End-to-end elasticity control of cloud-network slices

The design of efficient elasticity control mechanisms for dynamic resource allocation is crucial to increase the efficiency of future cloud-network slice-defined systems. Current elasticity control mechanisms proposed for cloud- or network-slicing, only consider cloud- or network-type resources respectively. In this paper, we introduce the elaSticity in cLOud-neTwork Slices (SLOTS) which aims to extend the horizontal elasticity control to multi-providers scenarios in an end-to-end fashion, as well as to provide a novel vertical elasticity mechanism to deal with critical insufficiency of resources by harvesting underused resources on other slices. Finally, we present a preliminary assessment of the SLOTS prototype in a real testbed, revealing outcomes that suggest the viability of the proposal.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The Portuguese counter-terrorism prevention case: an analysis of the P/CVE strategy and planning

A counter-terrorism preventative strategy is a must in any nation and such strategies became of even greater importance with the events of 9/11. A properly defined strategy allows not only for a nation to defend itself but to prevent the grounds that may lead to the radicalization of citizens towards violent extremist ideals. Many academics look at these preventative frameworks from a critical perspective and it is the opinion of many that, as it stands, counter-terrorism prevention strategies are not effective, and may actually be at the origin of discriminatory practices. The purpose of this research is not only to understand how a prevention framework is developed but its own effectiveness. This will be ascertained by using the Portuguese case as an example of a nation that has been mostly unaffected by this phenomenon since 9/11 but has nonetheless to deliver its own counter-terrorism strategy due to its placement within the European Union. Portugal was chosen due to the gap of literature on the Portuguese example and the overall lack of knowledge of how counter-terrorism works within the nation. This goal is achieved by conducting interviews with experts on this field and analyzing these results through the Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) whose framework will allow to determine how the Portuguese preventative strategy compares against the strategies presented by other nations in their preventative activities. Determining what is this preventative framework, how it is aligned with European standards and if it works in successfully preventing the Islamic extremism which was observed in the past years and more recently the rise in far-right extremism observed throughout Europe will be key goals throughout this research.Uma estratégia preventiva no campo do contra-terrorismo é uma necessidade para qualquer nação e estas estratégias tornaram-se cada vez mais importantes com os eventos do 9/11. Uma estratégia corretamente definida permite não só que uma nação se defenda, mas previne as circunstâncias que possam levam à radicalização de indivíduos para ideais extremistas. Muitos académicos vêm estes planeamentos preventivos de uma perspetiva critica e é da opinião de vários que, como se encontram, as estratégias preventivas de contra-terrorismo não são eficientes e podem até estar na origem de práticas discriminatórias. O propósito desta investigação é não apenas de entender como um planeamento preventivo é desenvolvido, mas compreender a sua eficácia. Isto será estudado utilizando o caso português como o exemplo de uma nação que permaneceu maioritariamente não afetada por este fenómeno desde o 9/11, mas independentemente precisa de apresentar uma estratégia contra-terrorista devido ao seu envolvimento na União Europeia. Portugal foi escolhido devido à lacuna literária existente para o caso português e um desconhecimento em geral de como contra-terrorismo funciona dentro da nação. Este objetivo será atingido através de entrevistas com peritos no campo e ao analisar estes resultados através do modelo Estudos Críticos ao Terrorismo (CTS) cuja base critica permitirá determinar como a estratégia preventiva Portuguesa compara contra as estratégias apresentadas por outras nações. Determinar qual é esta estratégia preventiva, como está alinhada com os requerimentos europeus e se a mesma é eficaz em prevenir o extremismo Islâmico que veio a ser observado em anos anteriores e mais recentemente o extremismo de direita que tem sido observado pela Europa são objetivos chave para esta investigação

The Legal Order And İts Relation With The Power And The Economy İn The Current Brazilian Scenery, İnstrumentality a priori And Rationality a posteriori

The Brazilian Legal system and its relation with the power in the current Brazilian scenery, and also the use of a posteriori rationality of the judge and the priori instrumentality of the legislator and of the Executive, is the theme of the present study. Its goal is to show a brief historical evolution of the Law and the State, the Power aspects, the forms of State and its acting with the origin of population. The next step is to present the use of Brazilian Legal System as a form of organization, that is, a priori instrumentality and the evolution from Liberal State to Social State, with significant changes in the legal aspects and in its form of acting. Furthermore, we carry on with the world crisis, especially the one of 1929, whose changes imposed by the end of Second World War (the decline of legal positivism) and also the advances which came with the globalization in 1990. Still considering crisis, it is discussed about the 2008 crisis and its consequences, the European crisis with its high costs of a Social State. A parallelism was done between the economy and the Law and besides that, it was drawn a legal scenery after these evolutions. Regarding these relations of power and the crisis of the power tripartism, we also showed that an ascension of Legal Law can be named as the legal protagonist or, for some, legal activism. These role has some reflexes in the Judicial Discretion, in the active management of processes, in the legal inflation of the Legislative and Executive (provisional measures), in the use of process as a strategy of power, in the legalization of politics and in the creation of binding overviews. Some case studies and considerations about justice were showed. This research is justified because the power, the contemporary legal scenery, the judicial role, the economy and the Law, and the forms of acting of the State (Liberal and Social) are current themes in the study of operators and Law scholars. Thus as these inquiries show great influence in the democratic state of Law

Characteristics of the dairy goat primary sector at the Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil.

A survey was done based on 19 goat shepherds at counties of Centre-highlands, Northern and North-western regions of the Rio de Janeiro State and at the county of Pedra Dourada, Zona da Mata region, State of Minas Gerais. We aimed to characterise the primary sector of the goat milk production chain settled at those regions. Therefore, questionnaires were applied in order to depict profiles of the shepherds, their families, the role of the wife in the activity, the resources available, dependence on income generated by the activity, and how producers administrate their business. Farms were distributed in five strata according to the following daily milk production averages and standard deviations: 8.8 ± 0.9, 15.7 ± 3.9, 22.6 ± 2.7, 34.4 ± 3.4, and 183.8 ± 54.2 L/d. Approximately 42% of the interviewed producers conducted their activities according to a household production model and the income earned was exclusively from the dairy goat husbandry. Sons and daughters performed an important role in the business (27.80%), but most of them (62.73%) worked out at non farm activities. The percentage of wives that worked directly in the activity (@47%) indicated that it could contribute to gender equity in the rural environment. Most of the production systems (63.16%) presented positive gross margins. We have noticed, however, that shepherds perceived only the business gross margin and that the most accurate registries taken were those related to revenues. In general, producers of the higher strata were favoured by their larger production scale, but asymptotic behaviours for costs and amounts invested in animals, equipments and buildings were observed. These characteristics should be considered when policies related to the dairy goat primary sector have to be planned

Frequency domain equalization space-time block-coded CDMA transmission system

Abstract In this work we propose a space-time block-coded (STBF) CDMA transmission system suitable for use with frequency domain equalization (FDE) algorithms. We illustrate the FDE by implementing the maximal ratio combining, the zero forcing and the minimum mean squared error single user detection algorithms. A diversity gain analysis is developed and some interesting results are pointed out. It is shown through computer simulations that the proposed transmission system exhibits good performance in terms of bit error rate when compared to previously proposed STBC CDMA transmission systems.</p

Introducing concurrency in sequential Java via laws

AbstractNowadays multi-core processors can be found everywhere. It is well known that one way of improving performance is by parallelization. In this paper we propose a parallelization strategy for Java using algebraic laws. We perform an experiment with two benchmarks and show that our strategy produces a gain similar to a specialized parallel version provided by the Java Grande Benchmark (JGB)

A Pattern-based deadlock-freedom analysis strategy for concurrent systems

Local analysis has long been recognised as an effective tool to combat the state-space explosion problem. In this work, we propose a method that systematises the use of local analysis in the verification of deadlock freedom for concurrent and distributed systems. It combines a strategy for system decomposition with the verification of the decomposed subsystems via adherence to behavioural patterns. At the core of our work, we have a number of CSP refinement expressions that allows the user of our method to automatically verify all the behavioural restrictions that we impose. We also propose a prototype tool to support our method. Finally, we demonstrate the practical impact our method can have by analysing how it fares when applied to some examples