Design and compilation of an object-oriented macroprogramming language for wireless sensor networks

open5siWireless sensor network (WSN) programming is still largely performed by experts in a node-centric way using low-level languages such as C. Although numerous higher-level abstractions exist, each simplifying a specific aspect of distributed programming, real applications often require to combine multiple abstractions into a single program. Using current programming frameworks, this represents a difficult task. In previous work, we therefore defined a conceptual framework that facilitates abstraction composition by defining sound compositional rules among few fundamental abstraction categories. The framework is extensible: programmers can add new abstractions within the boundaries determined by the compositional rules. In this paper we describe the design of a language - called MPL - that instantiates this conceptual framework. To support the extensible nature of the framework, the language is object-oriented, which allows programmers to add new abstractions by inheriting from existing classes that implement predefined interfaces. We modeled the syntax after Java, to make it more palatable to inexperienced embedded programmers. Compared to Java, we modified the language to enable efficient execution on WSN devices. We designed and implemented a compiler that translates MPL language into executable C code, which spares the overhead of a virtual machine. By comparing MPL implementations against functionally-equivalent Contiki/C implementations of several benchmark applications, we determined that the performance overhead of MPL is limited, and yet the programming task is simplified.openOppermann, Felix Jonathan; Römer, Kay; Mottola, Luca; Picco, Gian Pietro; Gaglione, AndreaOppermann, Felix Jonathan; Römer, Kay; Mottola, Luca; Picco, Gian Pietro; Gaglione, Andre

The impact of automated hippocampal volumetry on diagnostic confidence in patients with suspected Alzheimer's disease: an EADC study

INTRODUCTION: Hippocampal volume is a core biomarker of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, its contribution over the standard diagnostic workup is unclear. METHODS: Three hundred fifty-six patients, under clinical evaluation for cognitive impairment, with suspected AD and Mini–Mental State Examination ≥20, were recruited across 17 European memory clinics. After the traditional diagnostic workup, diagnostic confidence of AD pathology (DCAD) was estimated by the physicians in charge. The latter were provided with the results of automated hippocampal volumetry in standardized format and DCAD was reassessed. RESULTS: An increment of one interquartile range in hippocampal volume was associated with a mean change of DCAD of −8.0% (95% credible interval: [−11.5, −5.0]). Automated hippocampal volumetry showed a statistically significant impact on DCAD beyond the contributions of neuropsychology, 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/single-photon emission computed tomography, and cerebrospinal fluid markers (−8.5, CrI: [−11.5, −5.6]; −14.1, CrI: [−19.3, −8.8]; −10.6, CrI: [−14.6, −6.1], respectively). DISCUSSION: There is a measurable effect of hippocampal volume on DCAD even when used on top of the traditional diagnostic workup

CodeWeave: Exploring fine-grained mobility of code

This paper is concerned with an abstract exploration of code mobility constructs designed for use in settings where the level of granularity associated with the mobile units exhibits significant variability. Units of mobility that are both finer and coarser grained than the unit of execution are examined. To accomplish this, we take the extreme view that every line of code and every variable declaration are potentially mobile, i.e., it may be duplicated or moved from one program context to another on the same host or across the network. We also assume that complex code assemblies may move with equal ease. The result is CodeWeave, a model that shows how to develop new forms of code mobility, assign them precise meaning, and facilitate formal verification of programs employing them. The design of CodeWeave relies greatly on Mobile Unity, a notation and proof logic for mobile computing. Mobile Unity offers a computational milieu for examining a wide range of constructs and semantic alternatives in a clean abstract setting, i.e., unconstrained by compilation and performance considerations traditionally associated with programming language design. Ultimately, the notation offered by CodeWeave is given exact semantic definition by means of a direct mapping to the underlying Mobile Unity model. The abstract and formal treatment of code mobility offered by CodeWeave establishes a technical foundation for examining competing proposals and for subsequent integration of some of the mobility constructs both at the language level and within middleware for mobility

Poster Abstract: Pushing a Standard Wireless Sensor Network Stack for Ultra-low Data Rates

Time series forecasting aims at improving energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) by reducing the amount of data traffic. One such technique has each node generate a model that predicts the sampled data. When the actual, sensed data deviates from the model, a new model is generated and transmitted to the sink. Reductions in application data traffic as high as two orders of magnitude can be achieved. However, our experience in applying such forecasting in a real world deployment shows that the actual lifetime improvement is significantly less due to networking overheads. The study reported here reveals that careful, coordinated network parameter tuning can leverage the reduced traffic of forecasting techniques to increase lifetime without compromising application performance

Socially-aware routing for publish-subscribe in delay-tolerant mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract—Applications involving the dissemination of information directly relevant to humans (e.g., service advertising, news spreading, environmental alerts) often rely on publish-subscribe, in which the network delivers a published message only to the nodes whose subscribed interests match it. In principle, publishsubscribe is particularly useful in mobile environments, since it minimizes the coupling among communication parties. However, to the best of our knowledge, none of the (few) works that tackled publish-subscribe in mobile environments has yet addressed intermittently-connected human networks. Socially-related people tend to be co-located quite regularly. This characteristic can be exploited to drive forwarding decisions in the interest-based routing layer supporting the publish-subscribe network, yielding not only improved performance but also the ability to overcome high rates of mobility and long-lasting disconnections. In this paper we propose SocialCast, a routing framework for publish-subscribe that exploits predictions based on metrics of social interaction (e.g., patterns of movements among communities) to identify the best information carriers. We highlight the principles underlying our protocol, illustrate its operation, and evaluate its performance using a mobility model based on a social network validated with real human mobility traces. The evaluation shows that prediction of colocation and node mobility allow for maintaining a very high and steady event delivery with low overhead and latency, despite the variation in density, number of replicas per message or speed. Index Terms— I

The RUNES middleware: A reconfigurable component-based approach to networked embedded systems

this paper is addressing the need for such a programming platform. The work is being carried out in the context of the EU-funded RUNES project (Reconfigurable, Ubiquitous, Networked Embedded Systems), which has the general general goal of developing an architecture for networked embedded systems that encompasses dedicated radio layers, networks, middleware, and specialised simulation and verification tool