Secure and Blockchain-Based Emergency Driven Message Protocol for 5G Enabled Vehicular Edge Computing.

Basic safety message (BSM) are messages that contain core elements of a vehicle such as vehicle's size, position, speed, acceleration and others. BSM are lightweight messages that can be regularly broadcast by the vehicles to enable a variety of applications. On the other hand, event-driven message (EDM) are messages generated at the time of occurrence such as accidents or roads sliding and can contain much more heavy elements including pictures, audio or videos. Security, architecture and communication solutions for BSM use cases have been largely documented on in the literature contrary to EDM due to several concerns such as the variant size of EDM, the appropriate architecture along with latency, privacy and security. In this paper, we propose a secure and blockchain based EDM protocol for 5G enabled vehicular edge computing. To offer scalability and latency for the proposed scenario, we adopt a 5G cellular architecture due to its projected features compared to 4G tong-term evaluation (LTE) for vehicular communications. We consider edge computing to provide local processing of EDM that can improve the response time of public agencies (ambulances or rescue teams) that may intervene to the scene. We make use of lightweight multi-receiver signcryption scheme without pairing that offers low time consuming operations, security, privacy and access control. EDM records need to be kept into a distributed system which can guarantee reliability and auditability of EDM. To achieve this, we construct a private blockchain based on the edge nodes to store EDM records. The performance analysis of the proposed protocol confirms its efficiency.

AEF: Adaptive En-Route Filtering to Extend Network Lifetime in Wireless Sensor Networks.

Static sink-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs) suffer from an energy-hole problem. This incurs as the rate of energy consumption on sensor nodes around sinks and on critical paths is considerably faster. State-of-the-art en-routing filtering schemes save energy by countering false report injection attacks. In addition to their unique limitations, these schemes generally do not examine energy awareness in underlying routing. Mostly, these security methods are based on a fixed filtering capacity, unable to respond to changes in attack intensity. Therefore, these limitations cause network partition(s), exhibiting adverse effects on network lifetime. Extending network lifetime while preserving energy and security thus becomes an interesting challenge. In this article, we address the aforesaid shortcomings with the proposed adaptive en-route filtering (AEF) scheme. In energy-aware routing, the fitness function, which is used to select forwarding nodes, considers residual energy and other factors as opposed to distance only. In pre-deterministic key distribution, keys are distributed based on the consideration of having paths with a different number of verification nodes. This, consequently, permits us to have multiple paths with different security levels that can be exploited to counter different attack intensities. Taken together, the integration of the special fitness function with the new key distribution approach enables the AEF to adapt the underlying dynamic network conditions. The simulation experiments under different settings show significant improvements in network lifetime.

The formulation of flurbiprofen loaded microspheres using hydroxypropylmethycellulose and ethylcellulose.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present work was to formulate flurbiprofen (FLB) loaded microspheres of hydroxypropylmethycellulose and ethylcellulose polymers to study the effect of different proportions of the polymer mixture on the release behavior of the drug. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A series of microspheres were prepared using tween-80 as a surfactant. The prepared microspheres were evaluated for entrapment efficiency (%) and percentage recovery. Drug release was performed in USP phosphate buffers of pH 1.2 and 6.8. Drug release data were plotted in various kinetic models, including zero-order, first-order, Higuchi and Korsmeyer-Peppas models to investigate the optimum composition suitable for sustained drug delivery. RESULTS: A significant difference in drug release kinetics was observed by varying the composition of hydroxypropylmethycellulose/ethylcellulose. As the ratio of EC/HPMC was increased, the release rate of flurbiprofen decreased. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated the potential of polymer combinations in the formulation of microspheres for water-insoluble drugs utilizing HPMC and EC as release retardant materials, using a simple solvent evaporation microencapsulation technique. It was observed that various physico-chemical properties of the microspheres varied according to the change in polymer concentrations used in the formulations.