ALBERT

Description: The Internet of Things (IoT) emphasizes on connecting every object around us by leveraging a variety of wireless communication technologies. Heterogeneous data fusion is widely considered to be a promising and urgent challenge in the data processing of the IoT. In this study, we first discuss the development of the concept of the IoT and give a detailed description of the architecture of the IoT. And then we design a middleware platform based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) for integration of multisource heterogeneous information. New research angle regarding flexible heterogeneous information fusion architecture for the IoT is the theme of this paper. Experiments using environmental monitoring sensor data derived from indoor environment are performed for system validation. Through the theoretical analysis and experimental verification, the data processing middleware architecture represents better adaptation to multisensor and multistream application scenarios in the IoT, which improves heterogeneous data utilization value. The data processing middleware based on SOA for the IoT establishes a solid foundation of integration and interaction for diverse networks data among heterogeneous systems in the future, which simplifies the complexity of integration process and improves reusability of components in the system.

Description: Among different winter precipitation types, freezing rain is the most dangerous and the most difficult to forecast. Nearly 84% of total freezing rain days in China occurs over Guizhou province. Statistical analysis indicates that the frequency distribution of freezing rain over Guizhou is correlated to its topography. In this article, a typical freezing rain case from 2011 is selected to explore the impact of Guizhou topography on the distribution of freezing rain. Synoptic analysis shows that this event is dominated by two cold currents below 800 hPa and a warm, moist southwesterly at 700 hPa, which contributes to an overlaying surface cold layer and warm layer aloft in central Guizhou. Freezing rain is developed through a “warm rain process” under the mid-lower tropospheric warm layer. Contrasting numerical terrain experiments demonstrate that Guizhou terrain plays an essential role in the formation of freezing rain by influencing the setup of the surface cold layer, warm layer and precipitation. Except for the effect of altitude, the vertical distance between the cold center in the cold flow and the surface height also impacts on the formation of the surface cold layer. The intensity of the warm layer and inversion changes after altering terrain height. The number of rain-water particles reaching the surface layer decreases as the surface temperature increases in the lowered terrain experiment, whereas the block of steeper windward slope results in an increase of surface precipitation in the heightened terrain experiment. The regions experiencing freezing rain shrink after reducing the terrain but spread southeastward after raising the terrain. The unique topography of Guizhou including its elevation and distribution contributes to the highest frequency of freezing rain in China.

Description: Based on International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Convection Tracking Database (CTD) dataset, a new definition for the Tibetan Convective System (TCS) is introduced, in which the effects of cirrus and cirrostratus are excluded from the TCS over this region. 2032 TCSs are selected to study their seasonal variations in initiation, frequency, spatial distribution, life cycle, cloud physics, precipitation, dynamic and thermodynamic characteristics. It is found that the number of TCSs varies seasonally, with the maximum in July and minimum in December. 10%, 8%, 9% and 73% TCSs are originated from Tibetan shear, vortex, low and the rest, respectively. TCSs play an important role in the precipitation of the Tibetan Plateau and its adjacent regions. Even in winter, the rainfall of TCS contributes up to 70% of the total precipitation over the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau, and 30%-70% over Sichuan basin and upper-middle segment of Yangtze River basin. The seasonal changes of TCSs’ cloud properties from ISCCP indicate that the strongest TCSs happen in summer and the weakest in winter, which are consistent with the seasonal variation of TCSs’ rainfall observed by TRMM. Besides, TCSs show an asymmetric dynamic and thermodynamic distribution, especially in summer.

Description: As an infrastructure of the ubiquitous sensor networks, the wireless sensor network plays an important role in generation of multi-networks integrated system. And currently the wireless sensor network is not only being used to monitor and analyze information about the environment but also being used for more dynamic systems. The security system is one of standards for measuring whether a wireless sensor networks is an outstanding wireless sensor network. RUASN proposes a robust user authentication framework for wireless sensor networks, based on a two-factor concept. This proposed scheme possessed many advantages against major existing attacks and performed well at efficiency and low consumption. However, we have identified that the resistance of collusion attacks is weak. After analyzing, we proved that we can obtain the session key via controlling a compromised sensor node and using the collusion attack when a user wants to establish a session with a legal node. Therefore, to enhance the resistance of collusion attacks, we present two ways to solve the security drawbacks of RUASN scheme. One is to add a slight improvement into the RUASN scheme to enhance this scheme. Another is using the Hardware Security Module. After a simple analysis, we have proved that the improved scheme can resist the collusion attack.

Description: The title of this paper may suggest such topics as routing, networking, and data mining, but we focus on new research angles regarding the Internet of Things (IoT) as the theme of this paper. These research angles come from other disciplines and are in the process of being adopted by the IoT. Our paper serves a key purpose: from the perspective of correlative technologies based on time, to review the evolutionary process of the IoT and depict the relations between the correlation techniques which are largely missing in current literature in which the focus has been more on the introduction and comparison of existing technologies and less on issues describing evolutionary process of the IoT. We consider that the latter is crucial to understanding the evolution of the IoT. Through generalizations of particular focus in different stages of each technology, we can better understand the current phase of the IoT and therefore predict future challenges. This paper aims to bridge this gap by providing guidance in terms of the evolutionary process of the IoT and gives readers a panoramic view of the IoT field without repeating what is already available in existing literature so as to complement the existing IoT survey papers which have not covered the evolutionary process of the IoT.

Description: With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT), a variety of sensor data are generated around everyone’s life. New research perspective regarding the streaming sensor data processing of the IoT has been raised as a hot research topic that is precisely the theme of this paper. Our study serves to provide guidance regarding the practical aspects of the IoT. Such guidance is rarely mentioned in the current research in which the focus has been more on theory and less on issues describing how to set up a practical system. In our study, we employ numerous open source projects to establish a distributed real time system to process streaming data of the IoT. Two urgent issues have been solved in our study that are (1) multisource heterogeneous sensor data integration and (2) processing streaming sensor data in real time manner with low latency. Furthermore, we set up a real time system to process streaming heterogeneous sensor data from multiple sources with low latency. Our tests are performed using field test data derived from environmental monitoring sensor data collected from indoor environment for system validation. The results show that our proposed system is valid and efficient for multisource heterogeneous sensor data integration and streaming data processing in real time manner.

Description: ABSTRACT Daqingye and Banlangen are commonly used Chinese medicinal materials derived from the leaves and roots of Isatis indigotica Fort., respectively, which clinical effects have been confirmed by many studies in recent years. However, many problems have arisen concerning the quality and identity of materials sold in the market under these two names. Thus, the identification of Daqingye and Banlangen has drawn public attention. In this work, transverse sections of Daqingye and Banlangen from I . indigotica Fort. and two easily confused species, namely Baphicacanthus cusia (Nees) Bremek. and Clerodendrum cyrtophyllum Turcz., were investigated with normal light and fluorescence microscopy. The distinguishing features were 7–9 vascular bundles, cystoliths and nonglandular hairs in the leaves of I . indigotica , B . cusia , and C . cyrtophyllum , respectively. The Banlangen could be distinguished according to the characteristics of parenchymous cells, cystoliths, and stone cells. Moreover, the fluorescence features of Daqingye and Banlangen investigated in this study can provide direct points for differentiating those samples. Importantly, whether the crude drugs were decocted could be easily identified by their different fluorescence features, which can ensure their quality in clinical application. This is the first report to distinguish the three species that are commonly found in the market sold as Daqingye and Banlangen by normal light and fluorescence microscopy. This work indicates that the combination of normal light and fluorescence microscopy could be powerful, convenient, and economical for authenticating Daqingye and Banlangen from the three species, including crude drugs and decoction dregs. Microsc. Res. Tech., 2013 . © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Description: The curvature of the helical trajectory formed by herbaceous stem-twiners has been hypothesized to be constant on uniformly sized cylindrical supports and remains constant on different supports varying in diameter. However, experimental studies on the constant curvature hypothesis have been very limited. Here, we tested the hypothesis in a series of experiments on five herbaceous stem-twiners ( Ipomoea triloba , Ipomoea nil , Phaseolus vulgaris , Vigna unguiculata, and Mikania micrantha ). We investigated how internode characteristics (curvature [β], diameter [ d ], and length [ L ]) and success rate (SR) of twining shoots would be affected by support thickness ( D ), temperature ( T ), illumination, and support inclination. The results showed that: (1) the SR of tested species decreased, but d increased with increasing support thickness. The β of the twining shoots on erect cylindrical poles was not constant, but it decreased with increasing d or support thickness. (2) The SR of tested species was not obviously reduced under low-temperature conditions, but their β was significantly higher and d significantly lower when temperature was more than 5°C lower. (3) The SR , d, and L of two tested Ipomoea species significantly declined, but β increased under 50% shading stress. (4) The curvatures of upper semicycles of I. triloba shoots on 45° inclined supports were not significantly different from curvatures of those shoots climb on erect supports, whereas the curvatures of lower semicycles were 40%–72% higher than curvatures of upper semicycles. Synthesis : Our study illustrates that stem curvatures of a certain herbaceous stem-twiners are not constant, but rather vary in response to external support, temperature, and illumination conditions. We speculate that herbaceous stem-twiners positively adapt to wide-diameter supports by thickening their stems and by reducing their twining curvatures. This insight helps us better understand climbing processes and dynamics of stem-twiners in forest communities and ecosystems. Our finding rejected the well-accepted constant curvature hypothesis and revealed that the climbing characteristics and ascending efficiency of stem-twiners varies with the changes in external support or environmental factors. Our study shed light on the key process during the vegetative spread of herbaceous stem-twiners.

Description: The Internet of Things (IoT) is neither science fiction nor industry hype; rather it is based on solid technological advances and visions of network ubiquity that are zealously being realized. The paper serves to provide guidance regarding the practical aspects of the IoT. Such guidance is largely missing in the current literature in which the focus has been more on research problems and less on issues describing how to set up an IoT system and what software toolkits are required. This paper aims to bridge this gap by providing guidance in terms of the software toolkits that can be utilized by IoT practitioners and research students to set up a practical IoT system. The IoT is the combination of multiple techniques; a onefold technology cannot become the IoT. This is conducted in a multilayer approach that covers node and operating systems, middleware, databases, IoT energy harvesting method, and so forth. We hope that this survey serves to be useful to researchers and practitioners in practical aspects of IoT.

Description: The Tibetan Convective Systems (TCSs) observed over the southeastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) in boreal summer show two local maximum centers in the central and eastern TP. TCSs identified by the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Convection Tracking Database (CTD) are utilized to study the regional differences of TCSs. Results indicate that there are more TCSs in the eastern TP than central TP. 20-30 % of TCSs over the eastern TP are associated with shear line, vortex, and low pressure systems, while 70-80 % of TCSs are formed locally. In contrast, 50-70 % of TCSs over the central TP are linked to synoptic weather systems. TCSs over the eastern TP tend to have smaller size, more humidity and more rainfall than those over central TP, and they are also more likely to move out of TP. TCSs are mostly generated in mid-afternoon with more rainfall in evening over the central TP and in midnight over the eastern TP. Results from the third Tibetan Plateau Atmospheric Scientific Experiment (TIPEX-III) confirm that there are more complicated properties of TCSs’ diurnal variability over the eastern TP than central TP. Results also show that TP plays an important role in summer precipitation in both its downstream regions and the whole China.