File Exchange Research Articles

Exchange of E2B files undergoing testing in Denmark

Exchange of E2B files undergoing testing in Denmark

Socially-conforming cooperative computation in cloud networks

In the context of two-party computation, such as file exchange or contract signing, the security property of fairness is of great importance. After the impossibility result of Cleve for achieving complete fairness in general, recent research proposes to circumvent such impossibility by assuming that parties behave as rational players of a game. However, such works involve rational parties as independent individuals without considering the impact of the environment. In our work, we apply the notion of social conformity to show that under certain assumptions rational parties belonging to a cloud will choose to cooperate. Then, we simulate a real setting to show that party in fact cooperates and achieves fairness. Finally we discuss a general model to describe the connection between mutual cooperation in social conformity and fairness in secure two-party computation.

Turbulence Measurements from Five-Beam Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers

AbstractTwo new five-beam acoustic Doppler current profilers—the Nortek Signature1000 AD2CP and the Teledyne RDI Sentinel V50—are demonstrated to measure turbulence at two energetic tidal channels within Puget Sound, Washington. The quality of the raw data is tested by analyzing the turbulent kinetic energy frequency spectra, the turbulence spatial structure function, the shear in the profiles, and the covariance Reynolds stresses. The five-beam configuration allows for a direct estimation of the Reynolds stresses from along-beam velocity fluctuations. The Nortek’s low Doppler noise and high sampling frequency allow for the observation of the turbulent inertial subrange in both the frequency spectra and the turbulence structure function. The turbulence parameters obtained from the five-beam acoustic Doppler current profilers are validated with turbulence data from simultaneous measurements with acoustic Doppler velocimeters. These combined results are then used to assess a turbulent kinetic energy budget in which depth profiles of the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation and production rates are compared. The associated codes are publicly available on the MATLAB File Exchange website.

Automated modification and fusion of voxel models to construct body phantoms with heterogeneous breast tissue: Application to MRI simulations.

Human voxel models incorporating detailed anatomical features are vital tools for the computational evaluation of electromagnetic (EM) fields within the body. Besides whole-body human voxel models, phantoms representing smaller heterogeneous anatomical features are often employed; for example, localized breast voxel models incorporating fatty and fibroglandular tissues have been developed for a variety of EM applications including mammography simulation and dosimetry, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ultra-wideband microwave imaging. However, considering wavelength effects, electromagnetic modeling of the breast at sub-microwave frequencies necessitates detailed breast phantoms in conjunction with whole-body voxel models. Heterogeneous breast phantoms are sized to fit within radiofrequency coil hardware, modified by voxel-wise extrusion, and fused to whole-body models using voxel-wise, tissue-dependent logical operators. To illustrate the utility of this method, finite-difference time-domain simulations are performed using a whole-body model integrated with a variety of available breast phantoms spanning the standard four tissue density classifications representing the majority of the population. The software library uses a combination of voxel operations to seamlessly size, modify, and fuse eleven breast phantoms to whole-body voxel models. The software is publicly available on GitHub and is linked to the file exchange at MATLAB® Central. Simulations confirm the proportions of fatty and fibroglandular tissues in breast phantoms have significant yet predictable implications on projected power deposition in tissue. Breast phantoms may be modified and fused to whole-body voxel models using the software presented in this work; user considerations for the open-source software and resultant phantoms are discussed. Furthermore, results indicate simulating breast models as predominantly fatty tissue can considerably underestimate the potential for tissue heating in women with substantial fibroglandular tissue.

Increasing the hiding capacity in image steganography using Braille code

Least significant bit (LSB) insertion steganography is a one of the most widely used methods for implementing covert data channels in image file exchanges. This popularity comes from its simplicity in implementation and low computational complexity of the algorithm moreover the primary reason being low image distortion. Many researchers try to increase the embedding capacity of LSB algorithm by increasing the layers of the image by keeping the image with minimal distortion effects. This paper introduces a new approach for embedding the data within the images using Braille code and bit-slicing technique. It will be shown that this unique steganography method has minimal visual distortion affects while also hiding the message with a secure and small code.

A Study for Authentication and Integrity of Data Files in Cloud Computing

With the development of cloud computing, a large number of individuals and companies transfer their data and business to cloud computing. But the management of the data and services of the cloud may not be fully trustworthy. How to ensure the integrity of data stored in cloud attracts more and more attention.
 A number of data files authentication and integrity schemes have been conducted to recognize any modification in the exchange of data files between two entities within a cloud environment. Existing solutions are based on combining key-based hash function with traditional factors (steganography, smart-card, timestamp). However, none of the proposed schemes appear to be sufficiently designed as a secure scheme to prevent from attacks. In recent years, lots of efficient and secure solutions to ensure the outsourced data integrity are proposed. This paper provides a survey of the main research results of the previous studies.

Improving three-dimensional reconstruction of buildings from web-harvested images using forensic clues

During the past years, research has focused on the reconstruction of three-dimensional point cloud models from unordered and uncalibrated sets of images. Most of the proposed solutions rely on the structure-from-motion algorithm, and their performances significantly degrade whenever exchangeable image file format information about focal lengths is missing or corrupted. We propose a preprocessing strategy that permits estimating the focal lengths of a camera more accurately. The basic idea is to cluster the input images into separate subsets according to an array of interpolation-related multimedia forensic clues. This operation permits having a more robust estimate and improving the accuracy of the final model.

HYDRORECESSION: A Matlab toolbox for streamflow recession analysis

Streamflow recession analysis from observed hydrographs allows to extract information about the storage-discharge relationship of a catchment and some of their groundwater hydraulic properties. The HYDRORECESSION toolbox, presented in this paper, is a graphical user interface for Matlab and it was developed to analyse streamflow recession curves with the support of different tools. The software extracts hydrograph recessions segments with three different methods (Vogel, Brutsaert and Aksoy) that are later analysed with four of the most common models to simulate recession curves (Maillet, Boussinesq, Coutagne and Wittenberg) and it includes four parameter-fitting techniques (linear regression, lower envelope, data binning and mean squared error). HYDRORECESSION offers tools to parameterize linear and nonlinear storage-outflow relationships and it is useful for regionalization purposes, catchment classification, baseflow separation, hydrological modeling and low flows prediction. HYDRORECESSION is freely available for non-commercial and academic purposes and is available at Matlab File Exchange (http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/51332-hydroecession).

Peer production in the Internet and unauthorized copying of an intellectual property in the bit-torrent network

This paper deals with the phenomenon of peer production in the context of unauthorized copying of information goods. Acc. to Yochai Benkler, it is a form of production operation based on a community. It is widely applied in the Internet and consequently, such information goods as GNU/Linux and Wikipedia have been established. Although the peer production has promoted growth in importance of, among others, free software or an open source initiative, it is also related to unauthorized copying of an intellectual property commonly called Internet piracy. The huge scale of this phenomenon, which is nearly 24% of entire Internet traffic, must not be ignored. In the paper a hypothesis has been put forward that low efficiency of counteracting of intellectual property unauthorized copying results from that fact that, to a great extent, it is generated in a process of the peer production. In turn, the goal of the paper is verification of the thesis in the progress of considerations regarding the nature of both the peer production and the unauthorized copying. A research field was limited to a P2P file exchange network based on a BitTorrent protocol.

Anonymous end-to-end communications in adversarial mobile clouds

Today’s mobile devices have changed the way we interact with technology. Internet, cloud access, online banking, instant messaging, and file exchange through the cloud are just a handful of the myriad of smartphone services that we make use of every day. At the same time, the very enablers of these services–mobile internet providers and cloud platforms that host them–pose several threats to the anonymity of our communications. In this paper, we consider the problem of providing end-to-end anonymous communications and file exchange under the cooperative privacy threat of involved parties including network operators and cloud providers, which actively tamper with the communication. We propose a solution for delay-tolerant applications (similar to Whatsapp or Email) and prove the security properties of the protocol under this strong attack model. Finally, we present an experimental analysis of the efficiency of our protocol in terms of performance overhead.

Cryptography-based secure data storage and sharing using HEVC and public clouds

Mobile devices are widely used for uploading/downloading media files such as audio, video and images to/from the remote servers. These devices have limited resources and are required to offload resource-consuming media processing tasks to the clouds for further processing. Migration of these tasks means that the media services provided by the clouds need to be authentic and trusted by the mobile users. The existing schemes for secure exchange of media files between the mobile devices and the clouds have limitations in terms of memory support, processing load, battery power, and data size. These schemes lack the support for large-sized video files and are not suitable for resource-constrained mobile devices. This paper proposes a secure, lightweight, robust, and efficient scheme for data exchange between the mobile users and the media clouds. The proposed scheme considers High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Intra-encoded video streams in unsliced mode as a source for data hiding. Our proposed scheme aims to support real-time processing with power-saving constraint in mind. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is used as a base encryption technique by our proposed scheme. The simulation results clearly show that the proposed scheme outperforms AES-256 by decreasing the processing time up to 4.76% and increasing the data size up to 0.72% approximately. The proposed scheme can readily be applied to real-time cloud media streaming.

High Capacity Image Steganography Using Adjunctive Numerical Representations With Multiple Bit-Plane Decomposition Methods

LSB steganography is a one of the most widely used methods for implementing covert data channels in image file exchanges [1][2]. The low computational complexity and implementation simplicity of the algorithm are significant factors for its popularity with the primary reason being low image distortion. Many attempts have been made to increase the embedding capacity of LSB algorithms by expanding into the second or third binary layers of the image while maintaining a low probability of detection with minimal distortive effects [2][3][4]. In this paper, we introduce an advanced technique for covertly embedding data within images using redundant number system decomposition over non-standard digital bit planes. Both grayscale and bit-mapped images are equally effective as cover files. It will be shown that this unique steganography method has minimal visual distortive affects while also preserving the cover file statistics, making it less susceptible to most general steganography detection algorithms.

High Capacity Image Steganography Using Adjunctive Numerical Representations With Multiple Bit-Plane Decomposition Methods

LSB steganography is a one of the most widely used methods for implementing covert data channels in image file exchanges [1][2]. The low computational complexity and implementation simplicity of the algorithm are significant factors for its popularity with the primary reason being low image distortion. Many attempts have been made to increase the embedding capacity of LSB algorithms by expanding into the second or third binary layers of the image while maintaining a low probability of detection with minimal distortive effects [2][3][4]. In this paper, we introduce an advanced technique for covertly embedding data within images using redundant number system decomposition over non-standard digital bit planes. Both grayscale and bit-mapped images are equally effective as cover files. It will be shown that this unique steganography method has minimal visual distortive affects while also preserving the cover file statistics, making it less susceptible to most general steganography detection algorithms.

Multi-Institutional FASTQ File Exchange as a Means of Proficiency Testing for Next-Generation Sequencing Bioinformatics and Variant Interpretation

Next-generation sequencing is becoming increasingly common in clinical laboratories worldwide and is revolutionizing clinical molecular testing. However, the large amounts of raw data produced by next-generation sequencing assays and the need for complex bioinformatics analyses present unique challenges. Proficiency testing in clinical laboratories has traditionally been designed to evaluate assays in their entirety; however, it can be alternatively applied to separate assay components. We developed and implemented a multi-institutional proficiency testing approach to directly assess custom bioinformatics and variant interpretation processes. Six clinical laboratories, all of which use the same commercial library preparation kit for next-generation sequencing analysis of tumor specimens, each submitted raw data (FASTQ files) from four samples. These 24 file sets were then deidentified and redistributed to five of the institutions for analysis and interpretation according to their clinically validated approach. Among the laboratories, there was a high rate of concordance in the calling of single-nucleotide variants, in particular those we considered clinically significant (100% concordance). However, there was significant discordance in the calling of clinically significant insertions/deletions, with only two of seven being called by all participating laboratories. Missed calls were addressed by each laboratory to improve their bioinformatics processes. Thus, through our alternative proficiency testing approach, we identified the bioinformatic detection of insertions/deletions as an area of particular concern for clinical laboratories performing next-generation sequencing testing.

Novel Algorithm of Intrusion Detection Systems by Using the Images Metadata to Detect Electronic Crime in Cloud Computing

Many security professionals know about Image Metadata, but they do not really know how it can be used to protect from the threats and prove the authenticity of these images and the most significant aspect is the anonymity of perpetrator. The novelty of this paper lies on how to use a new algorithm of Image Metadata to detect internal intrusion and how to protect it in real time inside the cloud providers. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm to use features and characteristics technologies of Image Metadata, namely, a novel family of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) built on Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) of Image Metadata. It can assist in eliminating the anonymity advantage of perpetrator which is considered extremely important for the Digital Investigation to detect the attacker in a real time and to prove the authenticity of the images Metadata against attackers.

Watermarking scheme for geometric data protection and detection on 3D CAD assembly model

ABSTRACTNowadays, different contemporary products are modeled in a CAD environment. These involve a number of components and assembled together to form an assembly model. Such related components of a product are assembled by different mating conditions in a product design and development stage. Normally, the assembly model would be distributed to different staffs or personnel involved in the process. To ensure that the assembly model received is an original one and is not altered by any unauthorized persons during transmission and exchange of files on the internet, watermarks should be embedded into the model nowadays. In this paper, a watermarking scheme is proposed specifically for watermarking the assembly model structure and the positions and orientations of the components. In this proposed scheme, unique component ID number is assigned to each component. For each component, a hash value is calculated based on the ID numbers of the components related to it in the assembly model tree structure. By dete...

A CDF framework for aerospace engineering education

Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) is an effective IT environment to apply Concurrent Engineering principles. In aerospace engineering education, CDF can be invaluable by enabling student teams to gain cross-discipline skills and at the same time stay at the cutting edge of technology. This paper gives an overview of CDF configurations in use at different industries, research organisations and universities around the world and concludes with a proposal for a relatively a low cost CDF framework based on cloud computing which is particularly suitable for aerospace engineering education. An important aspect of CDF is collaboration between multidisciplinary specialists or virtual specialists within one environment, which requires dedicated hardware or software to exchange file, manage knowledge, collaborative work on writing report, and even remote communicate with other work teams. Emergence and development of cloud computing has made these requirements relatively easy to be fulfilled. Some public cloud computing servers, such as Google Drive, SkyDrive, Dropbox, Mendeley, can be used in CDF to save cost on hardware and software related to data, file, and information exchange. Google Talk and Skype can be used for communication with remote work teams. This CDF framework has many potential benefits, such as reduced cost of hardware, software and support, reduced preparation time, and easy to deploy.

Systems information modeling: From file exchanges to model sharing for electrical instrumentation and control systems

Abstract The mining industry in Australia is in a period of intense introspection as it seeks to improve its productivity and competitiveness in global markets. With mining projects experiencing increasing overruns on capital expenditure, there is a need to re-examine existing business practices to address the prevailing productivity crisis that the industry is experiencing. In addressing this issue, within the context of electrical instrumentation and control systems (EICS), a case study that examines the development of a systems information model (SIM) to improve productivity during the engineering, construction, maintenance, and operations processes of a magnetite iron ore processing plant is presented and discussed. By transforming the established document oriented information exchanges that are typically used in EICS projects to a more collaborative data-sharing environment, processes were streamlined and errors, as a result of duplication and inconsistency, were significantly prevented from occurring. While still working within the restriction of discipline-specific models, the creation of a SIM is the first step towards an integrated and interoperable data without a reliance on drawings.

Analysis of Attacks and Security Issues on the Peer-to-Peer Networks

Here in this paper we will review p2p network security issues, which is the subject of serious consideration should be given to him a full and carefully examine the condition of a people here will p2p system structures and attacks that may occur to p2p networks, as well as the potential for these attacks antibiotics and we will review the security issues that are in the routing Home p2p protocols and we will solve the major problems that occur in the exchange of files and applications on the network p2p process .

Theia: a tool for the forensic analysis of mobile devices pictures

Currently the number of cameras embedded in mobile devices is growing at an unprecedented rate. Additionally, the quality and performance of these mobile cameras is steadily improving, and is closing in on that of classical digital cameras. This scenario makes the forensic analysis of images taken with mobile cameras increasingly important and necessary. Among the various branches of forensic analysis, this paper focuses on the reliable acquisition of the make and model of the mobile camera that produced a given image. For this we have developed a technique based on exchangeable image file format (Exif) metadata analysis, allowing us in certain cases to obtain both the make and model with which the photo was taken. This comes with considerable analysis of whether this metadata information could be trusted, and with additional tools that can help in discovering image manipulation. These and other capabilities have been integrated into a new tool we have developed called Theia, that also offers many other advantages to the forensic analyst that has to mass process and analyze thousands of images in the fastest and most forensically sound way. To that end, we have also incorporated various complex functions that greatly help the forensic analyst, such as different types of advanced queries on Exif metadata information of large sets of images, and advanced geopositioning capabilities.