132 research outputs found
Decoupling Information and Connectivity via Information-Centric Transport
The power of Information-Centric Networking (ICN) architectures lies in their abstraction for communication --- the request for named data. This abstraction promises that applications can choose to operate only in the information plane, agnostic to the mechanisms implemented in the connectivity plane. However, despite this powerful promise, the information and connectivity planes are presently coupled in today\u27s incarnations of leading ICNs by a core architectural component, the forwarding strategy. Presently, this component is not sustainable: it implements both the information and connectivity mechanisms without specifying who should choose a forwarding strategy --- an application developer or the network operator. In practice, application developers can specify a strategy only if they understand connectivity details, while network operators can assign strategies only if they understand application expectations.
In this paper, we define the role of forwarding strategies, and we introduce Information-Centric Transport (ICT) as an abstraction for cleanly decoupling the information plane from the connectivity plane. We discuss how ICTs allow applications to operate in the information plane, concerned only with namespaces and trust identities, leaving network node operators free to deploy whatever strategy mechanisms make sense for the connectivity that they manage. To illustrate the ICT concept, we demonstrate ICT-Sync and ICT-Notify. We show how these ICTs 1) enable applications to operate regardless of connectivity details, 2) are designed to satisfy a predefined set of application requirements and are free from application-specifics, and 3) can be deployed by network operators where needed, without requiring any change to the application logic
Delay-Tolerant ICN and Its Application to LoRa
Connecting long-range wireless networks to the Internet imposes challenges
due to vastly longer round-trip-times (RTTs). In this paper, we present an ICN
protocol framework that enables robust and efficient delay-tolerant
communication to edge networks. Our approach provides ICN-idiomatic
communication between networks with vastly different RTTs. We applied this
framework to LoRa, enabling end-to-end consumer-to-LoRa-producer interaction
over an ICN-Internet and asynchronous data production in the LoRa edge. Instead
of using LoRaWAN, we implemented an IEEE 802.15.4e DSME MAC layer on top of the
LoRa PHY and ICN protocol mechanisms in RIOT OS. Executed on off-the-shelf IoT
hardware, we provide a comparative evaluation for basic NDN-style ICN [60],
RICE [31]-like pulling, and reflexive forwarding [46]. This is the first
practical evaluation of ICN over LoRa using a reliable MAC. Our results show
that periodic polling in NDN works inefficiently when facing long and differing
RTTs. RICE reduces polling overhead and exploits gateway knowledge, without
violating ICN principles. Reflexive forwarding reflects sporadic data
generation naturally. Combined with a local data push, it operates efficiently
and enables lifetimes of >1 year for battery powered LoRa-ICN nodes.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
Agnostic and Modular Architecture for the Development of Cooperative ITS Applications
A Vehicular Adhoc Network (VANET) is a generic conceptualisation that can be applied to the communications domain of an Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). It defines requirements that allow the exchange of information between applications and services running on equipment that form a VANET, mainly moving vehicles, fixed road infrastructure's systems and mobile personal devices. In this unique and demanding environment, interoperability is attained through the use of specific wireless communications technologies and protocols which have been addressed by several international standardisation organisations in an effort to boost the development of applications that could help users in very important application areas such as traffic safety and efficiency, infotainment and personal comfort. The great heterogeneity on the capabilities of the interconnected devices, the scale of the number of devices that could be involved, the various degrees of density and the complexity on the mobility patterns, makes interoperability at the application level a challenging problem.Apart from the technical restrictions imposed by those specific technologies, standard communications architectures for ITS present additional limitations due to the strategy used to access the communications technologies inside an ITS station, which is based on classic routing and switching mechanisms, signalling methodologies and facilities middle-ware layers. They also lack important implementation details for deployment of collaborative applications in real-world heterogeneous scenarios, favouring the development of these applications in a closed ecosystem, mainly dominated by the automotive industry leaders.This paper presents an agnostic VANET architecture, adapted from ETSI and ISO modern standards, to be deployed on ITS as a mean to overcome those limitations. This new approach permits the use of different communication technologies and network/transport protocol stacks in an open and modular framework, facilitating the creation of ITS cooperative applications and services, using traditional network programming paradigms where applications use the available medium transparently.The proposed architecture and its design principles have been used during the development, implementation and deployment of a Platooning application that the authors have developed on top of commercially available On Board Units
Interoperabilidade e mobilidade na internet do futuro
Research on Future Internet has been gaining traction in recent years,
with both evolutionary (e.g., Software Defined Networking (SDN)-
based architectures) and clean-slate network architectures (e.g., Information
Centric Networking (ICN) architectures) being proposed. With
each network architectural proposal aiming to provide better solutions
for specific Internet utilization requirements, an heterogeneous Future
Internet composed by several architectures can be expected, each targeting
and optimizing different use case scenarios. Moreover, the increasing
number of mobile devices, with increasing capabilities and
supporting different connectivity technologies, are changing the patterns
of traffic exchanged in the Internet.
As such, this thesis focuses on the study of interoperability and mobility
in Future Internet architectures, two key requirements that need to be
addressed for the widely adoption of these network architectures. The
first contribution of this thesis is an interoperability framework that,
by enabling resources to be shared among different network architectures,
avoids resources to be restricted to a given network architecture
and, at the same time, promotes the initial roll out of new network
architectures. The second contribution of this thesis consists on the
development of enhancements for SDN-based and ICN network architectures
through IEEE 802.21 mechanisms to facilitate and optimize
the handover procedures on those architectures. The last contribution
of this thesis is the definition of an inter-network architecture mobility
framework that enables MNs to move across access network supporting
different network architectures without losing the reachability to
resources being accessed. All the proposed solutions were evaluated
with results highlighting the feasibility of such solutions and the impact
on the overall communication.A Internet do Futuro tem sido alvo de vários estudos nos últimos anos,
com a proposta de arquitecturas de rede seguindo quer abordagens
evolutionárias (por exemplo, Redes Definidas por Software (SDN))
quer abordagens disruptivas (por exemplo, Redes Centradas na Informação (ICN)). Cada uma destas arquitecturas de rede visa providenciar
melhores soluções relativamente a determinados requisitos de
utilização da Internet e, portanto, uma Internet do Futuro heterogénea
composta por diversas arquitecturas de rede torna-se uma possibilidade,
onde cada uma delas é usada para optimizar diferentes casos
de utilização. Para além disso, o aumento do número de dispositivos
móveis, com especificações acrescidas e com suporte para diferentes
tecnologias de conectividade, está a mudar os padrões do tráfego na
Internet.
Assim, esta tese foca-se no estudo de aspectos de interoperabilidade e
mobilidade em arquitecturas de rede da Internet do Futuro, dois importantes
requisitos que necessitam de ser satisfeitos para que a adopção
destas arquitecturas de rede seja considerada. A primeira contribuição
desta tese é uma solução de interoperabilidade que, uma vez que permite
que recursos possam ser partilhados por diferentes arquitecturas
de rede, evita que os recursos estejam restringidos a uma determinada
arquitectura de rede e, ao mesmo tempo, promove a adopção de novas
arquitecturas de rede. A segunda contribuição desta tese consiste
no desenvolvimento de extensões para arquitecturas de rede baseadas
em SDN ou ICN através dos mecanismos propostos na norma IEEE
802.21 com o objectivo de facilitar e optimizar os processos de mobilidade
nessas arquitecturas de rede. Finalmente, a terceira contribuição
desta tese é a definição de uma solução de mobilidade envolvendo diferentes
arquitecturas de rede que permite a mobilidade de dispositivos
móveis entre redes de acesso que suportam diferentes arquitecturas de
rede sem que estes percam o acesso aos recursos que estão a ser acedidos.
Todas as soluções propostas foram avaliadas com os resultados
a demonstrar a viabilidade de cada uma das soluções e o impacto que
têm na comunicação.Programa Doutoral em Informátic
Contextual Analysis of Large-Scale Biomedical Associations for the Elucidation and Prioritization of Genes and their Roles in Complex Disease
Vast amounts of biomedical associations are easily accessible in public resources, spanning gene-disease associations, tissue-specific gene expression, gene function and pathway annotations, and many other data types. Despite this mass of data, information most relevant to the study of a particular disease remains loosely coupled and difficult to incorporate into ongoing research. Current public databases are difficult to navigate and do not interoperate well due to the plethora of interfaces and varying biomedical concept identifiers used. Because no coherent display of data within a specific problem domain is available, finding the latent relationships associated with a disease of interest is impractical.
This research describes a method for extracting the contextual relationships embedded within associations relevant to a disease of interest. After applying the method to a small test data set, a large-scale integrated association network is constructed for application of a network propagation technique that helps uncover more distant latent relationships. Together these methods are adept at uncovering highly relevant relationships without any a priori knowledge of the disease of interest.
The combined contextual search and relevance methods power a tool which makes pertinent biomedical associations easier to find, easier to assimilate into ongoing work, and more prominent than currently available databases. Increasing the accessibility of current information is an important component to understanding high-throughput experimental results and surviving the data deluge
Quality of Service improvements for real time multimedia applications using next generation network architectures and blockchain in Internet Service Provider cooperative scenario
Real time communications are becoming part of our daily life, requiring constrained requisites with the purpose of being enjoyed in harmony by end users. The factors ruling these requisites are Quality of Service parameters of the users' Internet connections. Achieving a satisfactory QoS level for real time communications depends on parameters that are strongly influenced by the quality of the network connections among the Internet Service Providers, which are located in the path between final users and Over The Top service providers that are supplying them with real time services. Final users can be: business people having real time videoconferences, or adopting crytpocurrencies in their exchanges, videogamers playing online games together with others residing in other countries, migrants talking with their relatives or watching their children growing up in their home countries, people with disabilities adopting tecnologies to help them, doctors performing remote surgeries, manufacturers adopting augmented reality devices to perform dangerous tasks. Each of them performing their daily activities are requiring specific QoS parameters to their ISPs, that nowadays seem to be unable to provide them with a satisfactory QoS level for these kinds of real time services. Through the adoption of next generation networks, such as the Information Centric Networking, it would be possible to overcome the QoS problems that nowadays are experienced. By adopting Blockchain technologies, in several use cases, it would be possible to improve those security aspects related to the non-temperability of information and privacy. I started this thesis analyzing next generation architectures enabling real time multimedia communications. In Software Defined Networking, Named Data Networking and Community Information Centric Networking, I highlighted potential approaches to solve QoS problems that are affecting real time multimedia applications. During my experiments I found that applications able to transmit high quality videos, such as 4k or 8k videos, or to directly interact with devices AR/VR enabled are missing for both ICN approaches. Then I proposed a REST interface for the enforcing of a specific QoS parameter, the round trip time (RTT) taking into consideration the specific use case of a game company that connects with the same telecommunication company of the final user. Supposing that the proposed REST APIs have been deployed in the game company and in the ISP, when one or more users are experiencing lag, the game company will try to ask the ISP to reduce the RTT for that specific user or that group of users. This request can be done by performing a call to a method where IP address(es) and the maximum RTT desired are passed. I also proposed other methods, through which it would be possible to retrieve information about the QoS parameters, and exchange, if necessary, an exceeding parameter in change of another one. The proposed REST APIs can also be used in more complex scenarios, where ISPs along the path are chained together, in order to improve the end to end QoS among Over The Top service provider and final users. To store the information exchanged by using the proposed REST APIs, I proposed to adopt a permissioned blockchain, analizying the ISPs cooperative use case with Hyperledger Fabric, where I proposed the adoption of the Proof of Authority consensus algorithm, to increase the throughput in terms of transactions per second. In a specific case that I examined, I am proposing a combination of Information Centric Networking and Blockchain, in an architecture where ISPs are exchanging valuable information regarding final Users, to improve their QoS parameters. I also proposed my smart contract for the gaming delay use case, that can be used to rule the communication among those ISPs that are along the path among OTT and final users. An extension of this work can be done, by defining billing costs for the QoS improvements
Medical data processing and analysis for remote health and activities monitoring
Recent developments in sensor technology, wearable computing, Internet of Things (IoT), and wireless communication have given rise to research in ubiquitous healthcare and remote monitoring of human\u2019s health and activities. Health monitoring systems involve processing and analysis of data retrieved from smartphones, smart watches, smart bracelets, as well as various sensors and wearable devices. Such systems enable continuous monitoring of patients psychological and health conditions by sensing and transmitting measurements such as heart rate, electrocardiogram, body temperature, respiratory rate, chest sounds, or blood pressure. Pervasive healthcare, as a relevant application domain in this context, aims at revolutionizing the delivery of medical services through a medical assistive environment and facilitates the independent living of patients. In this chapter, we discuss (1) data collection, fusion, ownership and privacy issues; (2) models, technologies and solutions for medical data processing and analysis; (3) big medical data analytics for remote health monitoring; (4) research challenges and opportunities in medical data analytics; (5) examples of case studies and practical solutions
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