Towards a Framework for Developing Mobile Agents for Managing Distributed Information Resources

Distributed information management tools allow users to author, disseminate, discover and manage information within large-scale networked environments, such as the Internet. Agent technology provides the flexibility and scalability necessary to develop such distributed information management applications. We present a layered organisation that is shared by the specific applications that we build. Within this organisation we describe an architecture where mobile agents can move across distributed environments, integrate with local resources and other mobile agents, and communicate their results back to the user

The Application of Fuzzy Logic Controller to Compute a Trust Level for Mobile Agents in a Smart Home

Agents that travel through many hosts may cause a threat on the security of the visited hosts. Assets, system resources, and the reputation of the host are few possible targets for such an attack. The possibility for multi-hop agents to be malicious is higher compared to the one-hop or two-hop boomerang agents. The travel history is one of the factors that may allow a server to evaluate the trustworthiness of an agent. This paper proposes a technique to define levels of trust for multi-hop agents that are roaming in a smart home environment. These levels of trust are used later to determine actions taken by a host at the arrival of an agent. This technique uses fuzzy logic as a method to calculate levels of trust and to define protective actions in regard to those levels

A cooperative approach for distributed task execution in autonomic clouds

Virtualization and distributed computing are two key pillars that guarantee scalability of applications deployed in the Cloud. In Autonomous Cooperative Cloud-based Platforms, autonomous computing nodes cooperate to offer a PaaS Cloud for the deployment of user applications. Each node must allocate the necessary resources for customer applications to be executed with certain QoS guarantees. If the QoS of an application cannot be guaranteed a node has mainly two options: to allocate more resources (if it is possible) or to rely on the collaboration of other nodes. Making a decision is not trivial since it involves many factors (e.g. the cost of setting up virtual machines, migrating applications, discovering collaborators). In this paper we present a model of such scenarios and experimental results validating the convenience of cooperative strategies over selfish ones, where nodes do not help each other. We describe the architecture of the platform of autonomous clouds and the main features of the model, which has been implemented and evaluated in the DEUS discrete-event simulator. From the experimental evaluation, based on workload data from the Google Cloud Backend, we can conclude that (modulo our assumptions and simplifications) the performance of a volunteer cloud can be compared to that of a Google Cluster

Privileged Mexican migrants in Europe: Distinctions and cosmopolitanism on social networking sites

This article examines the ways in which classed distinctions are related to the construction of increasingly cosmopolitan identities on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) amongst Mexican migrants from relatively privileged backgrounds living in Europe. It centres on how user demographics shape many of the concerns and outcomes pertaining to the use of SNSs. It considers the implications of the fact that SNSs are predominantly used by a demographic considered as non-marginalized, mobile and as possessing relatively privileged economic, cultural and social backgrounds. It analyses the ways in which online identities are constructed on SNS profiles using multimedia content to represent specific lifestyles and cultural practices that are used to make distinctions amongst participants, and are related to social, cultural and economic capital. A critical analysis is presented as to how users represent cosmopolitan identities online through the display of tastes and lifestyles in SNS content and into how these representations relate to users’ privileged positions in Mexican society. Bourdieu’s concept of distinction is used to emphasize the utility of considering different forms of capital in analysing the use of SNSs and profile content generated by a specific demographic. This article demonstrates how the analysis of SNS use may contribute towards an understanding of how classed distinctions are made based on this use and of how users negotiate the posting of profile content according to these distinctions and manage (select, edit and share) their representations

How Regular Business Has Becomes Mobile Business. A Mobile Agent Approach

The age of static business and slow information flow, when most decision was based on day-or week-old data, has come to an end. Now new technology helps organizations provide a more agile, flexible approach to business that was not technologically available five years ago. As a result, organizations are paying more attentions to supporting business process with the ability to adapt to the dynamic environment. This paper describes how the action of mobile agent enabled decision support in conjunction with the organizational trends, enables new practice in the field of e-Business. This is done to understand the magnitude of the e-business context problem and to suggest possible ways around the problem when building mobile agents. Therefore, a mobile agent approach is proposed in this paper to offer solution for mobile business and to manage complex business activities.mobile agent, mobile technologies, mobility, business

On the Deployment of Healthcare Applications over Fog Computing Infrastructure

Fog computing is considered as the most promising enhancement of the traditional cloud computing paradigm in order to handle potential issues introduced by the emerging Interned of Things (IoT) framework at the network edge. The heterogeneous nature, the extensive distribution and the hefty number of deployed IoT nodes will disrupt existing functional models, creating confusion. However, IoT will facilitate the rise of new applications, with automated healthcare monitoring platforms being amongst them. This paper presents the pillars of design for such applications, along with the evaluation of a working prototype that collects ECG traces from a tailor-made device and utilizes the patient's smartphone as a Fog gateway for securely sharing them to other authorized entities. This prototype will allow patients to share information to their physicians, monitor their health status independently and notify the authorities rapidly in emergency situations. Historical data will also be available for further analysis, towards identifying patterns that may improve medical diagnoses in the foreseeable future