Internet Adoption Research Articles

Identity Access Management via ECC Stateless Derived Key Based Hierarchical Blockchain for the Industrial Internet of Things

Recently, the adoption of the industrial Internet of things (IIoT) has optimized many industrial sectors and promoted industry “smartization.” Smart factories and smart industries connect the real and virtual worlds through cyber-physical systems (CPS). However, these linkages will increase the cyber security danger surface to new levels, putting millions of dollars' worth of assets at risk if communications in big network systems like IIoT settings are left unsecured. To solve these problems, the fundamental method is security, such as authentication and confidentiality, and it should require the encryption key. However, it is challenging the security performance with the limited performance of the sensor. Blockchain-based identity management is emerging for lightweight, integrity and persistence. However, the key generation and management issues of blockchain face the same security performance issues. First, through blockchain smart contracts and hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets, hierarchical key derivation efficiently distributes and manages keys by line and group in the IIoT environment. Second, the pairing verification value based on an elliptic curve single point called Root Signature performs efficient public key certificate registration and verification and improves the key storage space. Third, the identity log recorded through the blockchain is the global transparency of the key lifecycle, providing system reliability from various security attacks. Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) is adopted to perform efficiently via hash-based scheme (hash calendar, hash tree etc.). We analyze our framework compared to hash-based state commitment methods. Accordingly, our method achieves a calculation efficiency of O(nlog N) and a storage space saving of 60% compared to the existing schemes.

Equalization or polarization? The effect of the Internet on National Urban Hierarchies across the world, 2000–2018

As Internet adoption and diffusion continues worldwide, little is known about its effects on the restructuring of national urban hierarchies globally. We create a city population panel data with uniform definitions within each of the 133 countries from 2000 to 2018 to study the effect of the Internet on national urban hierarchies and to examine the channels through which the effects take place. Results show that the Internet led to the equalization of urban hierarchies in the early stage and then the polarization. Initially, the Internet helped reduce communication costs, partially replaced transportation, and weakened the agglomeration of enterprises and individuals in large cities, thereby flattening national urban hierarchies. Later, the Internet mainly enhanced the production efficiency and accelerated the shift from manufacturing to services in large cities, thus increasing the large cities' attractiveness and ultimately polarizing the urban hierarchy. Our finding demonstrates that national urban hierarchies are not static and their evolution reflects not only the trade-off between economies of scale and congestion, but increasingly by the Internet—a powerful communication tool. If the trend persists, larger cities will grow at a faster pace than smaller cities and potentially increase regional inequality in countries that have extensively adopted the Internet.

Wireless body area networks: A critical review of the state-of-the-art security schemes

The continued advancement of information communication technologies (ICT) has led to the adoption of internet of things in the healthcare sector. One of such application domain of ICT is the wireless body area network (WBAN), which enables remote monitoring of vital biomedical parameters on the patient or the elderly. Upon collection of these parameters, they are forwarded to the remote hospital servers where analysis and appropriate actions are taken. Obviously, the data exchanged in these networks is sensitive and private and hence can have devastating effects on the patient if leaked to the unintended parties. Consequently, many security solutions have been developed in literature. The goal of this paper is to carry out an extensive review of these security schemes in an effort to pin point their strengths and weaknesses. Based on the findings, it is evident that many of these security solutions try to attain a number of security and privacy protection. However, it is noted that these schemes still lack many of the required security goals such as anonymity, untraeability, forward key secrecy as well as resistance to many of the conventional attacks. Therefore, some recommendations for the attainment of perfect privacy and security are given towards the end of this paper.

Digital Dispossession and Gendered Discrimination in Use of Smartphone by Women in Marginal Settings in India

Women are becoming avid user of mobile phones and are increasingly turning to technology to up-skill themselves which offers scope to reduce gender inequalities even in marginal settings. Technology has ushered in a development offering which holds tangible promise to reduce social barriers by providing training that boosts proficiency. Digital media offers scope and opportunities of reshaping systemic gendered imbalances of social structure. Women, in marginalized settings, hemmed in by deeply rooted patriarchal structures may find emancipation by use of the digital technologies in their everyday routine which may accelerate restructuring of their social and cultural realities. The role of digital media in struggle for women’s inclusion in the civil society and gender equality has been considered as emancipatory. This is particularly so because technology provides an avenue for women’s engagement where their physical mobility is restricted and voices deliberately muted. However, patterns of social attitudes may underpin internet cultures if viewed through a gendered prism. There is a persistent gender gap in mobile phone ownership and usage in the low income setting areas and women tend to experience certain barriers more acutely than men. This deprivation in terms of being unconnected widens the gap of marginalization. The present study is an attempt to explore entry of digital technologies in a given culture of slum area in urban settings and subsequent negotiations for the concomitant changes in the discriminatory roles and responses. Two research objectives that have been explored are- factors that engender marginalisation of women and their gendered aspects constraining their digital literacy and competency; the second objective is to describe disruptive impact of digital devices on traditional gender roles and responsibilities that determine the relationships and status in the family. A sizeable percentage of the slum dwellings have electricity, television and smartphones even though lacking toilets. The paper uses qualitative method and tools of observation, focus group discussions and interviews to study mobile and smartphone usage of women living in slums to capture their everyday mobile experience and internet adoption in the context of existing gender inequalities. The study finds that power dynamics within the household play roles that mark digital in/exclusion and (dis) empowerment. It is obvious that digital divide exists even among marginalised as do categorical differences because women are conditioned to accept and continue male dominance in subtle ways. Augmenting the efforts to provide digital literacy and competency to marginalised women may turn out to be real game changer in bringing about social change.

The Impact of Online Community on Farmer Empowerment: A Strategical Analysis for Development The Technology-to-Performance

This research provides empirical evidence for the benefit of social media in the online farmer community. The benefit that focus on empowerment value. The case study is used to explore the ICT usage in the community of Laying Hens Farmer in East and Central Java implementing the multi-feed and additive supplement. The research develops The Technology-to-Performance Chain (TPC) approach to analysis the strategy of farmer empowerment. The performance that was addressed by empowerment values. The study results that the farmer’s empowerment are influenced significantly by task-technology fit with a path coefficient of 0,704. It means that utilization of social media as the online media of community will encourage empowerment if the information and knowledge sharing activities inside are related to the task or farmer's livelihood. The farmer's characteristics and the facilitating condition affect the empowerment insignificantly. However, the facilitating condition determines the task-technology fit with the path value 0,868. This study discusses 3 important layers in farmer empowerment strategies through online communities. The first is the underlying factors which includes internet access, product innovation and agents of change (facilitators/agricultural extensionists), the second is the adoption process (both internet adoption and product knowledge adoption) while the third is the impact of empowerment which is direct (output) and indirect (outcome).

The Impact of Online Community on Farmer Empowerment: A Strategical Analysis for Development The Technology-to-Performance

This research provides empirical evidence for the benefit of social media in the online farmer community. The benefit that focus on empowerment value. The case study is used to explore the ICT usage in the community of Laying Hens Farmer in East and Central Java implementing the multi-feed and additive supplement. The research develops The Technology-to-Performance Chain (TPC) approach to analysis the strategy of farmer empowerment. The performance that was addressed by empowerment values. The study results that the farmer’s empowerment are influenced significantly by task-technology fit with a path coefficient of 0,704. It means that utilization of social media as the online media of community will encourage empowerment if the information and knowledge sharing activities inside are related to the task or farmer's livelihood. The farmer's characteristics and the facilitating condition affect the empowerment insignificantly. However, the facilitating condition determines the task-technology fit with the path value 0,868. This study discusses 3 important layers in farmer empowerment strategies through online communities. The first is the underlying factors which includes internet access, product innovation and agents of change (facilitators/agricultural extensionists), the second is the adoption process (both internet adoption and product knowledge adoption) while the third is the impact of empowerment which is direct (output) and indirect (outcome).

An Empirical Investigation of Factors Influencing the Adoption of Internet of Things Services by End-Users

An Empirical Investigation of Factors Influencing the Adoption of Internet of Things Services by End-Users

Towards Deep Q-Network Based Resource Allocation in Industrial Internet of Things.

With the increasing adoption of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, infrastructures, and supporting applications, it is critical to design schemes to effectively allocate resources (e.g., networking, computing, and energy) in IIoT systems, generally formalized as optimization problems. Nonetheless, because the system is highly complex, operation environments are time-varying, and required information may not be available, it is difficult to leverage traditional optimization techniques to solve the optimal resource allocation problem. To this end, in this paper we propose a Deep -Network (DQN) based scheme to address both bandwidth utilization and energy efficiency in an IIoT system. In detail, we design a DQN model that consists of two deep neural networks (DNN) and a -learning model. The DNN network abstracts the features from the highly dimensional inputs and obtains the approximate -function for the -learning model. Based on the -function, the -learning model can generate the -table and reward function. After the training process, the DQN model can select appropriate actions for the agents (i.e., robots in a smart warehouse in this study) to improve bandwidth utilization and energy efficiency. To evaluate our proposed scheme, we design a simulation environment to investigate a typical IIoT scenario: the actuation of robotics in a smart warehouse. We then implement the DQN model and conduct extensive experiments to validate the efficacy of our scheme. Our experimental results confirm that our scheme can improve both bandwidth utilization and energy efficiency, as compared to other representative schemes.

Internet, Participation in International Trade, and Tax Revenue Instability

This study investigates the effect of the Internet on tax revenue instability (TRI), notably through the international trade channel. It used a sample of 142 countries over the period 1995-2017 and relied primarily on the two-step system generalized method of moments estimator. The findings indicate that greater access to the Internet negatively affects TRI, and this effect works through the trade openness avenue. Especially, countries enjoy a higher negative effect of the Internet on TRI as they experience a greater trade openness. Moreover, Internet access reduces TRI in countries that have experienced a greater extent of tax reform and a greater export product concentration. Therefore, these findings add to the potential benefits of Internet adoption by showing that it could also help stabilize tax revenue, particularly through countries’ participation in international trade.

Applications of Digital Health Technologies in Knee Osteoarthritis: Narrative Review.

BackgroundWith the increasing adoption of high-speed internet and mobile technologies by older adults, digital health is a promising modality to enhance clinical care for people with knee osteoarthritis (KOA), including those with knee replacement (KR).ObjectiveThis study aimed to summarize the current use, cost-effectiveness, and patient and clinician perspectives of digital health for intervention delivery in KOA and KR.MethodsIn this narrative review, search terms such as mobile health, smartphone, mobile application, mobile technology, ehealth, text message, internet, knee osteoarthritis, total knee arthroplasty, and knee replacement were used in the PubMed and Embase databases between October 2018 and February 2021. The search was limited to original articles published in the English language within the past 10 years. In total, 91 studies were included.ResultsDigital health technologies such as websites, mobile apps, telephone calls, SMS text messaging, social media, videoconferencing, and custom multi-technology systems have been used to deliver interventions in KOA and KR populations. Overall, there was significant heterogeneity in the types and applications of digital health used in these populations. Digital patient education improved disease-related knowledge, especially when used as an adjunct to traditional methods of patient education for both KOA and KR. Digital health that incorporated person-specific motivational messages, biofeedback, or patient monitoring was more successful at improving physical activity than self-directed digital interventions for both KOA and KR. Many digital exercise interventions were found to be as effective as in-person physical therapy for people with KOA. Many digital exercise interventions for KR incorporated both in-person and web-based treatments (blended format), communication with clinicians, and multi-technology systems and were successful in improving knee range of motion and self-reported symptoms and reducing the length of hospital stays. All digital interventions that incorporated cognitive behavioral therapy or similar psychological interventions showed significant improvements in knee pain, function, and psychological health when compared with no treatment or traditional treatments for both KOA and KR. Although limited in number, studies have indicated that digital health may be cost-effective for these populations, especially when travel costs are considered. Finally, although patients with KOA and KR and clinicians had positive views on digital health, concerns related to privacy and security and concerns related to logistics and training were raised by patients and clinicians, respectively.ConclusionsFor people with KOA and KR, many studies found digital health to be as effective as traditional treatments for patient education, physical activity, and exercise interventions. All digital interventions that incorporated cognitive behavioral therapy or similar psychological treatments were reported to result in significant improvements in patients with KOA and KR when compared with no treatment or traditional treatments. Overall, technologies that were blended and incorporated communication with clinicians, as well as biofeedback or patient monitoring, showed favorable outcomes.

Adoption of Green Industrial Internet of Things to Improve Organizational Performance: The Role of Institutional Isomorphism and Green Innovation Practices

Emerging technology developments and functions of the Internet of Things (IoT) in industrial systems are leading the development of the Industrial IoT (IIoT). Greener, i.e., cleaner environmental goals can be achieved by putting green IIoT (GIIoT) into practice. This research aims to explore the reasons for the adoption of GIIoT in organizational decision-making and to explore its impact on organizational performance. The proposed research model was tested by collecting data through a structured questionnaire. The findings suggest that institutional isomorphism has a positive impact on the adoption of GIIoT. Moreover, GIIoT is positively associated with green innovation (GI) practices (e.g., product, process, and management) that lead to organizational performance. The potential impact of various types of institutional isomorphism described in this study can help organizations better comprehend the institutional pressures they enforce and/or appease their stakeholders, especially as they adopt GIIoT, to manage production issues and potential compliance pressures in the process.

On Feasibility of Coordinated Time-Delay and False Data Injection Attacks on Cyber–Physical Systems

With the widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, cyber–physical systems (CPSs) are facing threats from cyberattacks due to the vulnerabilities exposed in IoT devices. In this article, we analyze the feasibility of a coordinated attack, named TD-FDIA, on CPS by the synchronizing the time-delay attack (TDA) and false data injection attack (FDIA). It seems that the coordinated attack is more powerful than either one. But the analysis of its stealthiness and effectiveness is challenging. In the context of the networked control system, we first propose a general formulation for the impact of TD-FDIA on the system’s stability. Then, we analyze whether the combination of TDA and FDIA can destabilize the system and remain stealthy or not with different setups when the controller is with and without an observer, and the communication protocol between the controller and actuator is UDP and TCP, respectively. The conditions required to make TD-FDIA stealthy are given in some cases. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the impact of TDA, FDIA, and TD-FDIA on the system’s stability with three different CPS scenarios.

Understanding Information Seeking Behavior of Users in Academic Context (A Critical Review of Literature)

Information has become quintessential for everyone. It is hailed as the most valuable resource in modern times1. Owing to the rapid proliferation of technology and increased Internet adoption rate, interacting with this valuable resource has become easy2. Users seek information from myriad sources to satisfy their information needs3. The information needs are secondary needs that arise from some basic needs, which arise in some contexts4. Information seeking behavior is "purposive seeking of information in response to a need to satisfy a goal" 5 . It is a concept of great importance in library and information sciences6, with studies dating back to the early 1900s. With time and advancement in technology, the focus of researchers and scholars shifted from information systems to users' information needs and information use5. The present study has reviewed literature pertaining to various aspects of users' information seeking behavior, such as information sources, information needs, factors, and challenges affecting it in academic settings. The studies reviewed here are mainly from the field of library sciences. This paper concisely attempts to elucidate the basic concepts of information seeking behavior and gauge the influence of technology on users' information seeking practices in academic settings. The review findings suggest that faculty and students' information seeking behavior is concerned chiefly with their academic lives. The Internet is the most used and popular source/medium for academic information seeking processes. The paper shall assist future researchers, scholars, students interested in understanding the concept of information seeking behavior qua affective factors and technology usage.

International Perspectives on the Evolving Telehealth and Virtual Care Competitive Landscape

From LATAM, to Pakistan, to Nigeria to China, panelists tackle issues including barriers and solutions for mobile internet adoption, impact investing, partnership, social enterprise and national policies for eHealth. Speakers offer guidance on how to scale technology for end users, solve for manpower issues, connection flexibilities and offer uniform thinking for local successes.

Analyzing the Feasibility and Generalizability of Fingerprinting Internet of Things Devices

Abstract In recent years, we have seen rapid growth in the use and adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, some loT devices are sensitive in nature, and simply knowing what devices a user owns can have security and privacy implications. Researchers have, therefore, looked at fingerprinting loT devices and their activities from encrypted network traffic. In this paper, we analyze the feasibility of fingerprinting IoT devices and evaluate the robustness of such fingerprinting approach across multiple independent datasets — collected under different settings. We show that not only is it possible to effectively fingerprint 188 loT devices (with over 97% accuracy), but also to do so even with multiple instances of the same make-and-model device. We also analyze the extent to which temporal, spatial and data-collection-methodology differences impact fingerprinting accuracy. Our analysis sheds light on features that are more robust against varying conditions. Lastly, we comprehensively analyze the performance of our approach under an open-world setting and propose ways in which an adversary can enhance their odds of inferring additional information about unseen devices (e.g., similar devices manufactured by the same company).

Constructing Household Routines with the Internet

Despite an abundance of literature highlighting the necessity of achieving digital parity in low-income communities, a concrete characterization of the internet as essential household infrastructure remains elusive. The original research presented in this paper uses Social Systems Theory as a framework for investigating how social housing residents use at-home internet to support their household activities and domestic routines. The findings illustrate how internet use within the household can increase the efficiency and breadth of routine activities, and become normalized within the household as a result. The results also highlight the motivations for internet adoption in older adult households, as well as the implications for household labour and finances associated with internet service termination in family households. These findings are relevant for scholars interested in domestic internet use in elderly and family households, and for policymakers hoping to alleviate digital inequity in low-income communities.

How Digital Are Albanian Esnterprises: A Microeconomic Analyses

This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impact in Albania. Using data from 2019 Enterprise Surveys (ES) we try to give answer questions related to digitalization that characterize Albanian enterprises. The survey was a shared project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the World Bank Group (WBG). The data are collected in Albania between January and May 2019. The objective of the survey is to better understand firms` experience in the private sector. Collected data are based on firms’ experiences and perceptions of the environment in which they operate. The paper uses these specific questions to study Internet adoption. ES questionnaires focus on the following questions: (1) Does the firm have a high-speed Internet connection on its premises? (2) Does the establishment have its website? The dependent variable is the performance of the firms measured in terms of sales growth and labor productivity, while the vector of independent variables is composed of enterprise characteristics such as firm size, ownership structure, legal status, region, etc. Moreover, dummy variables are used to capture access to formal banking services and gender ownership.

CIRCE: Architectural Patterns for Circular and Trustworthy By-Design IoT Orchestrations

The adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, applications and services gradually transform our everyday lives. In parallel, the transition from linear to circular economic (CE) models provide an even more fertile ground for novel types of services, and the update and enrichment of legacy ones. To fully realize the potential of the interplay between IoT and CE, the design-time definition of IoT orchestrations with proven circularity properties, and the run-time management of these orchestrations based on said properties, is of paramount importance. Nevertheless, the circularity requirements and associated properties are not only difficult to achieve at the IoT orchestration design and deployment initialization phases, but also hard to prove and maintain at run-time. Motivated by this, this paper presents the CIRCE framework for circular and trustworthy by-design IoT orchestrations. The CIRCE approach leverages concepts from pattern-driven engineering, whereby patterns are used to encode proven dependencies between the Location, Condition, and Availability (LCA) properties of individual smart objects and corresponding properties of orchestrations (compositions) involving them. These are augmented by patterns encoding trustworthiness-related properties, namely Connectivity, Security, Privacy, Dependability, and Interoperability (CSPDI). Thereby, these patterns are used to generate IoT orchestrations with proven LCA and CSPDI properties, as needed, at design time. At runtime, these properties are monitored in real-time, leveraging reasoning engines deployed across system layers, triggering adaptations to return the deployed orchestration to the desired LCA and CSPDI states, when required. Details are provided on the above novel combination of IoT, CE and pattern-based engineering, along with a proposed architecture and implementation approach. Furthermore, an assessment of a proof-of-concept implementation is provided, validating the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Priority and Traffic-Aware Contention-Based Medium Access Control Scheme for Multievent Wireless Sensor Networks

The requirement of high quality of service (QoS) in multi-priority industrial and domestic sensor networks poses new challenges to the increasing adoption of Internet of Things (IoT). In Multi-event Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs), nodes generate different types of data packets i.e., urgent (high priority) or normal (low priority), with different traffic proportions. High priority packets require an assurance of faster transmission and higher reliability in the network. In the literature, the existing medium access control (MAC) protocols for MWSNs have limited consideration in supporting data priority with different traffic proportions. Therefore, this paper proposes an energy efficient MAC scheme that incorporates multi-priority of data packets with dynamic traffic proportion, called PriTraCon-MAC. PriTraCon-MAC supports multi-events by considering four different priority levels of data packets and uses a novel approach that adjusts the contention window adaptively. Due to that, Request-To-Send frame of higher priority data can be sent earlier in the contention window, resulting in the corresponding faster acceptance by the receiver. Furthermore, mathematical delay analysis with different priority traffic proportions has also been undertaken. In addition, PriTraCon-MAC has been implemented in OMNET++ Castalia and its performance has been evaluated in terms of packet delay, reliability, and energy consumption, and compared with the existing Timeout Multi-priority based-MAC (TMPQ-MAC) under various network conditions. The simulation results demonstrate that PriTraCon-MAC offers lower average delay and achieves significantly higher packet success rate, while reducing energy consumption by up to 80% when compared with TMPQ-MAC protocol.

Assessing the Adaptation of Internet of Things (IoT) Barriers for Smart Cities’ Waste Management Using Fermatean Fuzzy Combined Compromise Solution Approach

This study proposes a systematic methodology of the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) barriers (IoTBs) that exist in the waste management structures of smart cities (SCs) in growing economies likely India. A hybrid multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) is applied and has recognized 15 IoTBs from literature and experts opinions obstructing the IoT adoption in SCs of India. The different IoTBs are studied using the similarity measure-based new weighting approach, and the combined compromise solution (CoCoSo) method. Considering that Fermatean fuzzy sets (FFSs) can represent this uncertainty, this paper proposes a decision-making framework for waste management system solutions based on the FFSs and builds a complete evaluation index system. Herein, we first combine the Archimedean Copula operations and Archimedean operations and term them as ‘generalized Archimedean Copula operations’ for FFSs. Based on these new operations, we develop the Fermatean fuzzy generalized Archimedean copula weighted averaging (FFGACWA) and Fermatean fuzzy generalized Archimedean copula weighted geometric (FFGACWG) operators. Then, we construct a decision algorithm based on FFWGAAC and FFWGGAC operators. Second, we propose new weighting procedure based on similarity measure to discuss the significance degree of IoTBs. Further, we apply this method to the evaluation and selection of a methodology of IoTBs in smart cities’ waste management (SCWM) assignments, and prove the effectiveness of this method. The algorithm can represent the Fermatean fuzzy information in a complex environment. It cannot only consider the uncertainty of the decision-makers (DMEs) when giving the evaluation value but also synthesize the relationship between any numbers of evaluation criteria. Finally, the superiority of the methodology is discussed by sensitivity analysis and comparative study. The results show that the method can effectively handle the decision-making problems in complex environments. This paper will assist the representatives, stakeholders and government to know the importance of IoTBs affecting waste management processes, and it will certainly help them to take judgments for exterminating the IoTBs for an effective IoT employment in SCWM assignments.