Live Prefetching for Mobile Computation Offloading

The conventional designs of mobile computation offloading fetch user-specific data to the cloud prior to computing, called offline prefetching. However, this approach can potentially result in excessive fetching of large volumes of data and cause heavy loads on radio-access networks. To solve this problem, the novel technique of live prefetching is proposed in this paper that seamlessly integrates the task-level computation prediction and prefetching within the cloud-computing process of a large program with numerous tasks. The technique avoids excessive fetching but retains the feature of leveraging prediction to reduce the program runtime and mobile transmission energy. By modeling the tasks in an offloaded program as a stochastic sequence, stochastic optimization is applied to design fetching policies to minimize mobile energy consumption under a deadline constraint. The policies enable real-time control of the prefetched-data sizes of candidates for future tasks. For slow fading, the optimal policy is derived and shown to have a threshold-based structure, selecting candidate tasks for prefetching and controlling their prefetched data based on their likelihoods. The result is extended to design close-to-optimal prefetching policies to fast fading channels. Compared with fetching without prediction, live prefetching is shown theoretically to always achieve reduction on mobile energy consumption.Comment: To appear in IEEE Trans. on Wireless Communicatio

MOBILE COMPUTATION OFFLOADING - FACTORS AFFECTING TECHNOLOGY EVOLUTION

Compared to desktop devices, mobile devices have inherent constraints such as limited processing power, memory, and battery capacity. With the proliferation of resource-hungry applications, researchers are looking for new solutions to address these limitations. One such solution is mobile cloud computing (MCC), which uses cloud infrastructure to enhance the capabilities of mobile devices. This paper focuses on a related, emerging technology called mobile computation offloading (MCO), where the emphasis is on dynamically offloading computation from native applications running on mobile devices to outside surrogates such as cloud infrastructure. We use an exploratory approach to evaluate the business potential of MCO by identifying critical factors that influence the technology evolution of MCO. We base this evaluation on a literature review of MCO and utilize a research framework derived from the existing literature on technology evolution and MCO

Novel Mobile Computation Offloading Framework for Android Devices

The thesis implements an offloading framework for GoogleTM AndroidTM based on mobile devices. Today, the full potential for smartphones may be constrained by certain technical limits such as battery endurance and computational performance. Modern mobile applications own more powerful functions but need larger computation and faster frame rate, which consume more battery energy. Using the proposed offloading framework, mobile devices can offload computational intensive workload to servers to save battery energy consumption and reduce the execution time. The framework can also enable software developers to easily build and deploy services on the servers to support mobile devices to run computationally intensive jobs. Compared with other offloading schemes for android cell phones, the scheme enables developers to choose which parts of the codes are potentially offloading. As developers fully understand the data flow models of the apps, they are considered most capable of making offloading decisions. Developers can minimize communication overhead brought by offloading by carefully partitioning source code by data dependency. Experiment results and data showed that the proposed offloading scheme could significantly reduce computational time and battery energy consumption

A heuristic algorithm for multi-site computation offloading in mobile cloud computing

Due to limitation of mobile device in terms of battery life and processing power, Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) has become an attractive choice to leverage this shortcoming as the mobile computation could be offloaded to the cloud, which is so-called \emph{mobile computation offloading}. Existing research on mobile computation offloading considers offloading a mobile computation to a single cloud. However, in the real world a computation service could be provided by multiple clouds and each computation service. Thus, a new and interesting research problem in mobile computation offloading is how to select a computation service for each of the computation tasks of a mobile computation such that the computation time of the mobile computation, the energy consumption of the mobile device and the cost of using the computation services are minimized. This is so called multi-site computation offloading in mobile cloud computing. In this paper we formulate the multi-site computation offloading problem, propose a heuristic algorithm for the multi-site computation offloading problem and evaluate the heuristic algorithm

Justification Logic as a foundation for certifying mobile computation

We explore an intuitionistic fragment of Artëmov's . Justification Logic as a type system for a programming language for . mobile units. Such units consist of both a code and a certificate component. Our language, the . Certifying Mobile Calculus, caters for code and certificate development in a unified theory. In the same way that mobile code is constructed out of code components and extant type systems track local resource usage to ensure the mobile nature of these components, our system . additionally ensures correct . certificate construction out of certificate components. We present proofs of type safety and strong normalization for a run-time system based on an abstract machine.Fil: Bonelli, Eduardo Augusto. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Feller, Federico. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Informática. Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzada; Argentin

Justification Logic as a foundation for certifying mobile computation

We explore an intuitionistic fragment of Artëmov's Justification Logic as a type system for a programming language for mobile units. Such units consist of both a code and a certificate component. Our language, the Certifying Mobile Calculus, caters for code and certificate development in a unified theory. In the same way that mobile code is constructed out of code components and extant type systems track local resource usage to ensure the mobile nature of these components, our system additionally ensures correct certificate construction out of certificate components. We present proofs of type safety and strong normalization for a run-time system based on an abstract machine.Facultad de Informátic

Mobile Computation with Functions

The practice of computing has reached a stage where computers are seen as parts of a global computing platform. The possibility of exploiting resources on a global scale has given rise to a new paradigm -- the mobile computation paradigm -- for computation in large-scale distributed networks. Languages which enable the mobility of code over the network are becoming widely used for building distributed applications. This thesis explores distributed computation with languages which adopt functions as the main programming abstraction and support code mobility through the mobility of functions between remote sites. It aims to highlight the benefits of using languages of this family in dealing with the challenges of mobile computation. The possibility of exploiting existing static analysis techniques suggests that having functions at the core of a mobile code language is a particularly apt choice. A range of problems which have impact on the safety, security and performance of systems are discussed here. It is shown that types extended with effects and other annotations can capture a significant amount of information about the dynamic behaviour of mobile functions and offer solutions to the problems under investigation. The thesis presents a survey of the languages Concurrent ML, Facile and PLAN which remain loyal to the principles of the functional language ML and hence inherit its strengths in the context of concurrent and distributed computation. The languages which are defined in the subsequent chapters have their roots in these languages. Two chapters focus on using types to statically predict whether functions are used locally or may become mobile at runtime. Types are exploited for distributed calltracking to estimate which functions are invoked at which sites in the system. Compilers for mobile code languages would benefit from such estimates in dealing with the heterogeneity of the network nodes, in providing static profiling tools and in estimating the resource-consumption of programs. Two chapters are devoted to the use of types in controlling the flow of values in a system where users have different trust levels. The confinement of values within a specified mobility region is the subject of one of these. The other focuses on systems where values are classified with respect to their confidentiality level. The sources of undesirable flows of information are identified and a solution based on noninterference is proposed

A people-oriented paradigm for smart cities

Most works in the literature agree on considering the Internet of Things (IoT) as the base technology to collect information related to smart cities. This information is usually offered as open data for its analysis, and to elaborate statistics or provide services which improve the management of the city, making it more efficient and more comfortable to live in. However, it is not possible to actually improve the quality of life of smart cities’ inhabitants if there is no direct information about them and their experiences. To address this problem, we propose using a social and mobile computation model, called the Internet of People (IoP) which empowers smartphones to recollect information about their users, analyze it to obtain knowledge about their habits, and provide this knowledge as a service creating a collaborative information network. Combining IoT and IoP, we allow the smart city to dynamically adapt its services to the needs of its citizens, promoting their welfare as the main objective of the city.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

ICTD Work, Plus mFeel : improving communication in resource-poor settings

This issue's Works-In-Progress department has four entries related to the issue's theme, Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD). They are “Sustainable ICT in Agricultural Value Chains”, “Measuring Social Inclusion in Primary Schools”, “An Architecture for Green Mobile Computation”, and “Improving Communication in Resource-Poor Settings”. A fifth entry, “mFeel: An Affective Mobile System”, covers the mFeel mobile system, which combines context awareness with affective and cognitive techniques