Messages with Implicit Destinations as Mobile Agents

International audienceApplications running over decentralized systems, distribute their computation on nodes/agents, which exchange data and services through messages. In many cases, the provenance of the data or service is not relevant, and applications can be optimized by choosing the most efficient solution to obtain them. We introduce a frameworkwhich allows messages with intensional destination, which can be seen as restricted mobile agents, specifying the desired service but not the exact node that carries it, leaving to the system the task of evaluating the extensional destination, that is an explicit address for that service. The intensional destinations are defined using queries that are evaluated by other agents while routing. We introduce the Questlog language, which allows to reformulate queries, and express complex strategies to pull distributed data. In addition, intensional addresses offer persistency to dynamic systems with nodes/agents leaving the system. We demonstrate the approach with examples taken from sensor networks, and show some experimental results on the QuestMonitor platform

Tourism and the smartphone app: capabilities, emerging practice and scope in the travel domain.

Based on its advanced computing capabilities and ubiquity, the smartphone has rapidly been adopted as a tourism travel tool.With a growing number of users and a wide varietyof applications emerging, the smartphone is fundamentally altering our current use and understanding of the transport network and tourism travel. Based on a review of smartphone apps, this article evaluates the current functionalities used in the domestic tourism travel domain and highlights where the next major developments lie. Then, at a more conceptual level, the article analyses how the smartphone mediates tourism travel and the role it might play in more collaborative and dynamic travel decisions to facilitate sustainable travel. Some emerging research challenges are discussed

IMPROVING THE DEPENDABILITY OF DESTINATION RECOMMENDATIONS USING INFORMATION ON SOCIAL ASPECTS

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process

International student mobility : the role of social networks

Building upon recent work on higher education mobility, this paper contends that social networks of friendship and kinship are critical determinants for students deciding to study overseas, not just, as has hitherto been suggested, a complementary factor. It uses original data collected through interviews and focus groups with thirty-eight higher education international students studying at three UK universities and argues that students who choose to study overseas do not operate within a vacuum but rather draw upon extended networks of individuals who have chosen to do so themselves or advocate studying abroad. While this encouragement may be of an explicit and unequivocal nature – telling students that they ought to study overseas – for the majority it is rather more implicit. The students interviewed invariably related that higher education overseas or mobility more generally was an accepted practice amongst their peers, thereby leading to a normalisation of the mobility process. The paper concludes that international students come to accept mobility as a taken for granted stage within the lifecourse, and, whether intentionally or not, this is often the driving force behind their decision to study overseas

ABSCEV: An agent-based simulation framework about smart transportation for reducing waiting times in charging electric vehicles

[EN] Fuel has been the main source of energy for cars for many years, but the non-renewable resources are limited in the planet. In this context, electric vehicles (EVs) are increasingly replacing the previous kind of cars. However, as the number of EVs increases, some challenges arise such as the reduction of waiting times in the queues of fast charging stations. The current work addresses this challenge by means of social coordination mechanisms. In particular, this work presents an agent-based simulation framework for simulating the effects of different coordination policies in the route planning of EV drivers for charging their vehicles on their trips. In this manner, researchers and professionals can test different coordination mechanisms for this purpose. This framework has been experienced by simulating an adaptive strategy based on the implicit communication through booking systems in the charging stations. This strategy was compared with another common strategy, which was used as the control mechanism. This comparison was done by simulating several scenarios in two Spanish cities (i.e. Madrid and Zaragoza). The experimental results show that the current approach was useful to propose a route planning strategy that had statistically significant improvements in the reduction of waiting times in charging stations and also in the global trip times. In addition, the evolutions of pathfinding execution times and the numbers of interchanged messages did not show any overloading pattern over the time. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reservedWe acknowledge the research project "Construccion de un framework para agilizar el desarrollo de aplicaciones mviles en el ambito de la salud" funded by University of Zaragoza and Foundation Ibercaja with grant reference JIUZ-2017-TEC-03. This work has been supported by the program "Estancias de movilidad en el extranjero Jose Castillejo para jovenes doctores" funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport with reference CAS17/00005. We also acknowledge support from "Universidad de Zaragoza", "Fundacion Bancaria Ibercaja" and "Fundacion CAI" in the "Programa Ibercaja-CAI de Estancias de Investigacion" with reference IT1/18. This work acknowledges the research project "Desarrollo Colaborativo de Soluciones AAL" with reference TIN2014-57028-R funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. It has also been supported by "Organismo Autonomo Programas Educativos Europeos" with reference 2013-1-CZ1-GRU06-14277. We also acknowledge support from project "Sensores vestibles y tecnologa movil como apoyo en la formacin y practica de mindfulness: prototipo previo aplicado a bienestar" funded by University of Zaragoza with grant number UZ2017-TEC-02.García-Magariño, I.; Palacios-Navarro, G.; Lacuesta Gilaberte, R.; Lloret, J. (2018). ABSCEV: An agent-based simulation framework about smart transportation for reducing waiting times in charging electric vehicles. Computer Networks. 138:119-135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2018.03.01411913513

Improving the Dependability of Destination Recommendations using Information on Social Aspects

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process.Content-based filtering; Recommender Systems; Ontology; Social Attributes, Destination recommendation