounding on the field distribution and on the dielectric behavior of small rod-plate and rod-rod air gaps. This effect can be attributed to the grounding of one electrode. In the different arrangements with one electrode grounded or with the electrodes symmetrically charged the experimental results of the corona and breakdown are recorded and compared to the simulation results of the field distribution. It is resulted that the grounding influences significantly the electric field distribution, the dc corona and the dc breakdown. The field is less inhomogeneous in grounded rod - plate air gaps and in rod-rod air gaps with symmetrically charged electrodes, and consequently the values of the corona onset and the breakdown voltage are higher. In longer air gaps the corona current influences the field distribution and consequently the dc breakdown. The effect of grounding on the breakdown is weakened when the dc polarity of the voltage is negative, otherwise it is enhanced. In air gaps with lengths > 3 cm (negative dc polarity) or >8 cm (positive dc polarity) it is overlapped by the effect of the corona current. Relations between the field strength, the corona current, the corona onset and the breakdown voltage arise. The principle of action-reaction is valid.     

Survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Galotyri cheese stored at 4 and 12 degrees C

Post-process contamination of fresh acid-curd cheeses with Escherichia coli O157:H7 may pose a risk considering the low infectious dose and the ability of the pathogen to survive in acidic foods. To evaluate its survival in Galotyri, a traditional Greek acid-curd cheese, portions (0.5 kg) of two commercial fresh products, one artisan (pH 3.9+/-0.1) and the other industrial (pH 3.7+/-0.1), were inoculated with approximately 3.0 or 6.5 log cfu g(-1) of a five-strain cocktail of E. coli O157:H7, including rifampicin-resistant derivatives of the strains ATCC 43895 and ATCC 51657, and stored aerobically at 4 and 12 degrees C. Survival was monitored for 28 days by plating cheese samples on tryptic soy agar with 100 mg l(-1) rifampicin (TSA+Rif), SMAC and Fluorocult E. coli O157:H7 agar media. The pathogen declined much faster (P<0.05) in the industrial as compared to the artisan cheeses at both temperatures. Thus, while E. coli O157:H7 became undetectable by culture enrichment after 14 days at 4 degrees C in industrial samples, irrespective of the inoculation level, populations of 1.4-1.9 and 4.2-5.1 log cfu g(-1) survived after 28 days in the corresponding artisan cheeses with the low and high inocula, respectively. Survival was longer and greater (P<0.05) on TSA+Rif than on SMAC and Fluorocult, indicating the presence of acid-injured cells. Interestingly, survival of E. coli O157:H7 after 14-28 days in cheeses was better at 12 degrees C than at 4 degrees C, probably due to yeasts which grew on the surface of temperature-abused cheeses. The large difference in the pathogen's inactivation between the industrial and artisan cheeses at 4 degrees C could not be associated with major differences in pH or type/concentration of organic acids, suggesting another anti-E. coli O157:H7 activity by the industrial starter. The high survival of the pathogen in artisan Galotyri under conditions simulating commercial storage should be of concern.     

Authentication schemes for smart mobile devices: threat models,countermeasures, and open research issues

Telecommunication Systems - This paper presents a comprehensive investigation of authentication schemes for smart mobile devices. We start by providing an overview of existing survey articles...     

A software framework for alleviating the effects of MAC-aware jamming attacks in wireless access networks

The IEEE 802.11 protocol inherently provides the same long-term throughput to all the clients associated with a given access point (AP). In this paper, we first identify a clever, low-power jamming attack that can take advantage of this behavioral trait: the placement of a low-power jammer in a way that it affects a single legitimate client can cause starvation to all the other clients. In other words, the total throughput provided by the corresponding AP is drastically degraded. To fight against this attack, we design FIJI, a cross-layer anti-jamming system that detects such intelligent jammers and mitigates their impact on network performance. FIJI looks for anomalies in the AP load distribution to efficiently perform jammer detection. It then makes decisions with regards to optimally shaping the traffic such that: (a) the clients that are not explicitly jammed are shielded from experiencing starvation and, (b) the jammed clients receive the maximum possible throughput under the given conditions. We implement FIJI in real hardware; we evaluate its efficacy through experiments on two wireless testbeds, under different traffic scenarios, network densities and jammer locations. We perform experiments both indoors and outdoors, and we consider both WLAN and mesh deployments. Our measurements suggest that FIJI detects such jammers in real-time and alleviates their impact by allocating the available bandwidth in a fair and efficient way.     

VIPSec defined

Secure end-to-end information exchange is a constant challenge in electronic communications. Novel security architectures and approaches are proposed constantly, to be followed by announcements of sophisticated attack methods that compromise them, while other more sophisticated attack methods never see the daylight.The traditional approach for securing the communication between two peers is through the use of secret key encryption combined with a public key approach for exchanging the common secret key to be used by the end-peers. The public key part of the communication is based on a trusted authority for providing the public keys, a service provided through a public key infrastructure (PKI). Public key infrastructures are vulnerable to man in the middle attacks, among other approaches that compromise their integrity. A fake certification authority (CA) or a malicious/compromised network between the user and the CA are typical weaknesses. There has been a lot of work for providing robust PKI; the proposed solutions are fairly demanding on network resources, hence public key solutions are not the security approach of choice in several applications that require light weight solutions.In this article we present voice interactive personalized Security (VIPSec) protocol, which is a protocol for media path key exchange to securely establish a session symmetric key for ensuring end-to-end secure communication, where it is possible to have biometric based authentication, exploiting the nature of the application; voice communication is the typical example that we use as our paradigm for describing the method.     

Comparison of probabilistic and deterministic optimizations using genetic algorithms

This paper describes an application of genetic algorithms to deterministic and probabilistic (reliability-based) optimization of damping augmentation for a truss structure. The probabilistic formulation minimizes the probability of exceeding upper limits on the magnitude of the dynamic response of the structure due to uncertainties in the properties of the damping devices. The corresponding deterministic formulation maximizes a safety margin with respect to these limits. Because this work was done in the context of an experimental comparison of the reliabilities of the resulting designs, antioptimization was used to maximize the contrast between the probabilities of failure of the two designs. This contrast maximization was also performed with a genetic algorithm. The paper describes the genetic algorithm used for the optimization and antioptimization, and a number of modifications to the antioptimization formulation intended to reduce the computational expense to an acceptable level. Optimal designs are obtained for both formulations. The probabilistic design shows a very significant improvement in reliability.