Impliance: A Next Generation Information Management Appliance

ably successful in building a large market and adapting to the changes of the last three decades, its impact on the broader market of information management is surprisingly limited. If we were to design an information management system from scratch, based upon today's requirements and hardware capabilities, would it look anything like today's database systems?" In this paper, we introduce Impliance, a next-generation information management system consisting of hardware and software components integrated to form an easy-to-administer appliance that can store, retrieve, and analyze all types of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured information. We first summarize the trends that will shape information management for the foreseeable future. Those trends imply three major requirements for Impliance: (1) to be able to store, manage, and uniformly query all data, not just structured records; (2) to be able to scale out as the volume of this data grows; and (3) to be simple and robust in operation. We then describe four key ideas that are uniquely combined in Impliance to address these requirements, namely the ideas of: (a) integrating software and off-the-shelf hardware into a generic information appliance; (b) automatically discovering, organizing, and managing all data - unstructured as well as structured - in a uniform way; (c) achieving scale-out by exploiting simple, massive parallel processing, and (d) virtualizing compute and storage resources to unify, simplify, and streamline the management of Impliance. Impliance is an ambitious, long-term effort to define simpler, more robust, and more scalable information systems for tomorrow's enterprises.Comment: This article is published under a Creative Commons License Agreement (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/.) You may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, make derivative works and make commercial use of the work, but, you must attribute the work to the author and CIDR 2007. 3rd Biennial Conference on Innovative Data Systems Research (CIDR) January 710, 2007, Asilomar, California, US

Wireless communication, identification and sensing technologies enabling integrated logistics: a study in the harbor environment

In the last decade, integrated logistics has become an important challenge in the development of wireless communication, identification and sensing technology, due to the growing complexity of logistics processes and the increasing demand for adapting systems to new requirements. The advancement of wireless technology provides a wide range of options for the maritime container terminals. Electronic devices employed in container terminals reduce the manual effort, facilitating timely information flow and enhancing control and quality of service and decision made. In this paper, we examine the technology that can be used to support integration in harbor's logistics. In the literature, most systems have been developed to address specific needs of particular harbors, but a systematic study is missing. The purpose is to provide an overview to the reader about which technology of integrated logistics can be implemented and what remains to be addressed in the future

Integrated ZigBee RFID sensor networks for resource tracking and monitoring in logistics management

The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which includes passive and active systems and is the hottest Auto-ID technology nowadays, and the wireless sensor network (WSN), which is one of the focusing topics on monitoring and control, are two fast-growing technologies that have shown great potential in future logistics management applications. However, an information system for logistics applications is always expected to answer four questions: Who, What, When and Where (4Ws), and neither of the two technologies is able to provide complete information for all of them. WSN aims to provide environment monitoring and control regarded as When and What , while RFID focuses on automatic identification of various objects and provides Who (ID). Most people usually think RFID can provide Where at all the time. But what normal passive RFID does is to tell us where an object was the last time it went through a reader, and normal active RFID only tells whether an object is presenting on site. This could sometimes be insufficient for certain applications that require more accurate location awareness, for which a system with real-time localization (RTLS), which is an extended concept of RFID, will be necessary to answer Where constantly. As WSN and various RFID technologies provide information for different but complementary parts of the 4Ws, a hybrid system that gives a complete answer by combining all of them could be promising in future logistics management applications. Unfortunately, in the last decade those technologies have been emerging and developing independently, with little research been done in how they could be integrated. This thesis aims to develop a framework for the network level architecture design of such hybrid system for on-site resource management applications in logistics centres. The various architectures proposed in this thesis are designed to address different levels of requirements in the hierarchy of needs, from single integration to hybrid system with real-time localization. The contribution of this thesis consists of six parts. Firstly, two new concepts, Reader as a sensor and Tag as a sensor , which lead to RAS and TAS architectures respectively, for single integrations of RFID and WSN in various scenarios with existing systems; Secondly, a integrated ZigBee RFID Sensor Network Architecture for hybrid integration; Thirdly, a connectionless inventory tracking architecture (CITA) and its battery consumption model adding location awareness for inventory tracking in Hybrid ZigBee RFID Sensor Networks; Fourthly, a connectionless stochastic reference beacon architecture (COSBA) adding location awareness for high mobility target tracking in Hybrid ZigBee RFID Sensor Networks; Fifthly, improving connectionless stochastic beacon transmission performance with two proposed beacon transmission models, the Fully Stochastic Reference Beacon (FSRB) model and the Time Slot Based Stochastic Reference Beacon (TSSRB) model; Sixthly, case study of the proposed frameworks in Humanitarian Logistics Centres (HLCs). The research in this thesis is based on ZigBee/IEEE802.15.4, which is currently the most widely used WSN technology. The proposed architectures are demonstrated through hardware implementation and lab tests, as well as mathematic derivation and Matlab simulations for their corresponding performance models. All the tests and simulations of my designs have verified feasibility and features of our designs compared with the traditional systems

Internet Predictions

More than a dozen leading experts give their opinions on where the Internet is headed and where it will be in the next decade in terms of technology, policy, and applications. They cover topics ranging from the Internet of Things to climate change to the digital storage of the future. A summary of the articles is available in the Web extras section

Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

Feasibility analysis of using microcircuit technology in logistics applications/radio frequency (MITLA/RF) to support equipment maintenance management

This thesis presents the background, criteria, and baseline recommendations for a Microcircuit Technology in Logistics Application/Radio Frequency (MITLA/RF) proposal to support developing maintenance management doctrine. Its main thrust is a preliminary feasibility analysis of MITLA/RF to identify key issues with regard to maintenance operations within emerging Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS) concepts. This thesis surveys current requirements, information systems initiatives, test/evaluation results, implementation issues, and technology tradeoffs. It offers alternatives to reliance on manual record keeping and frameworks for enhancing horizontal/ vertical information flows, explores several near real-time interactive decision making tools, and suggests doctrinal improvements through a fusion of procedural and high-tech approaches. This study is an outline for melding policy change with the state-of-the-art technology required to successfully support emerging Combat Service Support (CSS) operations.http://archive.org/details/feasibilitynalys1094539655Major, United States Marine CorpsCaptain, United States Marine Corps.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

SElf-orgaNizing Structures for mAnagemenT In stock Oriented Networks

This paper introduces SENSATION, a novel self-organizing stock management structure. SENSATION is based on a double DHT mechanism and is inspired from existing works such as SOLIST and Tribe. It proposes an efficient unique structure which can be used for different purposes such as data replication, distributed storing and request managements in stock management. These features help in the scalability and reliability of new storing warehouse management which tends to increase in scale and to be more and more interconnected. Results show that SENSATION provides interesting and promising results in terms of reliability and scalability

HP Brazil: Journey Towards Industrial Internet of Things Within Industry 4.0 Context

This paper features a case study of Hewlett Packard Brazil’s deployment of radio frequency identification-enabled Exceler8 platform to support its product assembly using Flextronics in Sorocaba, Sao Paulo and distribution by DHL. The study also identifies the stage HP Brazil belongs to in its journey to being a full smart factory using the framework of Odwazny et al. (2018). The case study and content analysis methods are used in analyzing the concepts prescribed by the Industry 4.0, smart factory, and Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) frameworks to HP Brazil’s RFID system. The Odwazny et al. (2018) framework identifies HP Brazil as being in the maturity stage, with selected attributes of the “smart factory” stage since its Exceler8 platform supports vertical integration in its assembly, distribution, and recycling sites. Hopefully, empirical work will be pursued with vigor in the future to gain an understanding of the actual conditions that support the successful deployment of both Industry 4.0 and IIOT initiatives. Firms interested in applying Industry 4.0 and IIOT concepts within their production environments would be guided by this study. Applying the German Industry 4.0 model, their Industry 4.0 initiative would seek to (1) enable collaboration between humans and machines; (2) produce customized products in small batches; (3) optimize high automation; and (4) deploy devices in flexible and eco-friendly production processes to meet customization requirements