Towards NFC payments using a lightweight architecture for the Web of Things

The Web (and Internet) of Things has seen the rapid emergence of new protocols and standards, which provide for innovative models of interaction for applications. One such model fostered by the Web of Things (WoT) ecosystem is that of contactless interaction between devices. Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is one such enabler of contactless interactions. Contactless technology for the WoT requires all parties to agree one common definition and implementation and, in this paper, we propose a new lightweight architecture for the WoT, based on RESTful approaches. We show how the proposed architecture supports the concept of a mobile wallet, enabling users to make secure payments employing NFC technology with their mobile devices. In so doing, we argue that the vision of the WoT is brought a step closer to fruition

Cloud-based Recommendation Systems: Applications and Solutions

Recommender systems have become extremely common in recent years, and are applied in a variety of applications. They help businesses increase their sales and customer satisfaction. More and more computing applications including recommender systems, are being deployed as cloud computing services. This papers presents some of the most common recommendation applications and solutions which follow SaaS, PaaS or other cloud computing service models. They are provided both from academia and business domain and use recent data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques. The tendency of these kind of applications is towards SaaS service model which seems the most appropriate especially for businesses

Storage Solutions for Big Data Systems: A Qualitative Study and Comparison

Big data systems development is full of challenges in view of the variety of application areas and domains that this technology promises to serve. Typically, fundamental design decisions involved in big data systems design include choosing appropriate storage and computing infrastructures. In this age of heterogeneous systems that integrate different technologies for optimized solution to a specific real world problem, big data system are not an exception to any such rule. As far as the storage aspect of any big data system is concerned, the primary facet in this regard is a storage infrastructure and NoSQL seems to be the right technology that fulfills its requirements. However, every big data application has variable data characteristics and thus, the corresponding data fits into a different data model. This paper presents feature and use case analysis and comparison of the four main data models namely document oriented, key value, graph and wide column. Moreover, a feature analysis of 80 NoSQL solutions has been provided, elaborating on the criteria and points that a developer must consider while making a possible choice. Typically, big data storage needs to communicate with the execution engine and other processing and visualization technologies to create a comprehensive solution. This brings forth second facet of big data storage, big data file formats, into picture. The second half of the research paper compares the advantages, shortcomings and possible use cases of available big data file formats for Hadoop, which is the foundation for most big data computing technologies. Decentralized storage and blockchain are seen as the next generation of big data storage and its challenges and future prospects have also been discussed

Generic system architecture for context-aware, distributed recommendation

In the existing literature on recommender systems, it is difficult to find an architecture for large-scale implementation. Often, the architectures proposed in papers are specific to an algorithm implementation or a domain. Thus, there is no clear architectural starting point for a new recommender system. This paper presents an architecture blueprint for a context-aware recommender system that provides scalability, availability, and security for its users. The architecture also contributes the dynamic ability to switch between single-device (offline), client-server (online), and fully distributed implementations. From this blueprint, a new recommender system could be built with minimal design and implementation effort regardless of the application.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Juegos serios educativos como servicio: retos y desafíos

Cloud computing is a distributed computing technology that facilitates access to the resources in a dynamic, scalable and highly available manner. One of its service models is SaaS (Software as a Service) which allows executing Web applications in a flexible and elastic way while offering collaborative characteristics. The integration of SaaS in educational environments promotes academic performance and facilitates knowledge management, allowing for storage, exchange, access and synchronization of information. On the other hand, educational serious games promote among the people involved: collaboration, communication, social abilities, critical thinking and problem solving. The main objective of this investigation is to analyze the challenges that SaaS, with its collaborative and multitenancy characteristics present to the execution of educational serious games. This is named ESGaaS - Educational Serious Games as a Service. The analysis was developed based on a review of the existing literature through the methodology known as Systematic Mapping Studies (SMS) which facilitated the generation of investigation questions, search strategies, key words and inclusion and exclusion criteria applied to identify articles in several sources. This investigation facilitated the development of a list of functional characteristics that the educational serious games will acquire when used as software for service.La computación en la nube es una tecnología de computación distribuida que ofrece acceso a los recursos de manera dinámica, escalable y con alta disponibilidad. Uno de sus modelos de servicio, es el SaaS (Software as a Service) que permite ejecutar aplicaciones Web de manera flexible y elástica, además de ofrecer características colaborativas. La integración del SaaS en los entornos educativos potencia el rendimiento académico y facilita la gestión del conocimiento permitiendo almacenar, intercambiar, acceder y sincronizar información. Por su parte los juegos serios educativos potencian, entre los involucrados, la colaboración, comunicación, habilidades sociales, pensamiento crítico y resolución de problemas. El objetivo principal de esta investigación consistió en analizar los retos que SaaS, con sus características colaborativas y multiinquilino, ofrece a la ejecución de juegos serios educativos, lo cual denominamos ESGaaS – Juegos Serios Educativos como Servicio. El análisis fue realizado a partir de una revisión de literatura existente a través de la metodología denominada Systematic Mapping Studies (SMS) la cual permitió generar preguntas de investigación, estrategias de búsqueda, palabras claves y criterios de inclusión y exclusión que fueron aplicadas para localizar artículos en diversas fuentes. Como resultado del trabajo se elabora una lista de características funcionales que los juegos serios educativos adquirirían al ser utilizados como software como servicio.Facultad de Informátic

A Scalable Cluster-based Infrastructure for Edge-computing Services

In this paper we present a scalable and dynamic intermediary infrastruc- ture, SEcS (acronym of BScalable Edge computing Services’’), for developing and deploying advanced Edge computing services, by using a cluster of heterogeneous machines. Our goal is to address the challenges of the next-generation Internet services: scalability, high availability, fault-tolerance and robustness, as well as programmability and quick prototyping. The system is written in Java and is based on IBM’s Web Based Intermediaries (WBI) [71] developed at IBM Almaden Research Center