Securing Internet-of-Medical-Things networks using cancellable ECG recognition.

Reinforcement of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) network security has become extremely significant as these networks enable both patients and healthcare providers to communicate with each other by exchanging medical signals, data, and vital reports in a safe way. To ensure the safe transmission of sensitive information, robust and secure access mechanisms are paramount. Vulnerabilities in these networks, particularly at the access points, could expose patients to significant risks. Among the possible security measures, biometric authentication is becoming a more feasible choice, with a focus on leveraging regularly-monitored biomedical signals like Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals due to their unique characteristics. A notable challenge within all biometric authentication systems is the risk of losing original biometric traits, if hackers successfully compromise the biometric template storage space. Current research endorses replacement of the original biometrics used in access control with cancellable templates. These are produced using encryption or non-invertible transformation, which improves security by enabling the biometric templates to be changed in case an unwanted access is detected. This study presents a comprehensive framework for ECG-based recognition with cancellable templates. This framework may be used for accessing IoMT networks. An innovative methodology is introduced through non-invertible modification of ECG signals using blind signal separation and lightweight encryption. The basic idea here depends on the assumption that if the ECG signal and an auxiliary audio signal for the same person are subjected to a separation algorithm, the algorithm will yield two uncorrelated components through the minimization of a correlation cost function. Hence, the obtained outputs from the separation algorithm will be distorted versions of the ECG as well as the audio signals. The distorted versions of the ECG signals can be treated with a lightweight encryption stage and used as cancellable templates. Security enhancement is achieved through the utilization of the lightweight encryption stage based on a user-specific pattern and XOR operation, thereby reducing the processing burden associated with conventional encryption methods. The proposed framework efficacy is demonstrated through its application on the ECG-ID and MIT-BIH datasets, yielding promising results. The experimental evaluation reveals an Equal Error Rate (EER) of 0.134 on the ECG-ID dataset and 0.4 on the MIT-BIH dataset, alongside an exceptionally large Area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AROC) of 99.96% for both datasets. These results underscore the framework potential in securing IoMT networks through cancellable biometrics, offering a hybrid security model that combines the strengths of non-invertible transformations and lightweight encryption.

Securing web applications against XSS and SQLi attacks using a novel deep learning approach.

Modern web application development involves handling enormous amounts of sensitive and consequential data. Security is, therefore, a crucial component of developing web applications. A web application's security is concerned with safeguarding the data it processes. The web application framework must have safeguards to stop and find application vulnerabilities. Among all web application attacks, SQL injection and XSS attacks are common, which may lead to severe damage to Web application data or web functionalities. Currently, there are many solutions provided by various study for SQLi and XSS attack detection, but most of the work shown have used either SQL/XSS payload-based detection or HTTP request-based detection. Few solutions available can detect SQLi and XSS attacks, but these methods provide very high false positive rates, and the accuracy of these models can further be improved. We proposed a novel approach for securing web applications from both cross-site scripting attacks and SQL injection attacks using decoding and standardization of SQL and XSS payloads and HTTP requests and trained our model using hybrid deep learning networks in this paper. The proposed hybrid DL model combines the strengths of CNNs in extracting features from input data and LSTMs in capturing temporal dependencies in sequential data. The soundness of our approach lies in the use of deep learning techniques that can identify subtle patterns in the data that traditional machine learning-based methods might miss. We have created a testbed dataset of Normal and SQLi/XSS HTTP requests and evaluated the performance of our model on this dataset. We have also trained and evaluated the proposed model on the Benchmark dataset HTTP CSIC 2010 and another SQL/XSS payload dataset. The experimental findings show that our proposed approach effectively identifies these attacks with high accuracy and a low percentage of false positives. Additionally, our model performed better than traditional machine learning-based methods. This soundness approach can be applied to various network security applications such as intrusion detection systems and web application firewalls. Using our model, we achieved an accuracy of 99.84%, 99.23% and 99.77% on the SQL-XSS Payload dataset, Testbed dataset and HTTP CSIC 2010 dataset, respectively.

Deep learning innovations in diagnosing diabetic retinopathy: The potential of transfer learning and the DiaCNN model.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a significant cause of vision impairment, emphasizing the critical need for early detection and timely intervention to avert visual deterioration. Diagnosing DR is inherently complex, as it necessitates the meticulous examination of intricate retinal images by experienced specialists. This makes the early diagnosis of DR essential for effective treatment and prevention of eventual blindness. Traditional diagnostic methods, relying on human interpretation of medical images, face challenges in terms of accuracy and efficiency. In the present research, we introduce a novel method that offers superior precision in DR diagnosis, compared to traditional methods, by employing advanced deep learning techniques. Central to this approach is the concept of transfer learning. This entails the utilization of pre-existing, well-established models, specifically InceptionResNetv2 and Inceptionv3, to extract features and fine-tune selected layers to cater to the unique requirements of this specific diagnostic task. Concurrently, we also present a newly devised model, DiaCNN, which is tailored for the classification of eye diseases. To prove the efficacy of the proposed methodology, we leveraged the Ocular Disease Intelligent Recognition (ODIR) dataset, which comprises eight different eye disease categories. The results are promising. The InceptionResNetv2 model, incorporating transfer learning, registered an impressive 97.5% accuracy in both the training and testing phases. Its counterpart, the Inceptionv3 model, achieved an even more commendable 99.7% accuracy during training, and 97.5% during testing. Remarkably, the DiaCNN model showcased unparalleled precision, achieving 100% accuracy in training and 98.3% in testing. These figures represent a significant leap in classification accuracy when juxtaposed with existing state-of-the-art diagnostic methods. Such advancements hold immense promise for the future, emphasizing the potential of our proposed technique to revolutionize the accuracy of DR and other eye disease diagnoses. By facilitating earlier detection and more timely interventions, this approach stands poised to significantly reduce the incidence of blindness associated with DR, thus heralding a new era of improved patient outcomes. Therefore, this work, through its novel approach and stellar results, not only pushes the boundaries of DR diagnostic accuracy but also promises a transformative impact in early detection and intervention, aiming to substantially diminish DR-induced blindness and champion enhanced patient care.

Quad-port MIMO antenna with high isolation characteristics for sub 6-GHz 5G NR communication.

A four-port MIMO antenna with high isolation is presented. The antenna is primarily envisioned to cover the n48 band of Frequency Range-1 (FR-1) with TDD duplex mode. The engineered antenna has electrical dimensions of 90 × 90 × 1.57 mm3. The size miniaturization of a single antenna unit is achieved through an optimized placement of slots and extended arms. The quad-antennas are then placed orthogonally to achieve antenna diversity. The antenna resonates at 3.56 GHz and 5.28 GHz having 2:1 VSWR fractional bandwidth of 1.82% and 2.12%. The proposed resonator provides 88.34% and 79.28% efficiency at lower and upper bands, respectively. The antenna is an exceptional radiator regarding MIMO diversity performance owing to high inter-element isolation. The values of envelope correlation coefficient < 0.05, channel capacity loss is nearly 0.1 bits/sec/Hz, and total active reflection coefficient is - 24.26. The full ground plane profile aids in high directivity and cross-pol isolation. The antenna exhibits a gain of 4.2 dBi and 2.8 dBi, respectively, justifying intended application requirements. There is a good coherence between simulation and experimental results. The self-decoupled antenna poses its application in 5G and WLAN Communication Applications.

An efficient watermarking algorithm for digital audio data in security applications.

Transform-domain audio watermarking systems are more robust than time-domain systems. However, the main weakness of these systems is their high computational cost, especially for long-duration audio signals. Therefore, they are not desirable for real-time security applications where speed is a critical factor. In this paper, we propose a fast watermarking system for audio signals operating in the hybrid transform domain formed by the fractional Charlier transform (FrCT) and the dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DTCWT). The central idea of the proposed algorithm is to parallelize the intensive and repetitive steps in the audio watermarking system and then implement them simultaneously on the available physical cores on an embedded systems cluster. In order to have a low power consumption and a low-cost cluster with a large number of physical cores, four Raspberry Pis 4B are used where the communication between them is ensured using the Message Passing Interface (MPI). The adopted Raspberry Pi cluster is also characterized by its portability and mobility, which are required in watermarking-based smart city applications. In addition to its resistance to any possible manipulation (intentional or unintentional), high payload capacity, and high imperceptibility, the proposed parallel system presents a temporal improvement of about 70%, 80%, and 90% using 4, 8, and 16 physical cores of the adopted cluster, respectively.

Automated diagnosis of EEG abnormalities with different classification techniques.

Automatic seizure detection and prediction using clinical Electroencephalograms (EEGs) are challenging tasks due to factors such as low Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNRs), high variance in epileptic seizures among patients, and limited clinical data constraints. To overcome these challenges, this paper presents two approaches for EEG signal classification. One of these approaches depends on Machine Learning (ML) tools. The used features are different types of entropy, higher-order statistics, and sub-band energies in the Hilbert Marginal Spectrum (HMS) domain. The classification is performed using Support Vector Machine (SVM), Logistic Regression (LR), and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) classifiers. Both seizure detection and prediction scenarios are considered. The second approach depends on spectrograms of EEG signal segments and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based residual learning model. We use 10000 spectrogram images for each class. In this approach, it is possible to perform both seizure detection and prediction in addition to a 3-state classification scenario. Both approaches are evaluated on the Children's Hospital Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (CHB-MIT) dataset, which contains 24 EEG recordings for 6 males and 18 females. The results obtained for the HMS-based model showed an accuracy of 100%. The CNN-based model achieved accuracies of 97.66%, 95.59%, and 94.51% for Seizure (S) versus Pre-Seizure (PS), Non-Seizure (NS) versus S, and NS versus S versus PS classes, respectively. These results demonstrate that the proposed approaches can be effectively used for seizure detection and prediction. They outperform the state-of-the-art techniques for automatic seizure detection and prediction. Block diagram of proposed epileptic seizure detection method using HMS with different classifiers.

Comparison of two newly suggested power, refrigeration, and hydrogen production, for moving towards sustainability schemes using improved solar-powered evolutionary algorithm optimization.

In the third millennium, developing countries will confront significant environmental problems such as ozone depletion, global warming, the shortage of fossil resources, and greenhouse gas emissions. This research looked at a multigenerational system that can generate clean hydrogen, fresh water, electricity, heat, and cooling. The system's components include Rankine and Brayton cycles, an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), flash desalination, an Alkaline electrolyzer, and a solar heliostat. The proposed process has been compared for two different start-up modes with a combustion chamber and solar heliostat to compare renewable and fossil fuel sources. This research evaluated various characteristics, including turbine pressure, system efficiency, solar radiation, and isentropic efficiency. The energy and exergy efficiency of the proposed system were obtained at around 78.93% and 47.56%, respectively. Exergy study revealed that heat exchangers and alkaline electrolyzers had the greatest exergy destruction rates, at 78.93% and 47.56%, respectively. The suggested system produces 0.04663 kg/s of hydrogen. Results indicate that at the best operational conditions, the exergetic efficiency, power, and hydrogen generation of 56%, 6000 kW, and 1.28 kg/s is reached, respectively. Also, With a 15% improvement in the Brayton cycle's isentropic efficacy, the quantity of hydrogen produced increases from 0.040 kg/s to 0.0520 kg/s.

A comprehensive taxonomy on multimedia video forgery detection techniques: challenges and novel trends.

Thousands of videos are posted on websites and social media every day, including Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and YouTube. Newspapers, law enforcement publications, criminal investigations, surveillance systems, Banking, the museum, the military, imaging in medicine, insurance claims, and consumer photography are just a few examples of places where important visual data may be obtained. Thus, the emergence of powerful processing tools that can be easily made available online poses a huge threat to the authenticity of videos. Therefore, it's vital to distinguish between true and fake data. Digital video forgery detection techniques are used to validate and check the realness of digital video content. Deep learning algorithms lately sparked a lot of interest in the field of digital forensics, such as Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN), and Adaptive Neural Networks (ANN). In this paper, we give a soft taxonomy as well as a thorough overview of recent research on multimedia falsification detection systems. First, the basic knowledge needed to comprehend video forgery is provided. Then, a summary of active and passive video manipulation detection approaches is provided. Anti-forensics, compression video methods, datasets required for video forensics, and challenges of video detection approaches are also addressed. Following that, we presented an overview of deepfake, and the datasets required for detection were also provided. Also, helpful software packages and forensics tools for video detection are covered. In addition, this paper provides an overview of video analysis tools that are used in video forensic applications. Finally, we highlight research difficulties as well as interesting research avenues. In short, this survey provides detailed information and a broader investigation to extract data and detect fraud video contents under one umbrella.

Integrating Digital Twins with IoT-Based Blockchain: Concept, Architecture, Challenges, and Future Scope.

In recent years, there have been concentrations on the Digital Twin from researchers and companies due to its advancement in IT, communication systems, Cloud Computing, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and Blockchain. The main concept of the DT is to provide a comprehensive tangible, and operational explanation of any element, asset, or system. However, it is an extremely dynamic taxonomy developing in complication during the life cycle that produces an enormous quantity of the engendered data and information from them. Likewise, with the development of the Blockchain, the digital twins have the potential to redefine and could be a key strategy to support the IoT-based digital twin's applications for transferring data and value onto the Internet with full transparency besides promising accessibility, trusted traceability, and immutability of transactions. Therefore, the integration of digital twins with the IoT and blockchain technologies has the potential to revolutionize various industries by providing enhanced security, transparency, and data integrity. Thus, this work presents a survey on the innovative theme of digital twins with the integration of Blockchain for various applications. Also, provides challenges and future research directions on this subject. In addition, in this paper, we propose a concept and architecture for integrating digital twins with IoT-based blockchain archives, which allows for real-time monitoring and control of physical assets and processes in a secure and decentralized manner. We also discuss the challenges and limitations of this integration, including issues related to data privacy, scalability, and interoperability. Finally, we provide insights into the future scope of this technology and discuss potential research directions for further improving the integration of digital twins with IoT-based blockchain archives. Overall, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the potential benefits and challenges of integrating digital twins with IoT-based blockchain and lays the foundation for future research in this area.

Impact of Fireworks Industry Safety Measures and Prevention Management System on Human Error Mitigation Using a Machine Learning Approach.

In the fireworks industry (FI), many accidents and explosions frequently happen due to human error (HE). Human factors (HFs) always play a dynamic role in the incidence of accidents in workplace environments. Preventing HE is a main challenge for safety and precautions in the FI. Clarifying the relationship between HFs can help in identifying the correlation between unsafe behaviors and influential factors in hazardous chemical warehouse accidents. This paper aims to investigate the impact of HFs that contribute to HE, which has caused FI disasters, explosions, and incidents in the past. This paper investigates why and how HEs contribute to the most severe accidents that occur while storing and using hazardous chemicals. The impact of fireworks and match industry disasters has motivated the planning of mitigation in this proposal. This analysis used machine learning (ML) and recommends an expert system (ES). There were many significant correlations between individual behaviors and the chance of HE to occur. This paper proposes an ML-based prediction model for fireworks and match work industries in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu. For this study analysis, the questionnaire responses are reviewed for accuracy and coded from 500 participants from the fireworks and match industries in Tamil Nadu who were chosen to fill out a questionnaire. The Chief Inspectorate of Factories in Chennai and the Training Centre for Industrial Safety and Health in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, India, significantly contributed to the collection of accident datasets for the FI in Tamil Nadu, India. The data are analyzed and presented in the following categories based on this study's objectives: the effect of physical, psychological, and organizational factors. The output implemented by comparing ML models, support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and Naïve Bayes (NB) accuracy is 86.45%, 91.6%, and 92.1%, respectively. Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) has the optimal classification accuracy of 94.41% of ML models. This research aims to create a new ES to mitigate HE risks in the fireworks and match work industries. The proposed ES reduces HE risk and improves workplace safety in unsafe, uncertain workplaces. Proper safety management systems (SMS) can prevent deaths and injuries such as fires and explosions.

E2E-RDS: Efficient End-to-End Ransomware Detection System Based on Static-Based ML and Vision-Based DL Approaches.

Nowadays, ransomware is considered one of the most critical cyber-malware categories. In recent years various malware detection and classification approaches have been proposed to analyze and explore malicious software precisely. Malware originators implement innovative techniques to bypass existing security solutions. This paper introduces an efficient End-to-End Ransomware Detection System (E2E-RDS) that comprehensively utilizes existing Ransomware Detection (RD) approaches. E2E-RDS considers reverse engineering the ransomware code to parse its features and extract the important ones for prediction purposes, as in the case of static-based RD. Moreover, E2E-RDS can keep the ransomware in its executable format, convert it to an image, and then analyze it, as in the case of vision-based RD. In the static-based RD approach, the extracted features are forwarded to eight various ML models to test their detection efficiency. In the vision-based RD approach, the binary executable files of the benign and ransomware apps are converted into a 2D visual (color and gray) images. Then, these images are forwarded to 19 different Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models while exploiting the substantial advantages of Fine-Tuning (FT) and Transfer Learning (TL) processes to differentiate ransomware apps from benign apps. The main benefit of the vision-based approach is that it can efficiently detect and identify ransomware with high accuracy without using data augmentation or complicated feature extraction processes. Extensive simulations and performance analyses using various evaluation metrics for the proposed E2E-RDS were investigated using a newly collected balanced dataset that composes 500 benign and 500 ransomware apps. The obtained outcomes demonstrate that the static-based RD approach using the AB (Ada Boost) model achieved high classification accuracy compared to other examined ML models, which reached 97%. While the vision-based RD approach achieved high classification accuracy, reaching 99.5% for the FT ResNet50 CNN model. It is declared that the vision-based RD approach is more cost-effective, powerful, and efficient in detecting ransomware than the static-based RD approach by avoiding feature engineering processes. Overall, E2E-RDS is a versatile solution for end-to-end ransomware detection that has proven its high efficiency from computational and accuracy perspectives, making it a promising solution for real-time ransomware detection in various systems.

Simultaneous Super-Resolution and Classification of Lung Disease Scans.

Acute lower respiratory infection is a leading cause of death in developing countries. Hence, progress has been made for early detection and treatment. There is still a need for improved diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, particularly in resource-limited settings. Chest X-ray and computed tomography (CT) have the potential to serve as effective screening tools for lower respiratory infections, but the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in these areas is limited. To address this gap, we present a computer-aided diagnostic system for chest X-ray and CT images of several common pulmonary diseases, including COVID-19, viral pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia, tuberculosis, lung opacity, and various types of carcinoma. The proposed system depends on super-resolution (SR) techniques to enhance image details. Deep learning (DL) techniques are used for both SR reconstruction and classification, with the InceptionResNetv2 model used as a feature extractor in conjunction with a multi-class support vector machine (MCSVM) classifier. In this paper, we compare the proposed model performance to those of other classification models, such as Resnet101 and Inceptionv3, and evaluate the effectiveness of using both softmax and MCSVM classifiers. The proposed system was tested on three publicly available datasets of CT and X-ray images and it achieved a classification accuracy of 98.028% using a combination of SR and InceptionResNetv2. Overall, our system has the potential to serve as a valuable screening tool for lower respiratory disorders and assist clinicians in interpreting chest X-ray and CT images. In resource-limited settings, it can also provide a valuable diagnostic support.

Vision Transformers in Image Restoration: A Survey.

The Vision Transformer (ViT) architecture has been remarkably successful in image restoration. For a while, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) predominated in most computer vision tasks. Now, both CNN and ViT are efficient approaches that demonstrate powerful capabilities to restore a better version of an image given in a low-quality format. In this study, the efficiency of ViT in image restoration is studied extensively. The ViT architectures are classified for every task of image restoration. Seven image restoration tasks are considered: Image Super-Resolution, Image Denoising, General Image Enhancement, JPEG Compression Artifact Reduction, Image Deblurring, Removing Adverse Weather Conditions, and Image Dehazing. The outcomes, the advantages, the limitations, and the possible areas for future research are detailed. Overall, it is noted that incorporating ViT in the new architectures for image restoration is becoming a rule. This is due to some advantages compared to CNN, such as better efficiency, especially when more data are fed to the network, robustness in feature extraction, and a better feature learning approach that sees better the variances and characteristics of the input. Nevertheless, some drawbacks exist, such as the need for more data to show the benefits of ViT over CNN, the increased computational cost due to the complexity of the self-attention block, a more challenging training process, and the lack of interpretability. These drawbacks represent the future research direction that should be targeted to increase the efficiency of ViT in the image restoration domain.

A Novel Design of Spike-Shaped Miniaturized 4 × 4 MIMO Antenna for Wireless UWB Network Applications Using Characteristic Mode Analysis.

In this article, a 4 × 4 miniaturized UWB-MIMO antenna with reduced isolation is designed and analyzed using a unique methodology known as characteristic mode analysis. To minimize the antenna's physical size and to improve the isolation, an arrangement of four symmetrical radiating elements is positioned orthogonally. The antenna dimension is 40 mm × 40 mm (0.42λ0× 0.42λ0) (λ0 is the wavelength at first lower frequency), which is printed on FR-4 material with a width of 1.6 mm and εr = 4.3. A square-shaped defected ground framework was placed on the ground to improve the isolation. Etching square-shaped slots on the ground plane achieved the return losses S11 < -10 dB and isolation 26 dB in the entire operating band 3.2 GHz-12.44 GHz (UWB (3.1-10.6 GHz) and X-band (8 GHz-12 GHz) spectrum and achieved good isolation bandwidth of 118.15%. The outcomes of estimated and observed values are examined for MIMO inclusion factors such as DG, ECC, CCL, and MEG. The antenna's performances, including radiation efficiency and gain, are remarkable for this antenna design. The designed antenna is successfully tested in a cutting-edge laboratory. The measured outcomes are quite similar to the modeled outcomes. This antenna is ideal for WLAN and Wi-Max applications.

Hybrid Multilevel Thresholding Image Segmentation Approach for Brain MRI.

A brain tumor is an abnormal growth of tissues inside the skull that can interfere with the normal functioning of the neurological system and the body, and it is responsible for the deaths of many individuals every year. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques are widely used for detection of brain cancers. Segmentation of brain MRI is a foundational process with numerous clinical applications in neurology, including quantitative analysis, operational planning, and functional imaging. The segmentation process classifies the pixel values of the image into different groups based on the intensity levels of the pixels and a selected threshold value. The quality of the medical image segmentation extensively depends on the method which selects the threshold values of the image for the segmentation process. The traditional multilevel thresholding methods are computationally expensive since these methods thoroughly search for the best threshold values to maximize the accuracy of the segmentation process. Metaheuristic optimization algorithms are widely used for solving such problems. However, these algorithms suffer from the problem of local optima stagnation and slow convergence speed. In this work, the original Bald Eagle Search (BES) algorithm problems are resolved in the proposed Dynamic Opposite Bald Eagle Search (DOBES) algorithm by employing Dynamic Opposition Learning (DOL) at the initial, as well as exploitation, phases. Using the DOBES algorithm, a hybrid multilevel thresholding image segmentation approach has been developed for MRI image segmentation. The hybrid approach is divided into two phases. In the first phase, the proposed DOBES optimization algorithm is used for the multilevel thresholding. After the selection of the thresholds for the image segmentation, the morphological operations have been utilized in the second phase to remove the unwanted area present in the segmented image. The performance efficiency of the proposed DOBES based multilevel thresholding algorithm with respect to BES has been verified using the five benchmark images. The proposed DOBES based multilevel thresholding algorithm attains higher Peak Signal-to-Noise ratio (PSNR) and Structured Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) value in comparison to the BES algorithm for the benchmark images. Additionally, the proposed hybrid multilevel thresholding segmentation approach has been compared with the existing segmentation algorithms to validate its significance. The results show that the proposed algorithm performs better for tumor segmentation in MRI images as the SSIM value attained using the proposed hybrid segmentation approach is nearer to 1 when compared with ground truth images.

Studies of Performance of Cs2TiI6-XBrX (Where x = 0 to 6)-Based Mixed Halide Perovskite Solar Cell with CdS Electron Transport Layer.

The present research work represents the numerical study of the device performance of a lead-free Cs2TiI6-XBrX-based mixed halide perovskite solar cell (PSC), where x = 1 to 5. The open circuit voltage (VOC) and short circuit current (JSC) in a generic TCO/electron transport layer (ETL)/absorbing layer/hole transfer layer (HTL) structure are the key parameters for analyzing the device performance. The entire simulation was conducted by a SCAPS-1D (solar cell capacitance simulator- one dimensional) simulator. An alternative FTO/CdS/Cs2TiI6-XBrX/CuSCN/Ag solar cell architecture has been used and resulted in an optimized absorbing layer thickness at 0.5 µm thickness for the Cs2TiBr6, Cs2TiI1Br5, Cs2TiI2Br4, Cs2TiI3Br3 and Cs2TiI4Br2 absorbing materials and at 1.0 µm and 0.4 µm thickness for the Cs2TiI5Br1 and Cs2TiI6 absorbing materials. The device temperature was optimized at 40 °C for the Cs2TiBr6, Cs2TiI1Br5 and Cs2TiI2Br4 absorbing layers and at 20 °C for the Cs2TiI3Br3, Cs2TiI4Br2, Cs2TiI5Br1 and Cs2TiI6 absorbing layers. The defect density was optimized at 1010 (cm-3) for all the active layers.

Secure biometric systems based on bio-signals and DNA encryption of optical spectrograms.

Recently, biometrics has become widely used in applications to verify an individual's identity. To address security issues, biometrics presents an intriguing window of opportunity to enhance the usability and security of the Internet of Things (IoT) and other systems. It can be used to secure a variety of newly emerging IoT devices. However, biometric scenarios need more protection against different hacking attempts. Various solutions are introduced to secure biometrics. Cryptosystems, cancelable biometrics, and hybrid systems are efficient solutions for template protection. The new trend in biometric authentication systems is to use bio-signals. In this paper, two proposed authentication systems are introduced based on bio-signals. One of them is unimodal, while the other is multimodal. Protected templates are obtained depending on encryption. The deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) encryption is implemented on the obtained optical spectrograms of bio-signals. The authentication process relies on the DNA sensitivity to variations in the initial values. In the multimodal system, the singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm is implemented to merge bio-signals. Different evaluation metrics are used to assess the performance of the proposed systems. Simulation results prove the high accuracy and efficiency of the proposed systems as the equal error rate (EER) value is close to 0 and the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AROC) is close to 1. The false accept rate (FAR), false reject rate (FRR), and decidability (D) are also estimated with acceptable results of 1.6 × 10-8, 9.05 × 10-6, and 29.34, respectively. Simulation results indicate the performance stability of the proposed systems in the presence of different levels of noise.

Investigations on Stub-Based UWB-MIMO Antennas to Enhance Isolation Using Characteristic Mode Analysis.

In this article, very compact 2 × 2 and 4 × 4 MIMO (Multiple-Input and Multiple output) antennas are designed with the help of Characteristics Mode Analysis to enhance isolation between the elements for UWB applications. The proposed antennas are designed with Characteristic Mode Analysis (CMA) to gain physical insight and also to analyze the dominant mode. To improve isolation and minimize the mutual coupling between radiating elements, elliptical shaped stubs are used. The dimensions of the 2 × 2 and 4 × 4 MIMO antennas are 0.29λ0 × 0.21λ0 (28 × 20 mm2) and 0.29λ0 × 0.42λ0 (28 × 40 mm2), respectively. These antennas cover the (3.1 GHz-13.75 GHz) UWB frequency band and maintain remarkable isolation of more than 25 dB for both 2 × 2 and 4 × 4 antennas. The impedance bandwidth of the proposed 4 × 4 MIMO antenna is 126.40% from 3.1 GHz to 13.75 GHz, including X-Band and ITU bands. The proposed 4 × 4 antenna has good radiation efficiency, with a value of more than 92.5%. The envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), diversity gain (DG), mean effective gain (MEG), and channel capacity loss (CCL) matrices of the 4 × 4 antenna are simulated and tested. The corresponding values are 0.0045, 9.982, -3.1 dB, and 0.39, respectively. The simulated results are validated with measured results and favorable agreements for both the 2 × 2 and 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO antennas.

A Novel Dynamic Bit Rate Analysis Technique for Adaptive Video Streaming over HTTP Support.

Recently, there has been an increase in research interest in the seamless streaming of video on top of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) in cellular networks (3G/4G). The main challenges involved are the variation in available bit rates on the Internet caused by resource sharing and the dynamic nature of wireless communication channels. State-of-the-art techniques, such as Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), support the streaming of stored video, but they suffer from the challenge of live video content due to fluctuating bit rate in the network. In this work, a novel dynamic bit rate analysis technique is proposed to model client-server architecture using attention-based long short-term memory (A-LSTM) networks for solving the problem of smooth video streaming over HTTP networks. The proposed client system analyzes the bit rate dynamically, and a status report is sent to the server to adjust the ongoing session parameter. The server assesses the dynamics of the bit rate on the fly and calculates the status for each video sequence. The bit rate and buffer length are given as sequential inputs to LSTM to produce feature vectors. These feature vectors are given different weights to produce updated feature vectors. These updated feature vectors are given to multi-layer feed forward neural networks to predict six output class labels (144p, 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p, and 1080p). Finally, the proposed A-LSTM work is evaluated in real-time using a code division multiple access evolution-data optimized network (CDMA20001xEVDO Rev-A) with the help of an Internet dongle. Furthermore, the performance is analyzed with the full reference quality metric of streaming video to validate our proposed work. Experimental results also show an average improvement of 37.53% in peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and 5.7% in structural similarity (SSIM) index over the commonly used buffer-filling technique during the live streaming of video.

Cancelable biometric system for IoT applications based on optical double random phase encoding.

The security issue is essential in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) environment. Biometrics play an important role in securing the emerging IoT devices, especially IoT robots. Biometric identification is an interesting candidate to improve IoT usability and security. To access and control sensitive environments like IoT, passwords are not recommended for high security levels. Biometrics can be used instead, but more protection is needed to store original biometrics away from invaders. This paper presents a cancelable multimodal biometric recognition system based on encryption algorithms and watermarking. Both voice-print and facial images are used as individual biometrics. Double Random Phase Encoding (DRPE) and chaotic Baker map are utilized as encryption algorithms. Verification is performed by estimating the correlation between registered and tested models in their cancelable format. Simulation results give Equal Error Rate (EER) values close to zero and Area under the Receiver Operator Characteristic Curve (AROC) equal to one, which indicates the high performance of the proposed system in addition to the difficulty to invert cancelable templates. Moreover, reusability and diversity of biometric templates is guaranteed.