Contribution to flexible service coordination in mobile prosumer environments

Este trabajo de Tesis se desarrolla en el marco de los escenarios de ejecución distribuida de servicios móviles y contribuye a la definición y desarrollo del concepto de usuario prosumer. El usuario prosumer se caracteriza por utilizar su teléfono móvil para crear, proveer y ejecutar servicios. Este nuevo modelo de usuario contribuye al avance de la sociedad de la información, ya que el usuario prosumer se transforma de creador de contenidos a creador de servicios (estos últimos formados por contenidos y la lógica para acceder a ellos, procesarlos y representarlos). El objetivo general de este trabajo de Tesis es la provisión de un modelo de creación, distribución y ejecución de servicios para entorno móvil que permita a los usuarios no programadores (usuarios prosumer), pero expertos en un determinado dominio, crear y ejecutar sus propias aplicaciones y servicios. Para ello se definen, desarrollan e implementan metodologías, procesos, algoritmos y mecanismos adaptables a dominios específicos, para construir entornos de ejecución distribuida de servicios móviles para usuarios prosumer. La provisión de herramientas de creación adaptadas a usuarios no expertos es una tendencia actual que está siendo desarrollada en distintos trabajos de investigación. Sin embargo, no se ha propuesto una metodología de desarrollo de servicios que involucre al usuario prosumer en el proceso de diseño, desarrollo, implementación y validación de servicios. Este trabajo de Tesis realiza un estudio de las metodologías y tecnologías más innovadoras relacionadas con la co‐creación y utiliza este análisis para definir y validar una metodología que habilita al usuario para ser el responsable de la creación de servicios finales. Siendo los entornos móviles prosumer (mobile prosumer environments) una particularización de los entornos de ejecución distribuida de servicios móviles, en este trabajo se tesis se investiga en técnicas de adaptación, distribución, coordinación de servicios y acceso a recursos identificando como requisitos las problemáticas de este tipo de entornos y las características de los usuarios que participan en los mismos. Se contribuye a la adaptación de servicios definiendo un modelo de variabilidad que soporte la interdependencia entre las decisiones de personalización de los usuarios, incorporando mecanismos de guiado y detección de errores. La distribución de servicios se implementa utilizando técnicas de descomposición en árbol SPQR, cuantificando el impacto de separar cualquier servicio en distintos dominios. Considerando el plano de comunicaciones para la coordinación en la ejecución de servicios distribuidos hemos identificado varias problemáticas, como las pérdidas de enlace, conexiones, desconexiones y descubrimiento de participantes, que resolvemos utilizando técnicas de diseminación basadas en publicación subscripción y algoritmos Gossip. Para lograr una ejecución flexible de servicios distribuidos en entorno móvil, soportamos la adaptación a cambios en la disponibilidad de los recursos, proporcionando una infraestructura de comunicaciones para el acceso uniforme y eficiente a recursos. Se han realizado validaciones experimentales para evaluar la viabilidad de las soluciones propuestas, definiendo escenarios de aplicación relevantes (el nuevo universo inteligente, prosumerización de servicios en entornos hospitalarios y emergencias en la web de la cosas). Abstract This Thesis work is developed in the framework of distributed execution of mobile services and contributes to the definition and development of the concept of prosumer user. The prosumer user is characterized by using his mobile phone to create, provide and execute services. This new user model contributes to the advancement of the information society, as the prosumer is transformed from producer of content, to producer of services (consisting of content and logic to access them, process them and represent them). The overall goal of this Thesis work is to provide a model for creation, distribution and execution of services for the mobile environment that enables non‐programmers (prosumer users), but experts in a given domain, to create and execute their own applications and services. For this purpose I define, develop and implement methodologies, processes, algorithms and mechanisms, adapted to specific domains, to build distributed environments for the execution of mobile services for prosumer users. The provision of creation tools adapted to non‐expert users is a current trend that is being developed in different research works. However, it has not been proposed a service development methodology involving the prosumer user in the process of design, development, implementation and validation of services. This thesis work studies innovative methodologies and technologies related to the co‐creation and relies on this analysis to define and validate a methodological approach that enables the user to be responsible for creating final services. Being mobile prosumer environments a specific case of environments for distributed execution of mobile services, this Thesis work researches in service adaptation, distribution, coordination and resource access techniques, and identifies as requirements the challenges of such environments and characteristics of the participating users. I contribute to service adaptation by defining a variability model that supports the dependency of user personalization decisions, incorporating guiding and error detection mechanisms. Service distribution is implemented by using decomposition techniques based on SPQR trees, quantifying the impact of separating any service in different domains. Considering the communication level for the coordination of distributed service executions I have identified several problems, such as link losses, connections, disconnections and discovery of participants, which I solve using dissemination techniques based on publish‐subscribe communication models and Gossip algorithms. To achieve a flexible distributed service execution in mobile environments, I support adaptation to changes in the availability of resources, while providing a communication infrastructure for the uniform and efficient access to resources. Experimental validations have been conducted to assess the feasibility of the proposed solutions, defining relevant application scenarios (the new intelligent universe, service prosumerization in hospitals and emergency situations in the web of things)

Positional Accuracy in Smart-Phones and Its Effect on LBS Applications.

Location-based services (LBS) highly rely on the location of the mobile user in order to provide the service tailored to that location. This location is calculated differently depending on the technology available in the used mobile device. No matter which technology is used, the location will never be calculated 100% correctly; instead there will always be a margin of error generated during the calculation, which is referred to as positional accuracy. This research has reviewed the eight most common positioning technologies available in the major current smart-phones and assessed their positional accuracy with respect to its usage by LBS applications. Given the vast majority of these applications, this research classified them into thirteen categories, and these categories were also classified depending on their level criticality as low, medium, or high critical, and whether they function indoor or outdoor. The accuracies of different positioning technologies are compared to these two criteria. Low critical outdoor and high critical indoor applications were found technologically covered; high and medium critical outdoor ones weren?t fully resolved. Finally three potential solutions are suggested to be implemented in future smartphones to resolve this technological gap: Real-Time Kinematics Global Positioning System (RTK GPS), terrestrial transmitters, and combination of Wireless Sensors Network and Radio Frequency Identification (WSN-RFID)

Communication Architecture for Tracking and Interoperable Services at Hospitals: A Real Deployment Experience

Any new hospital communication architecture has to support existing services, but at the same time new added features should not affect normal tasks. This article deals with issues regarding old and new systems’ interoperability, as well as the effect the human factor has in a deployed architecture. It also presents valuable information, which is a product of a real scenario. Tracking services are also tested in order to monitor and administer several medical resources

Creating story maps for learning purposes: The Black Death Atlas

In the current technological context new forms of mapmaking emerge. An increasingly common one produces story maps, maps that are shown with synchronized explanatory text, to visualize events in a spatial context. Story maps could be defined as the explicit display of such spatial and temporal landmarks on the grounds that a story is constructed. In this paper we present a story map oriented to pedagogical purposes. We have compiled an atlas displaying the expansion of the Black Death in Europe between 1346 and 1347, when the largest epidemic outbreak in the History of Europe ravaged the continent. To depict this event, we have used CartoDB, Odyssey and some other Web interactive tools to create eight interactive story maps gathered in an online atlas. The work was made in the frame of an end-of-degree Project (Geomatics Engineering, in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid). By now, it can be found in: http://clarar92.wix.com/atlasdelapestenegr

Predictive algorithms for mobility and device lifecycle management in Cyber- Physical Systems

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are often composed of a great number of mobile, wireless networked devices. In order to guarantee the system performing, management policies focused on becoming transparent to high-level applications, the changes in the hardware platform have to be implemented. However, traditional reactive methodologies and basic proposed predictive solutions are not valid either due to the extremely dynamical behavior of CPS or because the high number of involved devices prevents fulfill the timing requirements. Therefore, in this paper, we present an advance predictive solution for managing the mobility and device lifecycle, being able to meet all requirements of CPS. The solution is based on an infinite loop, which calculates, in each iteration, a sequence of future system states using a CPS simulator and interpolation algorithms. Furthermore, an experimental validation is provided in order to determine the performing of the proposed solution

Secure sensor data transmission in 5G networks using pseudorandom number generators

Future 5G networks face the challenge of supporting the global communications among the millions of devices making up the Internet-of-Things. Traditional 4G mobile devices have a high computational power, so applications based on the transmission of sensor data (accelerometers, GPS, etc.) may apply heavy end-to-end securing solutions. However, new 5G mobile components usually present reduced capabilities and a low clock speed. Therefore, new security solutions for sensor data transmission in streaming have to be developed. In this paper, it is described a light cryptography technology to secure sensor data during radio transmission in 5G networks. The proposed solution is based on pseudorandom number generators, which are specifically designed to fulfill the requirements of 5G systems. A simulation scenario and a first real deployment are developed in order to evaluate the performance of the contribution

Physical unclonable functions based on silicon micro-ring resonators for secure signature delegation in Wireless Sensor Networks

With the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution and the era of Cyber-Physical Systems, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are employed in a large catalogue of applications, many of them critical. At the beginning, encryption techniques were enough to protect WSN, but as more sophisticated applications are proposed, protection schemes turn also more complex. In particular, schemes based on digital signatures, hash functions and Public Key Infrastructures are extensively implemented. Nevertheless, all these solutions present a very important problem: nodes must store a secret key. As future systems will be unmanaged and be deployed in remote places without surveillance, the use of ROM memories where keys are stored in a permanent way is a critical risk. Therefore, in this paper we propose a new scheme for signature delegation in WSN, based on chaotic Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF). As the size of nodes is an essential parameter to be considered, the proposed technology is supported by micro-ring resonators. A simulation scenario is also defined to validate the usability and performance of the proposed framework

T4AI: A system for monitoring people based on improved wearable devices

Monitoring people is central to many applications. Some works from the literature prove that information about that the sequence of objects a person uses while performing an activity robustly characterizes both, the activity and the quality of its execution. In this paper we present a novel system called ?Toolkit for activities Inference? (T4AI) for inferring the activities executed by people from the interactions with objects. The system includes as main element a cybernetic glove based on wearable RFID readers and sensors. Our proposal includes an improved RFID technology being able to be used in metallic environments (such as industry scenarios). Moreover, an experimental validation was conducted in order to determine the performance of the proposed system

Twitter como fuente de contraste de puntos de interés turístico: Caso de uso la ciudad de Madrid.

Este trabajo trata de evaluar la capacidad de atracción turística de los Puntos de Interés oficiales (POIs) disponibles como datos geográficos abiertos y en las IDE locales mediante la información explícita e implícita de los Tweets geolocalizados. Los estudios sobre turismo tratan de obtener información del potencial turístico de una zona y la valoración de los turistas. Estos estudios tradicionalmente se basan en encuestas o entrevistas personales, realizadas desde entidades públicas o compañías privadas En el caso que nos ocupa existen estudios a nivel de Municipal, de la Comunidad autónoma y de entidades privadas relacionadas con el sector turístico de la cidudad de Madrid por estar considerado un sector estratégico para la economía regional. Las redes sociales, especialmente Twitter, ofrecen un alto potencial para la realización de trabajos de investigación y evaluación de áreas urbanas gracias a la información geográfica digital asociada. Se ha producido una evolución de la Información Geográfica Voluntaria (VGI) acuñada por Goodchild (2007) a la Información Geográfica de Medios Sociales (SMGI) acuñada por Floris y Campagna (2014). Esta nueva fuente de datos derivados, podria complementar la información de los datos públicos de turismo ofrecidos por nodos IDE u Open Data; por ejemplo: ayudaria a la validación de puntos de interés turístico o áreas de la ciudad, mejoraria la actualización de la información y a largo plazo, podria ayudar al desarrollo de estrategias y planes de turismo más eficientes

A data-driven blockchain-based marketplace to promote transparency and accountability in City-Region Food Systems

In the last ten years, several new challenges have emerged regarding food: from the production crisis caused by wars and the climate change to the unsustainable food waste in the occidental societies or the health problems associated to processed food, additives and other equivalent substances. Resilient and sustainable food systems are needed to survive against all these risks. The Food and Agriculture Organization has envisioned that this only would be possible if we put together large urban centers, the conglomeration of smaller cities in their surrounds and the surrounding and interspersed peri-urban and rural hinterland in a unique City-Region Food System (CRFS). CRFS, however, will be only an opportunity if all food agents in the area collaborate together as part of the same network. This collaboration must overcome the potential conflict of interest and the lack of trust among the different agents, so transparency and accountability must be improved in all transactions. Therefore, in this paper we describe a data-driven blockchain-based marketplace where food agents in a CRFS can share and get transparent and accountable information about other industries, users, or producers in the region. To motivate food agents to join the platform, information in the marketplace is not free and consumers must pay a fee before getting it, generating new income flow for participants. The system is supported by Ethereum network and web technologies. An initial experience was carried out to validate the proposed marketplace in the context of a CRFS living lab in Spain