Modern societies are moving toward an information-oriented environment. To gather and utilize information around people’s modern life, tiny devices with all kinds of sensing devices and various sizes of gateways need to be deployed and connected with each other through the Internet or proxy-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Within this kind of Internet of Things (IoT) environment, how to authenticate each other between two communicating devices is a fundamental security issue. As a lot of IoT devices are powered by batteries and they need to transmit sensed data periodically, it is necessary for IoT devices to adopt a lightweight authentication protocol to reduce their energy consumption when a device wants to authenticate and transmit data to its targeted peer. In this paper, a lightweight continuous authentication protocol for sensing devices and gateway devices in general IoT environments is introduced. The concept of valid authentication time period is proposed to enhance robustness of authentication between IoT devices. To construct the proposed lightweight continuous authentication protocol, token technique and dynamic features of IoT devices are adopted in order to reach the design goals: the reduction of time consumption for consecutive authentications and energy saving for authenticating devices through by reducing the computation complexity during session establishment of continuous authentication. Security analysis is conducted to evaluate security strength of the proposed protocol. In addition, performance analysis has shown the proposed protocol is a strong competitor among existing protocols for device-to-device authentication in IoT environments.

Background: Playing computer-aided games could enhance children’s interest in learning about nutritional knowledge and eventually promote healthy dietary intake behavior. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer game (Healthy Rat King) in improving the knowledge on nutrition and junk food intake among preschool children in Taiwan. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study that utilized the computer game Healthy Rat King as the nutrition education tool. We recruited 104 preschool children (aged 5-6 years) from preschools in central Taiwan, who were assigned to either the experimental group (n=56) or the control group (n=48). In the experimental group, a 1-hour computer-based educational game intervention was included in the course for 4 consecutive weeks. The control group did not receive this intervention. Results: The level of nutritional knowledge for children in the experimental group was significantly higher than those in the control group after 4 weeks (P=.002). Furthermore, the frequency of consumption of chocolate, candies, and ice cream (high-calorie junk food) was reduced in the experimental group. There was also no significant difference in the consumption of candy and chocolate (P=.54), ice cream and ice pops (P=.21), cake (P=.92), biscuit (P=.98), soft drinks (P=.52), and fruit juice and sugary drinks (P=.31) between the 2 groups in the posttest. Conclusions: Teaching using a computer game could improve children’s nutritional knowledge. However, the intake frequency of junk food among children in the experimental group showed no significant difference from those in the control group.

The quality of a teacher is the most important factor that affects students’ learning and achievement. The weak or incompetent teachers are a threat to the reputation of the profession and the quality of education that students receive. Recently, educators and policymakers are concerned on how to improve teacher quality. Many types of research have demonstrated that teacher evaluation could promote the teaching efficiency and teacher quality. In order to avoid fearing from the instructors, good teacher evaluation should have the following factors. (1) Authenticity: Participants in the teacher evaluation system cannot be impersonated and signatures cannot be forged. (2) Integrity: The results of teacher evaluation cannot be altered. (3) Security: The details of the process of teacher evaluation and information of participants should be kept as secure as possible. (4) Privacy: Sensitive information such as the participant's name must be protected. Based on the characteristics mentioned above, to design a high-quality evaluation system, this work proposes the teacher evaluation system by applying the cryptography, to develop a web-based system for STEM education. All the participants were those with the ability to operate the online evaluation system. Finally, the system could really provide a fair evaluation.

During a widespread epidemic, a large portion of the population faces an increased risk of contracting infectious diseases such as COVID-19, monkeypox, and pneumonia. These outbreaks often trigger cascading effects, significantly impacting society and healthcare systems. To contain the spread, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must monitor infected individuals (targets) and their geographical locations (areas) as a basis for allocating medical resources. This scenario is a Target-to-Area (TTA) problem. Previous research introduced the Point-In-Polygon (PIP) technique to address multi-target and single-area TTA problems. PIP technology relies on an area’s boundary points to determine whether a target is within that region. However, when dealing with multi-target, multi-area TTA problems, PIP alone may have limitations. The K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) algorithm presents a promising alternative, but its classification accuracy depends on the availability of sufficient samples, i.e., known targets and their corresponding geographical areas. When sample data are limited, the effectiveness of KNN is constrained, potentially delaying the CDC’s ability to track and manage outbreaks. For this problem, this study proposes an improved approach that integrates PIP and KNN technologies while introducing area boundary points as additional samples. This enhancement aims to improve classification accuracy and mitigate the impact of insufficient sample data on epidemic tracking and management.