Using Emotions to Empower the Self-adaptation Capability of Software Services

Traditional self-adaptive systems research has focused on external contextual aspects such as performance, system reaction to environment. In this paper, we introduce the idea of measuring emotions in order to empower the adaptability of software services at runtime. We present two type of monitoring mechanisms and an adaptive adaptation strategy, which were implemented as part of the HAPPYNESS middleware. A preliminary test using data from the Empatica repository was carried out with the purpose of assessing the goodness of the controller (i.e. inference engine), a component of our middleware. The obtained results were consistent with the expected values. Moreover, we test also the connectivity and synchronization between E4-Wristband and an adaptive mobile application that were used by two volunteer users

Security risk assessment in cloud computing domains

Cyber security is one of the primary concerns persistent across any computing platform. While addressing the apprehensions about security risks, an infinite amount of resources cannot be invested in mitigation measures since organizations operate under budgetary constraints. Therefore the task of performing security risk assessment is imperative to designing optimal mitigation measures, as it provides insight about the strengths and weaknesses of different assets affiliated to a computing platform. The objective of the research presented in this dissertation is to improve upon existing risk assessment frameworks and guidelines associated to different key assets of Cloud computing domains - infrastructure, applications, and users. The dissertation presents various informal approaches of performing security risk assessment which will help to identify the security risks confronted by the aforementioned assets, and utilize the results to carry out the required cost-benefit tradeoff analyses. This will be beneficial to organizations by aiding them in better comprehending the security risks their assets are exposed to and thereafter secure them by designing cost-optimal mitigation measures --Abstract, page iv