A Demonstration of Mobility Prediction as a Service in Cloudified LTE Networks

Location prediction has attracted a significant amount of research effort. Being able to predict users’ movement benefits a wide range of communication systems, including location-based service/applications, mobile access control, mobile QoS provision, and resource management for mobile computation and storage management. In this demo, we present MOBaaS, which is a cloudified Mobility and Bandwidth prediction services that can be instantiated, deployed, and disposed on-demand. Mobility prediction of MOBaaS provides location predictions of a single/group user equipments (UEs) in a future moment. This information can be used for self-adaptation procedures and optimal network function configuration during run-time operations. We demonstrate an example of real-time mobility prediction service deployment running on OpenStack platform, and the potential benefits it bring to other invoking services.

The Darién Region, Connecting Road of the Americas, among the expressions of hydric wealth, land vocation and the extractive exploration on its violated forms

Colombia has oceanic waters, catchment areas, like lakes, cienagas and swamps, water flows, like rivers, gorges and streams, small rivers and groundwater. The oceanic waters are the Caribbean Sea-1600 km and the Pacific Ocean-1300 km that comprise the north and west continental territory, respectively. Actually the Region of Darién, geographically bounded by the Carribean Sea to the north is becoming to be focused by studies due to use conflicts and disputes about water and a forest reserve on its territories. Considering its location, strategic at northwestern Colombia, frontier region with Central America, several dynamics are imposed. One of them is the implantation of a road system entitled Connecting Road of the Americas. This fact means the construction of an infra-structure that will cross a special zone formed by swamps and jungle known as The Darién Gap. Evidences of such interests are revealed by projects like the constructions of Turbo's Port in the Atlantic Ocean, Department of Antioquia and Tribugá's Port in the Pacific Ocean, Department of Choco, the mountain road and the coastal conection Colombia-Venezuela attending to the main intentions of the central region of the department (Metropolitan Area of Aburrá Valley-AMVA). Human settlements form a productive system, based on small and medium familiar agriculture's production, corresponding to the western portion and piedmont of Abibe's mountain at its antioquian portion, alluvial plan that forms the rivers on this area, the littoral zone that delimits the Carribean Sea, the Darién and Baudó Mountains and the gulf that receives, among other waters, the ones from Atrato and León, as well as the exodus process constitutes a forced exit resulting from actions of several armed groups. It can be identified intense historical, cultural, political and environmental relations, specially the last one associated with strategic ecosystems that are fundamental for the hydric regulation of the region, as well as food safety of the local inhabitants. Results from two researches (UPB, 2007 y 2010) reveals this quick transformation in the spatial re-configuration, demographical and economical indicators and the exacerbated fight for resources, damaging the extractive vocation in the Region. Path to commerce of illegalities (drugs, guns) and to implementation of the agroindustrial project for biofuel production, cooperation program that involves Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia. Appropriation modes allow the existence of strategies since global interests revealing a development logic that privileges the conception of an artificialized nature. Since the smallest portion of rural areas, specific modes of resources exploration are linked to imposed interests of transnational corporations. Disparate consequences are going deeper evidenced by social, technical and nature transformations, envisioning risks for the habitability's condition

The Darién Region, Connecting Road of the Americas, among the expressions of hydric wealth, land vocation and the extractive exploration on its violated forms

Colombia has oceanic waters, catchment areas, like lakes, cienagas and swamps, water flows, like rivers, gorges and streams, small rivers and groundwater. The oceanic waters are the Caribbean Sea-1600 km and the Pacific Ocean-1300 km that comprise the north and west continental territory, respectively. Actually the Region of Darién, geographically bounded by the Carribean Sea to the north is becoming to be focused by studies due to use conflicts and disputes about water and a forest reserve on its territories. Considering its location, strategic at northwestern Colombia, frontier region with Central America, several dynamics are imposed. One of them is the implantation of a road system entitled Connecting Road of the Americas. This fact means the construction of an infra-structure that will cross a special zone formed by swamps and jungle known as The Darién Gap. Evidences of such interests are revealed by projects like the constructions of Turbo's Port in the Atlantic Ocean, Department of Antioquia and Tribugá's Port in the Pacific Ocean, Department of Choco, the mountain road and the coastal conection Colombia-Venezuela attending to the main intentions of the central region of the department (Metropolitan Area of Aburrá Valley-AMVA). Human settlements form a productive system, based on small and medium familiar agriculture's production, corresponding to the western portion and piedmont of Abibe's mountain at its antioquian portion, alluvial plan that forms the rivers on this area, the littoral zone that delimits the Carribean Sea, the Darién and Baudó Mountains and the gulf that receives, among other waters, the ones from Atrato and León, as well as the exodus process constitutes a forced exit resulting from actions of several armed groups. It can be identified intense historical, cultural, political and environmental relations, specially the last one associated with strategic ecosystems that are fundamental for the hydric regulation of the region, as well as food safety of the local inhabitants. Results from two researches (UPB, 2007 y 2010) reveals this quick transformation in the spatial re-configuration, demographical and economical indicators and the exacerbated fight for resources, damaging the extractive vocation in the Region. Path to commerce of illegalities (drugs, guns) and to implementation of the agroindustrial project for biofuel production, cooperation program that involves Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia. Appropriation modes allow the existence of strategies since global interests revealing a development logic that privileges the conception of an artificialized nature. Since the smallest portion of rural areas, specific modes of resources exploration are linked to imposed interests of transnational corporations. Disparate consequences are going deeper evidenced by social, technical and nature transformations, envisioning risks for the habitability's condition

The Darién Region, Connecting Road of the Americas, among the expressions of hydric wealth, land vocation and the extractive exploration on its violated forms

Colombia has oceanic waters, catchment areas, like lakes, cienagas and swamps, water flows, like rivers, gorges and streams, small rivers and groundwater. The oceanic waters are the Caribbean Sea-1600 km and the Pacific Ocean-1300 km that comprise the north and west continental territory, respectively. Actually the Region of Darién, geographically bounded by the Carribean Sea to the north is becoming to be focused by studies due to use conflicts and disputes about water and a forest reserve on its territories. Considering its location, strategic at northwestern Colombia, frontier region with Central America, several dynamics are imposed. One of them is the implantation of a road system entitled Connecting Road of the Americas. This fact means the construction of an infra-structure that will cross a special zone formed by swamps and jungle known as The Darién Gap. Evidences of such interests are revealed by projects like the constructions of Turbo's Port in the Atlantic Ocean, Department of Antioquia and Tribugá's Port in the Pacific Ocean, Department of Choco, the mountain road and the coastal conection Colombia-Venezuela attending to the main intentions of the central region of the department (Metropolitan Area of Aburrá Valley-AMVA). Human settlements form a productive system, based on small and medium familiar agriculture's production, corresponding to the western portion and piedmont of Abibe's mountain at its antioquian portion, alluvial plan that forms the rivers on this area, the littoral zone that delimits the Carribean Sea, the Darién and Baudó Mountains and the gulf that receives, among other waters, the ones from Atrato and León, as well as the exodus process constitutes a forced exit resulting from actions of several armed groups. It can be identified intense historical, cultural, political and environmental relations, specially the last one associated with strategic ecosystems that are fundamental for the hydric regulation of the region, as well as food safety of the local inhabitants. Results from two researches (UPB, 2007 y 2010) reveals this quick transformation in the spatial re-configuration, demographical and economical indicators and the exacerbated fight for resources, damaging the extractive vocation in the Region. Path to commerce of illegalities (drugs, guns) and to implementation of the agroindustrial project for biofuel production, cooperation program that involves Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia. Appropriation modes allow the existence of strategies since global interests revealing a development logic that privileges the conception of an artificialized nature. Since the smallest portion of rural areas, specific modes of resources exploration are linked to imposed interests of transnational corporations. Disparate consequences are going deeper evidenced by social, technical and nature transformations, envisioning risks for the habitability's condition

Simulador WKM para gestión de conocimiento en una WSN

La gestión del conocimiento (KM) se basa en la captación, filtración, procesamiento y análisis de unos datos en bruto que con dicho refinamiento podrán llegar a convertirse en conocimiento o Sabiduría. Estas prácticas tendrán lugar en este PFC en una WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) compuesta de unos sofisticados dispositivos comúnmente conocidos como “motas” y cuya principal característica son sus bajas capacidades en cuanto a memoria, batería o autonomía. Ha sido objetivo primordial de este Proyecto de fin de Carrera aunar una WSN con la Gestión del Conocimiento así como demostrar que es posible llevar a cabo grandes procesamientos de información, con tan bajas capacidades, si se distribuyen correctamente los procesos. En primera instancia, se introducen conceptos básicos acerca de las WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) así como de los elementos principales en dichas redes. Tras conocer el modelo de arquitectura de comunicaciones se procede a presentar la Gestión del Conocimiento de forma teórica y a continuación la interpretación que se ha hecho a partir de diversas referencias bibliográficas para llevar a cabo la implementación del proyecto. El siguiente paso es describir punto por punto todos los componentes del Simulador; librerías, funcionamiento y demás cuestiones sobre configuración y puesta a punto. Como escenario de aplicación se plantea una red de sensores inalámbricos básica cuya topología y ubicación es completamente configurable. Se lleva a cabo una configuración a nivel de red basada en el protocolo 6LowPAN pero con posibilidad de simplificarlo. Los datos se procesan de acuerdo a un modelo piramidal de Gestión de Conocimiento adaptable a las necesidades del usuario. Mediante la utilización de las diversas opciones que proporciona la interfaz gráfica implementada y los documentos de resultados que se van generando, se puede llevar a cabo un detallado estudio posterior de la simulación y comprobar si se cumplen las expectativas planteadas. Knowledge management (KM) is based on the collection, filtering, processing and analysis of some raw data which such refinement it can be turned into knowledge or wisdom. These practices will take place in a WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) consists of sophisticated devices commonly known as "dots" and whose main characteristics are its low capacity for memory, battery or autonomy. A primary objective of this Project will be to join a WSN with Knowledge Management and show that it is possible make largo information processing, with such low capacity if the processes are properly distributed. First, we introduce basic concepts about the WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) and major elements of these networks. After meeting the communications architecture model, we proceed to show the Knowledge Management theory and then the interpretation of several bibliographic references to carry out the project implementation. The next step is discovering point by point all over the Simulator components; libraries, operation and the rest of points about configuration and tuning. As application scenario we propose a basic wireless sensor network whose topology and location is completely customizable. It will perform a network level configuration based in W6LowPAN Protocol. Data is processed according to a pyramidal pattern Knowledge Management adaptable to the user´s needs. The hardware elements will suffer more or less energy dependence depending on their role and activity in the network. Through the various options that provide the graphical interface has been implemented and results documents that are generated, can be carried out after a detailed study of the simulation and verify compliance with the expectations raised.

Estudio de los principales CMS para la creación de una red social

Actualmente las redes sociales son muy utilizadas en todo el mundo, existen diferentes tipos de redes sociales con las que podemos conectar con amigos, ampliar nuestra red de contactos profesionales, aprender cosas nuevas, etc. Su elevado uso las ha convertido en uno de los negocios más rentables en internet generando fortunas para sus creadores, principalmente, a través de la publicidad. Muchas redes sociales son creadas por empresas que cuentan con un equipo experto, pero otras muchas han sido creadas por personas comunes, con bajos conocimientos informáticos, muchos motivados en sus aficiones o carreras profesionales, que al no encontrar nada en la red que les resulte útil, han decidido desarrollar ellos mismos sus propias redes sociales con la ayuda de herramientas informáticas. Una de esas herramientas son los sistemas de gestión de contenidos (CMS), con los cuales ahorraremos mucho tiempo de desarrollo y no necesitaremos invertir grandes cantidades de dinero. Este proyecto trata, principalmente, de cómo crear redes sociales haciendo uso de estas herramientas y tiene el objetivo de ser lo suficientemente claro para que cualquier persona, sin importar su nivel de conocimientos técnicos, sea capaz de desarrollar sus ideas. En la primera parte del proyecto se habla sobre las redes sociales en general y el impacto de éstas en la sociedad actual, donde se ve que, actualmente, debido a la cantidad de redes sociales y a la accesibilidad móvil, el uso de las redes sociales es una cotidianidad. También se explican algunos métodos para obtener beneficios económicos de una red social y las ventajas que presentan las redes sociales específicas frente a las generalistas, concluyendo que las redes sociales específicas van ganando mayor protagonismo con el paso del tiempo. Además, se habla sobre la crítica de las redes sociales desde el punto de vista del usuario de la red, donde se resalta el tema de la administración de la publicidad y la privatización que han supuesto las redes sociales. Posteriormente se presenta una base teórica sobre las herramientas antes mencionadas, los CMS. Se explica su funcionamiento, clasificación y las ventajas que obtenemos con el uso de este software en nuestros proyectos, de los cuales destacan el corto tiempo de desarrollo y el bajo coste. Al final se eligen los CMS de estudio en este proyecto principalmente en base a tres criterios: licencia, cuota de uso y características de red social. En la segunda parte del proyecto se habla acerca de los CMS elegidos: WordPress con su plugin BuddyPress, Elgg, y Joomla con su plugin JomSocial. Se explican las características de cada uno de ellos y se muestran ejemplos de redes sociales reales hechas con estos CMS. En esta parte del proyecto se hace un uso práctico de estos CMS y se detalla paso a paso todo el proceso de creación de una red social (instalación, configuración y personalización de la red social) para cada CMS. El resultado son tres redes sociales hechas con distintos CMS, de los cuales se hace una valoración en base a la experiencia obtenida con el uso de los mismos, concluyéndose que JomSocial es una buena opción para redes sociales de uso generalista, pero para redes específicas son mejores tanto Elgg como BuddyPress, presentando este último una ligera ventaja por tener una gran comunidad en español. ABSTRACT. Nowadays social networks are widely used throughout the world, there are different types of social networks where you can connect with friends, expand your network of professional contacts, learn new things, etc. Its high usage has turned them into one of the most profitable businesses on Internet generating fortunes to its developers, mainly through advertising. Many social networks are developed by companies that count on an expert team, but many others have been created by ordinary people, with low computer skills, many of them motivated in their hobbies or careers, that did not find anything useful on Internet and decide to develop their own social networks with the help of software tools. One of those tools is a content management system (CMS), which will help us to save a lot of development time and we will not need to invest large amounts of money. This project is, mainly, about how to create social networks using these tools and aims to be clear enough to help anyone, regardless of their computer skills, to develop their ideas. The first part of the project is about social networks in general and the impact on today's society, where we can see that, due to the number of social networks and mobile accessibility, the use of social networks is daily. Also it explains some ways to obtain economic benefits from a social network and the advantages of specific social networks against generalist social networks, concluding that specific social networks are gaining more prominence with the passage of time. In addition, it refers on social networks critique from the point of view of social network users, where it highlights the issue of the advertising administration and privatization which have brought social networks. Subsequently, it presents a theoretical base of the above mentioned tools, CMS. Explains their operation, classification and the advantages we get with the use of this software in our projects, where the short development time and lower cost are highlighted. At the end the CMS studied in this project are chosen mainly based on three criteria: license, community size and social network features. The second part of the project is about the chosen CMS: WordPress with its plugin BuddyPress, Elgg, and Joomla with its plugin JomSocial. It explains features of all of them and shows examples of real social networks developed with these CMS. This part of the project is a practical use of these CMS and detailed step by step throughout the process of creating a social network (installation, configuration and customization of the social network) for each CMS. The result are three social networks made with different CMS, from which is made an assessment on the basis of the experience gained with the use of these software, concluding that JomSocial is a good choice to develop generalist social networks, but for specific social networks are better Elgg and BuddyPress, presenting the latter a slight advantage by having a large community in Spanish.

Contributions to the Resilience Management in the Internet of Things

El auge del "Internet de las Cosas" (IoT, "Internet of Things") y sus tecnologías asociadas han permitido su aplicación en diversos dominios de la aplicación, entre los que se encuentran la monitorización de ecosistemas forestales, la gestión de catástrofes y emergencias, la domótica, la automatización industrial, los servicios para ciudades inteligentes, la eficiencia energética de edificios, la detección de intrusos, la gestión de desastres y emergencias o la monitorización de señales corporales, entre muchas otras. La desventaja de una red IoT es que una vez desplegada, ésta queda desatendida, es decir queda sujeta, entre otras cosas, a condiciones climáticas cambiantes y expuestas a catástrofes naturales, fallos de software o hardware, o ataques maliciosos de terceros, por lo que se puede considerar que dichas redes son propensas a fallos. El principal requisito de los nodos constituyentes de una red IoT es que estos deben ser capaces de seguir funcionando a pesar de sufrir errores en el propio sistema. La capacidad de la red para recuperarse ante fallos internos y externos inesperados es lo que se conoce actualmente como "Resiliencia" de la red. Por tanto, a la hora de diseñar y desplegar aplicaciones o servicios para IoT, se espera que la red sea tolerante a fallos, que sea auto-configurable, auto-adaptable, auto-optimizable con respecto a nuevas condiciones que puedan aparecer durante su ejecución. Esto lleva al análisis de un problema fundamental en el estudio de las redes IoT, el problema de la "Conectividad". Se dice que una red está conectada si todo par de nodos en la red son capaces de encontrar al menos un camino de comunicación entre ambos. Sin embargo, la red puede desconectarse debido a varias razones, como que se agote la batería, que un nodo sea destruido, etc. Por tanto, se hace necesario gestionar la resiliencia de la red con el objeto de mantener la conectividad entre sus nodos, de tal manera que cada nodo IoT sea capaz de proveer servicios continuos, a otros nodos, a otras redes o, a otros servicios y aplicaciones. En este contexto, el objetivo principal de esta tesis doctoral se centra en el estudio del problema de conectividad IoT, más concretamente en el desarrollo de modelos para el análisis y gestión de la Resiliencia, llevado a la práctica a través de las redes WSN, con el fin de mejorar la capacidad la tolerancia a fallos de los nodos que componen la red. Este reto se aborda teniendo en cuenta dos enfoques distintos, por una parte, a diferencia de otro tipo de redes de dispositivos convencionales, los nodos en una red IoT son propensos a perder la conexión, debido a que se despliegan en entornos aislados, o en entornos con condiciones extremas; por otra parte, los nodos suelen ser recursos con bajas capacidades en términos de procesamiento, almacenamiento y batería, entre otros, por lo que requiere que el diseño de la gestión de su resiliencia sea ligero, distribuido y energéticamente eficiente. En este sentido, esta tesis desarrolla técnicas auto-adaptativas que permiten a una red IoT, desde la perspectiva del control de su topología, ser resiliente ante fallos en sus nodos. Para ello, se utilizan técnicas basadas en lógica difusa y técnicas de control proporcional, integral y derivativa (PID - "proportional-integral-derivative"), con el objeto de mejorar la conectividad de la red, teniendo en cuenta que el consumo de energía debe preservarse tanto como sea posible. De igual manera, se ha tenido en cuenta que el algoritmo de control debe ser distribuido debido a que, en general, los enfoques centralizados no suelen ser factibles a despliegues a gran escala. El presente trabajo de tesis implica varios retos que conciernen a la conectividad de red, entre los que se incluyen: la creación y el análisis de modelos matemáticos que describan la red, una propuesta de sistema de control auto-adaptativo en respuesta a fallos en los nodos, la optimización de los parámetros del sistema de control, la validación mediante una implementación siguiendo un enfoque de ingeniería del software y finalmente la evaluación en una aplicación real. Atendiendo a los retos anteriormente mencionados, el presente trabajo justifica, mediante una análisis matemático, la relación existente entre el "grado de un nodo" (definido como el número de nodos en la vecindad del nodo en cuestión) y la conectividad de la red, y prueba la eficacia de varios tipos de controladores que permiten ajustar la potencia de trasmisión de los nodos de red en respuesta a eventuales fallos, teniendo en cuenta el consumo de energía como parte de los objetivos de control. Así mismo, este trabajo realiza una evaluación y comparación con otros algoritmos representativos; en donde se demuestra que el enfoque desarrollado es más tolerante a fallos aleatorios en los nodos de la red, así como en su eficiencia energética. Adicionalmente, el uso de algoritmos bioinspirados ha permitido la optimización de los parámetros de control de redes dinámicas de gran tamaño. Con respecto a la implementación en un sistema real, se han integrado las propuestas de esta tesis en un modelo de programación OSGi ("Open Services Gateway Initiative") con el objeto de crear un middleware auto-adaptativo que mejore la gestión de la resiliencia, especialmente la reconfiguración en tiempo de ejecución de componentes software cuando se ha producido un fallo. Como conclusión, los resultados de esta tesis doctoral contribuyen a la investigación teórica y, a la aplicación práctica del control resiliente de la topología en redes distribuidas de gran tamaño. Los diseños y algoritmos presentados pueden ser vistos como una prueba novedosa de algunas técnicas para la próxima era de IoT. A continuación, se enuncian de forma resumida las principales contribuciones de esta tesis: (1) Se han analizado matemáticamente propiedades relacionadas con la conectividad de la red. Se estudia, por ejemplo, cómo varía la probabilidad de conexión de la red al modificar el alcance de comunicación de los nodos, así como cuál es el mínimo número de nodos que hay que añadir al sistema desconectado para su re-conexión. (2) Se han propuesto sistemas de control basados en lógica difusa para alcanzar el grado de los nodos deseado, manteniendo la conectividad completa de la red. Se han evaluado diferentes tipos de controladores basados en lógica difusa mediante simulaciones, y los resultados se han comparado con otros algoritmos representativos. (3) Se ha investigado más a fondo, dando un enfoque más simple y aplicable, el sistema de control de doble bucle, y sus parámetros de control se han optimizado empleando algoritmos heurísticos como el método de la entropía cruzada (CE, "Cross Entropy"), la optimización por enjambre de partículas (PSO, "Particle Swarm Optimization"), y la evolución diferencial (DE, "Differential Evolution"). (4) Se han evaluado mediante simulación, la mayoría de los diseños aquí presentados; además, parte de los trabajos se han implementado y validado en una aplicación real combinando técnicas de software auto-adaptativo, como por ejemplo las de una arquitectura orientada a servicios (SOA, "Service-Oriented Architecture"). ABSTRACT The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) enables a tremendous number of applications, such as forest monitoring, disaster management, home automation, factory automation, smart city, etc. However, various kinds of unexpected disturbances may cause node failure in the IoT, for example battery depletion, software/hardware malfunction issues and malicious attacks. So, it can be considered that the IoT is prone to failure. The ability of the network to recover from unexpected internal and external failures is known as "resilience" of the network. Resilience usually serves as an important non-functional requirement when designing IoT, which can further be broken down into "self-*" properties, such as self-adaptive, self-healing, self-configuring, self-optimization, etc. One of the consequences that node failure brings to the IoT is that some nodes may be disconnected from others, such that they are not capable of providing continuous services for other nodes, networks, and applications. In this sense, the main objective of this dissertation focuses on the IoT connectivity problem. A network is regarded as connected if any pair of different nodes can communicate with each other either directly or via a limited number of intermediate nodes. More specifically, this thesis focuses on the development of models for analysis and management of resilience, implemented through the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which is a challenging task. On the one hand, unlike other conventional network devices, nodes in the IoT are more likely to be disconnected from each other due to their deployment in a hostile or isolated environment. On the other hand, nodes are resource-constrained in terms of limited processing capability, storage and battery capacity, which requires that the design of the resilience management for IoT has to be lightweight, distributed and energy-efficient. In this context, the thesis presents self-adaptive techniques for IoT, with the aim of making the IoT resilient against node failures from the network topology control point of view. The fuzzy-logic and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control techniques are leveraged to improve the network connectivity of the IoT in response to node failures, meanwhile taking into consideration that energy consumption must be preserved as much as possible. The control algorithm itself is designed to be distributed, because the centralized approaches are usually not feasible in large scale IoT deployments. The thesis involves various aspects concerning network connectivity, including: creation and analysis of mathematical models describing the network, proposing self-adaptive control systems in response to node failures, control system parameter optimization, implementation using the software engineering approach, and evaluation in a real application. This thesis also justifies the relations between the "node degree" (the number of neighbor(s) of a node) and network connectivity through mathematic analysis, and proves the effectiveness of various types of controllers that can adjust power transmission of the IoT nodes in response to node failures. The controllers also take into consideration the energy consumption as part of the control goals. The evaluation is performed and comparison is made with other representative algorithms. The simulation results show that the proposals in this thesis can tolerate more random node failures and save more energy when compared with those representative algorithms. Additionally, the simulations demonstrate that the use of the bio-inspired algorithms allows optimizing the parameters of the controller. With respect to the implementation in a real system, the programming model called OSGi (Open Service Gateway Initiative) is integrated with the proposals in order to create a self-adaptive middleware, especially reconfiguring the software components at runtime when failures occur. The outcomes of this thesis contribute to theoretic research and practical applications of resilient topology control for large and distributed networks. The presented controller designs and optimization algorithms can be viewed as novel trials of the control and optimization techniques for the coming era of the IoT. The contributions of this thesis can be summarized as follows: (1) Mathematically, the fault-tolerant probability of a large-scale stochastic network is analyzed. It is studied how the probability of network connectivity depends on the communication range of the nodes, and what is the minimum number of neighbors to be added for network re-connection. (2) A fuzzy-logic control system is proposed, which obtains the desired node degree and in turn maintains the network connectivity when it is subject to node failures. There are different types of fuzzy-logic controllers evaluated by simulations, and the results demonstrate the improvement of fault-tolerant capability as compared to some other representative algorithms. (3) A simpler but more applicable approach, the two-loop control system is further investigated, and its control parameters are optimized by using some heuristic algorithms such as Cross Entropy (CE), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Differential Evolution (DE). (4) Most of the designs are evaluated by means of simulations, but part of the proposals are implemented and tested in a real-world application by combining the self-adaptive software technique and the control algorithms which are presented in this thesis.

Labor Market Policy Decentralization in Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy - Dynamics and Reasons. ACES Working Papers No. 5, 2008

This article argues that welfare-to-work or activation policies, which have been adopted across a range of OECD countries during the last two decades, do not only have led to changes in the substance of the welfare state but also to transformations in its institutional configuration. This institutional transformation includes the spatial reconfiguration of the welfare state, which has given new roles to the supra-national, national, and sub-national levels of government as well as private actors in the management and creation of labor market policies. By bringing institutions into these debates, this article seeks to expand the literature on welfare-to-work and activation as to date authors working on this topic have said very little about the degree, types, and reasons for the spatial re-configuration of welfare-to-work policies across different states. To fill a gap in the literatures on changes in the welfare state and its territorial configuration in particular, we compare trends in the re-configuration of welfare-to-work policies in Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. We find that there is a cross-national trend, when it comes to the institutional effects of the implementation of activation. These trends bear a tension between decentralization and centralization, as both central and sub-national levels of government have acquired new responsibilities to implement the activation paradigm.

Postcolonialism and the politics of qualitative research in international business

This paper offers a re-configuration of international business research by subjecting it to a postcolonial critique. This critique sees international business research as exhibiting continuities with the colonial project in the way it appropriates the Other. Qualitative research in international business often reproduces a neopositivist separation of theory and method, which can marginalize discussion of the important ontological, epistemological and political issues inherent in any research process

Modular ESS with second life batteries operating in grid independent mode

This work is part of a bigger project which aims to research the potential development of commercial opportunities for the re-use of batteries after their use in low carbon vehicles on an electricity grid or microgrid system. There are three main revenue streams (peak load lopping on the distribution Network to allow for network re-enforcement deferral, National Grid primary/ secondary/ high frequency response, customer energy management optimization). These incomes streams are dependent on the grid system being present. However, there is additional opportunity to be gained from also using these batteries to provide UPS backup when the grid is no longer present. Most UPS or ESS on the market use new batteries in conjunction with a two level converter interface. This produces a reliable backup solution in the case of loss of mains power, but may be expensive to implement. This paper introduces a modular multilevel cascade converter (MMCC) based ESS using second-life batteries for use on a grid independent industrial plant without any additional onsite generator as a potentially cheaper alternative. The number of modules has been designed for a given reliability target and these modules could be used to minimize/eliminate the output filter. An appropriate strategy to provide voltage and frequency control in a grid independent system is described and simulated under different disturbance conditions such as load switching, fault conditions or a large motor starting. A comparison of the results from the modular topology against a traditional two level converter is provided to prove similar performance criteria. The proposed ESS and control strategy is an acceptable way of providing backup power in the event of loss of grid. Additional financial benefit to the customer may be obtained by using a second life battery in this way.

Globalización, urbanización y ambiente: elementos para una agenda alternativa de desarrollo urbanoespacial

Se analiza la re-configuración de los espacios urbanos y las repercusiones socio-ambientales vinculadas con la globalización neoliberal en las zonas metropolitanas de las sociedades periféricas, específicamente en la Gran Área Metropolitana (GAM) de Costa Rica. La tesis central del análisis es que esta re-configuración ha moldeado y acelerado el patrón urbano, espacial y ambiental de la GAM a través de 1) la segmentación de los mercados en correlación con procesos dispares de inclusión y exclusión social y 2) la erosión de los circuitos naturales ligados a los ecosistemas terrestres ubicados en la GAM. Abstract The article analyzes the re-configuration of the urban spaces and the socio- environmental impacts related with the neoliberal globalization in the metropolitan zones of peripheral societies, specifically in the Metropolitan Area (GAM) of Costa Rica. The central thesis of the analysis is that this re-configuration has molded and accelerated the spatial and environmental urban pattern of the GAM through the 1) segmentation of the markets in correlation with different processes of social inclusion and exclusion and 2) the erosion of the natural circuits linked to the terrestrial ecosystems located in the GAM

Prevalencia de síntomas de fatiga crónica / encefalomielitis miálgica (SFC/EM) y su relación con factores ocupacionales en trabajadores en una empresa de vigilancia en Bogotá, Colombia, 2016

Antecedentes: El síndrome de fatiga crónica/encefalomielitis miálgica (SFC/EM), un trastorno debilitante y complejo que se caracteriza por un cansancio intenso, ha sido estudiado en población general, sin embargo, su exploración en población trabajadora ha sido limitada. Objetivo: Determinar la prevalencia de síntomas asociados a SFC/EM y su relación con factores ocupacionales en personal de una empresa de vigilancia en Bogotá, durante el año 2016. Materiales y métodos: Estudio de corte transversal en una empresa de vigilancia, utilizando como instrumento para la recolección de datos la historia clínica-ocupacional. En las variables cualitativas se obtuvieron frecuencias simples y porcentajes y en las variables cuantitativas medidas de tendencia central y de dispersión. Se determinaron asociaciones entre variables (Ji-cuadrado de Pearson o test exacto de Fisher, valores esperados <5), (mann-whitney.y un modelo de regresión logística incondicional (p<0.05)). Resultados: Se evaluaron 162 trabajadores, los síntomas de SFC/EM con mayor prevalencia fueron sueño no reparador (38,3%) y dolor muscular (30,2%). Se encontró asociación estadísticamente significativa entre fatiga severa y crónica por al menos 6 meses con alteración en sistema nervioso (p=0,016) y consumo de medicamentos (p=0,043), así mismo entre el sueño no reparador con el número de horas de sueño de 5 a 7 horas (p=0,002). Conclusión: En los vigilantes el síntoma de SFC/EM más prevalente fue sueño no reparador y este se asoció con el número de horas de sueño de 5 a 7 horas. Con el estudio se pudieron determinar los casos probables de SFC/EM los cuales se beneficiarían de una valoración médica integral para un diagnóstico oportuno.

Computer vision in aseptic pharmaceutical manufacturing: a deep learning-based approach to vial inspection and pack formation during a lyophilizer loading cycle

Vision systems are powerful tools playing an increasingly important role in modern industry, to detect errors and maintain product standards. With the enlarged availability of affordable industrial cameras, computer vision algorithms have been increasingly applied in industrial manufacturing processes monitoring. Until a few years ago, industrial computer vision applications relied only on ad-hoc algorithms designed for the specific object and acquisition setup being monitored, with a strong focus on co-designing the acquisition and processing pipeline. Deep learning has overcome these limits providing greater flexibility and faster re-configuration. In this work, the process to be inspected consists in vials’ pack formation entering a freeze-dryer, which is a common scenario in pharmaceutical active ingredient packaging lines. To ensure that the machine produces proper packs, a vision system is installed at the entrance of the freeze-dryer to detect eventual anomalies with execution times compatible with the production specifications. Other constraints come from sterility and safety standards required in pharmaceutical manufacturing. This work presents an overview about the production line, with particular focus on the vision system designed, and about all trials conducted to obtain the final performance. Transfer learning, alleviating the requirement for a large number of training data, combined with data augmentation methods, consisting in the generation of synthetic images, were used to effectively increase the performances while reducing the cost of data acquisition and annotation. The proposed vision algorithm is composed by two main subtasks, designed respectively to vials counting and discrepancy detection. The first one was trained on more than 23k vials (about 300 images) and tested on 5k more (about 75 images), whereas 60 training images and 52 testing images were used for the second one.

Re-entrant phase behaviour of network fluids: A patchy particle model with temperature-dependent valence

We study a model consisting of particles with dissimilar bonding sites ("patches"), which exhibits self-assembly into chains connected by Y-junctions, and investigate its phase behaviour by both simulations and theory. We show that, as the energy cost epsilon(j) of forming Y-junctions increases, the extent of the liquid-vapour coexistence region at lower temperatures and densities is reduced. The phase diagram thus acquires a characteristic "pinched" shape in which the liquid branch density decreases as the temperature is lowered. To our knowledge, this is the first model in which the predicted topological phase transition between a fluid composed of short chains and a fluid rich in Y-junctions is actually observed. Above a certain threshold for epsilon(j), condensation ceases to exist because the entropy gain of forming Y-junctions can no longer offset their energy cost. We also show that the properties of these phase diagrams can be understood in terms of a temperature-dependent effective valence of the patchy particles. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3605703]

Abnormal cortical network activation in human amnesia: A high-resolution evoked potential study.

Little is known about how human amnesia affects the activation of cortical networks during memory processing. In this study, we recorded high-density evoked potentials in 12 healthy control subjects and 11 amnesic patients with various types of brain damage affecting the medial temporal lobes, diencephalic structures, or both. Subjects performed a continuous recognition task composed of meaningful designs. Using whole-scalp spatiotemporal mapping techniques, we found that, during the first 200 ms following picture presentation, map configuration of amnesics and controls were indistinguishable. Beyond this period, processing significantly differed. Between 200 and 350 ms, amnesic patients expressed different topographical maps than controls in response to new and repeated pictures. From 350 to 550 ms, healthy subjects showed modulation of the same maps in response to new and repeated items. In amnesics, by contrast, presentation of repeated items induced different maps, indicating distinct cortical processing of new and old information. The study indicates that cortical mechanisms underlying memory formation and re-activation in amnesia fundamentally differ from normal memory processing.