Social-aware Opportunistic Routing Protocol based on User's Interactions and Interests

Nowadays, routing proposals must deal with a panoply of heterogeneous devices, intermittent connectivity, and the users' constant need for communication, even in rather challenging networking scenarios. Thus, we propose a Social-aware Content-based Opportunistic Routing Protocol, SCORP, that considers the users' social interaction and their interests to improve data delivery in urban, dense scenarios. Through simulations, using synthetic mobility and human traces scenarios, we compare the performance of our solution against other two social-aware solutions, dLife and Bubble Rap, and the social-oblivious Spray and Wait, in order to show that the combination of social awareness and content knowledge can be beneficial when disseminating data in challenging networks

Mobile Social Networking aided content dissemination in heterogeneous networks

Since more and more mobile applications are based on the proliferation of social information, the study of Mobile Social Net-works (MSNs) combines social sciences and wireless communications. Operating wireless networks more efficiently by exploiting social relationships between MSN users is an appealing but challenging option for network operators. An MSN-aided content dissemination technique is presented as a potential ex-tension of conventional cellular wireless net-works in order to satisfy growing data traffic. By allowing the MSN users to create a self-organized ad hoc network for spontaneously disseminating contents, the network operator may be able to reduce the operational costs and simultaneously achieve an improved network performance. In this paper, we first summarize the basic features of the MSN architecture, followed by a survey of the factors which may affect MSN-aided content dissemination. Using a case study, we demonstrate that one can save resources of the Base Station (BS) while substantially lowering content dissemination delay. Finally, other potential applications of MSN-aided content dissemination are introduced, and a range of future challenges are summarized

Encaminhamento oportunista baseado em aspectos sociais

Doutoramento conjunto MAP-Tele, Engenharia Eletrotécnica TelecomunicaçõeThe increased capabilities (e.g., processing, storage) of portable devices along with the constant need of users to retrieve and send information have introduced a new form of communication. Users can seamlessly exchange data by means of opportunistic contacts among them and this is what characterizes the opportunistic networks (OppNets). OppNets allow users to communicate even when an end-to-end path may not exist between them. Since 2007, there has been a trend to improve the exchange of data by considering social similarity metrics. Social relationships, shared interests, and popularity are examples of such metrics that have been employed successfully: as users interact based on relationships and interests, this information can be used to decide on the best next forwarders of information. This Thesis work combines the features of today's devices found in the regular urban environment with the current social-awareness trend in the context of opportunistic routing. To achieve this goal, this work was divided into di erent tasks that map to a set of speci c objectives, leading to the following contributions: i) an up-to-date opportunistic routing taxonomy; ii) a universal evaluation framework that aids in devising and testing new routing proposals; iii) three social-aware utility functions that consider the dynamic user behavior and can be easily incorporated to other routing proposals; iv) two opportunistic routing proposals based on the users' daily routines and on the content traversing the network and interest of users in such content; and v) a structure analysis of the social-based network formed based on the approaches devised in this work.A maior capacidade (e.g., processamento, armazenamento) dos dispositivos portáteis, juntamente com a necessidade constante dos utilizadores de poder obter e enviar informação, introduz uma nova forma de comunicação. Os utilizadores podem trocar dados de uma forma transparente através de contatos oportunistas entre eles, o que caracteriza as Redes Oportunistas. Este tipo de rede permite a comunicação entre utilizadores mesmo quando não existe um caminho m-a- m entre eles. Uma tendência observada nos últimos anos do encaminhamento oportunista refere-se a levar em conta métricas de similaridade social para melhorar a troca de informação. Os relacionamentos sociais, interesses em comum e popularidade são exemplos deste tipo de métrica que tem sido empregue com sucesso no âmbito do encaminhamento oportunista: como os utilizadores interagem com base nos seus relacionamentos e interesses, esta informação pode ser utilizada para decidir sobre quando encaminhar dados. Esta Tese combina as características dos dispositivos pessoais e que são facilmente encontrados no ambiente urbano com a tendência para uso de similaridade social no contexto de encaminhamento oportunista. Para alcancar este objetivo principal, este trabalho foi dividido em diferentes tarefas mapeadas em objetivos especí cos, o que resulta nas seguintes contribuições: i) uma taxonomia atualizada sobre encaminhamento oportunista; ii) um modelo de avaliação universal de encaminhamento oportunista que permite a implementação e teste de novas propostas; iii) três funções sociais que consideram o comportamento dinâmico dos utilizadores e podem ser facilmente utilizadas em outras propostas de encaminhamento; iv) duas propostas de encaminhamento oportunista baseadas nas rotinas diárias dos utilizadores e no conteúdo e interesse dos utilizadores neste conteúdo; e v) uma análise estrutural da rede social formada a partir das abordagens desenvolvidas neste trabalho

From MANET to people-centric networking: Milestones and open research challenges

In this paper, we discuss the state of the art of (mobile) multi-hop ad hoc networking with the aim to present the current status of the research activities and identify the consolidated research areas, with limited research opportunities, and the hot and emerging research areas for which further research is required. We start by briefly discussing the MANET paradigm, and why the research on MANET protocols is now a cold research topic. Then we analyze the active research areas. Specifically, after discussing the wireless-network technologies, we analyze four successful ad hoc networking paradigms, mesh networks, opportunistic networks, vehicular networks, and sensor networks that emerged from the MANET world. We also present an emerging research direction in the multi-hop ad hoc networking field: people centric networking, triggered by the increasing penetration of the smartphones in everyday life, which is generating a people-centric revolution in computing and communications

Towards social-aware opportunistic network datasets

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia InformáticaDelay-tolerant networks are wireless networks designed to be used in cases where network infrastructure is nonexistent or not available to be used. Because of this, there are several problems that need to be addressed in this environment, such as lack of continuous end-toend connectivity and increased delay and error rates in data transfer. As such, conventional routing schemes aren't feasible in providing e cient solutions for these cases. Since the nodes present in these kinds of networks usually possess very limited resources, opportunistic routing protocols should not only try to achieve a good message delivery probability, but also reduce the number of message replicas present in the network. This is done so as to avoid an unnecessary waste of storage and energy that comes from storing and transmitting messages to other nodes. Some of the recent Delay-tolerant network routing proposals involve using social information to determine which node has a higher probability of successfully delivering a message to its intended destination. This seems to be a popular strategy, that achieves a good delivery probability while reducing the message overhead, when compared to simpler schemes. One way to analyze the performance of a routing protocol is to use real opportunistic contact datasets to simulate a real life environment. This work focuses on providing a research on opportunistic network traces as a way to determine the contact patterns of Delay-Tolerant network nodes and their impact on routing algorithm performance, as well as proposing an architecture for a future data collection experiment

Anticipatory Mobile Computing: A Survey of the State of the Art and Research Challenges

Today's mobile phones are far from mere communication devices they were ten years ago. Equipped with sophisticated sensors and advanced computing hardware, phones can be used to infer users' location, activity, social setting and more. As devices become increasingly intelligent, their capabilities evolve beyond inferring context to predicting it, and then reasoning and acting upon the predicted context. This article provides an overview of the current state of the art in mobile sensing and context prediction paving the way for full-fledged anticipatory mobile computing. We present a survey of phenomena that mobile phones can infer and predict, and offer a description of machine learning techniques used for such predictions. We then discuss proactive decision making and decision delivery via the user-device feedback loop. Finally, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of anticipatory mobile computing.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figure

A content dissemination framework for vehicular networking

Vehicular Networks are a peculiar class of wireless mobile networks in which vehicles are equipped with radio interfaces and are, therefore, able to communicate with fixed infrastructure (if available) or other vehicles. Content dissemination has a potential number of applications in vehicular networking, including advertising, traffic warnings, parking notifications and emergency announcements. This thesis addresses two possible dissemination strategies: i) Push-based that is aiming to proactively deliver information to a group of vehicles based on their interests and the level of matching content, and ii) Pull-based that is allowing vehicles to explicitly request custom information. Our dissemination framework is taking into consideration very specific information only available in vehicular networks: the geographical data produced by the navigation system. With its aid, a vehicle's mobility patterns become predictable. This information is exploited to efficiently deliver the content where it is needed. Furthermore, we use the navigation system to automatically filter information which might be relevant to the vehicles. Our framework has been designed and implemented in .NET C# and Microsoft MapPoint. It was tested using a small number of vehicles in the area of Cambridge, UK. Moreover, to prove the correctness of our protocols, we further evaluated it in a large-scale network simulation over a number of realistic vehicular trace-based scenarios. Finally, we built a test-case application aiming to prove that vehicles can gain from such a framework. In this application every vehicle collects and disseminates road traffic information. Vehicles that receive this information can individually evaluate the traffic conditions and take an alternative route, if needed. To evaluate this approach, we collaborated with UCLA's Network Research Lab (NRL), to build a simulator that combines network and dynamic mobility emulation simultaneously. When our dissemination framework is used, the drivers can considerably reduce their trip-times

Social group discovery using using co-location traces

Social information can be used to enhance existing applications and services or can be utilized to devise entirely new applications. Examples of such applications include recommendation systems, peer-to-peer networks, opportunistic data dissemination in ad hoc networks, or mobile friend finder. Social information can be collected from either online or mobile sources. This thesis focuses on identifying social groups based on data collected from mobile phones. These data can be either location or co-location traces. Unfortunately, location traces require a localization system for every mobile device, and users are reluctant to share absolute location due to privacy concerns. On the other hand, co- location can be collected using the embedded Bluetooth interface, present on almost all phones, and alleviates the privacy concerns as it does not collect user location. Existing graph algorithms, such as K-Clique and WNA, applied on co-location traces achieve low group detection accuracy because they focus on pair-wise ties, which cannot tell if multiple users spent time together simultaneously or how often they met. This thesis proposes the Group Discovery using Co-location (GDC) algorithm, which leverages the meeting frequency and meeting duration to accurately detect social groups. These parameters allow us to compare, categorize, and rank the groups discovered by GDC. This algorithm is tested and validated on data collected from 141 active users who carried mobile phones on our campus over the duration of one month. GDC received ratings that were 30% better than the K-Clique algorithm

Multimedia delivery in the future internet

The term “Networked Media” implies that all kinds of media including text, image, 3D graphics, audio and video are produced, distributed, shared, managed and consumed on-line through various networks, like the Internet, Fiber, WiFi, WiMAX, GPRS, 3G and so on, in a convergent manner [1]. This white paper is the contribution of the Media Delivery Platform (MDP) cluster and aims to cover the Networked challenges of the Networked Media in the transition to the Future of the Internet. Internet has evolved and changed the way we work and live. End users of the Internet have been confronted with a bewildering range of media, services and applications and of technological innovations concerning media formats, wireless networks, terminal types and capabilities. And there is little evidence that the pace of this innovation is slowing. Today, over one billion of users access the Internet on regular basis, more than 100 million users have downloaded at least one (multi)media file and over 47 millions of them do so regularly, searching in more than 160 Exabytes1 of content. In the near future these numbers are expected to exponentially rise. It is expected that the Internet content will be increased by at least a factor of 6, rising to more than 990 Exabytes before 2012, fuelled mainly by the users themselves. Moreover, it is envisaged that in a near- to mid-term future, the Internet will provide the means to share and distribute (new) multimedia content and services with superior quality and striking flexibility, in a trusted and personalized way, improving citizens’ quality of life, working conditions, edutainment and safety. In this evolving environment, new transport protocols, new multimedia encoding schemes, cross-layer inthe network adaptation, machine-to-machine communication (including RFIDs), rich 3D content as well as community networks and the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are expected to generate new models of interaction and cooperation, and be able to support enhanced perceived quality-of-experience (PQoE) and innovative applications “on the move”, like virtual collaboration environments, personalised services/ media, virtual sport groups, on-line gaming, edutainment. In this context, the interaction with content combined with interactive/multimedia search capabilities across distributed repositories, opportunistic P2P networks and the dynamic adaptation to the characteristics of diverse mobile terminals are expected to contribute towards such a vision. Based on work that has taken place in a number of EC co-funded projects, in Framework Program 6 (FP6) and Framework Program 7 (FP7), a group of experts and technology visionaries have voluntarily contributed in this white paper aiming to describe the status, the state-of-the art, the challenges and the way ahead in the area of Content Aware media delivery platforms