Data Storage and Dissemination in Pervasive Edge Computing Environments

Nowadays, smart mobile devices generate huge amounts of data in all sorts of gatherings. Much of that data has localized and ephemeral interest, but can be of great use if shared among co-located devices. However, mobile devices often experience poor connectivity, leading to availability issues if application storage and logic are fully delegated to a remote cloud infrastructure. In turn, the edge computing paradigm pushes computations and storage beyond the data center, closer to end-user devices where data is generated and consumed. Hence, enabling the execution of certain components of edge-enabled systems directly and cooperatively on edge devices. This thesis focuses on the design and evaluation of resilient and efficient data storage and dissemination solutions for pervasive edge computing environments, operating with or without access to the network infrastructure. In line with this dichotomy, our goal can be divided into two specific scenarios. The first one is related to the absence of network infrastructure and the provision of a transient data storage and dissemination system for networks of co-located mobile devices. The second one relates with the existence of network infrastructure access and the corresponding edge computing capabilities. First, the thesis presents time-aware reactive storage (TARS), a reactive data storage and dissemination model with intrinsic time-awareness, that exploits synergies between the storage substrate and the publish/subscribe paradigm, and allows queries within a specific time scope. Next, it describes in more detail: i) Thyme, a data storage and dis- semination system for wireless edge environments, implementing TARS; ii) Parsley, a flexible and resilient group-based distributed hash table with preemptive peer relocation and a dynamic data sharding mechanism; and iii) Thyme GardenBed, a framework for data storage and dissemination across multi-region edge networks, that makes use of both device-to-device and edge interactions. The developed solutions present low overheads, while providing adequate response times for interactive usage and low energy consumption, proving to be practical in a variety of situations. They also display good load balancing and fault tolerance properties.Resumo Hoje em dia, os dispositivos móveis inteligentes geram grandes quantidades de dados em todos os tipos de aglomerações de pessoas. Muitos desses dados têm interesse loca- lizado e efêmero, mas podem ser de grande utilidade se partilhados entre dispositivos co-localizados. No entanto, os dispositivos móveis muitas vezes experienciam fraca co- nectividade, levando a problemas de disponibilidade se o armazenamento e a lógica das aplicações forem totalmente delegados numa infraestrutura remota na nuvem. Por sua vez, o paradigma de computação na periferia da rede leva as computações e o armazena- mento para além dos centros de dados, para mais perto dos dispositivos dos utilizadores finais onde os dados são gerados e consumidos. Assim, permitindo a execução de certos componentes de sistemas direta e cooperativamente em dispositivos na periferia da rede. Esta tese foca-se no desenho e avaliação de soluções resilientes e eficientes para arma- zenamento e disseminação de dados em ambientes pervasivos de computação na periferia da rede, operando com ou sem acesso à infraestrutura de rede. Em linha com esta dico- tomia, o nosso objetivo pode ser dividido em dois cenários específicos. O primeiro está relacionado com a ausência de infraestrutura de rede e o fornecimento de um sistema efêmero de armazenamento e disseminação de dados para redes de dispositivos móveis co-localizados. O segundo diz respeito à existência de acesso à infraestrutura de rede e aos recursos de computação na periferia da rede correspondentes. Primeiramente, a tese apresenta armazenamento reativo ciente do tempo (ARCT), um modelo reativo de armazenamento e disseminação de dados com percepção intrínseca do tempo, que explora sinergias entre o substrato de armazenamento e o paradigma pu- blicação/subscrição, e permite consultas num escopo de tempo específico. De seguida, descreve em mais detalhe: i) Thyme, um sistema de armazenamento e disseminação de dados para ambientes sem fios na periferia da rede, que implementa ARCT; ii) Pars- ley, uma tabela de dispersão distribuída flexível e resiliente baseada em grupos, com realocação preventiva de nós e um mecanismo de particionamento dinâmico de dados; e iii) Thyme GardenBed, um sistema para armazenamento e disseminação de dados em redes multi-regionais na periferia da rede, que faz uso de interações entre dispositivos e com a periferia da rede. As soluções desenvolvidas apresentam baixos custos, proporcionando tempos de res- posta adequados para uso interativo e baixo consumo de energia, demonstrando serem práticas nas mais diversas situações. Estas soluções também exibem boas propriedades de balanceamento de carga e tolerância a faltas

Aging in Boxford: Planning for an ‘active and involved’ future

This planning study was conducted to investigate current and anticipated needs, interests, preferences, and concerns of Boxford adults aged 45 and older. Special emphasis is placed on gauging future age-related services needed by residents, including those provided by the Boxford Council on Aging and its Senior Center (hereafter, COA), as well as the existing physical infrastructure of the COA relative to these service needs now and in the future. A primary focus of this study was whether Boxford is a town where lifelong residents will feel supported in later life. The goals of the project were (1) to identify the current services offered to Boxford seniors, how these service needs will grow in the next 20 years, and whether Boxford will need to add new programs; and (2) to examine the adequacy of the current Senior Center space relative to addressing current and future service needs, based on projected needs 10 and 20 years from now. This study considered the characteristics and needs of Boxford residents age 45 to 59 (the cohort referred to hereafter as “Future Users”) and age 60 and over (hereafter, “Seniors”); to identify specific concerns of community members related to aging in Boxford, and make explicit their ideas regarding how quality of life could be improved for older adults who live in Boxford; to explore the current and potential role of the Senior Center in the lives of older residents; and to outline the implications of an aging population for the Town of Boxford as a whole. The contents of this report are intended to aid planning by the COA, , as well as other Town offices, private and public organizations that provide services and advocate for older people within Boxford, and the community at large. By proactively taking steps to support the goals of older adults in terms of successful aging and aging-in-place, a community may retain a larger share of its older population in the community and benefit from the experiences and local commitment that vital long-term residents offer

Aging in Hull: A Community Needs Assessment

This report describes research undertaken by the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on behalf of the Hull Council on Aging. The goals of this project were to investigate the needs, interests, preferences, and opinions of Hull’s residents age 55 or older. The contents of this report are meant to inform the Town of Hull, the Hull Council on Aging and Senior Center, and organizations that work with and on behalf of older residents of Hull for the purposes of planning and coordination of services. The report will also help to build awareness about issues facing Hull among community members at large

A Deaf Way of Education: Interaction Among Children in a Thai Boarding School

This is an ethnographic study of peer society in a boarding school for deaf children in the Kingdom of Thailand. The aim is to describe the students' after-hours interaction together and its function in their intellectual and social development. Deaf children tend to be institutionalized because they are unable to fully participate in the process of socialization conveyed by speech. Deafness is perceived as an inevitable loss to intellectual and social capacity. Considered to be uneducable in ordinary settings, they are sent to residential schools, which remain the predominant placement worldwide. The informal interaction among deaf students has largely been ignored or decried as impeding educational goals. Yet as their first opportunity for unhindered communication, the interaction among deaf students reveals their learning capacity and preferences. Aged six to nineteen years, the youth created educational activities to learn the sign language, in-group and societal norms, and worldly knowledge. They devised a complex social organization via a sign language that is little used or appreciated by teachers. They regulated their modes of interaction with each other according to relative skill in the sign language and mental acuity (a "social hierarchy of the mind"). This provided a pathway of gradually diversifying learning activities. The confinement to a given status group fostered teaching and learning among youth of similar skill levels ( and provided an example of Vygotsky's "zone of proximal development.") Student leadership was split into elders who wielded authority and those few youth who were skilled and creative masters of signs. These "signmasters" were generators of new ideas, storytellers and interpreters. This honored role was aspired to by youngsters, and the skills had been consciously passed down. At the same time there was pressure, by some students and teachers, to supplant creative activities with regimentation. The study recommends that educators examine the overall school environment to assure that there is a "normal" balance of activity that is similar to other children in the society, and to consider the value of deaf students' interactions and sign language as resources in the classroom

The Communicator, February 8, 2004

The Communicator newspaper published on February 8, 2004

Advanced languages and techniques for trust negotiation.

The Web is quickly shifting from a document browsing and delivery system to a hugely complex ecosystem of interconnected online applications. A relevant portion of these applications dramatically increase the number of users required to dynamically authenticate themselves and to, on the other hand, to identify the service they want to use. In order to manage interactions among such users/services is required a flexible but powerful mechanism. Trust management, and in particular trust negotiation techniques, is a reasonable solution. In this work we present the formalization of the well known trust negotiation framework Trust-X, of a rule-based policy definition language, called X-RNL. Moreover, we present the extension of both the framework and of the language to provide advanced trust negotiation architectures, namely negotiations among groups. We also provide protocols to adapt trust negotiations to mobile environments, specifically, we present protocols allowing a trust negotiation to be executed among several, distinct, sessions while still preserving its security properties. Such protocols have also been extended to provides the capability to migrate a ongoing trust negotiation among a set of known, reliable, subjects. Finally, we present the application of the previously introduced trust negotiation techniques into real world scenarios: online social networks, critical infrastructures and cognitive radio networks

A Prevention Program at Spoon River Valley Schools and Its Role in the Fulton County Prevention Network

Statement of the Problem The area to be discussed is the development of a prevention program for the Spoon River Valley Schools, and the role of this program within the Fulton County Prevention Network. The primary focus of this paper will be the school\u27s effort to prevent substance abuse by the students, but also addressed are prevention activities which combat other self-destructive behaviors such as teen pregnancy and suicide. Procedure The method of research used in this study is descriptive. The components of a prevention program which have evolved during the 1980s, both at Spoon River Valley Schools, and as a part of the Fulton County Prevention Network were reviewed, which included a chronology of many of these activities during the late 1980s. This study also includes a survey of high school principals or prevention program coordinators as to the important components of a school prevention program. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to explore what has been effective prevention program strategies at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County. Using this prevention program review of activities at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County and a survey of opinions of school officials at high schools of similar size, this author designed a prevention program model for 1990-91. Recommendations 1. The prevention program at Spoon River Valley Schools deserves a variety of types of support. 2. The school district prevention program coordinator should be an active leader in school and county activities. 3. The county prevention network should be maintained. 4. The level of funding for support of prevention programs and activities at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County is adequate and should be maintained. 5. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program should be maintained at all county schools. 6. The Define, Explore, Consider, Invite, Decide, and Evaluate\u27\u27 (DECIDE) drug education curriculum should be retained and its effectiveness increased at all county schools. 7. Both the Fulton County Junior High School Leadership Conference and the Teen Conference for high school students should be retained as annual prevention activities. 8. Spoon River Valley High School and all Fulton County high schools should continue to recruit students for the Illinois Teenage Institute (ITI). 9. Operation Snowball activities deserve ongoing support. 10. Spoon River Valley Schools should strive to maintain and expand the membership in Valley High School Peer Support. 11. Spoon River Valley Schools should maintain and expand the membership in its chapter of Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD). 12. The administration and staff at Spoon River Valley Schools should continue their effort to ensure that the school campus and all activities are drug free. 13. The school\u27s prevention policies should be reviewed annually. 14. Prevention activities at county schools and within the prevention network should emphasize three major thrusts: offer the teens opportunity to assume ownership; direct activities at all students; and allow teens to assume leadership roles. 15. The prevention program at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County should be a broad based approach. 16. Spoon River Valley Schools should work with community health care providers in providing an aftercare phase of treatment. 17. The student council at Spoon River Valley High School should be utilized as a resource group. 18. The county schools and the other aspects of the Fulton County prevention network should seek ways of encouraging more school personnel and parents to take a more active role in prevention. 19. Part of the prevention program at Spoon River Valley Schools is an ongoing program of public relations. 20. The prevention program and guidance program objectives should be consistent at Spoon River Valley Schools. 21. Admit that there is and will always continue to be a degree of a problem. 22. Spoon River Valley Schools should provide a variety of drug free activities. 23. All Spoon River Valley School departments should help students with life skills. 24. The prevention program at Spoon River Valley Schools should help develop positive peer models . 25. The school should enlist the support of the family as part of the prevention program. 26. The school prevention program should have a positive impact on the general school environment. 27. Prevention at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County should be recognized as a community effort

A Prevention Program at Spoon River Valley Schools and Its Role in the Fulton County Prevention Network

Statement of the Problem The area to be discussed is the development of a prevention program for the Spoon River Valley Schools, and the role of this program within the Fulton County Prevention Network. The primary focus of this paper will be the school\u27s effort to prevent substance abuse by the students, but also addressed are prevention activities which combat other self-destructive behaviors such as teen pregnancy and suicide. Procedure The method of research used in this study is descriptive. The components of a prevention program which have evolved during the 1980s, both at Spoon River Valley Schools, and as a part of the Fulton County Prevention Network were reviewed, which included a chronology of many of these activities during the late 1980s. This study also includes a survey of high school principals or prevention program coordinators as to the important components of a school prevention program. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to explore what has been effective prevention program strategies at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County. Using this prevention program review of activities at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County and a survey of opinions of school officials at high schools of similar size, this author designed a prevention program model for 1990-91. Recommendations 1. The prevention program at Spoon River Valley Schools deserves a variety of types of support. 2. The school district prevention program coordinator should be an active leader in school and county activities. 3. The county prevention network should be maintained. 4. The level of funding for support of prevention programs and activities at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County is adequate and should be maintained. 5. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program should be maintained at all county schools. 6. The Define, Explore, Consider, Invite, Decide, and Evaluate\u27\u27 (DECIDE) drug education curriculum should be retained and its effectiveness increased at all county schools. 7. Both the Fulton County Junior High School Leadership Conference and the Teen Conference for high school students should be retained as annual prevention activities. 8. Spoon River Valley High School and all Fulton County high schools should continue to recruit students for the Illinois Teenage Institute (ITI). 9. Operation Snowball activities deserve ongoing support. 10. Spoon River Valley Schools should strive to maintain and expand the membership in Valley High School Peer Support. 11. Spoon River Valley Schools should maintain and expand the membership in its chapter of Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD). 12. The administration and staff at Spoon River Valley Schools should continue their effort to ensure that the school campus and all activities are drug free. 13. The school\u27s prevention policies should be reviewed annually. 14. Prevention activities at county schools and within the prevention network should emphasize three major thrusts: offer the teens opportunity to assume ownership; direct activities at all students; and allow teens to assume leadership roles. 15. The prevention program at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County should be a broad based approach. 16. Spoon River Valley Schools should work with community health care providers in providing an aftercare phase of treatment. 17. The student council at Spoon River Valley High School should be utilized as a resource group. 18. The county schools and the other aspects of the Fulton County prevention network should seek ways of encouraging more school personnel and parents to take a more active role in prevention. 19. Part of the prevention program at Spoon River Valley Schools is an ongoing program of public relations. 20. The prevention program and guidance program objectives should be consistent at Spoon River Valley Schools. 21. Admit that there is and will always continue to be a degree of a problem. 22. Spoon River Valley Schools should provide a variety of drug free activities. 23. All Spoon River Valley School departments should help students with life skills. 24. The prevention program at Spoon River Valley Schools should help develop positive peer models . 25. The school should enlist the support of the family as part of the prevention program. 26. The school prevention program should have a positive impact on the general school environment. 27. Prevention at Spoon River Valley Schools and in Fulton County should be recognized as a community effort