Elliptic Curve Cryptography-Based Authentication with Identity Protection for Smart Grids

In a smart grid, the power service provider enables the expected power generation amount to be measured according to current power consumption, thus stabilizing the power system. However, the data transmitted over smart grids are not protected, and then suffer from several types of security threats and attacks. Thus, a robust and efficient authentication protocol should be provided to strength the security of smart grid networks. As the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system provides the security protection between the control center and substations in most smart grid environments, we focus on how to secure the communications between the substations and smart appliances. Existing security approaches fail to address the performance-security balance. In this study, we suggest a mitigation authentication protocol based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography with privacy protection by using a tamper-resistant device at the smart appliance side to achieve a delicate balance between performance and security of smart grids. The proposed protocol provides some attractive features such as identity protection, mutual authentication and key agreement. Finally, we demonstrate the completeness of the proposed protocol using the Gong-Needham- Yahalom logic.     

Implementation of load management application system using smart grid privacy policy in energy management service environment

As the Smart grid is intelligent power grid, combining information Technology to the existing power grid. Electricity suppliers and consumers exchange real-time information to two-way and is a next-generation power grid to optimize energy efficiency. This paper suggests the implementation of load management application system using smart grid privacy policy in energy management service in energy management service environment. The structure of the privacy policy-based protection system using load management system in the smart grid environment is the structure that serves data in the load management system to the web through the application service network. For this, the privacy policy-based protection system suggested and developed the smart grid privacy policy-based protection system which controls service access by protecting items related to the personal information of the user and setting the privacy protection level for each item.     

Security Analysis and Improvement of ‘a More Secure Anonymous User Authentication Scheme for the Integrated EPR Information System’

Over the past few years, secure and privacy-preserving user authentication scheme has become an integral part of the applications of the healthcare systems. Recently, Wen has designed an improved user authentication system over the Lee et al.’s scheme for integrated electronic patient record (EPR) information system, which has been analyzed in this study. We have found that Wen’s scheme still has the following inefficiencies: (1) the correctness of identity and password are not verified during the login and password change phases; (2) it is vulnerable to impersonation attack and privileged-insider attack; (3) it is designed without the revocation of lost/stolen smart card; (4) the explicit key confirmation and the no key control properties are absent, and (5) user cannot update his/her password without the help of server and secure channel. Then we aimed to propose an enhanced two-factor user authentication system based on the intractable assumption of the quadratic residue problem (QRP) in the multiplicative group. Our scheme bears more securities and functionalities than other schemes found in the literature.     

Anonymous Three-Party Password-Authenticated Key Exchange Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems

Telecare Medical Information Systems (TMIS) provide an effective way to enhance the medical process between doctors, nurses and patients. For enhancing the security and privacy of TMIS, it is important while challenging to enhance the TMIS so that a patient and a doctor can perform mutual authentication and session key establishment using a third-party medical server while the privacy of the patient can be ensured. In this paper, we propose an anonymous three-party password-authenticated key exchange (3PAKE) protocol for TMIS. The protocol is based on the efficient elliptic curve cryptosystem. For security, we apply the pi calculus based formal verification tool ProVerif to show that our 3PAKE protocol for TMIS can provide anonymity for patient and doctor while at the same time achieves mutual authentication and session key security. The proposed scheme is secure and efficient, and can be used in TMIS.     

A Wireless Triboelectric Nanogenerator

A new “wireless” paradigm for harvesting mechanical energy via a 3D‐printed wireless triboelectric nanogenerator (W‐TENG) comprised of an ecofriendly graphene polylactic acid (gPLA) nanocomposite and Teflon is demonstrated. The W‐TENG generates very high output voltages >2 kV with a strong electric field that enables the wireless transmission of harvested energy over a distance of 3 m. The W‐TENG exhibited an instantaneous peak power up to 70 mW that could be wirelessly transmitted for storage into a capacitor obviating the need for hard‐wiring or additional circuitry. Furthermore, the use of W‐TENG for wireless and secure actuation of smart‐home applications such as smart tint windows, temperature sensors, liquid crystal displays, and security alarms either with a single or a specific user‐defined passcode of mechanical pulses (e.g., Fibonacci sequence) is demonstrated. The scalable additive manufacturing approach for gPLA‐based W‐TENGs, along with their high electrical output and unprecedented wireless applications, is poised for revolutionizing the present mechanical energy harvesting technologies.     

Noise Properties in the Ideal Kirchhoff-Law-Johnson-Noise Secure Communication System

In this paper we determine the noise properties needed for unconditional security for the ideal Kirchhoff-Law-Johnson-Noise (KLJN) secure key distribution system using simple statistical analysis. It has already been shown using physical laws that resistors and Johnson-like noise sources provide unconditional security. However real implementations use artificial noise generators, therefore it is a question if other kind of noise sources and resistor values could be used as well. We answer this question and in the same time we provide a theoretical basis to analyze real systems as well.     

OBIYagns: a grid-based biochemical simulator with a parameter estimator

SUMMARY: OBIYagns (yet another gene network simulator) is a biochemical system simulator that comprises a multiple-user Web-based graphical interface, an ordinary differential equation solver and a parameter estimators distributed over an open bioinformatics grid (OBIGrid). This grid-based biochemical simulation system can achieve high performance and provide a secure simulation environment for estimating kinetic parameters in an acceptable time period. OBIYagns can be applied to larger system biology-oriented simulation projects. AVAILABILITY: OBIYagns example models, methods and user guide are available at https://access.obigrid.org/yagns/ SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Please refer to Bioinformatics online.     

Life cycle assessment of electricity transmission and distribution—part 2: transformers and substation equipment

Purpose  

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the environmental impacts of equipment used in power transmission and distribution. This study is divided in two parts, each addressing different main components of the electrical grid system. This part is concerned with the impacts of transformers and substation equipment while in part 1 a similar analysis is presented for power lines and cables.     

Smart cards--the key to trustworthy health information systems.

Some 20 years after they were first developed, "smart cards" are set to play a crucial part in healthcare systems. Last year about a billion were supplied, mainly for use in the financial sector, but their special features make them of particular strategic importance for the health sector, where they offer a ready made solution to some key problems of security and confidentiality. This article outlines what smart cards are and why they are so important in managing health information. I discuss some of the unique features of smart cards that are of special importance in the development of secure and trustworthy health information systems. Smart cards would enable individuals'' identities to be authenticated and communications to be secured and would provide the mechanisms for implementing strong security, differential access to data, and definitive audit trails. Patient cards can also with complete security carry personal details, data on current health problems and medications, emergency care data, and pointers to where medical records for the patient can be found. Provider cards can in addition carry authorisations and information on computer set up.     

‘Smart’ cards use biometrics

The combined usage of smart cards and biometrics has gained in popularity over the last two years. While smart cards themselves may be highly secure, many smart card suppliers are acknowledging the advantage that biometrics can bring to their products by linking the card to the owner. Meanwhile, an advantage to the biometric industry is a privacy-friendly medium to carry its templates. A number of high profile applications have helped push the convergence of the technologies, but a remaining question is how far this convergence will actually go, with sensor-on-card products just around the corner?     

不同格网尺度下生态系统服务价值空间分异及其影响因素差异——以大南昌都市圈为例

在江西省持续推进生态文明建设的背景下,生态系统服务价值（ESV）空间分异及其影响因素的探析对生态环境保护与改善、促进区域性可持续发展等方面具有重要意义。以大南昌都市圈为例,利用当量因子法、空间自相关分析等方法,分析1 km×1 km、3 km×3 km、5 km×5 km及10 km×10 km各个格网尺度下地均生态系统服务价值的空间分布特征,并利用地理探测器和空间回归模型,研究不同尺度下ESV空间异质性的影响因素及其尺度差异性。研究结果表明：（1） ESV分布总体呈现西北部高,东南部低的特点,且各种格网尺度下均存在显著空间正相关性和空间集聚效应,但随着格网尺度增大其集聚效应减弱。（2） ESV空间异质性受自然、社会的协同作用,其中,人为影响指数的贡献最大,且任意双因子都比单一因子对ESV空间异质性的解释力高,但随着格网尺度增大,各因子及因子间的耦合协调作用对ESV的解释力都呈下降趋势。（3）随着格网尺度的增大,空间回归模型的拟合度下降,且不同格网尺度下影响ESV空间异质性的影响因素的作用强度不同,作用方向也有发生变化。     

Visualization of macromolecular complexes using cryo-electron microscopy with FEI Tecnai transmission electron microscopes

This protocol details the steps used for visualizing the frozen-hydrated grids as prepared following the accompanying protocol entitled 'Preparation of macromolecular complexes for visualization using cryo-electron microscopy.' This protocol describes how to transfer the grid to the microscope using a standard cryo-transfer holder or, alternatively, using a cryo-cartridge loading system, and how to collect low-dose data using an FEI Tecnai transmission electron microscope. This protocol also summarizes and compares the various options that are available in data collection for three-dimensional (3D) single-particle reconstruction. These options include microscope settings, choice of detectors and data collection strategies both in situations where a 3D reference is available and in the absence of such a reference (random-conical and common lines).     

Preparation of macromolecular complexes for cryo-electron microscopy

This protocol describes the preparation of frozen-hydrated single-particle specimens of macromolecular complexes. First, it describes how to create a grid surface coated with holey carbon by first inducing holes in a Formvar film to act as a template for the holey carbon that is stable under cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) conditions and is sample-friendly. The protocol then describes the steps required to deposit the homogeneous sample on the grid and to plunge-freeze the grid into liquid ethane at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, so that it is suitable for cryo-EM visualization. It takes 4-5 h to make several hundred holey carbon grids and about 1 h to make the frozen-hydrated grids. The time required for sample purification varies from hours to days, depending on the sample and the specific procedure required. A companion protocol details how to collect cryo-EM data using an FEI Tecnai transmission electron microscope that can subsequently be processed to obtain a three-dimensional reconstruction of the macromolecular complex.     

Experimental measurements and design guidelines for real-time software encryption in multimedia wireless LANs

To secure interactive multimedia applications in wireless LANs (WLANs), it is pertinent to implement real time cryptographic services. In this paper we evaluate the use of software based encryption algorithms that are implemented in the layer service provider as defined by WinSock 2 for Windows 95/NT. Our measurements show that software implementation of various encryptors can sustain the throughput requirements of interactive multimedia applications for WLANs such as telephone-quality audio, video conferencing, and MPEG video. We present a design methodology that includes guidelines for a secure multimedia system design in terms of the encryption method chosen as a function of required application throughput, system configuration, protocol layers overhead and wireless LAN throughput. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Design and analysis of a distributed grid resource discovery protocol

Computational grids have been emerging as a new paradigm for solving large complex problems over the recent years. The problem space and data set are divided into smaller pieces that are processed in parallel over the grid network and reassembled upon completion. Typically, resources are logged into a resource broker that is somewhat aware of all of the participants available on the grid. The resource broker scheme can be a bottleneck because of the amount of computational power and network bandwidth needed to maintain a fresh view of the grid. In this paper, we propose to place the load of managing the network resource discovery on to the network itself: inside of the routers. In the proposed protocol, the routers contain tables for resources similar to routing tables. These resource tables map IP addresses to the available computing resource values, which are provided through a scoring mechanism. Each resource provider is scored based on the attributes they provide such as the number of processors, processor frequency, amount of memory, hard drive space, and the network bandwidth. The resources are discovered on the grid by the protocol’s discovery packets, which are encapsulated within the TCP/IP packets. The discovery packet visits the routers and look up in the resource tables until a satisfactory resource is found. The protocol is validated by simulations with five different deployment environments.     

Improved Power System Stability Using Backtracking Search Algorithm for Coordination Design of PSS and TCSC Damping Controller

Power system oscillation is a serious threat to the stability of multimachine power systems. The coordinated control of power system stabilizers (PSS) and thyristor-controlled series compensation (TCSC) damping controllers is a commonly used technique to provide the required damping over different modes of growing oscillations. However, their coordinated design is a complex multimodal optimization problem that is very hard to solve using traditional tuning techniques. In addition, several limitations of traditionally used techniques prevent the optimum design of coordinated controllers. In this paper, an alternate technique for robust damping over oscillation is presented using backtracking search algorithm (BSA). A 5-area 16-machine benchmark power system is considered to evaluate the design efficiency. The complete design process is conducted in a linear time-invariant (LTI) model of a power system. It includes the design formulation into a multi-objective function from the system eigenvalues. Later on, nonlinear time-domain simulations are used to compare the damping performances for different local and inter-area modes of power system oscillations. The performance of the BSA technique is compared against that of the popular particle swarm optimization (PSO) for coordinated design efficiency. Damping performances using different design techniques are compared in term of settling time and overshoot of oscillations. The results obtained verify that the BSA-based design improves the system stability significantly. The stability of the multimachine power system is improved by up to 74.47% and 79.93% for an inter-area mode and a local mode of oscillation, respectively. Thus, the proposed technique for coordinated design has great potential to improve power system stability and to maintain its secure operation.     

Systematic assessment of training-induced changes in corticospinal output to hand using frameless stereotaxic transcranial magnetic stimulation

Measuring changes in the characteristics of corticospinal output has become a critical part of assessing the impact of motor experience on cortical organization in both the intact and injured human brain. In this protocol we describe a method for systematically assessing training-induced changes in corticospinal output that integrates volumetric anatomical MRI with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). A TMS coil is sited to a target grid superimposed onto a 3D MRI of cortex using a stereotaxic neuronavigation system. Subjects are then required to exercise the first dorsal interosseus (FDI) muscle on two different tasks for a total of 30 min. The protocol allows for reliably and repeatedly detecting changes in corticospinal output to FDI muscle in response to brief periods of motor training.     

A Protocol for the secure linking of registries for HPV surveillance

Introduction

In order to monitor the effectiveness of HPV vaccination in Canada the linkage of multiple data registries may be required. These registries may not always be managed by the same organization and, furthermore, privacy legislation or practices may restrict any data linkages of records that can actually be done among registries. The objective of this study was to develop a secure protocol for linking data from different registries and to allow on-going monitoring of HPV vaccine effectiveness.

Methods

A secure linking protocol, using commutative hash functions and secure multi-party computation techniques was developed. This protocol allows for the exact matching of records among registries and the computation of statistics on the linked data while meeting five practical requirements to ensure patient confidentiality and privacy. The statistics considered were: odds ratio and its confidence interval, chi-square test, and relative risk and its confidence interval. Additional statistics on contingency tables, such as other measures of association, can be added using the same principles presented. The computation time performance of this protocol was evaluated.

Results

The protocol has acceptable computation time and scales linearly with the size of the data set and the size of the contingency table. The worse case computation time for up to 100,000 patients returned by each query and a 16 cell contingency table is less than 4 hours for basic statistics, and the best case is under 3 hours.

Discussion

A computationally practical protocol for the secure linking of data from multiple registries has been demonstrated in the context of HPV vaccine initiative impact assessment. The basic protocol can be generalized to the surveillance of other conditions, diseases, or vaccination programs.     

玉米冠层内太阳直接辐射三维空间分布的模拟

太阳直接辐射在植物冠层内的空间分布特征影响植物生理生态功能 ,是衡量植物群体结构是否合理的重要指标。利用田间实测的玉米冠层内植株各器官的三维空间坐标进行冠层结构分析 ,将冠层内的植株器官表面划分成小面元 ;根据几何光学中光的直线传播原理 ,利用面元沿太阳光线的平行投影和投影深度排序 (Z- buffer)算法计算冠层内面元受太阳光直接照射的情况 ,建立了太阳直接辐射在玉米冠层内三维空间分布的模拟模型。模型可计算出作物冠层内任选植株的器官表面或冠层内地面上的太阳直射光斑 (Sunflecks)分布 ,也可输出选定空间位置或范围上的太阳直接辐射的分布 ,同时可实现模拟结果的三维可视化。根据此模型的模拟结果可对太阳直接辐射在玉米冠层内的空间分布进行各种分析。利用玉米冠层内光斑的三维分布测定试验 ,在光合有效辐射 (PAR)波段对模型进行了检验。模型适用于任意三维结构可测并可进行面元化划分的植物群体或个体     

Grid origin affects scaling of species across spatial scales

Aim Distribution maps of species based on a grid are useful for investigating relationships between scale and the number or area of occupied grid cells. A species is scaled up simply by merging occupied grid cells on the observation grid to successively coarser cells. Scale–occupancy relationships (SORs) obtained in this way can be used to extrapolate species down, in other words to compute occupancies at finer scales than the observation scale. In this paper we demonstrate that the SOR is not unique but depends on where one positions the origin of the grid map. Innovation The effect of grid origin on SORs was explored with the aid of the Dutch national data base FLORBASE, which contains the observation records of all 1410 wild vascular plants in the Netherlands on a 1‐km square basis. For each species, we generated 2500 unique SORs by scaling up from 1 km, in steps of 1 km, to squares of 50 km. We computed the sensitivity of the SOR to the grid origin for each species, and subsequently analysed the factors that determined this sensitivity. The effect of grid origin on downscaling was demonstrated by means of a simple power function that we used to extrapolate down from both a 2‐km and a 5‐km grid, to the original 1‐km grid. It appeared that the position of grid origin could have a substantial effect on SORs. The sensitivity of SORs to the position of the grid origin depended on three characteristics of a species’ spatial distribution: rarity, degree of spatial clustering and the position of the distribution relative to the border of the investigated area. Rare species with a clustered distribution near the border were particularly highly sensitive. The dependence of SOR on grid origin caused unpredictable and non‐random errors in downscaled occupancies. Main conclusions In future, the whole bandwidth of scaled occupancies should be considered when testing and interpreting mathematical relationships between scale and occupancy. Moreover, downscaled occupancies should be interpreted cautiously.