Pervasively Secure Infrastructures (PSI): Integrating Smart Sensing, Data Mining, Pervasive Networking and Community Computing


Full Web Access : http://crewman.uta.edu/psi

Dr. Sajal K. Das, PI
Center for Research in Wireless Mobility and Networking (CReWMaN)
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)
  



Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, co-PI
Multimedia Lab
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg.
UTA

Dr. Diane J. Cook, co-PI
A.I. Lab
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg.
UTA
Dr. Lawrence B. Holder, co-PI
A.I. Lab
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg.
UTA
Dr. Mohan Kumar, co-PI
Pervasive Information Community Organization (PICO) Lab
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg.
UTA

Dr. Behrooz Shirazi,  Senior Personnel
Pervasive Information Community Organization (PICO) Lab
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg.
UTA

Kalyan Basu , Senior Personnel
 CReWMaN Lab
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg.
UTA

Dr. Sharma Chakravarthy, Senior Personnel
 Information Technology Lab (ITLAB)
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg.
UTA

Dr. Frank Lewis, Senior Personnel
Automation and Robotics Research Institute (ARRI)
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
UTA


Dr. Mukesh Singhal, Collaborator
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Kentucky
URL: http://cs.engr.uky.edu/~singhal/

Dr.  Ali R. Hurson, Collaborator
Global Information Systems Research Group (GIS)
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg.
Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Raphael A. Finkel, Collaborator
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Kentucky
URL: http://cs.engr.uky.edu/~raphael/


Contact Information

Dr. Sajal K. Das
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
The University of Texas at Arlington
Room 300, Nedderman Hall
Arlington, TX 76019-0015
Phone: (817) 272-7405
Fax: (817) 272-3784
Email: das@cse.uta.edu
URL: http://ranger.uta.edu/~das    

Project Award Information

Project Summary

This project addresses homeland security, an issue of highest national priority, with a goal of monitoring, preventing, and recovering from natural and inflicted disasters. In particular, we propose to create a novel technology-enabled security framework, called Pervasively Secure Infrastructures (PSI), that will make use of such advanced technologies as smart sensors, wireless networks, pervasive computing, mobile agents,
data mining, and profile-based learning in an integrated, collaborative and distributed manner.

The uniqueness of this multi-disciplinary, multi-university proposal lies in the synergistic combination of the proposed research in

  1. efficient data collection and aggregation from heterogeneous sensors and monitors;
  2. novel techniques for real-time, secured, authenticated information transmission and sharing, and
  3. intelligent situation awareness (e.g., threat detection and security services) through new learning, data mining, and knowledge discovery techniques.
The project aims at integrating these research efforts with the help of our novel paradigm of pervasive community computing that can efficiently handle dynamically changing information, adapt to changing situations, and provide scalability in terms of the number of users, devices, and data sizes.

The PSI framework has the potential for deployment in a variety of safety, security, and surveillance instances, including transportation (e.g., air, rail, highway), public utilities (e.g., water, gas, electricity, nuclear power station, and Internet), and public or private buildings and gathering places (e.g., airports, train stations, commercial buildings, shopping malls, and amusement parks).

The project is a multi-disciplinary collaborative research effort, involving researchers from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), University of Kentucky (UKY) and Pennsylvania State University (PSU).

Selected Publications  (Year1: September 2003 - August 2004)
Complete list of publications accessible at: http://crewman.uta.edu/psi/publications.html

A. Wireless Sensor Networks

Faculty Members - Sajal Das, Frank Lewis, Kalyan Basu
Student Members -  Jayanta Hajra, Wook Choi, Ankit Tiwari
 

[1] F.L. Lewis, "Wireless Sensor Networks", in Smart Environments: Technologies, Protocols, Applications, ed. D.J. Cook and S.K. Das, Wiley, New York, 2004.
[2] W. Choi and P. Shah and S. K. Das, "A Framework for Energy-Saving Data Gathering Using Two-Phase Clustering in Wireless Sensor Networks", In Proc. of Int'l Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Networking and Services (MobiQuitous), pp. 203-212, August 2004.
[3] W. Choi and S. K. Das, "Trade-off Between Coverage and Data Reporting Latency for Energy-Conserving Data Gathering in Wireless Sensor Networks",  Proc. of Int'l Conference on Mobile AdHoc and Sensor Systems (MASS), Oct. 2004.
[4] A. Tiwari, "Design and Implementation of Wireless Sensor Networks for Condition Based Maintenance", M.S. Thesis, EE Dept., UTA, May 2004.
[5] A. Tiwari, F.L. Lewis, and S.S. Ge, "Wireless Sensor Networks for Machine Condition Based Monitoring", Proc. of Int'l Conf. on Control, Automation, Robotics, and Vision, invited paper, Kunming, China, Dec 2004.
[6] W. Choi, S. K. Das, and K. Basu, "Angle-based Dynamic Path Construction for Route Load Balancing in Wireless Sensor Networks", Proc. of IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), May 2004.
 [7] W. Choi and S. K. Das, "An Energy-Conserving Data Gathering Strategy Based on Trade-off Between Coverage and Data Reporting Latency in Wireless Sensor Networks", IEEE Monograph on Sensor Network Operations,  Oct. 2004.

B. Multi and Stream Databases 

Faculty Members - Sharma Chakravarthy, Ali Hurson
Student Members - Satyajeet Sonune, Altaf Gilani, Laali Elkalifa
 
[8] L. Elkalifa, "InfoFilter: Complex Pattern Specification and Detection Over Text Streams", MS Thesis, Spring 2004.
[9] Y. Jiao and A.R. Hurson, "Application of Mobile Agents in Mobile Data Access Systems" - A prototype”, Journal of Database Management, 2004.
[10] A. Srinivasan and Sharma Chakravarthy, "Discovery of Interesting Episodes in Sequence Data", PAKDD Workshops, May 2004
[11] A.R. Hurson, J. Ploskonka, Y. Jiao, and H. Haridas, "Security issues and Solutions in Distributed heterogeneous Mobile Database Systems",Vol. 61, Advances in Computer, pp. 107-198, 2004.
[12] Y. Jiao, and A.R. Hurson, "Mobile Agents in Mobile Heterogeneous Database Environment – Performance and Power Consumption", Analysis, Design, Analysis, and Simulation of Distributed Systems, pp. 185-190, 2004.
[13] N. Orchowski, and A.R. Hurson, "Energy-Aware Object Retrieval from Parallel Broadcast Channels", Proc.  of the Int'l  Database Engineering and Applications Symposium, IDEAS, July 2004.
[14] B. Sun , A.R. Hurson and J. Hannan, "Energy-Efficient Scheduling Algorithms of Object Retrieval on Indexed Parallel Broadcast Channels", Int'l Conf. on Parallel Processing, ICPP, August 2004.
[15] R. Adaikkalavan, Sharma Chakravarthy, R. Liuzzi, and L.Wong: "Information Security: Using a Novel Event-Based Approach",  (accepted for publication) Int'l Conf.  on Information and Knowledge Engineering (IKE'04), June 2004.
[16] Sharma Chakravarthy, A. Sanka, J. Jacob, N. Pandrangi, "A Learning-Based Approach for Fetching Pages in WebVigiL", Proc. of the 19th  ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC), March 2004.

C. Machine Learning and Data Mining

Faculty Members - Diane Cook, Lawrence Holder
Student Members - Jeff Coble, Miatrayee Mukherjee, Caleb Noble
 

[17] L. Holder, D. Cook, J. Coble and M. Mukherjee, "Graph-based Relational Learning with Application to Security", To appear in the Fundamenta Informaticae Journal Special Issue on Mining Graphs, Trees and Sequences, 2004.
[18] L. Holder, "Connecting the Dots: Graph-based Discovery Informatics for Learning Patterns of Asymmetric Threats", Visionary Lecture Series in Discovery Informatics, Johns Hopkins University School of   Professional Studies in Business and Education, March 2004.
[19] C. Noble and D. Cook, "Graph-based Anomaly Detection", Proc. of the ACM Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2003.
[20] D. J. Cook and M. Youngblood, "Smart Homes", Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2004.
[21] A. Rakhshan, L. B. Holder and D. J. Cook, "Structural Web Search Engine", Int'l Journal of Artificial Intelligence Tools, 13(1), pages 27-33, 2004.
[22] L. B. Holder and D. J. Cook, "Graph-based Data Mining", Encyclopedia of Data Warehousing and Mining, 2004.
[23] D. J. Cook and S. K. Das, Smart Environments: Technology, Protocols and Applications, John Wiley, 2004.
 

D. Pervasive Computing and Communication 

Faculty Members - Mohan Kumar, Behrooz Shirazi, Sajal Das
Student Members - Hitha Alex, Pradip De

 
[24] P. De, K. Basu and S. K. Das, "An Ubiquitous Architectural Framework and Protocol for Object Tracking using RFID Tags,"  Proc. of Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems (MobiQuitous), pp 174-12, Boston, Aug. 2004.
[25] P. De, K. Basu and S. K. Das, "An RFID Based Technique for  Handling Object Distribution and Recalls in Pervasive Transaction Environments". To appear in the International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS), Oct. 2004.
[26] H. Alex, M. Kumar and B. A. Shirazi, "Service Discovery in Wireless and Mobile Networks", Wireless Information Highways, Idea Group Publication (in press).
[27] M. Kumar, B.A. Shirazi and S. K. Das, "Pervasively Secure Infrastructures (PSI) through Community Computing", Proc. of the Texas Workshop on Security of Information Systems, College Station, USA, pp. 5-10, April 2003.
[28]M. Kumar, B Shirazi, S K Das, M Singhal, B Sung, and D Levine, "Pervasive Information Communities Organization PICO: A Middleware Framework for Pervasive Computing", IEEE Pervasive Computing,  pp. 72-79, July-September 2003.
[29]B. A. Shirazi, M. Kumar, and B  Sung, "QoS Middleware Support for Pervasive Computing Applications", Minitrack on Quality of Service in Mobile and Wireless Networks, Proc. of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS), pg. 294 (Full paper on CD), January 2004.
[30] M. Kumar, J Priest, B A Shirazi, B Huff, and M Johnson, "Revolutionizing Manufacturing Systems with Pervasive Computing: P-RoMS", International Workshop on Ambient Intelligence Computing, Santorini,
Greece, pp. 33-48, Jun. 2003.

E. Computer and Network Security

Faculty Members - Sajal Das, Raphael Finkel, Mukesh Singhal, Kalyan Basu
Student Members - Afrand Agah, Wei Zhang, Sumantra Kundu

 
[31] A.Agah, S.K.Das and K.Basu, "Security in Wireless Sensor Networks:The Game Theory Approach", poster presentation at WiSe'04 in conjunction with MobiCom, September 2004.
[32] Y. Wang, Venkata Giruka, and M. Singhal,  "A Fair Distributed Solution for Selfish Nodes Problem in Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks", 3rd Int'l Conf. on AD-HOC Networks and Wireless Networks, Vancouver, British Columbia, July 22-24, 2004.
[33] A.Agah, S.K.Das and K.Basu, "A game theory based approach for security in sensor networks", Int'l Performance Computing and Communications Conference (IPCCC), April 2004.
[34] C. Giruka and Singhal, "Authenticated Group Key Agreement in Wireless Ad-hoc Networks", submitted to 1st European Workshop in Ad-Hoc and Sensor  Networks, 2004.
[35] A.Agah, S.K.Das and K.Basu, "A Non-cooperative Game Approach for Intrusion Detection in Sensor Networks", IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), Fall 2004.
[36] S. Gupte and M. Singhal, "Secure Routing in Mobile Wireless Ad-hoc Networks", Ad Hoc Networks, No 1,  pp 151-174, August 2003.
[37] S.K. Das, A.Agah and K.Basu, "Security in Wireless Mobile and Sensor Networks", book chapter, editor M.Guizani, Kluwer Academic Publisher, 2003.
[38] A. Agah, S. K. Das and M. Kumar, "Security Issues in Pervasive Computing", Wireless Information Highways, Idea Group Publication (in press).


Project Impact

 

Goals, Objectives, and Targeted Activities

Our goal is to provide an unified framework for identification, prevention and recovery from natural and artificial inflicted distasters. Through an existing NSF supported project, called PICO (Pervasive Information Community Organization), several of the PIs are developing middleware services for pervasive computing applications.  A PICO application consists of a set of embedded hardware devices and sensors, called camileuns (context-aware, mobile, intelligent, learned, ubiquitous nodes), and their associated software agents, called delegents (intelligent delegates). Delegents perform goal-oriented tasks on behalf of their associated camileuns; e.g., a delegent associated with a surveillance camera will continuously analyze, record, and transmit captured images.

The major contribution of the PICO project is the introduction of a novel concept, called community computing, and using it as a framework for collaboration among delegents. In community computing, delegents working on behalf of camileuns, collaborate with each other to carry out application-specific services. For example, a delegent capturing the image of a suspected terrorist may form a community with delegents associated with FBI and INS databases to exchange information and determine the next course of actions. 
        
In the PSI project, our objectivel is to provide pervasively secure infrastructures by exploiting PICO's community computing concept. In doing so, many significant and challenging problems lay ahead, including:

     (i) efficient data collection and aggregation from heterogeneous, seemingly unrelated sensors;
    (ii) real-time, secured, authenticated information processing and routing; and
   (iii) discovery of security threats using data mining, learning and intelligent decision making techniques.

To achieve our goal,  we are effectively using a network of physical devices, software agents, and personnel in dynamic, heterogeneous autonomous environments for disaster prevention, discovery and management. Considering the elaborate and motley dimension of the project, assimilating information from such disparate sources is an extremely challenging task. Our objective is to process the information collected from sensory devices, interpret them meaningfully in the context of ongoing events, and accordingly carry out automated security services. 

In the light of the above, we target the following activites:

  1. Develop a test bed at CReWMaN lab for synthetic data generation and proof-of-concept validation of our various algorithms and approaches.
  2. Develop algorithms for
    1. efficient data collection and aggregation from heterogeneous, seemingly unrelated sensors.
    2. real time, secured, authenticated information processing and routing.
    3. discovery of security threats using data mining, learning and intelligent decision making techniques.
  3. Demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by prototyping.

Current and Future Activities

The following are the principal areas of our ongoing work, with references to the list of publications section above:


Area Background

Pervasive Computing is the seamless integration of information and computing technology. Recently, this world of  ubiquitous computing has attracted a lot of research since this technology, among other things, has the potential to address the problem of homeland security. Today, advances in technology provide isolated means for detecting and perhaps preventing security violations reactively. However, there is a need to glue these disparate technologies (hardware or software) together so as to provide proactive infrastructure support and services for managing security related issues. However, it is an extremely challenging task to process the information collected from sensory devices, interpret them meaningfully in the context of ongoing events, and accordingly carry out automated security services. This requires continual real time collaboration among physical devices, software agents, and personnel in dynamic, heterogeneous autonomous environments.

Recognizing the importance of such a pervasive approach has motivated us to explore the potential to create Pervasively Secure Infrastructures (PSI). It is a framework of sensor networks, sophisticated portable devices,  middleware and agent-based software modules, working in close collusion  with the aim of creating an unified infrastructure that will empower us to monitor, prevent, and recover from natural, unexpected, and inflicted disasters. 

Area References

  1. IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom), http://www.percom.org
  2. D. J. Cook and S. K. Das, Smart Environments: Technology, Protocols and Applications, John Wiley, 2004.
  3. M. Kumar, B.A. Shirazi and S. K. Das, "Pervasively Secure Infrastructures (PSI) through Community Computing", Proc of the Texas Workshop on Security of Information Systems, College Station, USA, pp. 5-10,April 2003.
  4. A. Agah, S. K. Das and M. Kumar, "Security Issues in Pervasive Computing", Wireless Information Highways, Idea Group Publication.
  5. "MAVHome: Managiong an Adaptive Versatile Home", http://mavhome.uta.edu/
  6. L. Holder, "Connecting the Dots: Graph-based Discovery Informatics for Learning Patterns of Asymmetric Threats", Visionary Lecture Series in Discovery Informatics, Johns Hopkins University School of Professional Studies in Business and Education, March 2004.
  7. F.L. Lewis, "Wireless Sensor Networks in Smart Environments: Technologies, Protocols, Applications", ed. D.J. Cook and S.K. Das, Wiley, New York, 2004.
  8. S.K.Das, "Pervasive Community Computing with Applications to Health and Security", keynote talk at Int'l Conf., ICUC (Seoul, Korea, Oct. 2003), WOCN (Oman, June 2004), ICOST (Singapore, Sept. 2004), EUC (Japan, Aug. 2004).

Potential Related Projects

1. Acquisition of Instrumentation for Engineering Research in Advanced Security Detection Systems.
      NSF MRI funded project, 09/01/04 - 08/31/07

2. Federal Earmark Grant on Pervasive Security Research,
     Department of Justice, 09/01/04 - 08/31/06

3. MAVHome: Managiong an Adaptive Versatile Home", http://mavhome.uta.edu/
     NSF grant ITR 0121297, 09/01/01 - 05/31/05

4. Pervasive Information Community Organization (PICO)
     NSF grant 0129682I, 06/01/02 - 05/31/05

   

Project Websites

Ongoing research work (in alphabetical order) is spread across : 

Online Illustrations