158,643 research outputs found

    Evaluation of Structural and Temporal Properties of Ego Networks for Data Availability in DOSNs

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    The large diffusion of Online Social Networks (OSNs) has influenced the way people interact with each other. OSNs present several drawbacks, one of the most important is the problem of privacy disclosures. Distributed Online Social Networks (DOSNs) have been proposed as a valid alternative solution to solve this problem. DOSNs are Online Social Networks implemented on a distributed platform, such as a P2P system or a mobile network. However, the decentralization of the control presents several challenges, one of the main ones is guaranteeing data availability without relying on a central server. To this aim, users’ data allocation strategies have to be defined and this requires the knowledge of both structural and temporal characteristics of ego networks which is a difficult task due to the lack of real datasets limiting the research in this field. The goal of this paper is the study of the behaviour of users in a real social network in order to define proper strategies to allocate the users’ data on the DOSN nodes. In particular, we present an analysis of the temporal affinity and the structure of communities and their evolution over the time by using a real Facebook dataset

    Ant-Inspired Density Estimation via Random Walks

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    Many ant species employ distributed population density estimation in applications ranging from quorum sensing [Pra05], to task allocation [Gor99], to appraisal of enemy colony strength [Ada90]. It has been shown that ants estimate density by tracking encounter rates -- the higher the population density, the more often the ants bump into each other [Pra05,GPT93]. We study distributed density estimation from a theoretical perspective. We prove that a group of anonymous agents randomly walking on a grid are able to estimate their density within a small multiplicative error in few steps by measuring their rates of encounter with other agents. Despite dependencies inherent in the fact that nearby agents may collide repeatedly (and, worse, cannot recognize when this happens), our bound nearly matches what would be required to estimate density by independently sampling grid locations. From a biological perspective, our work helps shed light on how ants and other social insects can obtain relatively accurate density estimates via encounter rates. From a technical perspective, our analysis provides new tools for understanding complex dependencies in the collision probabilities of multiple random walks. We bound the strength of these dependencies using local mixing propertieslocal\ mixing\ properties of the underlying graph. Our results extend beyond the grid to more general graphs and we discuss applications to size estimation for social networks and density estimation for robot swarms

    Communication Patterns for Randomized Algorithms

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    Examples of large scale networks include the Internet, peer-to-peer networks, parallel computing systems, cloud computing systems, sensor networks, and social networks. Efficient dissemination of information in large networks such as these is a funda- mental problem. In many scenarios the gathering of information by a centralised controller can be impractical. When designing and analysing distributed algorithms we must consider the limitations imposed by the heterogeneity of devices in the networks. Devices may have limited computational ability or space. This makes randomised algorithms attractive solutions. Randomised algorithms can often be simpler and easier to implement than their deterministic counterparts. This thesis analyses the effect of communication patterns on the performance of distributed randomised algorithms. We study randomized algorithms with application to three different areas. Firstly, we study a generalization of the balls-into-bins game. Balls into bins games have been used to analyse randomised load balancing. Under the Greedy[d] allocation scheme each ball queries the load of d random bins and is then allocated to the least loaded of them. We consider an infinite, parallel setting where expectedly λn balls are allocated in parallel according to the Greedy[d] allocation scheme in to n bins and subsequently each non-empty bin removes a ball. Our results show that for d = 1,2, the Greedy[d] allocation scheme is self-stabilizing and that in any round the maximum system load for high arrival rates is exponentially smaller for d = 2 compared to d = 1 (w.h.p). Secondly, we introduce protocols that solve the plurality consensus problem on arbitrary graphs for arbitrarily small bias. Typically, protocols depend heavily on the employed communication mechanism. Our protocols are based on an interest- ing relationship between plurality consensus and distributed load balancing. This relationship allows us to design protocols that are both time and space efficient and generalize the state of the art for a large range of problem parameters. Finally, we investigate the effect of restricting the communication of the classical PULL algorithm for randomised rumour spreading. Rumour spreading (broadcast) is a fundamental task in distributed computing. Under the classical PULL algo- rithm, a node with the rumour that receives multiple requests is able to respond to all of them in a given round. Our model restricts nodes such that they can re- spond to at most one request per round. Our results show that the restricted PULL algorithm is optimal for several graph classes such as complete graphs, expanders, random graphs and several Cayley graphs

    A distributed auctioneer for resource allocation in decentralized systems

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    In decentralized systems, nodes often need to coordinate to access shared resources in a fair manner. One approach to perform such arbitration is to rely on auction mechanisms. Although there is an extensive literature that studies auctions, most of these works assume the existence of a central, trusted auctioneer. Unfortunately, in fully decentralized systems, where the nodes that need to cooperate operate under separate spheres of control, such central trusted entity may not exist. Notable examples of such decentralized systems include community networks, clouds of clouds, cooperative nano data centres, among others. In this paper, we make theoretical and practical contributions to distribute the role of the auctioneer. From the theoretical perspective, we propose a framework of distributed simulations of the auctioneer that are Nash equilibria resilient to coalitions and asynchrony. From the practical perspective, our protocols leverage the distributed nature of the simulations to parallelise the execution. We have implemented a prototype that instantiates the framework for bandwidth allocation in community networks, and evaluated it in a real distributed setting.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

    Collaborative signal and information processing for target detection with heterogeneous sensor networks

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    In this paper, an approach for target detection and acquisition with heterogeneous sensor networks through strategic resource allocation and coordination is presented. Based on sensor management and collaborative signal and information processing, low-capacity low-cost sensors are strategically deployed to guide and cue scarce high performance sensors in the network to improve the data quality, with which the mission is eventually completed more efficiently with lower cost. We focus on the problem of designing such a network system in which issues of resource selection and allocation, system behaviour and capacity, target behaviour and patterns, the environment, and multiple constraints such as the cost must be addressed simultaneously. Simulation results offer significant insight into sensor selection and network operation, and demonstrate the great benefits introduced by guided search in an application of hunting down and capturing hostile vehicles on the battlefield

    Socially Trusted Collaborative Edge Computing in Ultra Dense Networks

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    Small cell base stations (SBSs) endowed with cloud-like computing capabilities are considered as a key enabler of edge computing (EC), which provides ultra-low latency and location-awareness for a variety of emerging mobile applications and the Internet of Things. However, due to the limited computation resources of an individual SBS, providing computation services of high quality to its users faces significant challenges when it is overloaded with an excessive amount of computation workload. In this paper, we propose collaborative edge computing among SBSs by forming SBS coalitions to share computation resources with each other, thereby accommodating more computation workload in the edge system and reducing reliance on the remote cloud. A novel SBS coalition formation algorithm is developed based on the coalitional game theory to cope with various new challenges in small-cell-based edge systems, including the co-provisioning of radio access and computing services, cooperation incentives, and potential security risks. To address these challenges, the proposed method (1) allows collaboration at both the user-SBS association stage and the SBS peer offloading stage by exploiting the ultra dense deployment of SBSs, (2) develops a payment-based incentive mechanism that implements proportionally fair utility division to form stable SBS coalitions, and (3) builds a social trust network for managing security risks among SBSs due to collaboration. Systematic simulations in practical scenarios are carried out to evaluate the efficacy and performance of the proposed method, which shows that tremendous edge computing performance improvement can be achieved.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1010.4501 by other author
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