COLLABORATIVE RULE-BASED PROACTIVE SYSTEMS: MODEL, INFORMATION SHARING STRATEGY AND CASE STUDIES

Doctoral thesis (2016)

The Proactive Computing paradigm provides us with a new way to make the multitude of computing systems, devices and sensors spread through our modern environment, work for/pro the human beings and be ... [more ▼]

The Proactive Computing paradigm provides us with a new way to make the multitude of computing systems, devices and sensors spread through our modern environment, work for/pro the human beings and be active on our behalf. In this paradigm, users are put on top of the interactive loop and the underlying IT systems are automated for performing even the most complex tasks in a more autonomous way. This dissertation focuses on providing further means, at both theoretical and applied levels, to design and implement Proactive Systems. It is shown how smart mobile, wearable and/or server applications can be developed with the proposed Rule-Based Middleware Model for computing pro-actively and for operating on multiple platforms. In order to represent and to reason about the information that the proactive system needs to know about its environment where it performs its computations, a new technique called Proactive Scenario is proposed. As an extension of its scope and properties, and for achieving global reasoning over inter-connected proactive systems, a new collaborative technique called Global Proactive Scenario is then proposed. Furthermore, to show their potential, three real world case studies of (collaborative) proactive systems have been explored for validating the proposed development methodology and its related technological framework in various domains like e-Learning, e-Business and e-Health. Results from these experiments con rm that software applications designed along the lines of the proposed rule-based proactive system model together with the concepts of local and global proactive scenarios, are capable of actively searching for the information they need, of automating tasks and procedures that do not require the user's input, of detecting various changes in their context and of taking measures to adapt to it for addressing the needs of the people which use these systems, and of performing collaboration and global reasoning over multiple proactive engines spread across different networks. [less ▲]

Enabling SDN in VANETs: What is the Impact on Security?

in Sensors (2016), 16(12), 2077

The demand for safe and secure journeys over roads and highways has been growing at a tremendous pace over recent decades. At the same time, the smart city paradigm has emerged to improve citizens’ ... [more ▼]

The demand for safe and secure journeys over roads and highways has been growing at a tremendous pace over recent decades. At the same time, the smart city paradigm has emerged to improve citizens’ quality of life by developing the smart mobility concept. Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANETs) are widely recognized to be instrumental in realizing such concept, by enabling appealing safety and infotainment services. Such networks come with their own set of challenges, which range from managing high node mobility to securing data and user privacy. The Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm has been identified as a suitable solution for dealing with the dynamic network environment, the increased number of connected devices, and the heterogeneity of applications. While some preliminary investigations have been already conducted to check the applicability of the SDN paradigm to VANETs, and its presumed benefits for managing resources and mobility, it is still unclear what impact SDN will have on security and privacy. Security is a relevant issue in VANETs, because of the impact that threats can have on drivers’ behavior and quality of life. This paper opens a discussion on the security threats that future SDN-enabled VANETs will have to face, and investigates how SDN could be beneficial in building new countermeasures. The analysis is conducted in real use cases (smart parking, smart grid of electric vehicles, platooning, and emergency services), which are expected to be among the vehicular applications that will most benefit from introducing an SDN architecture. [less ▲]

Envisioning the Industrial Present: Pathways of Cultural Learning in Luxembourg (1880s-1920s).

in Paedagogica Historica (2016)

This paper examines how and to what extent Luxembourg society was “exposed” to visual representations of the prospering steel industries and labour and working-class culture(s) from the 1880s until the ... [more ▼]

This paper examines how and to what extent Luxembourg society was “exposed” to visual representations of the prospering steel industries and labour and working-class culture(s) from the 1880s until the 1920s – a period of massive industrialisation – and how it thus gradually “learned to labour”. Indeed, modern visual media were seen as ideal catalysts for the circulation, transmission and production of meaning, since they were considered to be appealing, objective, direct and capable of inspiring the imagination. The paper takes the reader through various mundane moments and events of industrial enculturation (annual funfair, slide lecture, vocational school, etc.) and engages with different “technologies of display” (photographs, fair albums, postcards, scale models, etc.) that subtly calibrated, conveyed and inculcated the new industrial reality “through the eye” and, in the process, (re)produced national identifications. By zooming in on these different “visual encounters” with industry and by bringing these isolated encounters together in one story, the paper (re)constructs a “learning route” – one among many possible pathways through this huge dynamic field of learning resources (or, “cultural ecology”) – and thus suggests how (informal) “cultural learning” might have taken place at the time. While accompanying us on this journey, the reader gains insights into how this field of resources evolved and how the industrial present was (re)framed, visually performed and (re)configured over time. [less ▲]

Adventskalender, Tag 3: Gedanken und Wünsche für Hochbegabte.

E-print/Working paper (2016)

A quoi ressemblerait l'enseignement supérieur inclusif dans un monde idéal? En termes concrets, et d'infrastructure notamment, quels sont les chantiers actuels et à venir?

Scientific Conference (2016, December 02)

Of Jam and Bombs: Surviving the War in 1917

Article for general public (2016)

Tourism and Dictatorship: Building Leisure Spaces on the Romanian Black Sea Coast and the Spanish Costa del Sol, 1960s-1970s

Presentation (2016, December 01)

IoT-based Smart Parking System for Sporting Event Management

in Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services (2016, December 01)

By connecting devices, people, vehicles and infrastructures everywhere in a city, governments and their partners can improve community wellbeing and other economic and financial aspects (e.g., cost and ... [more ▼]

By connecting devices, people, vehicles and infrastructures everywhere in a city, governments and their partners can improve community wellbeing and other economic and financial aspects (e.g., cost and energy savings). Nonetheless, smart cities are complex ecosystems that comprise many different stakeholders (network operators, managed service providers, logistic centers...) who must work together to provide the best services and unlock the commercial potential of the IoT. This is one of the major challenges that faces today's smart city movement, and more generally the IoT as a whole. Indeed, while new smart connected objects hit the market every day, they mostly feed "vertical silos" (e.g., vertical apps, siloed apps...) that are closed to the rest of the IoT, thus hampering developers to produce new added value across multiple platforms. Within this context, the contribution of this paper is twofold: (i) present the EU vision and ongoing activities to overcome the problem of vertical silos; (ii) introduce recent IoT standards used as part of a recent Horizon 2020 IoT project to address this problem. The implementation of those standards for enhanced sporting event management in a smart city/government context (FIFA World Cup 2022) is developed, presented, and evaluated as a proof-of-concept. [less ▲]

La relation entre les jeux de la petite enfance et les intérêts professionnels.

in Scientia paedagogica experimentalis (2016), LIII(1-2), 23-54

L’intérêt des enfants pour leurs professions futures pourrait s’expliquer par le fait que les individus ont tendance à considérer hommes et femmes en catégories distinctes. Les enfants sont influencés par ... [more ▼]

L’intérêt des enfants pour leurs professions futures pourrait s’expliquer par le fait que les individus ont tendance à considérer hommes et femmes en catégories distinctes. Les enfants sont influencés par leur environnement qui se constitue, entre autre, par leurs parents, l'école, les médias, ainsi que par les jeux qu’on leur présente durant leur petite enfance. Dans cet article, nous allons présenter les résultats de deux études comparatives sur les jeux de la petite enfance ; d’une part auprès d’élèves du primaire et d’autre part auprès de lycéens. Dans l’échantillon des élèves du primaire, nous allons mettre les jeux de la petite enfance en relation avec les intérêts professionnels. Nous constatons dans cette étude que les jeux de la petite enfance ont une influence sur les choix professionnels. Pour que les intérêts professionnels se développent conformément à la personnalité de l’enfant, il serait donc préférable que celui-ci ait le choix entre une multitude de jeux, qui ne sont pas exclusivement liés aux stéréotypes de leur sexe. De cette façon, l’enfant aura la possibilité de développer ses propres choix et intérêts professionnels. [less ▲]

Game-Theoretic Recruitment of Sensing Service Providers for Trustworthy Cloud-Centric Internet-of-Things (IoT) Applications

in IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) Workshops: Fifth International Workshop on Cloud Computing Systems, Networks, and Applications (CCSNA) (2016, December)

Widespread use of connected smart devices that are equipped with various built-in sensors has introduced the mobile crowdsensing concept to the IoT-driven information and communication applications ... [more ▼]

Widespread use of connected smart devices that are equipped with various built-in sensors has introduced the mobile crowdsensing concept to the IoT-driven information and communication applications. Mobile crowdsensing requires implicit collaboration between the crowdsourcer/recruiter platforms and users. Additionally, users need to be incentivized by the crowdsensing platform because each party aims to maximize their utility. Due to the participatory nature of data collection, trustworthiness and truthfulness pose a grand challenge in crowdsensing systems in the presence of malicious users, who either aim to manipulate sensed data or collaborate unfaithfully with the motivation of maximizing their income. In this paper, we propose a game-theoretic approach for trustworthiness-driven user recruitment in mobile crowdsensing systems that consists of three phases: i) user recruitment, ii) collaborative decision making on trust scores, and iii) badge rewarding. Our proposed framework incentivizes the users through a sub-game perfect equilibrium (SPE) and gamification techniques. Through simulations, we show that the platform utility can be improved by up to the order of 50\% while the average user utility can be increased by at least 15\% when compared to fully-distributed and user-centric trustworthy crowdsensing. [less ▲]