A flow-oriented process model of social media services use

While social media has been a popular subject to extant research, we know little about the conditions and the flows of action of social media use, including staying, discontinuance, and switching behavior. This makes it difficult to understand platform choices and usage patterns of social media services. Based on a flow-oriented theoretical approach, we conduct an exploratory multiple case study of five popular social media services. We conceptualize a multidimensional perspective of social media use behavior. We identify four flows of action – “adjusting”, “coextending”, “fading out”, and “intensifying” – and develop a flow-oriented process model of social media service use. Our results help to understand the wide spectrum of use behavior and motives in social media services and provide new avenues to future research. Furthermore, we provide platform providers with insights to better understand the dynamics of social media services

A Flow-Oriented Process Model of Social Media Services Use

While social media has been a popular subject to extant research, we know little about the conditions and the flows of action of social media use, including staying, discontinuance, and switching behavior. This makes it difficult to understand platform choices and usage patterns of social media services. Based on a flow-oriented theoretical approach, we conduct an exploratory multiple case study of five popular social media services. We conceptualize a multidimensional perspective of social media use behavior. We identify four flows of action – “adjusting”, “coextending”, “fading out”, and “intensifying” – and develop a flow-oriented process model of social media service use. Our results help to understand the wide spectrum of use behavior and motives in social media services and provide new avenues to future research. Furthermore, we provide platform providers with insights to better understand the dynamics of social media services

Privacy Enforcement in a Cost-Effective Smart Grid

In this technical report we present the current state of the research conducted during the first part of the PhD period. The PhD thesis “Privacy Enforcement in a Cost-Effective Smart Grid” focuses on ensuring privacy when generating market for energy service providers that develop web services for the residential domain in the envisaged smart grid. The PhD project is funded and associated to the EU project “Energy Demand Aware Open Services for Smart Grid Intelligent Automation” (SmartHG) and therefore introduces the project on a system-level. Based on this, we present some of the integration, security and privacy challenges that emerge when designing a system architecture and infrastructure. The resulting architecture is a consumer-centric and agent-based design and uses open Internet-based communication protocols for enabling interoperability while being cost-effective. Finally, the PhD report presentthe envisaged future work and publications that will lead to completion of the PhD study

Interoperabilidade e mobilidade na internet do futuro

Research on Future Internet has been gaining traction in recent years, with both evolutionary (e.g., Software Defined Networking (SDN)- based architectures) and clean-slate network architectures (e.g., Information Centric Networking (ICN) architectures) being proposed. With each network architectural proposal aiming to provide better solutions for specific Internet utilization requirements, an heterogeneous Future Internet composed by several architectures can be expected, each targeting and optimizing different use case scenarios. Moreover, the increasing number of mobile devices, with increasing capabilities and supporting different connectivity technologies, are changing the patterns of traffic exchanged in the Internet. As such, this thesis focuses on the study of interoperability and mobility in Future Internet architectures, two key requirements that need to be addressed for the widely adoption of these network architectures. The first contribution of this thesis is an interoperability framework that, by enabling resources to be shared among different network architectures, avoids resources to be restricted to a given network architecture and, at the same time, promotes the initial roll out of new network architectures. The second contribution of this thesis consists on the development of enhancements for SDN-based and ICN network architectures through IEEE 802.21 mechanisms to facilitate and optimize the handover procedures on those architectures. The last contribution of this thesis is the definition of an inter-network architecture mobility framework that enables MNs to move across access network supporting different network architectures without losing the reachability to resources being accessed. All the proposed solutions were evaluated with results highlighting the feasibility of such solutions and the impact on the overall communication.A Internet do Futuro tem sido alvo de vários estudos nos últimos anos, com a proposta de arquitecturas de rede seguindo quer abordagens evolutionárias (por exemplo, Redes Definidas por Software (SDN)) quer abordagens disruptivas (por exemplo, Redes Centradas na Informação (ICN)). Cada uma destas arquitecturas de rede visa providenciar melhores soluções relativamente a determinados requisitos de utilização da Internet e, portanto, uma Internet do Futuro heterogénea composta por diversas arquitecturas de rede torna-se uma possibilidade, onde cada uma delas é usada para optimizar diferentes casos de utilização. Para além disso, o aumento do número de dispositivos móveis, com especificações acrescidas e com suporte para diferentes tecnologias de conectividade, está a mudar os padrões do tráfego na Internet. Assim, esta tese foca-se no estudo de aspectos de interoperabilidade e mobilidade em arquitecturas de rede da Internet do Futuro, dois importantes requisitos que necessitam de ser satisfeitos para que a adopção destas arquitecturas de rede seja considerada. A primeira contribuição desta tese é uma solução de interoperabilidade que, uma vez que permite que recursos possam ser partilhados por diferentes arquitecturas de rede, evita que os recursos estejam restringidos a uma determinada arquitectura de rede e, ao mesmo tempo, promove a adopção de novas arquitecturas de rede. A segunda contribuição desta tese consiste no desenvolvimento de extensões para arquitecturas de rede baseadas em SDN ou ICN através dos mecanismos propostos na norma IEEE 802.21 com o objectivo de facilitar e optimizar os processos de mobilidade nessas arquitecturas de rede. Finalmente, a terceira contribuição desta tese é a definição de uma solução de mobilidade envolvendo diferentes arquitecturas de rede que permite a mobilidade de dispositivos móveis entre redes de acesso que suportam diferentes arquitecturas de rede sem que estes percam o acesso aos recursos que estão a ser acedidos. Todas as soluções propostas foram avaliadas com os resultados a demonstrar a viabilidade de cada uma das soluções e o impacto que têm na comunicação.Programa Doutoral em Informátic

Enterprise Cloud Security Guidance and Strategies for Enterprises

Hinnanguliselt 72% ettevõtetest kasutavad vähemalt ühte pilves olevat rakendust või on mingi osa nende IT infrastruktuurist pilves. Uurimistööd näitavad, et 56% tehnoloogia valdkonna otsustajatest uurivad erinevaid võimalusi pilvelahenduste kasutamiseks. Eel-toodu tõttu on oluline mõista erinevaid pilveteenuste kasutusvõimalusi, ärivajadusi ja investeeringuid. Antud magistritöö hindab paljusid kasutegureid, mida pilverakenduste ja pilvearvutuse kasutamine pakub äritegevusele. Pilvearvutus pakub paindliku, taskuko-hast ja end tõestanud platvormi ärilahenduste ja IT lahenduste loomiseks. Pilvearvutuse kasutamine pakub ettevõtetele harukordset võimalust muuta teenuse pakkumist tõhusa-maks, juhtimist sujuvamaks ning viia IT teenused vastavusse pidevalt muutuvate äriva-jadustega. Pilvearvutuse kasutamine pakub rohkem kui ühe võimaluse ärivaldkondade usaldusväärseks toeks ning ühtlasi tõstab võimekust luua uusi ja innovaatilisi teenuseid. Olemasoleva kirjanduse mittetäielik analüüs toob esile selle, et enne ettevõtetes pilvela-henduste ja pilvearvutuse kasutuselevõttu on väga oluline pöörata tähelepanu kaasneva-tele turvalisuse väljakutsetele. Antud magistritöös on detailselt käsitletud peamisi pil-vandmetöötluse valdkonna turvalisuse probleeme ning töö järeldusena pakutakse välja soovitusi pilve turvalisuse juurutamiseks.Today an estimated 72% of enterprises use at least one cloud application or a percentage of their I.T infrastructure in the cloud. Research shows that 56% of the decision makers in technology are investigating more ways of leveraging the cloud. This makes it impor-tant to understand the different usage plans in cloud service models, business drivers and investments. This thesis measures the myriad benefits of using cloud applications, and the effect of cloud computing on business performance. As will be seen in the the-sis, cloud computing offers a flexible, affordable as well as proven platform for the pro-vision of business and IT services via the internet. Cloud computing provides companies with the rare opportunity of strengthening their efficiencies in service delivery, mana-gement streamlining, and the aligning of IT services with the ever changing business needs. In more ways than one, cloud computing provides solid support for business functions, alongside increasing the capacity for the development of new as well as inno-vative services. A non-exhaustive review of the existing literature revels that the security challenges faced by enterprises during cloud adoption and interoperability have to be addressed before the implementation of cloud computing. In this thesis, we provide a detailed overview of the key security issues in the realm of cloud computing and con-clude with the recommendations on the implementation of cloud security