A sidecar object for the optimized communication between edge and cloud in internet of things applications

The internet of things (IoT) is one of the most disrupting revolutions that is characterizing the technology ecosystem. In the near future, the IoT will have a significant impact on people's lives and on the design and developments of new paradigms and architectures coping with a completely new set of challenges and service categories. The IoT can be described as an ecosystem where a massive number of constrained devices (denoted as smart objects) will be deployed and connected to cooperate for multiple purposes, such a data collection, actuation, and interaction with people. In order to meet the specific requirements, IoT services may be deployed leveraging a hybrid architecture that will involve services deployed on the edge and the cloud. In this context, one of the challenges is to create an infrastructure of objects and microservices operating between both the edge and in the cloud that can be easily updated and extended with new features and functionalities without the need of updating or re-deploying smart objects. This work introduces a new concept for extending smart objects' support for cloud services, denoted as a sidecar object. A sidecar object serves the purpose of being deployed as additional component of a preexisting object without interfering with the mechanisms and behaviors that have already been implemented. In particular, the sidecar object implementation developed in this work focuses on the communication with existing IoT cloud services (namely, AWS IoT and Google Cloud IoT) to provide a transparent and seamless synchronization of data, states, and commands between the object on the edge and the cloud. The proposed sidecar object implementation has been extensively evaluated through a detailed set of tests, in order to analyze the performances and behaviors in real- world scenarios

ZWT: A new cross-platform graphical interface framework for Java applications

The Java Programming Language revolutionized the world of software development in the last decades. Thanks to its portability, Java makes it possible to develop software that can run everywhere, in a truly cross-platform computing environment. Although running the same Java code anywhere works smoothly on major desktop and server platforms, this becomes much more complicated when different devices and platforms, such as smartphones or embedded systems, are taken into account. Furthermore, even if we consider devices that natively support the Java programming language, the same application may not run without re-writing part or the entire source code. This is mainly due to the existence of platform specific libraries for accessing input/output peripherals or system-specific features. In particular, the main limitation is usually associated to the different APIs that must be used for programming the Graphical User Interface (GUIs). In this paper, we present a novel framework that can be used by developers to write Java applications with portable GUIs that are truly platform-independent and thus can run on different systems such as PCs, Workstations, Android devices or mobile phones and embedded systems with Java MicroEdition (Java ME)

Avaliação do impacto de ecoinovações: o caso da tecnologia de biodigestores aplicada na agroindústria processadora de mandioca do estado do Paraná.

Resumo: As externalidades provocadas pelas atividades produtivas para atender necessidades de consumo impactam negativamente o meio ambiente, exigindo novas abordagens nos processos decisórios das organizações, como a incorporação de inovações que propiciem redução dos impactos ambientas, denominadas ecoinovações, e a adoção de modelos que avaliem de forma abrangente, integrada e em diferentes perspectivas o desempenho geral dessas inovações. Tendo como objeto da pesquisa a ecoinovação da tecnologia de biodigestores e como campo de pesquisa algumas fecularias localizadas no Estado do Paraná, este estudo de casos múltiplos compreendeu um extensa revisão na literatura para propor um conjunto de indicadores capaz de avaliar o impacto geral dessa ecoinovação em oito dimensões: ambiental, social, econômica, capacitação de recursos humanos, desenvolvimento institucional, introdução da inovação, ocorrências indesejadas e características da gestão ambiental. Para compilar e processar os dados utilizou-se o modelo computadorizado INOVA-tec System. Os resultados apontam que o cenário da tecnologia é favorável à sua disseminação, porém a baixa performance conjunta dos indicadores a torna subutilizada. Ao final são apresentadas sugestões para otimizar o uso da tecnologia e primorar o modelo

ICN as Network Infrastructure for Multi-Sensory Devices: Local Domain Service Discovery for ICN-based IoT Environments

Information Centric Networking (ICN) is an emerging research topic aiming at shifting the Internet from its current host-centric paradigm towards an approach centred around content, which enables the direct retrieval of information objects in a secure, reliable, scalable, and efficient way. The exposure of ICN to scenarios other than static content distribution is a growing research topic, promising to extend the impact of ICN to a broader scale. In this context, particular attention has been given to the application of ICN in Internet of Things (IoT) environments. The current paper, by focusing on local domain IoT scenarios, such as multi-sensory Machine to Machine environments, discusses the challenges that ICN, particularly Interest-based solutions, impose to service discovery. This work proposes a service discovery mechanism for such scenarios, relying on an alternative forwarding pipeline for supporting its core operations. The proposed mechanism is validated through a proof-of-concept prototype, developed on top of the Named Data Networking ICN architecture, with results showcasing the benefits of our solution for discovering services within a collision domain. © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media New Yor

Assessment of the genetic risks of a metallic alloy used in medical implants

The use of artificial implants provides a palliative or permanent solution for individuals who have lost some bodily function through disease, an accident or natural wear. This functional loss can be compensated for by the use of medical devices produced from special biomaterials. Titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) is a well-established primary metallic biomaterial for orthopedic implants, but the toxicity of the chemical components of this alloy has become an issue of concern. In this work, we used the MTT assay and micronucleus assay to examine the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity, respectively, of an extract obtained from this alloy. The MTT assay indicated that the mitochondrial activity and cell viability of CHO-K1 cells were unaffected by exposure to the extract. However, the micronucleus assay revealed DNA damage and an increase in micronucleus frequency at all of the concentrations tested. These results show that ions released from Ti-6Al-4V alloy can cause DNA and nuclear damage and reinforce the importance of assessing the safety of metallic medical devices constructed from biomaterials

A Multicast-based Bootstrap Mechanism for Self-organizing P2P Networks

The peer-to-peer (P2P) network paradigm has been introduced in order to overcome some shortcomings of the client-server architecture by providing such features as decentralization, self-organization, scalability, and fault-tolerance. Bootstrapping is the initial process through which new nodes can join an existing P2P overlay network. Typically, a joining peer must first contact a bootstrap peer, which is a peer already enrolled in the overlay. The bootstrap peer is responsible for admitting the new peer by passing information about other peers so that the new peer can actively participate in the overlay. Finding a suitable bootstrap peer is therefore a critical issue. Although different P2P systems have been defined and deployed, the problem of bootstrapping has usually been solved by introducing such mechanisms as the use of a pre-configured list of nodes, caching, or server-based discovery. Unfortunately, although they work in P2P applications running over the Internet, they show some problems when applied to very dynamic and self-organizing intranet or enterprise network scenarios. In fact, in these cases all nodes may join and leave the network very dynamically, without the possibility of guaranteeing any sort of permanent centralized service as current bootstrap solutions may require. In this paper, we propose a multicast-based bootstrapping mechanism for dynamic and self-organized P2P networks that allows a joining peer to discover a proper bootstrap peer in a real distributed manner. The proposed mechanism uses an unsolicited approach and performs well in terms of scalability, load-balancing, and a mean frequency of information exchange. The paper defines the algorithm and proposes an implementation of a suitable communication protocol

Implementation of a framework for a DHT-based Distributed Location Service

Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs) are structured peer-to-peer systems in which a number of peer nodes collectively cooperate to provide a key/value pair information storage and retrieval service. All DHTs are characterized by desirable features such as scalability, fault tolerance, and self-organization. Each DHT node is responsible for maintaining a subset of the stored information, which depends on the specific DHT algorithm. Many Internet-based applications strongly rely on a Location Service (LS), such as DNS, in order to map a URI to one or more IP addresses (and port numbers) that specify where the resource identified by the URI can actually be accessed. However, Location Services typically introduce centralization points into the architectures they are used in and therefore expose the overall system to possible failures. Because of their nature, DHT appear to be a perfect mean for setting up a Distributed Location Service (DLS). In this paper we present a Java-based framework that can be used for building a DLS independent from the specific DHT algorithm and communication protocol adopted

A resilient architecture for DHT-based distributed collaborative environments

Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs) provide a flexible and reliable infrastructure for data storage and retrieval in peer-to-peer communities. We propose to apply Kademlia DHT to organize data management and cooperation between users participating in different work-groups. Particularly, in this paper we propose a mechanism for increasing the resilience and the overall performance of a Kademlia-based distributed work-sharing system, taking into account frequent joins and leaves of network nodes. To achieve this goal we propose a new flexible scheme for resource management that provides more resilience and fault tolerance than other mechanisms used by existent cooperative storage systems with a collaborative nature. In this work we try to extend and generalize our solution to fit several application contexts of collaborative computing, thereby addressing some common problems about resilience of existent distributed collaborative systems