Context-aware collaborative storage and programming for mobile users

Since people generate and access most digital content from mobile devices, novel innovative mobile apps and services are possible. Most people are interested in sharing this content with communities defined by friendship, similar interests, or geography in exchange for valuable services from these innovative apps. At the same time, they want to own and control their content. Collaborative mobile computing is an ideal choice for this situation. However, due to the distributed nature of this computing environment and the limited resources on mobile devices, maintaining content availability and storage fairness as well as providing efficient programming frameworks are challenging. This dissertation explores several techniques to improve these shortcomings of collaborative mobile computing platforms. First, it proposes a medley of three techniques into one system, MobiStore, that offers content availability in mobile peer-to-peer networks: topology maintenance with robust connectivity, structural reorientation based on the current state of the network, and gossip-based hierarchical updates. Experimental results showed that MobiStore outperforms a state-of-the-art comparison system in terms of content availability and resource usage fairness. Next, the dissertation explores the usage of social relationship properties (i.e., network centrality) to improve the fairness of resource allocation for collaborative computing in peer-to-peer online social networks. The challenge is how to provide fairness in content replication for P2P-OSN, given that the peers in these networks exchange information only with one-hop neighbors. The proposed solution provides fairness by selecting the peers to replicate content based on their potential to introduce the storage skewness, which is determined from their structural properties in the network. The proposed solution, Philia, achieves higher content availability and storage fairness than several comparison systems. The dissertation concludes with a high-level distributed programming model, which efficiently uses computing resources on a cloud-assisted, collaborative mobile computing platform. This platform pairs mobile devices with virtual machines (VMs) in the cloud for increased execution performance and availability. On such a platform, two important challenges arise: first, pairing the two computing entities into a seamless computation, communication, and storage unit; and second, using the computing resources in a cost-effective way. This dissertation proposes Moitree, a distributed programming model and middleware that translates high-level programming constructs into events and provides the illusion of a single computing entity over the mobile-VM pairs. From programmers’ viewpoint, the Moitree API models user collaborations into dynamic groups formed over location, time, or social hierarchies. Experimental results from a prototype implementation show that Moitree is scalable, suitable for real-time apps, and can improve the performance of collaborating apps regarding latency and energy consumption

Information Outlook, December 2006

Volume 10, Issue 12https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2006/1011/thumbnail.jp

Effective task assignment strategies for distributed systems under highly variable workloads

Heavy-tailed workload distributions are commonly experienced in many areas of distributed computing. Such workloads are highly variable, where a small number of very large tasks make up a large proportion of the workload, making the load very hard to distribute effectively. Traditional task assignment policies are ineffective under these conditions as they were formulated based on the assumption of an exponentially distributed workload. Size-based task assignment policies have been proposed to handle heavy-tailed workloads, but their applications are limited by their static nature and assumption of prior knowledge of a task's service requirement. This thesis analyses existing approaches to load distribution under heavy-tailed workloads, and presents a new generalised task assignment policy that significantly improves performance for many distributed applications, by intelligently addressing the negative effects on performance that highly variable workloads cause. Many problems associated with the modelling and optimisations of systems under highly variable workloads were then addressed by a novel technique that approximated these workloads with simpler mathematical representations, without losing any of their pertinent original properties. Finally, we obtain advance queuing metrics (such as the variance of key measurements like waiting time and slowdown that are difficult to obtain analytically) through rigorous simulation

CLARIN

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure – CLARIN – for the humanities. It covers a broad range of CLARIN language resources and services, its underlying technological infrastructure, the achievements of national consortia, and challenges that CLARIN will tackle in the future. The book is published 10 years after establishing CLARIN as an Europ. Research Infrastructure Consortium

CLARIN. The infrastructure for language resources

CLARIN, the "Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure", has established itself as a major player in the field of research infrastructures for the humanities. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the organization, its members, its goals and its functioning, as well as of the tools and resources hosted by the infrastructure. The many contributors representing various fields, from computer science to law to psychology, analyse a wide range of topics, such as the technology behind the CLARIN infrastructure, the use of CLARIN resources in diverse research projects, the achievements of selected national CLARIN consortia, and the challenges that CLARIN has faced and will face in the future. The book will be published in 2022, 10 years after the establishment of CLARIN as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium by the European Commission (Decision 2012/136/EU)

Data ethics : building trust : how digital technologies can serve humanity

Data is the magic word of the 21st century. As oil in the 20th century and electricity in the 19th century: For citizens, data means support in daily life in almost all activities, from watch to laptop, from kitchen to car, from mobile phone to politics. For business and politics, data means power, dominance, winning the race. Data can be used for good and bad, for services and hacking, for medicine and arms race. How can we build trust in this complex and ambiguous data world? How can digital technologies serve humanity? The 45 articles in this book represent a broad range of ethical reflections and recommendations in eight sections: a) Values, Trust and Law, b) AI, Robots and Humans, c) Health and Neuroscience, d) Religions for Digital Justice, e) Farming, Business, Finance, f) Security, War, Peace, g) Data Governance, Geopolitics, h) Media, Education, Communication. The authors and institutions come from all continents. The book serves as reading material for teachers, students, policy makers, politicians, business, hospitals, NGOs and religious organisations alike. It is an invitation for dialogue, debate and building trust! The book is a continuation of the volume “Cyber Ethics 4.0” published in 2018 by the same editors

CLARIN

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure – CLARIN – for the humanities. It covers a broad range of CLARIN language resources and services, its underlying technological infrastructure, the achievements of national consortia, and challenges that CLARIN will tackle in the future. The book is published 10 years after establishing CLARIN as an Europ. Research Infrastructure Consortium

On target: a history of the 863d AAA-AW-BN in the Second World War

From the Foreword: The writing of this book began shortly before V~E day. Together with what had been scribbled in the unit history journal and more carefully entered in the more ostentatious records, refreshing notes and photographs submitted by battery representatives were used in the telling and illustrating of this integrated story of the 863d AAA A W Bn. In this presentation, it was impossible to obtain and relate personal anecdotes involving each man in the battalion. Whether or not you are mentioned specifically, it is our hope that you see yourself described, albeit anonymously, in the experiences and sentiments and moods common to all in this memorable adventure of the 863d. We have tried to gather and utilize all suitable information brought to our attention to give a full, cohesive, readable story of the battalion and all its officers and men, its campaigns, its missions, its organizational experiences, its troublous days and gayer times- in a word, its life as a military organization from date of activation on 1 June 1943 at Fort Totten, Long Island to V-J Day, 14 August 1945, in and around Bad Soden, Germany. Sgt. Benjamin Gise, Editor-in-Chiefhttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1111/thumbnail.jp