Energy-efficient Communications in Cloud, Mobile Cloud and Fog Computing

This thesis studies the problem of energy efficiency of communications in distributed computing paradigms, including cloud computing, mobile cloud computing and fog/edge computing. Distributed computing paradigms have significantly changed the way of doing business. With cloud computing, companies and end users can access the vast majority services online through a virtualized environment in a pay-as-you-go basis. %Three are the main services typically consumed by cloud users are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). Mobile cloud and fog/edge computing are the natural extension of the cloud computing paradigm for mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Based on offloading, the process of outsourcing computing tasks from mobile devices to the cloud, mobile cloud and fog/edge computing paradigms have become popular techniques to augment the capabilities of the mobile devices and to reduce their battery drain. Being equipped with a number of sensors, the proliferation of mobile and IoT devices has given rise to a new cloud-based paradigm for collecting data, which is called mobile crowdsensing as for proper operation it requires a large number of participants. A plethora of communication technologies is applicable to distributing computing paradigms. For example, cloud data centers typically implement wired technologies while mobile cloud and fog/edge environments exploit wireless technologies such as 3G/4G, WiFi and Bluetooth. Communication technologies directly impact the performance and the energy drain of the system. This Ph.D. thesis analyzes from a global perspective the efficiency in using energy of communications systems in distributed computing paradigms. In particular, the following contributions are proposed: - A new framework of performance metrics for communication systems of cloud computing data centers. The proposed framework allows a fine-grain analysis and comparison of communication systems, processes, and protocols, defining their influence on the performance of cloud applications. - A novel model for the problem of computation offloading, which describes the workflow of mobile applications through a new Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) technique. This methodology is suitable for IoT devices working in fog computing environments and was used to design an Android application, called TreeGlass, which performs recognition of trees using Google Glass. TreeGlass is evaluated experimentally in different offloading scenarios by measuring battery drain and time of execution as key performance indicators. - In mobile crowdsensing systems, novel performance metrics and a new framework for data acquisition, which exploits a new policy for user recruitment. Performance of the framework are validated through CrowdSenSim, which is a new simulator designed for mobile crowdsensing activities in large scale urban scenarios

Mapping and Semantic Perception for Service Robotics

Para realizar una tarea, los robots deben ser capaces de ubicarse en el entorno. Si un robot no sabe dónde se encuentra, es imposible que sea capaz de desplazarse para alcanzar el objetivo de su tarea. La localización y construcción de mapas simultánea, llamado SLAM, es un problema estudiado en la literatura que ofrece una solución a este problema. El objetivo de esta tesis es desarrollar técnicas que permitan a un robot comprender el entorno mediante la incorporación de información semántica. Esta información también proporcionará una mejora en la localización y navegación de las plataformas robóticas. Además, también demostramos cómo un robot con capacidades limitadas puede construir de forma fiable y eficiente los mapas semánticos necesarios para realizar sus tareas cotidianas.El sistema de construcción de mapas presentado tiene las siguientes características: En el lado de la construcción de mapas proponemos la externalización de cálculos costosos a un servidor en nube. Además, proponemos métodos para registrar información semántica relevante con respecto a los mapas geométricos estimados. En cuanto a la reutilización de los mapas construidos, proponemos un método que combina la construcción de mapas con la navegación de un robot para explorar mejor un entorno y disponer de un mapa semántico con los objetos relevantes para una misión determinada.En primer lugar, desarrollamos un algoritmo semántico de SLAM visual que se fusiona los puntos estimados en el mapa, carentes de sentido, con objetos conocidos. Utilizamos un sistema monocular de SLAM basado en un EKF (Filtro Extendido de Kalman) centrado principalmente en la construcción de mapas geométricos compuestos únicamente por puntos o bordes; pero sin ningún significado o contenido semántico asociado. El mapa no anotado se construye utilizando sólo la información extraída de una secuencia de imágenes monoculares. La parte semántica o anotada del mapa -los objetos- se estiman utilizando la información de la secuencia de imágenes y los modelos de objetos precalculados. Como segundo paso, mejoramos el método de SLAM presentado anteriormente mediante el diseño y la implementación de un método distribuido. La optimización de mapas y el almacenamiento se realiza como un servicio en la nube, mientras que el cliente con poca necesidad de computo, se ejecuta en un equipo local ubicado en el robot y realiza el cálculo de la trayectoria de la cámara. Los ordenadores con los que está equipado el robot se liberan de la mayor parte de los cálculos y el único requisito adicional es una conexión a Internet.El siguiente paso es explotar la información semántica que somos capaces de generar para ver cómo mejorar la navegación de un robot. La contribución en esta tesis se centra en la detección 3D y en el diseño e implementación de un sistema de construcción de mapas semántico.A continuación, diseñamos e implementamos un sistema de SLAM visual capaz de funcionar con robustez en entornos poblados debido a que los robots de servicio trabajan en espacios compartidos con personas. El sistema presentado es capaz de enmascarar las zonas de imagen ocupadas por las personas, lo que aumenta la robustez, la reubicación, la precisión y la reutilización del mapa geométrico. Además, calcula la trayectoria completa de cada persona detectada con respecto al mapa global de la escena, independientemente de la ubicación de la cámara cuando la persona fue detectada.Por último, centramos nuestra investigación en aplicaciones de rescate y seguridad. Desplegamos un equipo de robots en entornos que plantean múltiples retos que implican la planificación de tareas, la planificación del movimiento, la localización y construcción de mapas, la navegación segura, la coordinación y las comunicaciones entre todos los robots. La arquitectura propuesta integra todas las funcionalidades mencionadas, asi como varios aspectos de investigación novedosos para lograr una exploración real, como son: localización basada en características semánticas-topológicas, planificación de despliegue en términos de las características semánticas aprendidas y reconocidas, y construcción de mapas.In order to perform a task, robots need to be able to locate themselves in the environment. If a robot does not know where it is, it is impossible for it to move, reach its goal and complete the task. Simultaneous Localization and Mapping, known as SLAM, is a problem extensively studied in the literature for enabling robots to locate themselves in unknown environments. The goal of this thesis is to develop and describe techniques to allow a service robot to understand the environment by incorporating semantic information. This information will also provide an improvement in the localization and navigation of robotic platforms. In addition, we also demonstrate how a simple robot can reliably and efficiently build the semantic maps needed to perform its quotidian tasks. The mapping system as built has the following features. On the map building side we propose the externalization of expensive computations to a cloud server. Additionally, we propose methods to register relevant semantic information with respect to the estimated geometrical maps. Regarding the reuse of the maps built, we propose a method that combines map building with robot navigation to better explore a room in order to obtain a semantic map with the relevant objects for a given mission. Firstly, we develop a semantic Visual SLAM algorithm that merges traditional with known objects in the estimated map. We use a monocular EKF (Extended Kalman Filter) SLAM system that has mainly been focused on producing geometric maps composed simply of points or edges but without any associated meaning or semantic content. The non-annotated map is built using only the information extracted from an image sequence. The semantic or annotated parts of the map –the objects– are estimated using the information in the image sequence and the precomputed object models. As a second step we improve the EKF SLAM presented previously by designing and implementing a visual SLAM system based on a distributed framework. The expensive map optimization and storage is allocated as a service in the Cloud, while a light camera tracking client runs on a local computer. The robot’s onboard computers are freed from most of the computation, the only extra requirement being an internet connection. The next step is to exploit the semantic information that we are able to generate to see how to improve the navigation of a robot. The contribution of this thesis is focused on 3D sensing which we use to design and implement a semantic mapping system. We then design and implement a visual SLAM system able to perform robustly in populated environments due to service robots work in environments where people are present. The system is able to mask the image regions occupied by people out of the rigid SLAM pipeline, which boosts the robustness, the relocation, the accuracy and the reusability of the geometrical map. In addition, it estimates the full trajectory of each detected person with respect to the scene global map, irrespective of the location of the moving camera at the point when the people were imaged. Finally, we focus our research on rescue and security applications. The deployment of a multirobot team in confined environments poses multiple challenges that involve task planning, motion planning, localization and mapping, safe navigation, coordination and communications among all the robots. The architecture integrates, jointly with all the above-mentioned functionalities, several novel features to achieve real exploration: localization based on semantic-topological features, deployment planning in terms of the semantic features learned and recognized, and map building.<br /

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Co-constructing a new framework for evaluating social innovation in marginalized rural areas

The EU funded H2020 project \u2018Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas\u2019 (SIMRA; www.simra-h2020.eu) has the overall objective of advancing the state-of-the-art in social innovation. This paper outlines the process for co- developing an evaluation framework with stakeholders, drawn from across Europe and the Mediterranean area, in the fields of agriculture, forestry and rural development. Preliminary results show the importance of integrating process and outcome-oriented evaluations, and implementing participatory approaches in evaluation practice. They also raise critical issues related to the comparability of primary data in diverse regional contexts and highlight the need for mixed methods approaches in evaluation

Systems for Managing Work-Related Transitions

Peoples' work lives have become ever-populated with transitions across tasks, devices, and environments. Despite their ubiquitous nature, managing transitions across these three domains has remained a significant challenge. Current systems and interfaces for managing transitions have explored approaches that allow users to track work-related information or automatically capture or infer context, but do little to support user autonomy at its fullest. In this dissertation, we present three studies that support the goal of designing and understanding systems for managing work-related transitions. Our inquiry is motivated by the notion that people lack the ability to continue or discontinue their work at the level they wish to do so. We scope our research to information work settings, and we use our three studies to generate novel insights about how empowering peoples' ability to engage with their work can mitigate the challenges of managing work-related transitions. We first introduce and study Mercury, a system that mitigates programmers' challenges in transitioning across devices and environments by enabling their ability to continue work on-the-go. Mercury orchestrates programmers' work practices by providing them with a series of auto-generated microtasks on their mobile device based on the current state of their source code. Tasks in Mercury are designed so that they can be completed quickly without the need for additional context, making them suitable to address during brief moments of downtime. When users complete microtasks on-the-go, Mercury calculates file changes and integrates them into the user's codebase to support task resumption. We then introduce SwitchBot, a conversational system that mitigates the challenges in discontinuing work during the transition between home and the workplace. SwitchBot's design philosophy is centered on assisting information workers in detaching from and reattaching with their work through brief conversations before the start and end of the workday. By design, SwitchBot's detachment and reattachment dialogues inquire about users' task-related goals or user's emotion-related goals. We evaluated SwitchBot with an emphasis on understanding how the system and its two dialogues uniquely affected information workers' ability to detach from and later reattach with their work. Following our study of Mercury and SwitchBot, we present findings from an interview study with crowdworkers aimed at understanding the work-related transitions they experience in their work practice from the perspective of tools. We characterize the tooling observed in crowdworkers' work practices and identified three types of "fragmentation" that are motivated by tooling in the practice. Our study highlights several distinctions between traditional and contemporary information work settings and lays a foundation for future systems that aid next-generation information workers in managing work-related transitions. We conclude by outlining this dissertation's contributions and future research directions

Strategic Latency Unleashed: The Role of Technology in a Revisionist Global Order and the Implications for Special Operations Forces

The article of record may be found at https://cgsr.llnl.govThis work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in part under Contract W-7405-Eng-48 and in part under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. The views and opinions of the author expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States government or Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. ISBN-978-1-952565-07-6 LCCN-2021901137 LLNL-BOOK-818513 TID-59693This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in part under Contract W-7405-Eng-48 and in part under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. The views and opinions of the author expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States government or Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. ISBN-978-1-952565-07-6 LCCN-2021901137 LLNL-BOOK-818513 TID-5969

Business process modelling in ERP implementation literature review

Business processes are the backbone of any Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation. Business process modelling (BPM) has become essential for modern, process driven enterprises due to the vibrant business environments. As a consequence enterprises are dealing with a substantial rate of organizational and business processes change. Business process modelling enables a common understanding and analysis of the business processes, which is the first step in every ERP implementation methodology (blueprint phase). In order to represent enterprise processes models in an accurate manner, it is paramount to choose a right business process modeling technique and tool. The problem of many ERP projects rated as unsuccessful is directly connected to a lack of use of business process models and notations during the blueprint phase. Also, blueprint implementation phase is crucial in order to fit planned processes in an organization with processes implemented in the solution. However, business analysts and ERP implementation professionals have substantial difficulties to navigate through a large number of theoretical models and representational notations that have been proposed for business process modeling (BPM). As the availability of different business process modeling references is huge, it is time consuming to make review and classification of all modeling techniques. Therefor, in reality majority of ERP implementations blueprint documents have no business process modeling included in generating blueprint documents. Choosing the right model comprise the purpose of the analysis and acquaintance of the available process modelling techniques and tools. The number of references on business modelling is quit large, so it is very hard to make a decision which modeling notation or technique to use. The main purpose of this paper is to make a review of business process modelling literature and describe the key process modelling techniques. The focus will be on all business process modeling that could be used in ERP implementations, specifically during the blueprint phase of the implementation process. Detailed review of BPM (Business process modeling) theoretical models and representational notations, should assist decision makers and ERP integrators in comparatively evaluating and selecting suitable modeling approaches

A conceptual framework for capability sourcing modeling

Companies need to acquire the right capabilities from the right source, and the right shore, at the right cost to improve their competitive position. Capability sourcing is an organizing process to gain access to best-in-class capabilities for all activities in a firm's value chain to ensure long-term competitive advantage. Capability sourcing modeling is a technique that helps investigating sourcing alternative solutions to facilitate strategic sourcing decision making. Our position is applying conceptual models as intermediate artifacts which are schematic descriptions of sourcing alternatives based on organization's capabilities. The contribution of this paper is introducing a conceptual framework in the form of five views (to organize all perspectives) and a conceptualisation (to formulate a language) for capability sourcing modelling

The creation of business architecture heat maps to support strategy-aligned organizational decisions

The realization of strategic alignment within the business architecture has become increasingly important for companies. Indeed, it facilitates business-IT alignment as a well-designed business architecture helps both to identify the appropriate requirements for IT systems and to discover new business opportunities that can be realized by IT. However, there is a lack of alignment techniques that support organizational (re) design decisions during the operation phase as the actual performance of business architecture elements is neglected. Capability heat maps provide a useful starting point in this respect as they focus on the creation of a hierarchy of prioritized capabilities, which are characterized by a performance measure. In this paper, these techniques will be extended to support strategy-aligned decisions within the business architecture. The identification of the relevant business architecture elements is based on state-of-the-art enterprise modelling languages, which enable the development of enterprise models on distinct layers of the business architecture. Strategic alignment between these elements will be realized by using prioritization according to the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), while performance measurement will enable the creation of a proper decision support system. Afterwards, the proposed heat map will be applied on a case example to illustrate its potential use. This results in the completion of a first build-and-evaluate loop within the Design Science methodology