Adeeb Alhomoud

University electronic learning (e-learning) has witnessed phenomenal growth, especially in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This type of education is significant because it ensures that all students receive the required learning. The statistical evaluations are limited in providing good predictions of the university’s e-learning quality. That is forcing many universities to go to online and blended learning environments. This paper presents an approach of statistical analysis to identify the most common factors that affect the students’ performance and then use artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict students’ performance within the blended learning environment of Saudi Electronic University (SEU). Accordingly, this dissertation generated a dataset from SEU’s Blackboard learning management system. The student’s performance can be tested using a set of factors: the studying (face-to-face or virtual), percentage of attending live lectures, midterm exam scores, and percentage of solved assessments. The results showed that the four factors are responsible for academic performance. After that, we proposed a new ANN model to predict the students’ performance depending on the four factors. Firefly Algorithm (FFA) was used for training the ANNs. The proposed model’s performance will be evaluated through different statistical tests, such as error functions, statistical hypothesis tests, and ANOVA tests.

In this paper, a layered architecture incorporating Blockchain technology (BCT) and Machine Learning (ML) is proposed in the context of the Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) for smart manufacturing applications. The proposed architecture is composed of five layers covering sensing, network/protocol, transport enforced with BCT components, application and advanced services (i.e., BCT data, ML and cloud) layers. BCT enables gathering sensor access control information, while ML brings its effectivity in attack detection such as DoS (Denial of Service), DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service), injection, man in the middle (MitM), brute force, cross-site scripting (XSS) and scanning attacks by employing classifiers differentiating between normal and malicious activity. The design of our architecture is compared to similar ones in the literature to point out potential benefits. Experiments, based on the IIoT dataset, have been conducted to evaluate our contribution, using four metrics: Accuracy, Precision, Sensitivity and Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC). Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest, Naive Bayes, AdaBoost and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers are evaluated regarding these four metrics. Even if more experiments are required, it is illustrated that the proposed architecture can reduce significantly the number of DDoS, injection, brute force and XSS attacks and threats within an advanced framework for sensor access control in IIoT networks based on a smart contract along with ML classifiers.

This research article provides an up-to-date review of spatial-domain steganography. Maintaining the communication as secure as possible when transmitting secret data through any available communication channels is the target of steganography. Currently, image steganography is the most developed field, with several techniques are provided for different image formats. Therefore, the general image steganography including the fundamental concepts, the terminology, and the applications are highlighted in this paper. Further, the paper depicts the essential characteristics between information hiding and cryptography systems. In addition, recent well-known techniques in the spatial-domain steganography, such as LSB and pixel value differencing, are discussed in detail and several comparisons are provided to show the merits and the demerits of the discussed techniques. Furthermore, to aid the steganography researchers in developing efficient spatial-domain embedding techniques, the future research of the spatial-domain steganography is discussed and a set of recommendations are suggested.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is leading today’s digital transformation. Relying on a combination of technologies, protocols, and devices such as wireless sensors and newly developed wearable and implanted sensors, IoT is changing every aspect of daily life, especially recent applications in digital healthcare. IoT incorporates various kinds of hardware, communication protocols, and services. This IoT diversity can be viewed as a double-edged sword that provides comfort to users but can lead also to a large number of security threats and attacks. In this survey paper, a new compacted and optimized architecture for IoT is proposed based on five layers. Likewise, we propose a new classification of security threats and attacks based on new IoT architecture. The IoT architecture involves a physical perception layer, a network and protocol layer, a transport layer, an application layer, and a data and cloud services layer. First, the physical sensing layer incorporates the basic hardware used by IoT. Second, we highlight the various network and protocol technologies employed by IoT, and review the security threats and solutions. Transport protocols are exhibited and the security threats against them are discussed while providing common solutions. Then, the application layer involves application protocols and lightweight encryption algorithms for IoT. Finally, in the data and cloud services layer, the main important security features of IoT cloud platforms are addressed, involving confidentiality, integrity, authorization, authentication, and encryption protocols. The paper is concluded by presenting the open research issues and future directions towards securing IoT, including the lack of standardized lightweight encryption algorithms, the use of machine-learning algorithms to enhance security and the related challenges, the use of Blockchain to address security challenges in IoT, and the implications of IoT deployment in 5G and beyond.