3,332 research outputs found
Adaptive Dispatching of Tasks in the Cloud
The increasingly wide application of Cloud Computing enables the
consolidation of tens of thousands of applications in shared infrastructures.
Thus, meeting the quality of service requirements of so many diverse
applications in such shared resource environments has become a real challenge,
especially since the characteristics and workload of applications differ widely
and may change over time. This paper presents an experimental system that can
exploit a variety of online quality of service aware adaptive task allocation
schemes, and three such schemes are designed and compared. These are a
measurement driven algorithm that uses reinforcement learning, secondly a
"sensible" allocation algorithm that assigns jobs to sub-systems that are
observed to provide a lower response time, and then an algorithm that splits
the job arrival stream into sub-streams at rates computed from the hosts'
processing capabilities. All of these schemes are compared via measurements
among themselves and with a simple round-robin scheduler, on two experimental
test-beds with homogeneous and heterogeneous hosts having different processing
capacities.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure
On the use of biased-randomized algorithms for solving non-smooth optimization problems
Soft constraints are quite common in real-life applications. For example, in freight transportation, the fleet size can be enlarged by outsourcing part of the distribution service and some deliveries to customers can be postponed as well; in inventory management, it is possible to consider stock-outs generated by unexpected demands; and in manufacturing processes and project management, it is frequent that some deadlines cannot be met due to delays in critical steps of the supply chain. However, capacity-, size-, and time-related limitations are included in many optimization problems as hard constraints, while it would be usually more realistic to consider them as soft ones, i.e., they can be violated to some extent by incurring a penalty cost. Most of the times, this penalty cost will be nonlinear and even noncontinuous, which might transform the objective function into a non-smooth one. Despite its many practical applications, non-smooth optimization problems are quite challenging, especially when the underlying optimization problem is NP-hard in nature. In this paper, we propose the use of biased-randomized algorithms as an effective methodology to cope with NP-hard and non-smooth optimization problems in many practical applications. Biased-randomized algorithms extend constructive heuristics by introducing a nonuniform randomization pattern into them. Hence, they can be used to explore promising areas of the solution space without the limitations of gradient-based approaches, which assume the existence of smooth objective functions. Moreover, biased-randomized algorithms can be easily parallelized, thus employing short computing times while exploring a large number of promising regions. This paper discusses these concepts in detail, reviews existing work in different application areas, and highlights current trends and open research lines
Lifeguard: Local Health Awareness for More Accurate Failure Detection
SWIM is a peer-to-peer group membership protocol with attractive scaling and
robustness properties. However, slow message processing can cause SWIM to mark
healthy members as failed (so called false positive failure detection), despite
inclusion of a mechanism to avoid this.
We identify the properties of SWIM that lead to the problem, and propose
Lifeguard, a set of extensions to SWIM which consider that the local failure
detector module may be at fault, via the concept of local health. We evaluate
this approach in a precisely controlled environment and validate it in a
real-world scenario, showing that it drastically reduces the rate of false
positives. The false positive rate and detection time for true failures can be
reduced simultaneously, compared to the baseline levels of SWIM
Routing Diverse Evacuees with Cognitive Packets
This paper explores the idea of smart building evacuation when evacuees can
belong to different categories with respect to their ability to move and their
health conditions. This leads to new algorithms that use the Cognitive Packet
Network concept to tailor different quality of service needs to different
evacuees. These ideas are implemented in a simulated environment and evaluated
with regard to their effectiveness.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
Exploratory study to explore the role of ICT in the process of knowledge management in an Indian business environment
In the 21st century and the emergence of a digital economy, knowledge and the knowledge base economy are rapidly growing. To effectively be able to understand the processes involved in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge management in the business environment is critical to the success of an organization. This study builds on the previous research of the authors on the enablers of knowledge management by identifying the relationship between the enablers of knowledge management and the role played by information communication technologies (ICT) and ICT infrastructure in a business setting. This paper provides the findings of a survey collected from the four major Indian cities (Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Villupuram) regarding their views and opinions about the enablers of knowledge management in business setting. A total of 80 organizations participated in the study with 100 participants in each city. The results show that ICT and ICT infrastructure can play a critical role in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge in an Indian business environment
Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks
In this chapter, we present a literature survey of an emerging, cutting-edge,
and multi-disciplinary field of research at the intersection of Robotics and
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which we refer to as Robotic Wireless Sensor
Networks (RWSN). We define a RWSN as an autonomous networked multi-robot system
that aims to achieve certain sensing goals while meeting and maintaining
certain communication performance requirements, through cooperative control,
learning and adaptation. While both of the component areas, i.e., Robotics and
WSN, are very well-known and well-explored, there exist a whole set of new
opportunities and research directions at the intersection of these two fields
which are relatively or even completely unexplored. One such example would be
the use of a set of robotic routers to set up a temporary communication path
between a sender and a receiver that uses the controlled mobility to the
advantage of packet routing. We find that there exist only a limited number of
articles to be directly categorized as RWSN related works whereas there exist a
range of articles in the robotics and the WSN literature that are also relevant
to this new field of research. To connect the dots, we first identify the core
problems and research trends related to RWSN such as connectivity,
localization, routing, and robust flow of information. Next, we classify the
existing research on RWSN as well as the relevant state-of-the-arts from
robotics and WSN community according to the problems and trends identified in
the first step. Lastly, we analyze what is missing in the existing literature,
and identify topics that require more research attention in the future
A Novel Solution to the Dynamic Routing and Wavelength Assignment Problem in Transparent Optical Networks
We present an evolutionary programming algorithm for solving the dynamic
routing and wavelength assignment (DRWA) problem in optical wavelength-division
multiplexing (WDM) networks under wavelength continuity constraint. We assume
an ideal physical channel and therefore neglect the blocking of connection
requests due to the physical impairments. The problem formulation includes
suitable constraints that enable the algorithm to balance the load among the
individuals and thus results in a lower blocking probability and lower mean
execution time than the existing bio-inspired algorithms available in the
literature for the DRWA problems. Three types of wavelength assignment
techniques, such as First fit, Random, and Round Robin wavelength assignment
techniques have been investigated here. The ability to guarantee both low
blocking probability without any wavelength converters and small delay makes
the improved algorithm very attractive for current optical switching networks.Comment: 12 Pages, IJCNC Journal 201
Markov Decision Processes with Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of autonomous and resource-limited
devices. The devices cooperate to monitor one or more physical phenomena within
an area of interest. WSNs operate as stochastic systems because of randomness
in the monitored environments. For long service time and low maintenance cost,
WSNs require adaptive and robust methods to address data exchange, topology
formulation, resource and power optimization, sensing coverage and object
detection, and security challenges. In these problems, sensor nodes are to make
optimized decisions from a set of accessible strategies to achieve design
goals. This survey reviews numerous applications of the Markov decision process
(MDP) framework, a powerful decision-making tool to develop adaptive algorithms
and protocols for WSNs. Furthermore, various solution methods are discussed and
compared to serve as a guide for using MDPs in WSNs
- âŠ