Categorizing users in behavior change support systems based on cognitive dissonance

Most developers of behavior change support systems (BCSS) employ ad hoc procedures in their designs. This paper presents a novel discussion concerning how analyzing the relationship between attitude toward target behavior, current behavior, and attitude toward change or maintaining behavior can facilitate the design of BCSS. We describe the three-dimensional relationships between attitude and behavior (3D-RAB) model and demonstrate how it can be used to categorize users, based on variations in levels of cognitive dissonance. The proposed model seeks to provide a method for analyzing the user context on the persuasive systems design model, and it is evaluated using existing BCSS. We identified that although designers seem to address the various cognitive states, this is not done purposefully, or in a methodical fashion, which implies that many existing applications are targeting users not considered at the design phase. As a result of this work, it is suggested that designers apply the 3D-RAB model in order to design solutions for targeted users.

On modeling and evaluating multicomputer transcoding architectures for live-video streams

The pervasive and ubiquitous computing has motivated researches on multimedia adaptation which aims at matching the video quality to the user needs and device restrictions. This technique has a high computational cost which needs to be studied and estimated when designing architectures and applications. This paper presents an analytical model to quantify these video transcoding costs in a hardware independent way. The model was used to analyze the impact of transcoding delays in end-to-end live-video transmissions over LANs, MANs and WANs. Experiments confirm that the proposed model helps to define the best transcoding architecture for different scenarios.

Feedback credibility issues in trust management systems

The following topics are dealt with: soft computing in intelligent multimedia; grid and pervasive computing security; interactive multimedia & intelligent services in mobile and ubiquitous computing; data management in ubiquitous computing; smart living space; software effectiveness and efficiency.

Multi-core Defense System (MSDS) for protecting computer infrastructure against DDoS attacks

Distributed Denial of Service attacks is one of the most challenging areas to deal with in Security. Not only do security managers have to deal with flood and vulnerability attacks. They also have to consider whether they are from legitimate or malicious attackers. In our previous work we developed a framework called bodyguard, which is to help security software developers from the current serialized paradigm, to a multi-core paradigm. In this paper, we update our research work by moving our bodyguard paradigm, into our new Ubiquitous Multi-Core Framework. From this shift, we show a marked improvement from our previous result of 20% to 110% speedup performance with an average cost of 1.5 ms. We also conducted a second series of experiments, which we trained up Neural Network, and tested it against actual DDoS attack traffic. From these experiments, we were able to achieve an average of 93.36%, of this attack traffic.

A framework for the design of privacy preserving pervasive healthcare

Privacy is an important aspect of pervasive and ubiquitous computing systems, and, in particular, pervasive healthcare. With reference to previous approaches on developing privacy sensitive pervasive healthcare applications, we detail a framework for the design of such systems that aims to minimise the impact of privacy on such systems. In reviewing previous approaches, we extract and combine common elements in order to unify the approaches and create a more formal methodology for designing privacy mechanisms in pervasive healthcare applications. In doing so we also consider the manner in which ubiquitous technologies impact on privacy and methods for reducing this impact. We demonstrate how the framework can be applied by using examples from the previous approaches. In addressing privacy issues, the framework aims to remove a large obstacle to deployment of pervasive healthcare systems, acceptance of the technology.

Privacy and the access of information in a smart house environment

In this paper we present a framework for addressing privacy issues raised by the monitoring of assisted living smart house environments. In home environments, the conflict between the goals of the surveillance, and the private nature of the home, raises the issue of occupant privacy. This issue needs to be addressed if applications are to be accepted by the occupant. We identify four key properties required for the design of privacy sensitive ubiquitous computing applications. Subsequently, we develop a dynamic and flexible method for implementing privacy measures through controlling access to data, and an interface to provide feedback to the occupant, enabling them to control the implemented privacy measures. We form a generic framework for implementing privacy sensitive ubiquitous computing applications based on previous applications within the field. This framework was then extended and used to develop a specific framework for a privacy sensitive smart house. The approach proposed in the framework dynamically applies privacy measures to multi-modal data according to the situation, or context, of the environment. We further test an implementation of the privacy measures, and detail methods to implement feedback and control. The approach aims to decrease the invasiveness of the surveillance, while retaining the purpose of the assisted living environment.

Critical analysis and comparative study of security for networked RFID systems

The Radio frequency identification (RFID) system is a new technology which uses the open air to transmit information. RFID technology is one of the most promising technologies in the field of ubiquitous computing which is revolutionizing the supply chain. It has already been applied by many major retail chains such as Target, Wal-Mart, etc. The networked RFID system such as supply chain has very unique and special business needs which lead to special sets of RFID security requirements and security models. However, very little work has been done to analyze RFID security parameters in relation to networked RFID systems business needs. This paper presents a critical analysis of the networked application's security requirements in relation to their business needs. It then presents a comparative study of existing literature and the ability of various models to protect the security of the supply chain in a RFID deployment.

Smart Interactive Advertising Board (SIAB)

A Smart Interactive Advertising Board (SIAB) has been designed and developed. This board is capable of interacting with humans in close proximity. A number of sensor devices are used in the board where sensors inputs (Bluetooth IDs and distance sensor readings) create an innovative form of user interaction with the board. The SIAB display is determined by user position, location, and movements. In this paper, the authors investigate how the user inputs are mapped to the advertising board and its behavior. A prototype of SIAB is implemented.

Detection on application layer DDoS using random walk model

Application Layer Distributed Denial of Service (ALDDoS) attacks have been increasing rapidly with the growth of Botnets and Ubiquitous computing. Differentiate to the former DDoS attacks, ALDDoS attacks cannot be efficiently detected, as attackers always adopt legitimate requests with real IP address, and the traffic has high similarity to legitimate traffic. In spite of that, we think, the attackers' browsing behavior will have great disparity from that of the legitimate users'. In this paper, we put forward a novel user behavior-based method to detect the application layer asymmetric DDoS attack. We introduce an extended random walk model to describe user browsing behavior and establish the legitimate pattern of browsing sequences. For each incoming browser, we observe his page request sequence and predict subsequent page request sequence based on random walk model. The similarity between the predicted and the observed page request sequence is used as a criterion to measure the legality of the user, and then attacker would be detected based on it. Evaluation results based on real collected data set has demonstrated that our method is very effective in detecting asymmetric ALDDoS attacks. © 2014 IEEE.

Sky high, skin deep: dark technologies of mediation

Media has become responsive architecture. Intelligent media artefacts are now embedded into the very fabric of our existence; they have become the structure of society itself. Ubiquitous computing creates informational environments in which material structures of communication become alive with agency. McLuhan's light bulb is now everyware: [1] technology that mediates by its mere presence. Pervasive mediation, a combination of mobile networks and systems of material translation such as 3D printers and programmable matter--is our current regime of mediation.