The next generation internet initiative

Digital transformation is pushing all market sectors to level up their digital capabilities to better serve customers and improve the user experience. The European Commission launched in 2016 the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative as part of the DSM strategy. NGI includes a number of different – but always interrelated – emerging technologies in the following focus areas: artificial intelligence and autonomous machines, blockchains and distributed ledgers, big data, Internet of Things, 5G, cybersecurity and privacy technologies, cloud and edge computing, and open data. As for cooperation in the field of Information and Communications Technology, Europe and the United States should seek a joint framework to expand efforts in new emerging technologies, while preserving common principles around a comprehensive EU–US digital economy dialogue. The NGI Initiative is an important opportunity to radically rethink the way the Internet works today, and more human-focused narratives are needed more than ever

Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte

Cyber physical approach and framework for micro devices assembly

The emergence of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) based principles and technologies holds the potential to facilitate global collaboration in various fields of engineering. Micro Devices Assembly (MDA) is an emerging domain involving the assembly of micron sized objects and devices. In this dissertation, the focus of the research is the design of a Cyber Physical approach for the assembly of micro devices. A collaborative framework comprising of cyber and physical components linked using the Internet has been developed to accomplish a targeted set of MDA life cycle activities which include assembly planning, path planning, Virtual Reality (VR) based assembly analysis, command generation and physical assembly. Genetic algorithm and modified insertion algorithm based methods have been proposed to support assembly planning activities. Advanced VR based environments have been designed to support assembly analysis where plans can be proposed, compared and validated. The potential of next generation Global Environment for Network Innovation (GENI) networking technologies has also been explored to support distributed collaborations involving VR-based environments. The feasibility of the cyber physical approach has been demonstrated by implementing the cyber physical components which collaborate to assemble micro designs. The case studies conducted underscore the ability of the developed Cyber Physical approach and framework to support distributed collaborative activities for MDA process contexts

A Survey on Virtualization of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are gaining tremendous importance thanks to their broad range of commercial applications such as in smart home automation, health-care and industrial automation. In these applications multi-vendor and heterogeneous sensor nodes are deployed. Due to strict administrative control over the specific WSN domains, communication barriers, conflicting goals and the economic interests of different WSN sensor node vendors, it is difficult to introduce a large scale federated WSN. By allowing heterogeneous sensor nodes in WSNs to coexist on a shared physical sensor substrate, virtualization in sensor network may provide flexibility, cost effective solutions, promote diversity, ensure security and increase manageability. This paper surveys the novel approach of using the large scale federated WSN resources in a sensor virtualization environment. Our focus in this paper is to introduce a few design goals, the challenges and opportunities of research in the field of sensor network virtualization as well as to illustrate a current status of research in this field. This paper also presents a wide array of state-of-the art projects related to sensor network virtualization

Trusted resource allocation in volunteer edge-cloud computing for scientific applications

Data-intensive science applications in fields such as e.g., bioinformatics, health sciences, and material discovery are becoming increasingly dynamic and demanding with resource requirements. Researchers using these applications which are based on advanced scientific workflows frequently require a diverse set of resources that are often not available within private servers or a single Cloud Service Provider (CSP). For example, a user working with Precision Medicine applications would prefer only those CSPs who follow guidelines from HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) for implementing their data services and might want services from other CSPs for economic viability. With the generation of more and more data these workflows often require deployment and dynamic scaling of multi-cloud resources in an efficient and high-performance manner (e.g., quick setup, reduced computation time, and increased application throughput). At the same time, users seek to minimize the costs of configuring the related multi-cloud resources. While performance and cost are among the key factors to decide upon CSP resource selection, the scientific workflows often process proprietary/confidential data that introduces additional constraints of security postures. Thus, users have to make an informed decision on the selection of resources that are most suited for their applications while trading off between the key factors of resource selection which are performance, agility, cost, and security (PACS). Furthermore, even with the most efficient resource allocation across multi-cloud, the cost to solution might not be economical for all users which have led to the development of new paradigms of computing such as volunteer computing where users utilize volunteered cyber resources to meet their computing requirements. For economical and readily available resources, it is essential that such volunteered resources can integrate well with cloud resources for providing the most efficient computing infrastructure for users. In this dissertation, individual stages such as user requirement collection, user's resource preferences, resource brokering and task scheduling, in lifecycle of resource brokering for users are tackled. For collection of user requirements, a novel approach through an iterative design interface is proposed. In addition, fuzzy interference-based approach is proposed to capture users' biases and expertise for guiding their resource selection for their applications. The results showed improvement in performance i.e. time to execute in 98 percent of the studied applications. The data collected on user's requirements and preferences is later used by optimizer engine and machine learning algorithms for resource brokering. For resource brokering, a new integer linear programming based solution (OnTimeURB) is proposed which creates multi-cloud template solutions for resource allocation while also optimizing performance, agility, cost, and security. The solution was further improved by the addition of a machine learning model based on naive bayes classifier which captures the true QoS of cloud resources for guiding template solution creation. The proposed solution was able to improve the time to execute for as much as 96 percent of the largest applications. As discussed above, to fulfill necessity of economical computing resources, a new paradigm of computing viz-a-viz Volunteer Edge Computing (VEC) is proposed which reduces cost and improves performance and security by creating edge clusters comprising of volunteered computing resources close to users. The initial results have shown improved time of execution for application workflows against state-of-the-art solutions while utilizing only the most secure VEC resources. Consequently, we have utilized reinforcement learning based solutions to characterize volunteered resources for their availability and flexibility towards implementation of security policies. The characterization of volunteered resources facilitates efficient allocation of resources and scheduling of workflows tasks which improves performance and throughput of workflow executions. VEC architecture is further validated with state-of-the-art bioinformatics workflows and manufacturing workflows.Includes bibliographical references

Building the Future Internet through FIRE

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives. Recently, with the advent of new paradigms and the progress in wireless technology, sensor networks and information systems and also the inexorable shift towards everything connected paradigm, first as known as the Internet of Things and lately envisioning into the Internet of Everything, a data-driven society has been created. In a data-driven society, productivity, knowledge, and experience are dependent on increasingly open, dynamic, interdependent and complex Internet services. The challenge for the Internet of the Future design is to build robust enabling technologies, implement and deploy adaptive systems, to create business opportunities considering increasing uncertainties and emergent systemic behaviors where humans and machines seamlessly cooperate

Building the Hyperconnected Society- Internet of Things Research and Innovation Value Chains, Ecosystems and Markets

This book aims to provide a broad overview of various topics of Internet of Things (IoT), ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies, nanoelectronics, cyber-physical systems, architecture, interoperability and industrial applications. All this is happening in a global context, building towards intelligent, interconnected decision making as an essential driver for new growth and co-competition across a wider set of markets. It is intended to be a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC – Internet of Things European Research Cluster from research to technological innovation, validation and deployment.The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster on the Internet of Things Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, and presents global views and state of the art results on the challenges facing the research, innovation, development and deployment of IoT in future years. The concept of IoT could disrupt consumer and industrial product markets generating new revenues and serving as a growth driver for semiconductor, networking equipment, and service provider end-markets globally. This will create new application and product end-markets, change the value chain of companies that creates the IoT technology and deploy it in various end sectors, while impacting the business models of semiconductor, software, device, communication and service provider stakeholders. The proliferation of intelligent devices at the edge of the network with the introduction of embedded software and app-driven hardware into manufactured devices, and the ability, through embedded software/hardware developments, to monetize those device functions and features by offering novel solutions, could generate completely new types of revenue streams. Intelligent and IoT devices leverage software, software licensing, entitlement management, and Internet connectivity in ways that address many of the societal challenges that we will face in the next decade

The dawn of solar power in Brazil: current state and future challenges

As a sun-soaked South American giant with a population of more than 200 million, Brazil is considered to have some of the best conditions for solar power worldwide. Despite its tremendous potential, the country has so far been rather slow in developing the national solar power market. After a devastating energy crisis in its draught afflicted hydroelectric sector, the dawn of solar power seems on the horizon. With the goal of diversifying its energy mix, Brazil initiated the large-scale deployment of solar power in 2014. Three years after its commercial commencement, the solar energy drive is stalled and policy efforts seem trivial under deteriorating political and economic conditions. As a comprehensive analysis of the industry’s state of affairs is currently insufficiently portrayed, this paper attempts to fill this gap by discussing the latest solar market developments and outlining the progress and status of Brazil’s solar energy market objectives. While the findings prove a significant discrepancy between the desired and achieved progress, this paper also finds that there is reason to be optimistic that the solar market growth will be unleashed in the future. As such, the analysis focuses on the critical state of the Brazilian solar market in 2017 and showcases the underlying challenges of transforming an energy sector during a recession

Report of the 2014 NSF Cybersecurity Summit for Large Facilities and Cyberinfrastructure

This event was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 1234408. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed at the event or in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation