Implementing and evaluating an ICON orchestrator

The cloud computing paradigm has risen, during the last 20 years, to the task of bringing powerful computational services to the masses. Centralizing the computer hardware to a few large data centers has brought large monetary savings, but at the cost of a greater geographical distance between the server and the client. As a new generation of thin clients have emerged, e.g. smartphones and IoT-devices, the larger latencies induced by these greater distances, can limit the applications that could benefit from using the vast resources available in cloud computing. Not long after the explosive growth of cloud computing, a new paradigm, edge computing has risen. Edge computing aims at bringing the resources generally found in cloud computing closer to the edge where many of the end-users, clients and data producers reside. In this thesis, I will present the edge computing concept as well as the technologies enabling it. Furthermore I will show a few edge computing concepts and architectures, including multi- access edge computing (MEC), Fog computing and intelligent containers (ICON). Finally, I will also present a new edge-orchestrator, the ICON Python Orchestrator (IPO), that enables intelligent containers to migrate closer to the users. The ICON Python orchestrator tests the feasibility of the ICON concept and provides per- formance measurements that can be compared to other contemporary edge computing im- plementations. In this thesis, I will present the IPO architecture design including challenges encountered during the implementation phase and solutions to specific problems. I will also show the testing and validation setup. By using the artificial testing and validation network, client migration speeds were measured using three different cases - redirection, cache hot ICON migration and cache cold ICON migration. While there is room for improvements, the migration speeds measured are on par with other edge computing implementations

Grid Mind: Prolog-Based Simulation Environment for Future Energy Grids

Fundamental changes in the current energy grids, towards the so called smart grids, initiated a range of projects involving extensive deployment of metering and control devices into the grid infrastructure. Since in many countries, the choice of supportive information and communication technologies (ICT) for the grid devices still remains an open question, benchmarking tools aimed at predicting their behavior in the deployed solution play an essential role in the decision-making process. This paper presents a Prolog-based simulation environment, named Grid Mind, primarily intended for the very purpose. The tool was successfully used to generate simulation scenarios in several smart-grid related projects and became a self-standing simulation tool for the evaluation of information and communication technologies used to deliver lowvoltage metering and monitoring data. The tool is continuously evolving, aimed to become an integral part of the future energy grid design in the Czech Republic and beyond

Beyond the Core: The Role of Co-working Spaces in Local Economic Development

By 2020, the number of independent workers and freelancers are expected to comprise 40% of the working population. This subset of the economy requires different work configurations, and as a result, co-working spaces have emerged as a new office typology. While research has been conducted on the internal dynamics and impact on the worker in the new space, there has been little study into the impact of co-working spaces on the immediate community. Reports released by municipalities recognize the potential impact that co-working spaces have on economic development - however they are policy recommendations. The purpose of this paper is to expand on the relationship between co-working spaces and its surrounding community's economic development by collecting and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data. Co-working space users will be surveyed on their perception of the surrounding neighborhood and gauge their participation in the community events while various community members and stakeholders will be interviewed about their opinions of the co-working space and any perceived changes associated with the new neighborhood fixture. Supplementing this qualitative data, demographic data and building/construction statistics will be analyzed pre and post opening of the co-working space. As co-working spaces evolve from being an office alternative outlier to viable office option, developing an understanding of co-working spaces’ impact on the surrounding community is essential – integrating co-working spaces into the urban fabric. Co-working space have the potential to play a significant role in local economic development but there must also be community and local government communication and commitment to provide neighborhood services and amenities in order to tap into the potential of co-working spaces

An Academic Assessment of the National Performance Network and Visual Artists Network: An Internship Academic Report

This academic report was composed at the conclusion of a 480 hour internship with the National Performance Network/Visual Artists Network (NPN/VAN), summarized in Chapter Two. This report includes NPN/VAN’s mission, history, and organizational structure within Chapter One. Chapter Three is a SWOT analysis, and Chapter Four includes a summary of best practices, highlighting NPN/VAN’s intermediary and network structure. In conclusion, a series of suggestions are offered for further consideration

Development of an integrated product information management system

This thesis reports on a research project undertaken over a four year period investigating and developing a software framework and application for integrating and managing building product information for construction engineering. The research involved extensive literature research, observation of the industry practices and interviews with construction industry practitioners and systems implementers to determine how best to represent and present product information to support the construction process. Applicable product models for information representation were reviewed and evaluated to determine present suitability. The IFC product model was found to be the most applicable. Investigations of technologies supporting the product model led to the development of a software tool, the IFC Assembly Viewer, which aided further investigations into the suitability of the product model (in its current state) for the exchange and sharing of product information. A software framework, or reusable software design and application, called PROduct Information Management System (PROMIS), was developed based on a non-standard product model but with flexibility to work with the IFC product model when sufficiently mature. The software comprises three subsystems namely: ProductWeb, ModelManager.NET and Product/Project Service (or P2Service). The key features of this system were shared project databases, parametric product specification, integration of product information sources, and application interaction and integration through interface components. PROMIS was applied to and tested with a modular construction business for the management of product information and for integration of product and project information through the design and construction (production) process

Dependability analysis of web services

Web Services form the basis of the web based eCommerce eScience applications so it is vital that robust services are developed. Traditional validation and verification techniques are centred around the concept of removing all faults to guarantee correct operation whereas Dependability gives an assessment of how dependably a system can deliver the required functionality by assessing attributes, and by eliminating threats via means attempts to improve dependability. Fault injection is a well-proven dependability assessment method. Although much work has been done in the area of fault injection and distributed systems in general, there appears to have been little research carried out on applying this to middleware systems and Web Services in particular. There are additional problems associated with applying existing fault injection technologies to Web Services running in a virtual machine environment since most are either invasive or work at a machine level. The Fault Injection Technology (FIT) method has been devised to address these problems for middleware systems. The Web Service-Fault Injection Technology (WS-FIT) implementation applies the FIT method, based on network level fault injection, to Web Services to create a non-invasive dependability assessment method. It allows targeted perturbation of Web Service RFC parameters as well as more traditional network level fault injection operations. The WS-FIT tool includes taxonomies that define a system under test, fault models to apply and failure modes to be detected, and uses these taxonomies to generate fault injection campaigns. WS-FIT has been applied to a number of case studies and has successfully demonstrated its effectiveness. It has also been successfully applied to a third-party system to evaluate dependability means. It performed this dependability assessment as well as allowing debugging of the means to be undertaken uncovering unknown faults

Logic-based Technologies for Intelligent Systems: State of the Art and Perspectives

Together with the disruptive development of modern sub-symbolic approaches to artificial intelligence (AI), symbolic approaches to classical AI are re-gaining momentum, as more and more researchers exploit their potential to make AI more comprehensible, explainable, and therefore trustworthy. Since logic-based approaches lay at the core of symbolic AI, summarizing their state of the art is of paramount importance now more than ever, in order to identify trends, benefits, key features, gaps, and limitations of the techniques proposed so far, as well as to identify promising research perspectives. Along this line, this paper provides an overview of logic-based approaches and technologies by sketching their evolution and pointing out their main application areas. Future perspectives for exploitation of logic-based technologies are discussed as well, in order to identify those research fields that deserve more attention, considering the areas that already exploit logic-based approaches as well as those that are more likely to adopt logic-based approaches in the future

Community College Students with Psychological Disorders and Their Perceptions of Online Learning

Research focusing on students with learning disabilities is abundant for secondary and higher education. Studies utilizing data on students with psychological disorders cover secondary and 4-year university education. However, community college students with psychological disorders and their perception of online classes is an area of educational research which lacks data. Students across a wide spectrum of psychological disorders tend to find learning challenging. The community college\u27s learning environment may best fit their learning styles. With modem educational innovations, the online learning methods must take into consideration the unique psychosocial, cognitive, and academic needs of the community college student population

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio