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Leader secure-base support, consisting of leader availability, noninterference and encouragement of growth, has important implications for stimulating employee proactivity. This study is aimed at examining whether, why and when leader secure-base support may motivate employees to engage in approach job crafting behavior. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory, we propose leader secure-base support is positively associated with employee approach job crafting via employee state promotion focus. Based on cue consistency theory, we further examine the moderating role of organizational learning culture in the associations of leader secure-base support with employee state promotion focus and subsequent approach job crafting.

Two-wave data were collected from 281 Chinese workers. Path analyses with Mplus 7 were conducted to test the hypotheses.

As predicted, we found that leader secure-base support was positively related to employee state promotion focus and, in turn, facilitated employee approach job crafting. Moreover, organizational learning culture accentuated the impact of leader secure-base support on employee job crafting process.

This study is the first to examine the influence of leader secure-base support on employee job crafting. It also identifies a boundary condition for such an influence.

Social work teams can provide a secure base for social workers, supporting them to manage the emotional demands of child and family social work (Biggart et al., 2017). As the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated increased remote working, social workers have needed to maximise their use of virtual networks and navigate new ways of connecting with colleagues. This study aims to examine the extent to which social work teams can function as a secure base in the context of remote working.

Between 19th March and 13th June, the authors undertook 31 in-depth, qualitative interviews with child and family social workers across 9 local authorities in England. this research captured social workers’ perspectives on remote working and team support throughout lockdown in England.

In this study, the authors report findings in three key areas: how social workers experienced the sudden shift to increased remote working; how social work teams provided a secure base for remote working; and the challenges for sustaining the team as a secure base when working remotely.

These findings will be of interest to social workers, managers and local authorities as they adapt to the challenges of increased remote working in child and family social work.

In the past recent years, wireless sensor network (WSN) has progressively grown as an emerging technology. Various research efforts have been made in the literature to address the problem associated with WSN security. Based on the review analysis, it is found that the existing methods are mostly associated with complex security operations that are not suitable for resource constraint sensor nodes. The proposed paper has presented cost-effective modeling of the security framework that addresses the problem of security and energy in WSN.

The proposed security framework implements two different protocols to attain maximum security services and optimizes the security operation of the proposed security models to achieve higher energy efficiency and privacy preservation against a majority of the lethal attacks. The first security model introduces a novel cost-efficient pairwise key-based authentication mechanism to identify the availability of optimal routes under the presence of adversary in the network. The second security model introduces an integrated part of the first security model that optimizes security operation to perform secure communication using a lightweight encryption mechanism.

Based on the experimental outcome and analysis, the proposed system attains a 60% performance improvement in terms of security and computational efficiency compared to the existing Sec-LEACH. The second security model has achieved a 50% improvement in terms of overall aspects like reduction in transmission delay, packet delivery ratio, remaining energy and communication performance.

The proposed study has presented a computationally efficient model that provides lightweight security operations based on secure hash function. It also focuses on the security associations between WSN nodes and the selection of reliable routes for secure data transmission. The design of the proposed security model is best suited for homogeneous and heterogeneous sensor networks, which will be robust to any attacking scenario.

Mobile agent‐based e‐marketplace is one type of business application that has been developed as a flexible and efficient approach to help companies or corporations to extend their businesses to outreach larger markets without regional and continental boundaries. However, every distributed system is unable to avoid the security problems due to the open internet environment. Mobile agent‐based e‐marketplaces are no exception. Thus, the security of mobile agents is a crucial factor in the design of mobile agent‐based e‐marketplaces. To overcome this kind of problem, the purpose of this paper is to design and implement a framework and system of secure and trustworthy mobile agent based e‐marketplace.

This paper presents the system design for the system implementation based on the designed framework. It includes three major aspects: the design issues, system design and development environment and tools for system implementation. The system architecture, use case diagram and use case specifications are presented in the system design section.

The system design is an essential step that is required before a prototype system is implemented. The system is designed based on the described and outlined requirements and evaluation criteria, therefore, to support a secure and trustworthy trading environment. The paper is concluded by discussing and highlighting further research work.

This paper presents the system design for implementing a secure and trustworthy mobile agent‐based e‐marketplace system by using the latest version of UML modeling tool and techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to design, implement and evaluate the usage of the password-authenticated secure channel protocol SRP to protect the communication of a mobile application to a Java Card applet. The usage of security and privacy sensitive systems on mobile devices, such as mobile banking, mobile credit cards, mobile ticketing or mobile digital identities has continuously risen in recent years. This development makes the protection of personal and security sensitive data on mobile devices more important than ever.

A common approach for the protection of sensitive data is to use additional hardware such as smart cards or secure elements. The communication between such dedicated hardware and back-end management systems uses strong cryptography. However, the data transfer between applications on the mobile device and so-called applets on the dedicated hardware is often either unencrypted (and interceptable by malicious software) or encrypted with static keys stored in applications.

To address this issue, this paper presents a solution for fine-grained secure application-to-applet communication based on Secure Remote Password (SRP-6a and SRP-5), an authenticated key agreement protocol, with a user-provided password at run-time.

By exploiting the Java Card cryptographic application programming interfaces (APIs) and minor adaptations to the protocol, which do not affect the security, the authors were able to implement this scheme on Java Cards with reasonable computation time.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the latest research related to secure routing protocols in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and propose a new approach that can achieve a higher security level compared to the existing one. One of the main security issues in WSNs is the security of routing protocols. A typical WSN consists of a large number of small size, low-power, low-cost sensor devices. These devices are very resource-constrained and usually use cheap short-range radios to communicate with each other in an ad hoc fashion thus, achieving security in these networks is a big challenge, which is open for research.

The route updates and data messages of the protocol are authenticated using Edwards-curves Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA). Routing protocols play an essential role in WSNs, they ensure the delivery of the sensed data from the remote sensor nodes to back-end systems via a data sink. Routing protocols depend on route updates received from neighboring nodes to determine the best path to the sink. Manipulating these updates by inserting rouge nodes in the network that advertise false updates can lead to a catastrophic impact on the compromised WSN performance.

As a result, a new secure energy-aware routing protocol (SEARP) is proposed, which uses security enhanced clustering algorithm and EdDSA to authenticate route advertisements and messages. A secure clustering algorithm is also used as part of the proposed protocol to conserve energy, prolong network lifetime and counteract wormhole attacks.

In this paper, a SEARP is proposed to address network layer security attacks in WSNs. A secure clustering algorithm is also used as part of the proposed protocol to conserve energy, prolong network lifetime and counteract wormhole attacks. A simulation has been carried out using Sensoria Simulator and the performance evaluation has been discussed.

Lack of optimization and improvement on experimental circuits precludes comprehensive statements. It is a deficiency of the existing chaotic circuit technology. One of the aims of this paper is to solve the above mentioned problems. Another purpose of this paper is to construct a 10 + 4-type chaotic secure communication circuit based on the proposed third-order 4 + 2-type circuit which can output chaotic phase portraits with high accuracy and high stability.

In Section 2 of this paper, a novel third-order 4 + 2 chaotic circuit is constructed and a new third-order Lorenz-like chaotic system is proposed based on the 4 + 2 circuit. Then some simulations are presented to verify that the proposed system is chaotic by using Multisim software. In Section 3, a fourth-order chaotic circuit is proposed on the basis of the third-order 4 + 2 chaotic circuit. In Section 4, the circuit design method of this paper is applied to chaotic synchronization and secure communication. A new 10 + 4-type chaotic secure communication circuit is proposed based on the novel third-order 4 + 2 circuit. In Section 5, the proposed third-order 4 + 2 chaotic circuit and the fourth-order chaotic circuit are implemented in an analog electronic circuit. The analog circuit implementation results match the Multisim results.

The simulation results show that the proposed fourth-order chaotic circuit can output six phase portraits, and it can output a stable fourth-order double-vortex chaotic signal. A new 10 + 4-type chaotic secure communication circuit is proposed based on the novel third-order 4 + 2 circuit. The scheme has the advantages of clear thinking, efficient and high practicability. The experimental results show that the precision is improved by 2-3 orders of magnitude. Signal-to-noise ratio meets the requirements of engineering design. It provides certain theoretical and technical bases for the realization of a large-scale integrated circuit with a memristor. The proposed circuit design method can also be used in other chaotic systems.

In this paper, a novel third-order 4 + 2 chaotic circuit is constructed and a new chaotic system is proposed on the basis of the 4 + 2 chaotic circuit for the first time. Some simulations are presented to verify its chaotic characteristics by Multisim. Then the novel third-order 4 + 2 chaotic circuit is applied to construct a fourth-order chaotic circuit. Simulation results verify the existence of the new fourth-order chaotic system. Moreover, a new 10 + 4-type chaotic secure communication circuit is proposed based on chaotic synchronization of the novel third-order 4 + 2 circuit. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, the intensity limit and stability of the transmitted signal, the characteristic of broadband and the requirements for accuracy of electronic components are presented by Multisim simulation. Finally, the proposed third-order 4 + 2 chaotic circuit and the fourth-order chaotic circuit are implemented through an analog electronic circuit, which are characterized by their high accuracy and good robustness. The analog circuit implementation results match the Multisim results.

Web services composition engineering (WSCE) is a big challenge because of the increasing complexity, openness and extensibility of services based on the information system (IS). In the absence of an adequate framework for IS engineering, the authors assume that the overall problem is consequently no longer easy to resolve. This paper aims to explore some of the issues underlying WSCE through a framework, which is built based on the state of the art. The proposed framework is structured around five views that mainly highlight aspects of personalization and security concerns. The main objectives of this framework are: to help understand and clarify the basics of the WSCE domain; to evaluate web services composition (WSC) methods; to analyze and compare existing personalization, secure methods and identify new research axes; and to identify the main criteria of the ongoing approach for the design of a secure IS based on personalized WSC.

This work develops a framework that is used as an analytical study to compare the existing WSCE methods and come up with research issues. Then, the proposed framework is considered as an abstract model for the new WSCE approach.

A set of criteria that the proposed framework should consider when developing a new approach to a secure IS based on personalized WSs composition.

The paper has theoretical implications as the personalization and security issues provide a research roadmap toward the realization of an approach for the design of a secure IS based on personalized WSs composition.

As proof, the authors are interested in a web services repository of a real mall. To do this, the authors deployed the application in a cloud environment and observed the results of personalization and security concepts in WSCE.

None of the existing comparison frameworks has raised both personalization and security issues in WSs composition, while personalization and security must be present in the whole composition process.

This paper examines credit products, operational performance and business models employed by nontraditional lenders (NTLs) in agricultural credit markets.

Two research methods were employed in this study: (1) an executive interview to collect primary data and (2) a case study approach to analyze the findings and develop insights.

The findings indicate the presence of significant differences among lenders across and within three categories of NTLs (large volume, vendor financing and collateral-based NTLs). For example, collateral-based NTLs employ different strategies focusing on types of loans, funding sources, commodities they support and geographic coverage to further segment the market. NTLs in this study were able to capture market by successfully identifying gaps in the supply side of agricultural credit and developing products that meet the needs of that niche (e.g. heavy renters, large operations, producers seeking fixed interest rates for term loans, financially fragile producers). Most of the interviewed NTLs had credit standards comparable to those of traditional lenders and consider them both competitors and partners since many NTLs partner with traditional lenders on participation loans, loan servicing and/or sourcing funds.

The supply side of a nontraditional lending has not been studied extensively due to the proprietary nature of data. The executive interviews conducted in this study allowed for accumulation of industry data, which is not available otherwise.

Wireless sensor networks, due to their potentially wide application perspectives, may proliferate in future. Two major stumbling blocks are the dynamic variance of the network caused by both the capacity constraint of sensor nodes and uncertainties of wireless links, and secure routing in the special security sensitive environment. Therefore, adaptable and defendable routing mechanism is in urgent need for the deployment of sensor networks. This paper aims to propose a feedback‐based secure routing protocol (FBSR).

Feedback from the neighboring nodes serves as the dynamic information of the current network, with which sensor nodes make forwarding decisions in a secure and energy aware manner. Feedback message is included in the MAC layer acknowledgement frame to avoid network congestion, and it is authenticated with the proposed Keyed One Way Hash Chain (Keyed‐OWHC) to avoid feedback fabrication. FBSR's resilience to node compromise is enhanced by statistic efforts accomplished by the base station.

Both mathematical analysis and simulation results show that FBSR is not only reliable but also energy efficient.

The paper introduces a novel routing scheme for wireless sensor networks.