Trust and reputation policy-based mechanisms for self-protection in autonomic communications

Currently, there is an increasing tendency to migrate the management of communications and information systems onto the Web. This is making many traditional service support models obsolete. In addition, current security mechanisms are not sufficiently robust to protect each management system and/or subsystem from web-based intrusions, malware, and hacking attacks. This paper presents research challenges in autonomic management to provide self-protection mechanisms and tools by using trust and reputation concepts based on policy-based management to decentralize management decisions. This work also uses user-based reputation mechanisms to help enforce trust management in pervasive and communications services. The scope of this research is founded in social models, where the application of trust and reputation applied in communication systems helps detect potential users as well as hackers attempting to corrupt management operations and services. These so-called “cheating services” act as “attacks”, altering the performance and the security in communication systems by consumption of computing or network resources unnecessarily

Applying Association Rules and Co-location Techniques on Geospatial Web Services

Most contemporary GIS have only very basic spatial analysis and data mining functionality and many are confined to analysis that involves comparing maps and descriptive statistical displays like histograms or pie charts. Emerging Web standards promise a network of heterogeneous yet interoperable Web Services. Web Services would greatly simplify the development of many kinds of data integration and knowledge management applications. Geospatial data mining describes the combination of two key market intelligence software tools: Geographical Information Systems and Data Mining Systems. This research aims to develop a Spatial Data Mining web service it uses rule association techniques and correlation methods to explore results of huge amounts of data generated from crises management integrated applications developed. It integrates between traffic systems, medical services systems, civil defense and state of the art Geographic Information Systems and Data Mining Systems functionality in an open, highly extensible, internet-enabled plug-in architecture. The Interoperability of geospatial data previously focus just on data formats and standards. The recent popularity and adoption of the Internet and Web Services has provided a new means of interoperability for geospatial information not just for exchanging data but for analyzing these data during exchange. An integrated, user friendly Spatial Data Mining System available on the internet via a web service offers exciting new possibilities for spatial decision making and geographical research to a wide range of potential users.   Keywords: Spatial Data Mining, Rule Association, Co-location, Web Services, Geospatial Dat

Latency-Sensitive Web Service Workflows: A Case for a Software-Defined Internet

The Internet, at large, remains under the control of service providers and autonomous systems. The Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing provide an increasing demand and potential for more user control for their web service workflows. Network Softwarization revolutionizes the network landscape in various stages, from building, incrementally deploying, and maintaining the environment. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) are two core tenets of network softwarization. SDN offers a logically centralized control plane by abstracting away the control of the network devices in the data plane. NFV virtualizes dedicated hardware middleboxes and deploys them on top of servers and data centers as network functions. Thus, network softwarization enables efficient management of the system by enhancing its control and improving the reusability of the network services. In this work, we propose our vision for a Software-Defined Internet (SDI) for latency-sensitive web service workflows. SDI extends network softwarization to the Internet-scale, to enable a latency-aware user workflow execution on the Internet.Comment: Accepted for Publication at The Seventh International Conference on Software Defined Systems (SDS-2020

Intelligent wireless web services: context-aware computing in construction-logistics supply chain

The construction industry has incurred a considerable amount of waste as a result of poor logistics supply chain network management. Therefore, managing logistics in the construction industry is critical. An effective logistic system ensures delivery of the right products and services to the right players at the right time while minimising costs and rewarding all sectors based on value added to the supply chain. This paper reports on an on-going research study on the concept of context-aware services delivery in the construction project supply chain logistics. As part of the emerging wireless technologies, an Intelligent Wireless Web (IWW) using context-aware computing capability represents the next generation ICT application to construction-logistics management. This intelligent system has the potential of serving and improving the construction logistics through access to context-specific data, information and services. Existing mobile communication deployments in the construction industry rely on static modes of information delivery and do not take into account the worker’s changing context and dynamic project conditions. The major problems in these applications are lack of context-specificity in the distribution of information, services and other project resources, and lack of cohesion with the existing desktop based ICT infrastructure. The research works focus on identifying the context dimension such as user context, environmental context and project context, selection of technologies to capture context-parameters such wireless sensors and RFID, selection of supporting technologies such as wireless communication, Semantic Web, Web Services, agents, etc. The process of integration of Context-Aware Computing and Web-Services to facilitate the creation of intelligent collaboration environment for managing construction logistics will take into account all the necessary critical parameters such as storage, transportation, distribution, assembly, etc. within off and on-site project

Towards a Model of Determinants of Web Services Platform Adoption by Complementers

The recent surge of interest in web services has called attention to the increasingly intense competition between owners of the platforms on which these services run. Given that widely adopted operating systems and middleware platforms have yielded sizable economic returns for their owners, many web services platform owners are aggressively pursuing strategies that can give them a competitive advantage and, it is hoped, similarly sizable returns. A review of the broader literature on software platform competition reveals widespread acceptance of network effect theory as an explanatory framework. Network effect theory posits that the value of a software platform to a potential user is associated positively with the number of existing users of the platform (who generate direct network effects) and the number of developers of complementary software applications (who generate indirect network effects) (see, e.g., Katz and Shapiro, 1986; Zhu et al., 2006). Users realize direct network effects when, for example, they share compatible files with other users (Gao and Iyer, 2006; Lin and Kulatilaka, 2006) or participate in ???trading communities??? (Zhu et al., 2006). Indirect network effects are realized through the availability of useful, innovative and compatible software applications (Lin and Kulatilaka, 2006). Users of widely adopted software platforms also gain value from the reduced likelihood of being ???stranded with a failed and unsupported platform??? and consequent switching costs (Gallaugher and Wang, 2002, p. 306). In the presence of network effects, then, software platform owners pursue strategies that will secure them an ???installed base??? of users and complementers that is sufficiently large to attract more and more new users (Shapiro and Varian, 1998; Suarez, 2005). While one set of strategies is aimed at promoting adoption by new users, another set emphasizes the value generated for users by indirect network effects and aims instead at promoting adoption by complementers. (This distinction reflects the idea that platform markets are two-sided, with (end) users populating one side and complementers populating the other.) There appears to be considerably more research on strategies for increasing user adoption (see Gallaugher and Wang (2002), von Westarp (2003) and Zhu and Iansiti (2007) for reviews) than on complementer adoption strategies. Nonetheless, three studies of the latter merit mentioning here. First, in their study of the U.S. video game industry from 1976 to 2002, Venkatraman and Lee (2003) find that platform dominance (i.e., largest installed base), together with complementers??? path dependency and level of experience with platform architecture, largely determine platform adoption by complementers. Second, in his investigation of how software platform owners maintain a balance between ???adoption and appropriation,??? West (2003) concludes that software platform owners who disclose some proprietary code will attract more complements (thereby fostering innovation), but cautions against disclosing any code that confers a competitive advantage. Finally, Cusumano and Gawer???s (2002) landmark study of Intel???s platform management strategies culminated in the endorsement of four ???levers??? for platform leadership, with one of these levers aimed at managing relations with ???external complementers???. Specific strategies include building a consensus on technical specifications and standards, handling potential conflicts of interest and letting complementers keep any intellectual property they develop on the platform. Both West (2003) and Cusumano and Gawer (2002) also underscore the importance of providing complementers with an interface to connect to the platform. Beyond West???s (2003, p. 1260) suggestion that software platform owners ???create and evolve application programming interfaces (APIs),??? though, the varied ways in which these APIs might influence a complementer???s choice to adopt have not been sufficiently explored by these or other authors. The research-in-progress described in the following section aims to bolster the somewhat scant literature on software platform adoption by complementers. More specifically, the proceeding research design outlines a proposed investigation of the determinants of complementer adoption of geo-mapping web services platforms. The reasons for including independent variables are discussed, and some methodological details are introduced. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of anticipated outcomes of the study

Once upon a time: looking back at the relationship between service and manufacturing

Little attention had been paid to the service sector, if we define services as those intangible activities necessary for the fruition of a good. The Italian tertiary sector accounts for 60% of GDP, which is in line with what is happening in other developed nations. Still services provided by the network are not diffused – and this is particularly true for SMEs. The advancement of knowledge and network has led to vertical disintegration and delocalization of many productive processes (outsourcing, e-business), new and larger potential markets (e-commerce), change of governance and management of enterprises. Innovation has not only to do with technology but also with marketing, logistics, human resource, and organization. Innovation requires both technical competences and models to read and understand an entire value chain such a SSME. Industrial policies do not only need to focus on diffusion and financing of technologies. Policies need to support application and performance of technologies as the goal here is to bring to scale the production of services to accompany the rise of the service economy and Italian firms’ competitiveness. One of the reference frameworks of policies should be new web-based platforms, where web-based services can be developed and delivered to establish demand and supply dynamics, and relationships on all sides of the platform. Hence it is necessary to pick technological and organizational solutions which are reliable and could act as ignition elements to lead SMEs to get on the web and become sophisticated users of the services available on the web.

Sustainable IoT Sensing Applications Development through GraphQL-Based Abstraction Layer

Internet of Things (IoT) networks are mostly comprised of power-constrained devices, therefore the most important consideration in designing IoT applications, based on sensor networks is energy efficiency. Minor improvement in energy conservation methods can lead to a significant increase in the lifetime of IoT devices and overall network. To achieve efficient utilisation of energy, different solutions are proposed such as duty cycling optimization, design changes at the MAC layer, etc. In this paper, we propose a new approach to overcome this challenge in cloud-based IoT sensing applications, based on integration of an abstraction layer with constrained application mechanism. To achieve energy conservation and efficient data management in IoT sensing applications, we incorporate modules of efficient web framework with cloud services, in order to minimize the number of round trips for data delivery and graph-based data representation. Our study is the first attempt in the literature, to the best of our knowledge, which introduces the potential of this integration for achieving the aforementioned objectives in the target applications. We implemented the proposed interfacing of abstraction layer in constrained applications, to develop a testbed using Z1 IoT motes, Contiki OS and GraphQL web framework with Google cloud services. Experimental comparisons against baseline REST architecture approach show that our proposed approach achieved significant reductions in data delivery delay and energy consumption (minimum 51.53% and 52.88%, respectively) in IoT applications involving sensor network.</jats:p

Designing and prototyping WebRTC and IMS integration using open source tools

WebRTC, or Web Real-time Communications, is a collection of web standards that detail the mechanisms, architectures and protocols that work together to deliver real-time multimedia services to the web browser. It represents a significant shift from the historical approach of using browser plugins, which over time, have proven cumbersome and problematic. Furthermore, it adopts various Internet standards in areas such as identity management, peer-to-peer connectivity, data exchange and media encoding, to provide a system that is truly open and interoperable. Given that WebRTC enables the delivery of multimedia content to any Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled device capable of hosting a web browser, this technology could potentially be used and deployed over millions of smartphones, tablets and personal computers worldwide. This service and device convergence remains an important goal of telecommunication network operators who seek to enable it through a converged network that is based on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IMS is an IP-based subsystem that sits at the core of a modern telecommunication network and acts as the main routing substrate for media services and applications such as those that WebRTC realises. The combination of WebRTC and IMS represents an attractive coupling, and as such, a protracted investigation could help to answer important questions around the technical challenges that are involved in their integration, and the merits of various design alternatives that present themselves. This thesis is the result of such an investigation and culminates in the presentation of a detailed architectural model that is validated with a prototypical implementation in an open source testbed. The model is built on six requirements which emerge from an analysis of the literature, including previous interventions in IMS networks and a key technical report on design alternatives. Furthermore, this thesis argues that the client architecture requires support for web-oriented signalling, identity and call handling techniques leading to a potential for IMS networks to natively support these techniques as operator networks continue to grow and develop. The proposed model advocates the use of SIP over WebSockets for signalling and DTLS-SRTP for media to enable one-to-one communication and can be extended through additional functions resulting in a modular architecture. The model was implemented using open source tools which were assembled to create an experimental network testbed, and tests were conducted demonstrating successful cross domain communications under various conditions. The thesis has a strong focus on enabling ordinary software developers to assemble a prototypical network such as the one that was assembled and aims to enable experimentation in application use cases for integrated environments