Collaborative cognitive content dissemination and query in heterogeneous mobile opportunistic networks

This paper investigates complex challenges of opportunistic discovery of content stored in remote mobile devices and delivery to the requesting nodes in heterogeneous mobile disconnection prone environments. We propose new latency aware collaborative cognitive caching approach suitable for content dissemination and query in heterogeneous opportunistic mobile networks and dynamic workloads. Utilising fully localised and ego networks multi-layer predictive heuristics about dynamically changing topology, dynamic resources and varying popularity content, our cognitive caching achieves high success ratio, low delays and high caching efficiency for very different real world dynamically changing mobile topologies

Social relationship based routing for delay tolerant Bluetooth-enabled PSN communications

PhDOpportunistic networking is a concept derived from the mobile ad hoc networking in which devices have no prior knowledge of routes to the intended destinations. Content dissemination in opportunistic networks thus is carried out in a store and forward fashion. Opportunistic routing poses distinct challenges compared to the traditional networks such as Internet and mobile ad hoc networks where nodes have prior knowledge of the routes to the intended destinations. Information dissemination in opportunistic networks requires dealing with intermittent connectivity, variable delays, short connection durations and dynamic topology. Addressing these challenges becomes a significant motivation for developing novel applications and protocols for information dissemination in opportunistic networks. This research looks at opportunistic networking, specifically at networks composed of mobile devices or, pocket switched networks. Mobile devices are now accepted as an integral part of society and are often equipped with Bluetooth capabilities that allow for opportunistic information sharing between devices. The ad hoc nature of opportunistic networks means nodes have no advance routing knowledge and this is key challenge. Human social relationships are based on certain patterns that can be exploited to make opportunistic routing decisions. Targeting nodes that evidence high popularity or high influence can enable more efficient content dissemination. Based on this observation, a novel impact based neighbourhood algorithm called Lobby Influence is presented. The algorithm is tested against two previously proposed algorithms and proves better in terms of message delivery and delay. Moreover, unlike other social based algorithms, which have a tendency to concentrate traffic through their identified routing nodes, the new algorithm provides a fairer load distribution, thus alleviating the tendency to saturate individual nodes

Research, Literacy, and Communication Education: New Challenges Facing Disinformation

The information that comes through digital media and social networks is increasing. This potential access to almost infinite information makes it difficult to select relevant content with a good understanding. It is therefore necessary to generate research that thoroughly analyses the phenomenon of communication and information in the digital age. For this reason, this monograph presents different research studies that highlight the need for greater media literacy and education in order to prevent the existence and dissemination of fake news. Citizens must know how to deal with disinformation and be able to detect the source of bad intentions behind information. Therefore, people need to be aware of the new communication challenges in order to determine what is important, which media they can trust, and where information has been misused or manipulated. In conclusion, society must be prepared to face new challenges related to misinformation. An educated and digitally literate society will be able to face these problems and be prepared to face the new communication challenges, including interaction with social networks, new audiences, new media, fake news, etc

Design and analysis of a beacon-less routing protocol for large volume content dissemination in vehicular ad hoc networks

Largevolumecontentdisseminationispursuedbythegrowingnumberofhighquality applications for Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks(VANETs), e.g., the live road surveillance service and the video-based overtaking assistant service. For the highly dynamical vehicular network topology, beacon-less routing protocols have been proven to be efficient in achieving a balance between the system performance and the control overhead. However, to the authors’ best knowledge, the routing design for large volume content has not been well considered in the previous work, which will introduce new challenges, e.g., the enhanced connectivity requirement for a radio link. In this paper, a link Lifetime-aware Beacon-less Routing Protocol (LBRP) is designed for large volume content delivery in VANETs. Each vehicle makes the forwarding decision based on the message header information and its current state, including the speed and position information. A semi-Markov process analytical model is proposed to evaluate the expected delay in constructing one routing path for LBRP. Simulations show that the proposed LBRP scheme outperforms the traditional dissemination protocols in providing a low end-to-end delay. The analytical model is shown to exhibit a good match on the delay estimation with Monte Carlo simulations, as well

Mobile Social Networking aided content dissemination in heterogeneous networks

Since more and more mobile applications are based on the proliferation of social information, the study of Mobile Social Net-works (MSNs) combines social sciences and wireless communications. Operating wireless networks more efficiently by exploiting social relationships between MSN users is an appealing but challenging option for network operators. An MSN-aided content dissemination technique is presented as a potential ex-tension of conventional cellular wireless net-works in order to satisfy growing data traffic. By allowing the MSN users to create a self-organized ad hoc network for spontaneously disseminating contents, the network operator may be able to reduce the operational costs and simultaneously achieve an improved network performance. In this paper, we first summarize the basic features of the MSN architecture, followed by a survey of the factors which may affect MSN-aided content dissemination. Using a case study, we demonstrate that one can save resources of the Base Station (BS) while substantially lowering content dissemination delay. Finally, other potential applications of MSN-aided content dissemination are introduced, and a range of future challenges are summarized

Disseminating Research Information through Facebook and Twitter (DRIFT): presenting an evidence based framework

Background: The social media platform Facebook boasts over 1,284 million daily active users globally. It is also known that a large proportion of adults use the internet to seek health related information.Aim: to critically analyse the use of social media to engage parents of children with ADHD with clinical research findings.Methods: Observation and qualitative content analysis combined with Facebook insights was used to evaluate the levels of engagement and interaction with different types of research information.Results: Over 1100 people from 41 nations have engaged with the group. Sharing information through a range of Facebook functions was found to successfully achieve engagement and reach nationally and internationally for this demographic.Conclusion: Lay research users are eager to engage and understand clinical research and social media is an appropriate way to disseminate this. This article has proposed some methods and explanatory reasons for this phenomena.Implications for practice: It is known that social media can be used for effective communication. This article presents a much-needed evidence based framework that may be used by nursing and health researchers to successfully achieve this

The Quest for a Killer App for Opportunistic and Delay Tolerant Networks (Invited Paper)

Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) has attracted a lot of attention from the research community in recent years. Much work have been done regarding network architectures and algorithms for routing and forwarding in such networks. At the same time as many show enthusiasm for this exciting new research area there are also many sceptics, who question the usefulness of research in this area. In the past, we have seen other research areas become over-hyped and later die out as there was no killer app for them that made them useful in real scenarios. Real deployments of DTN systems have so far mostly been limited to a few niche scenarios, where they have been done as proof-of-concept field tests in research projects. In this paper, we embark upon a quest to find out what characterizes a potential killer applications for DTNs. Are there applications and situations where DTNs provide services that could not be achieved otherwise, or have potential to do it in a better way than other techniques? Further, we highlight some of the main challenges that needs to be solved to realize these applications and make DTNs a part of the mainstream network landscape

+SPACES: Serious Games for Role-Playing Government Policies

The paper explores how role-play simulations can be used to support policy discussion and refinement in virtual worlds. Although the work described is set primarily within the context of policy formulation for government, the lessons learnt are applicable to online learning and collaboration within virtual environments. The paper describes how the +Spaces project is using both 2D and 3D virtual spaces to engage with citizens to explore issues relevant to new government policies. It also focuses on the most challenging part of the project, which is to provide environments that can simulate some of the complexities of real life. Some examples of different approaches to simulation in virtual spaces are provided and the issues associated with them are further examined. We conclude that the use of role-play simulations seem to offer the most benefits in terms of providing a generalizable framework for citizens to engage with real issues arising from future policy decisions. Role-plays have also been shown to be a useful tool for engaging learners in the complexities of real-world issues, often generating insights which would not be possible using more conventional techniques