Scalable Proxy Architecture for Mobile and Peer-to-Peer Networks

The growth of wireless telecommunications has stipulated the interest for anywhere-anytime computing. The synergy between networking and mobility will engender new collaborative applications with mobile devices on heterogeneous platforms. One such middleware is “SYSTEM ON MOBILE DEVICES”, SYD developed by the Yamacraw Embedded Systems research team. This type of middleware is an opening step towards Peer-to-Peer mobile networks. This project envisioned collaborative applications among mobile devices and PDAs were used as servers. This thesis studies various existing architectures in mobile computing and their scalability issues. We also proposed new scalable flexible thick client proxy system FTCPS, an architecture suitable for mobile Peer-to-Peer networks. Our empirical study showed that FTCPS has low response time compared to other architectures

Learning Factory: The Path to Industry 4.0

Abstract Nowadays, there are plenty of studies that seek to determine which are the skills that should be met by an engineer. Communication and teamwork are some of the most recurrent ones associated with a knowledge of the engineering sciences. However, their application is not straight forward, due to the lack of educational approaches that contributes to develop experience-based knowledge. Learning Factories (LF) have shown to be effective for developing theoretical and practical knowledge in a real production environment. This article describes the transformation process of a training-addressed manufacturing workshop, in order to structure a Learning Factory for the production engineering program at EAFIT University. The proposed transformations were based on the definition of three pillars (didactic, integrative and engineering) for the development of an LF. We argue that a proper transformation process may contribute to ease the path towards new manufacturing trends such as industry 4.0 into an academic context that strengths the engineering training process

Detecting network issues in wireless community networks

The possibilities that wireless technology offers have facilitated that multiple Internet communities have been built, independent of new business models on networks. These network communities had the aim to connect users in order to be able to share resources and services. Such communities are those that have established community networks like Guifi.net. Guifi.net is also a space for research and development of technologies for adaptation to the specific WiFi in an open network. The principal objectives of this master thesis are to study the different issues that could be found in a wireless community network such as Guifi.net. These problems are commonly due of mixing routing protocols. For this reason the scenarios will be reproduced it by a software network emulator, then with the data collected will be treated to give a solution to these problems. Furthermore, this thesis has a special interest in the protocols used in wireless community networks and how these routing protocols connect the different nodes of the network. Also it will take into account the behavior of the network when a node is added or deleted and how this action can have a large impact to the entire network. It is an interesting research of this kind of communities because nowadays people are becoming aware that communities’ networks are made to allow people to connect with people around the world and this master thesis will help to understand the problems that would appear in a wireless community and give a solution to these problems. For the development of the tasks listed above it was necessary to monitor Guifi.net network for a determined period of time in order to detect current issues of the network and understand how the networks works, as well as the study of other concepts. To carry out the execution of this master thesis has been used Netkit network emulation software.Català: Les possibilitats que ofereix la tecnologia sense fils han facilitat que múltiples comunitats d'Internet s'hagin construït, amb independència de nous models de negoci en les xarxes. Aquestes comunitats de xarxa tenen l'objectiu de connectar als usuaris amb la finalitat de ser capaços de compartir recursos i serveis. Aquestes comunitats són les que han establert xarxes comunitàries com Guifi.net. Guifi.net és també un espai per a la investigació i desenvolupament de tecnologies per a l'adaptació a l'específica Wi-Fi a una xarxa oberta. Els objectius principals d'aquest projecte són l'estudi dels diferents problemes que es poden trobar en una xarxa sense fils comunitària com pot ser Guifi.net. Aquests problemes son comunment causats al barrejat diferents protocols d’enrutament per aquesta raó es reproduïran els escenaris mitjaçant un emulador de xarxes i amb les dades recollides es tractará de proporcionar una posible solució a aquests problemes. A més, aquest projecte té un interès especial en els protocols utilitzats en les xarxes sense fils comunitàries i dels protocols d'enrutament que connecten els diferents nodes de la xarxa. També es té en compte el comportament de la xarxa quan un node s'afegeix o s'elimina i com aquesta acció pot tenir un gran impacte a tota la xarxa. Aquesta tesi l'ajudarà a entendre i detectar els problemes que pugin apareixer a una comunitat wireless i dona’ls-hi una solució. Per al desenvolupament de les tasques esmentades anteriorment ha sigut necessari monitoritzar la xarxa Guifi.net durant un determinat període de temps per tal de detectar problemes actuals que sofreix la xarxa i al mateix entendre com funciona, així com l'estudi d'altres conceptes. Per dur a terme l'execució d'aquest projecte s'ha utilitzat el programari de emulació de xarxes Netkit

迅速な災害管理のための即時的,持続可能，かつ拡張的なエッジコンピューティングの研究

本学位論文は、迅速な災害管理におけるいくつかの問題に取り組んだ。既存のネットワークインフラが災害による直接的なダメージや停電によって使えないことを想定し、本論文では、最新のICTを用いた次世代災害支援システムの構築を目指す。以下のとおり本論文は三部で構成される。第一部は、災害発生後の緊急ネットワーキングである。本論文では、情報指向フォグコンピューティング（Information-Centric Fog Computing）というアーキテクチャを提案し、既存のインフラがダウンした場合に臨時的なネットワーク接続を提供する。本論文では、六次の隔たり理論から着想を得て、緊急時向け名前ベースルーティング（Name-Based Routing）を考慮した。まず、二層の情報指向フォグコンピューティングネットワークモデルを提案した。次に、ソーシャルネットワークを元に、情報指向フォグノード間の関係をモデリングし、名前ベースルーティングプロトコルをデザインする。シミュレーション実験では、既存のソリューションと比較し、提案手法はより高い性能を示し、有用性が証明された。第二部は、ネットワークの通信効率の最適化である。本論文は、第一部で構築されたネットワークの通信効率を最適化し、ネットワークの持続時間を延ばすために、ネットワークのエッジで行われるキャッシングストラテジーを提案した。本論文では、まず、第一部で提案した二層ネットワークモデルをベースにサーバー層も加えて、異種ネットワークストラクチャーを構成した。次に、緊急時向けのエッジキャッシングに必要なTime to Live （TTL）とキャッシュ置換ポリシーを設計する。シミュレーション実験では、エネルギー消費とバックホールレートを性能指標とし、メモリ内キャッシュとディスクキャッシュの性能を比較した。結果では、メモリ内ストレージと処理がエッジキャッシングのエネルギーを節約し、かなりのワークロードを共有できることが示された。第三部は、ネットワークカバレッジの拡大である。本論文は、ドローンの関連技術とリアルタイム視覚認識技術を利用し、被災地のユーザ捜索とドローンの空中ナビゲーションを行う。災害管理におけるドローン制御に関する研究を調査し、現在のドローン技術と無人捜索救助に対する実際のニーズを考慮すると、軽量なソリューションが緊急時に必要であることが判明した。そのため本論文では、転移学習を利用し、ドローンに搭載されたオンボードコンピュータで実行可能な空中ビジョンに基づいたナビゲーションアプローチを開発した。シミュレーション実験では、1/150ミニチュアモデルを用いて、空中ナビゲーションの実行可能性をテストした。結果では、本論文で提案するドローンの軽量ナビゲーションはフィードバックに基づいてリアルタイムに飛行の微調整を実現でき、既存手法と比較して性能において大きな進歩を示した。This dissertation mainly focuses on solving the problems in agile disaster management. To face the situation when the original network infrastructure no longer works because of disaster damage or power outage, I come up with the idea of introducing different emerging technologies in building a next-generation disaster response system. There are three parts of my research. In the first part of emergency networking, I design an information-centric fog computing architecture to fast build a temporary emergency network while the original ones can not be used. I focus on solving name-based routing for disaster relief by applying the idea from six degrees of separation theory. I first put forward a 2-tier information-centric fog network architecture under the scenario of post-disaster. Then I model the relationships among ICN nodes based on delivered files and propose a name-based routing strategy to enable fast networking and emergency communication. I compare with DNRP under the same experimental settings and prove that my strategy can achieve higher work performance. In the second part of efficiency optimization, I introduce the idea of edge caching in prolong the lifetime of the rebuilt network. I focus on how to improve the energy efficiency of edge caching using in-memory storage and processing. Here I build a 3-tier heterogeneous network structure and propose two edge caching methods using different TTL designs & cache replacement policies. I use total energy consumption and backhaul rate as the two metrics to test the performance of the in-memory caching method and compare it with the conventional method based on disk storage. The simulation results show that in-memory storage and processing can help save more energy in edge caching and share a considerable workload in percentage. In the third part of coverage expansion, I apply UAV technology and real-time image recognition in user search and autonomous navigation. I focus on the problem of designing a navigation strategy based on the airborne vision for UAV disaster relief. After the survey of related works on UAV fly control in disaster management, I find that in consideration of the current UAV manufacturing technology and actual demand on unmanned search & rescue, a lightweight solution is in urgent need. As a result, I design a lightweight navigation strategy based on visual recognition using transfer learning. In the simulation, I evaluate my solutions using 1/150 miniature models and test the feasibility of the navigation strategy. The results show that my design on visual recognition has the potential for a breakthrough in performance and the idea of UAV lightweight navigation can realize real-time flight adjustment based on feedback.室蘭工業大学 (Muroran Institute of Technology)博士（工学

Monitoring system of a portable household-scale biodigester

Capstone Project submitted to the Department of Engineering, Ashesi University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, May 2022The ever-increasing amount of waste as the population grows prompted the primary concern of identifying various methods for reducing the growing amount of waste, in this case, biowaste. Anaerobic digestion methods, when applied to biomass waste, are a cost-effective approach to generating energy while also addressing environmental concerns. The few biodigesters that have been used on the African continent do not live up to their expected life-span. And this is because of lack of a control mechanism to monitor the degradation process in the biodigester. Biodigester monitoring systems that have been used mainly in the developed countries target large bio-energy generating plants. However, these monitoring solutions cannot be used with small house-hold scale biodigesters because of their complexity and high cost. In this project, a low-cost monitoring system of a household-scale biodigester is implemented to help improve the functionality of the biodigesters and in turn increase their life-span.Ashesi Universit

Mental Health in the Workplace: Situation Analyses, Finland

[From Introduction] Mental health problems are among the most important contributors to the global burden of disease and disability. Of the ten leading causes of disability worldwide, five are psychiatric conditions: unipolar depression, alcohol use, bipolar affective disorder (manic depression), schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The burden of mental disorders on health and productivity throughout the world has long been profoundly underestimated.2 The impact of mental health problems in the workplace has serious consequences not only for the individuals whose lives are influenced either directly or indirectly, but also for enterprise productivity. Mental health problems strongly influence employee performance, rates of illnesses, absenteeism, accidents, and staff turnover. The workplace is an appropriate environment in which to educate and raise individuals\u27 awareness about mental health problems. For example, encouragement to promote good mental health practices, provide tools for recognition and early identification of the symptoms of problems, and establish links with local mental health services for referral and treatment can be offered. The need to demystify the topic and lift the taboos about the presence of mental health problems in the workplace while educating the working population regarding early recognition and treatment will benefit employers in terms of higher productivity and reduction in direct and in-direct costs. However, it must be recognised that some mental health problems need specific clinical care and monitoring, as well as special considerations for the integration or reintegration of the individual into the workforce

Optimization of BGP Convergence and Prefix Security in IP/MPLS Networks

Multi-Protocol Label Switching-based networks are the backbone of the operation of the Internet, that communicates through the use of the Border Gateway Protocol which connects distinct networks, referred to as Autonomous Systems, together. As the technology matures, so does the challenges caused by the extreme growth rate of the Internet. The amount of BGP prefixes required to facilitate such an increase in connectivity introduces multiple new critical issues, such as with the scalability and the security of the aforementioned Border Gateway Protocol. Illustration of an implementation of an IP/MPLS core transmission network is formed through the introduction of the four main pillars of an Autonomous System: Multi-Protocol Label Switching, Border Gateway Protocol, Open Shortest Path First and the Resource Reservation Protocol. The symbiosis of these technologies is used to introduce the practicalities of operating an IP/MPLS-based ISP network with traffic engineering and fault-resilience at heart. The first research objective of this thesis is to determine whether the deployment of a new BGP feature, which is referred to as BGP Prefix Independent Convergence (PIC), within AS16086 would be a worthwhile endeavour. This BGP extension aims to reduce the convergence delay of BGP Prefixes inside of an IP/MPLS Core Transmission Network, thus improving the networks resilience against faults. Simultaneously, the second research objective was to research the available mechanisms considering the protection of BGP Prefixes, such as with the implementation of the Resource Public Key Infrastructure and the Artemis BGP Monitor for proactive and reactive security of BGP prefixes within AS16086. The future prospective deployment of BGPsec is discussed to form an outlook to the future of IP/MPLS network design. As the trust-based nature of BGP as a protocol has become a distinct vulnerability, thus necessitating the use of various technologies to secure the communications between the Autonomous Systems that form the network to end all networks, the Internet

The UCL Integrated Engineering Programme

In 2014, the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences introduced the Integrated Engineering Programme – a revision of eight existing degree programmes across a range of engineering disciplines. Centered on a thread of authentic project-based activities, the programme aimed to enhance the students’ understanding of key theoretical concepts and heighten the development of key professional skills. This paper provides an outline of the rationale for the various project-based activities implemented, details their key features and described the impact these activities have had on the students’ development of key skills