Learning and Management for Internet-of-Things: Accounting for Adaptivity and Scalability

Internet-of-Things (IoT) envisions an intelligent infrastructure of networked smart devices offering task-specific monitoring and control services. The unique features of IoT include extreme heterogeneity, massive number of devices, and unpredictable dynamics partially due to human interaction. These call for foundational innovations in network design and management. Ideally, it should allow efficient adaptation to changing environments, and low-cost implementation scalable to massive number of devices, subject to stringent latency constraints. To this end, the overarching goal of this paper is to outline a unified framework for online learning and management policies in IoT through joint advances in communication, networking, learning, and optimization. From the network architecture vantage point, the unified framework leverages a promising fog architecture that enables smart devices to have proximity access to cloud functionalities at the network edge, along the cloud-to-things continuum. From the algorithmic perspective, key innovations target online approaches adaptive to different degrees of nonstationarity in IoT dynamics, and their scalable model-free implementation under limited feedback that motivates blind or bandit approaches. The proposed framework aspires to offer a stepping stone that leads to systematic designs and analysis of task-specific learning and management schemes for IoT, along with a host of new research directions to build on.Comment: Submitted on June 15 to Proceeding of IEEE Special Issue on Adaptive and Scalable Communication Network

Application acceleration for wireless and mobile data networks

This work studies application acceleration for wireless and mobile data networks. The problem of accelerating application can be addressed along multiple dimensions. The first dimension is advanced network protocol design, i.e., optimizing underlying network protocols, particulary transport layer protocol and link layer protocol. Despite advanced network protocol design, in this work we observe that certain application behaviors can fundamentally limit the performance achievable when operating over wireless and mobile data networks. The performance difference is caused by the complex application behaviors of these non-FTP applications. Explicitly dealing with application behaviors can improve application performance for new environments. Along this overcoming application behavior dimension, we accelerate applications by studying specific types of applications including Client-server, Peer-to-peer and Location-based applications. In exploring along this dimension, we identify a set of application behaviors that significantly affect application performance. To accommodate these application behaviors, we firstly extract general design principles that can apply to any applications whenever possible. These design principles can also be integrated into new application designs. We also consider specific applications by applying these design principles and build prototypes to demonstrate the effectiveness of the solutions. In the context of application acceleration, even though all the challenges belong to the two aforementioned dimensions of advanced network protocol design and overcoming application behavior are addressed, application performance can still be limited by the underlying network capability, particularly physical bandwidth. In this work, we study the possibility of speeding up data delivery by eliminating traffic redundancy present in application traffics. Specifically, we first study the traffic redundancy along multiple dimensions using traces obtained from multiple real wireless network deployments. Based on the insights obtained from the analysis, we propose Wireless Memory (WM), a two-ended AP-client solution to effectively exploit traffic redundancy in wireless and mobile environments. Application acceleration can be achieved along two other dimensions: network provision ing and quality of service (QoS). Network provisioning allocates network resources such as physical bandwidth or wireless spectrum, while QoS provides different priority to different applications, users, or data flows. These two dimensions have their respective limitations in the context of application acceleration. In this work, we focus on the two dimensions of overcoming application behavior and Eliminating traffic redundancy to improve application performance. The contribution of this work is as follows. First, we study the problem of application acceleration for wireless and mobile data networks, and we characterize the dimensions along which to address the problem. Second, we identify that application behaviors can significantly affect application performance, and we propose a set of design principles to deal with the behaviors. We also build prototypes to conduct system research. Third, we consider traffic redundancy elimination and propose a wireless memory approach.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Sivakumar, Raghupathy; Committee Member: Ammar, Mostafa; Committee Member: Fekri, Faramarz; Committee Member: Ji, Chuanyi; Committee Member: Ramachandran, Umakishor

SHELDON Smart habitat for the elderly.

An insightful document concerning active and assisted living under different perspectives: Furniture and habitat, ICT solutions and Healthcare

Towards the Internet of Smart Trains: A Review on Industrial IoT-Connected Railways

[Abstract] Nowadays, the railway industry is in a position where it is able to exploit the opportunities created by the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and enabling communication technologies under the paradigm of Internet of Trains. This review details the evolution of communication technologies since the deployment of GSM-R, describing the main alternatives and how railway requirements, specifications and recommendations have evolved over time. The advantages of the latest generation of broadband communication systems (e.g., LTE, 5G, IEEE 802.11ad) and the emergence of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for the railway environment are also explained together with the strategic roadmap to ensure a smooth migration from GSM-R. Furthermore, this survey focuses on providing a holistic approach, identifying scenarios and architectures where railways could leverage better commercial IIoT capabilities. After reviewing the main industrial developments, short and medium-term IIoT-enabled services for smart railways are evaluated. Then, it is analyzed the latest research on predictive maintenance, smart infrastructure, advanced monitoring of assets, video surveillance systems, railway operations, Passenger and Freight Information Systems (PIS/FIS), train control systems, safety assurance, signaling systems, cyber security and energy efficiency. Overall, it can be stated that the aim of this article is to provide a detailed examination of the state-of-the-art of different technologies and services that will revolutionize the railway industry and will allow for confronting today challenges.Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED431C 2016-045Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED341D R2016/012Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED431G/01Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2013-47141-C4-1-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2015-69648-REDCAgencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2016-75067-C4-1-

IoT-Based Applications in Healthcare Devices

The last decade has witnessed extensive research in the field of healthcare services and their technological upgradation. To be more specific, the Internet of Things (IoT) has shown potential application in connecting various medical devices, sensors, and healthcare professionals to provide quality medical services in a remote location. This has improved patient safety, reduced healthcare costs, enhanced the accessibility of healthcare services, and increased operational efficiency in the healthcare industry. The current study gives an up-to-date summary of the potential healthcare applications of IoT- (HIoT-) based technologies. Herein, the advancement of the application of the HIoT has been reported from the perspective of enabling technologies, healthcare services, and applications in solving various healthcare issues. Moreover, potential challenges and issues in the HIoT system are also discussed. In sum, the current study provides a comprehensive source of information regarding the different fields of application of HIoT intending to help future researchers, who have the interest to work and make advancements in the field to gain insight into the topic

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the challenges facing IoT research, innovation, development and deployment in the next years. Hyperconnected environments integrating industrial/business/consumer IoT technologies and applications require new IoT open systems architectures integrated with network architecture (a knowledge-centric network for IoT), IoT system design and open, horizontal and interoperable platforms managing things that are digital, automated and connected and that function in real-time with remote access and control based on Internet-enabled tools. The IoT is bridging the physical world with the virtual world by combining augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the physical-digital integrations in the Internet of mobile things based on sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, cognitive systems and IoT platforms with multiple functionalities. These IoT systems have the potential to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. They can change future behaviour, while the combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and data sets feed the cognitive algorithms that allow the IoT systems to develop new services and propose new solutions. IoT technologies are moving into the industrial space and enhancing traditional industrial platforms with solutions that break free of device-, operating system- and protocol-dependency. Secure edge computing solutions replace local networks, web services replace software, and devices with networked programmable logic controllers (NPLCs) based on Internet protocols replace devices that use proprietary protocols. Information captured by edge devices on the factory floor is secure and accessible from any location in real time, opening the communication gateway both vertically (connecting machines across the factory and enabling the instant availability of data to stakeholders within operational silos) and horizontally (with one framework for the entire supply chain, across departments, business units, global factory locations and other markets). End-to-end security and privacy solutions in IoT space require agile, context-aware and scalable components with mechanisms that are both fluid and adaptive. The convergence of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) makes security and privacy by default a new important element where security is addressed at the architecture level, across applications and domains, using multi-layered distributed security measures. Blockchain is transforming industry operating models by adding trust to untrusted environments, providing distributed security mechanisms and transparent access to the information in the chain. Digital technology platforms are evolving, with IoT platforms integrating complex information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence to enable new capabilities and business models for digital business

Quantifying Quality of Life

Describes technological methods and tools for objective and quantitative assessment of QoL Appraises technology-enabled methods for incorporating QoL measurements in medicine Highlights the success factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods This open access book presents the rise of technology-enabled methods and tools for objective, quantitative assessment of Quality of Life (QoL), while following the WHOQOL model. It is an in-depth resource describing and examining state-of-the-art, minimally obtrusive, ubiquitous technologies. Highlighting the required factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods and tools for QoL assessment, it also describes how these technologies can be leveraged for behavior change, disease prevention, health management and long-term QoL enhancement in populations at large. Quantifying Quality of Life: Incorporating Daily Life into Medicine fills a gap in the field of QoL by providing assessment methods, techniques and tools. These assessments differ from the current methods that are now mostly infrequent, subjective, qualitative, memory-based, context-poor and sparse. Therefore, it is an ideal resource for physicians, physicians in training, software and hardware developers, computer scientists, data scientists, behavioural scientists, entrepreneurs, healthcare leaders and administrators who are seeking an up-to-date resource on this subject

Improving Energy Efficiency and Security for Pervasive Computing Systems

Pervasive computing systems are comprised of various personal mobile devices connected by the wireless networks. Pervasive computing systems have gained soaring popularity because of the rapid proliferation of the personal mobile devices. The number of personal mobile devices increased steeply over years and will surpass world population by 2016.;However, the fast development of pervasive computing systems is facing two critical issues, energy efficiency and security assurance. Power consumption of personal mobile devices keeps increasing while the battery capacity has been hardly improved over years. at the same time, a lot of private information is stored on and transmitted from personal mobile devices, which are operating in very risky environment. as such, these devices became favorite targets of malicious attacks. Without proper solutions to address these two challenging problems, concerns will keep rising and slow down the advancement of pervasive computing systems.;We select smartphones as the representative devices in our energy study because they are popular in pervasive computing systems and their energy problem concerns users the most in comparison with other devices. We start with the analysis of the power usage pattern of internal system activities, and then identify energy bugs for improving energy efficiency. We also investigate into the external communication methods employed on smartphones, such as cellular networks and wireless LANs, to reduce energy overhead on transmissions.;As to security, we focus on implantable medical devices (IMDs) that are specialized for medical purposes. Malicious attacks on IMDs may lead to serious damages both in the cyber and physical worlds. Unlike smartphones, simply borrowing existing security solutions does not work on IMDs because of their limited resources and high requirement of accessibility. Thus, we introduce an external device to serve as the security proxy for IMDs and ensure that IMDs remain accessible to save patients\u27 lives in certain emergency situations when security credentials are not available