Papers by Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC)
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2020
Cloud computing is a phenomenon that is changing information technology, with many companies no l... more Cloud computing is a phenomenon that is changing information technology, with many companies no longer having data and resources retained within their own premises. Instead they are utilising cloud computing and its centralised resources. There are many benefits of this approach such as pay-per-use model, elasticity of operation and on demand resourcing. However, this approach also introduces additional security challenges. Security involves a triad of considerations, those being confidentiality, integrity and availability, often abbreviated to CIA. This work focusses on the last aspect of the CIA triad-availability, which is even more crucial for cloud-based platforms as centralised resources need to be provided at a distance to the end customers. Several factors including 'denial of service' attack impact availability. Moreover, current protection frameworks do not sufficiently consider the issues of verification, scalability and end-to-end latency. Hence, a new framework has been designed to fill the identified gap. The framework referred to as the cloud-based Distributed Denial of Service Alleviation System (DDoSAS) is based on its predecessor Enhanced DDoS-MS. The new framework has been implemented using Amazon Web Services. The work serves to provide a baseline for measuring end-to-end latency in real-life scenarios.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2020
In this paper, we introduce a scheme, called Polynomial Exchange Rate Scheme (PERS), to generate ... more In this paper, we introduce a scheme, called Polynomial Exchange Rate Scheme (PERS), to generate exchange rate functions for token swap systems, and show that the functions generated are consistent, stable, and resilient. We show that payments are guaranteed in PERS if the Single Circulation Source principle is adopted (i.e., PG-PERS). Compared to the existing deposit-based exchange rate schemes, PG-PERS is a scheme that requires no initial key token deposit and its price changes have relatively stable rates especially in extreme cases. As an application of PG-PERS, we present a token swap service, called Fanco Swap, for swapping the ERC20 token used on aFan, an incentivized social media platform, and Ether coin. We also cover several practical issues such as precision and computation cost problems and the solutions to them, which adopted in the implementation of Fanco Swap. The paper contains a comprehensive survey on existing cryptocurrency exchange services and their pricing mechanism, followed by a formal development of the proposed exchange rate scheme and its comparison with one of the most representative existing exchange rate schemes.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2020
Optimization algorithms are often used to obtain optimal solutions to complex nonlinear problems ... more Optimization algorithms are often used to obtain optimal solutions to complex nonlinear problems and appear in many areas such as control, communication, computation, and others. Bat algorithm is a heuristic optimization algorithm and efficient in obtaining approximate best solutions to non-linear problems. In many situations complex problems involve large amount of computations that may require simulations to run for days or weeks or even years for an algorithm to converge to a solution. In this research, a Parallel Distributed Bat Algorithm (PDBA) is formulated using Message Passing Interface (MPI) in C language code for a PC Cluster. The time complexity of PDBA is determined and presented. The performance in terms of speed-up, efficiency, elapsed time, and number of times fitness function is executed is also presented.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2020
We provide a historical overview of proof-of-work techniques and the fields in which it plunges i... more We provide a historical overview of proof-of-work techniques and the fields in which it plunges its roots. We are interested in PoW-techniques applied to blockchain technology and therefore we survey the state-of-the-art protocols employing these methods for consensus algorithms, emphasizing the differences between the efficient hashcash systems and the promising bread pudding protocols. Afterwards, the consensus mechanisms are discussed and some interesting known attacks to these algorithms are collected and classified according to their underlying ideas.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2020
The increasing use of wireless communication and the continuous miniaturisation of electronics de... more The increasing use of wireless communication and the continuous miniaturisation of electronics devices have brought about the concept of Wireless Body Area Network (WBANs). In these types of networks, the sensor node operates in close proximity to the body and also the wireless nature of the system presents various novel, real-time and new methods to improve health care delivery. The sensor is capable of measuring any parameter which it has been designed to read, for example the heartrate and the body temperature. This paper presents a review of the concept of WBANs with a focus on the mechanism of data communication over the wireless medium. Further, it examines ways to power such devices, in particular focusing on minimisation of energy requirements, thereby reducing maintenance demands and contributing to making the environment 'greener'.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2019
The compatibility between emerging technology such as Blockchain and the new data protection obli... more The compatibility between emerging technology such as Blockchain and the new data protection obligations has been a matter of discussion since the European General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") came into force back in 2018. The main reason is that GDPR is considered the Regulation that has incorporated the strongest obligations and enforcement consequences. There are some areas of tension on how to comply with these obligations, some of which are still a matter of discussion that have not been concluded by regulators or in court. In this chapter, I set out an overview of the main obligations, relevant areas of tension and set out an opinion on what I have seen that in practice is working the best, and how I recommend dealing with these issues in practice, in order to do an assessment applied to a particular context in which a Blockchain network is used.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2019
Digital notarization is one of the most promising services offered by modern blockchain-based sol... more Digital notarization is one of the most promising services offered by modern blockchain-based solutions. We present a digital notary design with incremental security and cost reduced with respect to current solutions. A client of the service receives evidence in three steps. In the first step, evidence is received almost immediately, but a lot of trust is required. In the second step, less trust is required, but evidence is received seconds later. Finally, in the third step evidence is received within minutes via a public blockchain.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2019
Internet of Things (IoT) platforms have a great number of vulnerabilities which cyber-attackers c... more Internet of Things (IoT) platforms have a great number of vulnerabilities which cyber-attackers can exploit. A possible solution largely contemplated in the state of the art is to make use of blockchain technology in any IoT system to enhance the security of the platform while improving other of its aspects. Although there are valuable benefits of the use of IoT platforms based on blockchain technology, it is worth studying the different alternatives between blockchain technologies, because all of them have their own limitations that are not suitable for every use case scenario. In this work, we listed a number of flaws that blockchain technology has in this respect. We have identified that, most of the flaws can be overcome by adapting the variants of this technology to the specific needs of the IoT platform. Every IoT system based on blockchain technology, should perform a systematic analysis of their needs, identifying what are the blockchain features sought for that scenario, to choose the solution that best meets the needs among the different blockchain technology alternatives.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2019
The main problem faced by smart contract platforms is the amount of time and computational power ... more The main problem faced by smart contract platforms is the amount of time and computational power required to reach consensus. In a classical blockchain model, each operation is in fact performed by each node, both to update the status and to validate the results of the calculations performed by others. In this short survey we sketch some state-of-the-art approaches to obtain an efficient and scalable computation of smart contracts. Particular emphasis is given to sharding, a promising method that allows parallelization and therefore a more efficient management of the computational resources of the network.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), 2019
Agreements, consensuses, protocols, resource-sharing, and fairness are all examples of social and... more Agreements, consensuses, protocols, resource-sharing, and fairness are all examples of social and political metaphors that define and shape new computational algorithms. The thought experiments and allegories about resource-sharing or agreement between nodes played a vital role in the development of "concurrent programming" (enabling processor power-sharing and process synchronization) and still later in the development of distributed computing (facilitating data access and synchronization). These paved the way for current concepts of consensus mechanisms, smart contracts, and other descriptions of cryptocurrencies, blockchain, distributed ledger, and hashgraph technologies, paradoxically reversing the relations between metaphor and artifact. New computing concepts and algorithmic processes, such as consensus mechanisms, trustless networks, and automated smart contracts or DAOs (Distributed Autonomous Organizations), aim to disrupt social contracts and political decision-making and replace economic, social, and political institutions (e.g., law, money, voting). Rather than something that needs a metaphor, algorithms are becoming the metaphor of good governance. Current fantasies of algorithmic governance exemplify this reversal of the role played by metaphors: they reduce all concepts of governance to automation and curtail opportunities for defining new computing challenges inspired by the original allegories, thought experiments, and metaphors. Especially now, when we are still learning how best to govern the transgressions and excesses of emerging distributed ledger technologies, productive relations between software and allegory, algorithms and metaphors, code and law are possible so long as they remain transitive. Against this tyranny of algorithms and technologies as metaphors and aspirational models of governance, we propose sandboxes and environments that allow stakeholders to combine prototyping with deliberation, algorithms with metaphors, codes with regulations.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Oct 1, 2019
This paper presents novel hardware architecture of dynamic memory manager providing memory alloca... more This paper presents novel hardware architecture of dynamic memory manager providing memory allocation and deallocation operations that are suitable for hard real-time and safety-critical systems due to very high determinism of these operations. The proposed memory manager implements Worst-Fit algorithm for selection of suitable free block of memory that can be used by the external environment, e.g. CPU. The deterministic timing of the memory allocation and deallocation operations is essential for hard real-time systems. The proposed memory manager performs these operations in nearly constant time thanks to the adoption of hardware-accelerated max queue, which is a data structure that continuously provides the largest free block of memory in two clock cycles regardless of actual number or constellation of existing free blocks of memory. In order to minimize the overhead caused by implementing the memory management in hardware, the max queue was optimized by developing a new sorting architecture, called Rocket-Queue. The Rocket-Queue architecture as well as the whole memory manager is described in this paper in detail. The memory manager and the Rocket-Queue architecture were verified using simplified version of UVM and applying billions of randomly generated instructions as testing inputs. The Rocket-Queue architecture was synthesized into Intel FPGA Cyclone V with 100 MHz clock frequency and the results show that it consumes from 17,06% to 38,67% less LUTs than the existing architecture, called Systolic Array. The memory manager implemented in a form of a coprocessor that provides four custom instructions was synthesized into 28nm TSMC HPM technology with 1 GHz clock frequency and 0.9V power supply. The ASIC synthesis results show that the Rocket-Queue based memory manager can occupy up to 24,59% smaller chip area than the Systolic Array based manager. In terms of total power consumption, the Rocket-Queue based memory manager consumes from 15,16% to 42,95% less power.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Oct 1, 2019
This paper describes a developed new method of body parts force displacements calculation of meta... more This paper describes a developed new method of body parts force displacements calculation of metal-cutting machine tools using combination of CAD and CAE technologies. It was carried out the analysis of analytical methods and the method of finite elements of body parts force displacements calculation of metal-cutting machine tools. On the basis of it the requirements to the method of calculation of compound errors of processing and deviations of the form of the processed surfaces due to deformations of the body parts of metal-cutting machines are established. The method of designing metal-cutting machines is grounded, which is based on mathematical modeling of different processes. It gives an opportunity to evaluate the accuracy of the machine and the impact on it of the individual assembly already in the initial stages of designing. The calculation methodology was implemented using ANSYS finite element analysis. This technique was used in the calculations on the example of high-precision lathes.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Oct 1, 2019
An investigation into the variables that have a bearing on the acceptance of D-learning (Digital-... more An investigation into the variables that have a bearing on the acceptance of D-learning (Digital-learning) services such as E-learning and M-learning, in Jordanian universities is presented. This is followed with a discussion on modernising M-learning with emerging technologies. The study fuses the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology ("UTAUT") model with the cultural paradigm and educational variables. 100 valid questionnaires distributed to random Jordanian students in two cities were used to collect the primary data. The IBM SPSS® (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software platform was used to analyse the data. The validity of the overall model was proven statistically with an acceptable fit of the data to the measurement model. The findings show that the factor with the highest direct effect on "Intention to use M-learning" is the "Attitude toward using M-learning". Whilst the factor with the highest indirect effect on "Intention to use M-learning" is "Compatibility". The conclusions are that the: cultural factor has a significant and positive impact on the "perceived usefulness" and "perceived ease of use". "Perceived usefulness" and "perceived ease of use" have the greater impact on the "customers' attitude", which consequently influences the students' "intention to use M-learning services". The findings also indicate that educational variables such as the attainment value, self-management of learning and the perceived enjoyment significantly affected M-learning adoption intention. Emerging technologies such as the Cloud, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the Blockchain and how they may be utilised to enhance the delivery of M-learning is discussed throughout the paper.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Oct 1, 2019
The Blockchain (BC) design pattern has many variations and is a concept that is anticipated to le... more The Blockchain (BC) design pattern has many variations and is a concept that is anticipated to lead many implementations in the years to come. The number of choices for a BC implementation continues to increase since new design and implementation patterns and applications are emerging. This increasing number of design patterns enables correspondingly increasing tradeoff opportunities at every evolutionary round of architecture elaboration. Key components of a BC include network nodes, blocks, and consensus methodologies. These components all possess critical characteristics that can be designed and implemented in a variety of different ways. A central thesis here is that the choice of the design methodologies has direct and varying impact with regard to resulting quality attributes such as performance, security, and availability. We describe the use of a tradeoff matrix during the initial design phase of a development cycle that identifies the quality attributes to be evaluated when designing software systems comprising a BC. We hypothesize that consideration of the quality attributes at this initial design stage via the use of the proposed tradeoff matrix enables designers to meet requirements more efficiently and accurately. This hypothesis is tested and the use of the tradeoff matrix is demonstrated by creating a consensus algorithm whose performance is evaluated through a simulation that compares the behaviour in a "bare-metal" versus a Cloud-based environment. This simulation approach drives the usage of one of the quality tradeoff parameters in achieving a more optimal solution.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Oct 1, 2019
This research demonstrates a method of discriminating the numerical relationships of neural netwo... more This research demonstrates a method of discriminating the numerical relationships of neural network layer inputs to the layer outputs established from the learnt weights and biases of a neural network's generalisation model. It is demonstrated with a mathematical form of a neural network rather than an image, speech or textual translation application as this provides clarity in the understanding gained from the generalisation model. It is also reliant on the input format but that format is not unlike an image pixel input format and as such the research is applicable to other applications too. The research results have shown that weight and biases can be used to discriminate the mathematical relationships between inputs and make discriminations of what mathematical operators are used between them in the learnt generalisation model. This may be a step towards gaining definitions and understanding for intractable problems that a Neural Network has generalised in a solution. For validating them, or as a mechanism for creating a model used as an alternative to traditional approaches, but derived from a neural network approach as a development tool for solving those problems. The demonstrated method was optimised using learning rate and the number of nodes and in this example achieves a low loss at 7.6e-6, a low Mean Absolute Error at 1e-3 with a high accuracy score of 1.0. But during the experiments a sensitivity to the number of epochs and the use of the random shuffle was discovered, and a comparison with an alternative shuffle using a non-random reordering demonstrated a lower but comparable performance, and is a subject for further research but demonstrated in this "decomposition" class architecture.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Jul 1, 2019
Diabetes is one of the chronic diseases in the world, 246 million people are inflicted by this di... more Diabetes is one of the chronic diseases in the world, 246 million people are inflicted by this disease and according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, this figure will increase to 380 million sufferers by 2025. Many other debilitating and critical health issues may further develop if this disease is not diagnosed or remain unidentified. Machine Learning (ML) techniques are now being used in various fields like education, healthcare, business, recommendation system, etc. Healthcare data is complex and high in dimensionality and contains irrelevant information-due to this, the prediction accuracy is low. The Pima Indians Diabetes Dataset was used in this research, it consisted of 768 records. Firstly, the missing values are replaced by the median followed by Linear Discriminant Analysis. Using the Python programming language, feature selection techniques is applied in combination with five classification algorithms: Support Vector Machine (SVM), Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), Logistic Regression, Random Forest and Decision Tree. The aim of this paper is to compare the different classification algorithms in order to predict diabetes in patients more accurately. K-fold cross-validation is applied, considering k to be 2, 4, 5 and 10. The performance parameters taken are the: accuracy, precision, recall, F Score and area under the curve. Our study found that the MLP classifier gave the highest accuracy of 78.7% with a recall of 61.26%, precision of 72.45% and F1 Score of 65.97% for k = 4.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Jul 1, 2019
Internet of Things (IoT) provides an opportunity to build powerful applications and computing sys... more Internet of Things (IoT) provides an opportunity to build powerful applications and computing systems by using wireless communication and radio frequency identification (RFID), mobile, wired and wireless sensor device. In recent years several IoT applications have been developed for industrial use. To comprehend the IoT development, this survey paper provides a precise review of current research on IoT technologies. This study provides IoT applications regarding industries and categorizes the research challenges, issues, and developments. This survey contributes in providing the current state-of-the-art information regarding industrial IoT.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Jul 1, 2019
This article presents a low power consumption, high speed multiplier, based on a lowest transisto... more This article presents a low power consumption, high speed multiplier, based on a lowest transistor count novel structure when compared with other traditional multipliers. The proposed structure utilizes 4×4-bit adder units, since it is the base structure of digital multipliers. The main merits of this multiplier design are that: it has the least adder unit count; ultra-low power consumption and the fastest propagation delay in comparison with other gate implementations. The figures demonstrate that the proposed structure consumes 32% less power than using the bypassing Ripple Carry Array (RCA) implementation. Moreover, its propagation delay and adder units count are respectively about 31% and 8.5% lower than the implementation using the bypassing RCA multiplier. All of these simulations were carried out using the HSPICE circuit simulation software in 0.18 µm technology at 1.8 V supply voltage. The proposed design is thus highly suitable in low power drain and high-speed arithmetic electronic circuit applications.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Jul 1, 2019
Today, several socio-techno-economic drivers are steering the evolution of Telecommunications and... more Today, several socio-techno-economic drivers are steering the evolution of Telecommunications and Internet towards a growing exploitation of ultra-broadband infrastructures (e.g., 5G) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Focusing on the most promising AI technological approaches, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are outperforming in several applications domains. One of the possible explanations, elaborated in literature, is that DNN functioning is deeply rooted in the principles of theoretical Physics, specifically Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and Gauge theory. This is encouraging even more researches and experiments in the direction of a full exploitation of quantum computing and networking for the development of innovative Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and AI systems. In this innovation avenue, given that QFT and Gauge theory have been already proposed for modeling the brain and biological nervous systems, this paper explores the intriguing possibility of exploiting QFT principles also for future DNN, for instance by using electromagnetic waves effects in metamaterials. This appears to be a promising direction of future studies and experiments: therefore, the paper also describes the architecture of a simple optical DNN prototype, based on metamaterials, which is intended as a live test-bed, for simulations and experiments.
Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), Jul 1, 2019
The economic burden of healthcare provision is continually rising. To combat this, targeted preve... more The economic burden of healthcare provision is continually rising. To combat this, targeted preventative measures have been proposed, together with encouragement of healthier lifestyle, enhanced health data collection and empowerment of patients in disease prevention and monitoring. A major cause of impairment is muscular strain and/or bone damage caused by sports injuries in the young, or falling in the elderly. To address such issues, a wearable wireless inertial sensor network is proposed which monitors body dynamics for probable disruptive incidents. The sensor node consists of a combined accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer, linked to a micro controller to gather information from the sensor and a wireless transceiver for communication with the network. A miniaturised wearable prototype was designed and realised in hardware.
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Papers by Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC)