Load balancing in P2P smartphone based distributed IoT systems

With the new age of Internet of Things (IoT), object of everyday such as mobile smart devices start to be equipped with cheap sensors and low energy wireless communication capability. Nowadays mobile smart devices (phones, tablets) have become an ubiquitous device with everyone having access to at least one device. There is an opportunity to build innovative applications and services by exploiting these devices’ untapped rechargeable energy, sensing and processing capabilities. In this thesis, we propose, develop, implement and evaluate LoadIoT a peer-to-peer load balancing scheme that can distribute tasks among plethora of mobile smart devices in the IoT world. We develop and demonstrate an android-based proof of concept load-balancing application. We also present a model of the system which is used to validate the efficiency of the load balancing approach under varying application scenarios. Load balancing concepts can be apply to IoT scenario linked to smart devices. It is able to reduce the traffic send to the Cloud and the energy consumption of the devices. The data acquired from the experimental outcomes enable us to determine the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of a load balanced P2P smart phone-based applications.

Nichesourcing for the benefit of linguistic research and native speakers

The National Library of Finland is implementing the Digitization Project of Kindred Languages in 2012–16. Within the project we will digitize materials in the Uralic languages as well as develop tools to support linguistic research and citizen science. Through this project, researchers will gain access to new corpora 329 and to which all users will have open access regardless of their place of residence. Our objective is to make sure that the new corpora are made available for the open and interactive use of both the academic community and the language societies as a whole. The project seeks to digitize and publish approximately 1200 monograph titles and more than 100 newspapers titles in various Uralic languages. The digitization will be completed by the early of 2015, when the Fenno-Ugrica collection would contain around 200 000 pages of editable text. The researchers cannot spend so much time with the material that they could retrieve a satisfactory amount of edited words, so the participation of a crowd in editing work is needed. Often the targets in crowdsourcing have been split into several microtasks that do not require any special skills from the anonymous people, a faceless crowd. This way of crowdsourcing may produce quantitative results, but from the research’s point of view, there is a danger that the needs of linguistic research are not necessarily met. Also, the number of pages is too high to deal with. The remarkable downside is the lack of shared goal or social affinity. There is no reward in traditional methods of crowdsourcing. Nichesourcing is a specific type of crowdsourcing where tasks are distributed amongst a small crowd of citizen scientists (communities). Although communities provide smaller pools to draw resources, their specific richness in skill is suited for the complex tasks with high-quality product expectations found in nichesourcing. Communities have purpose, identity and their regular interactions engenders social trust and reputation. These communities can correspond to research more precisely. Instead of repetitive and rather trivial tasks, we are trying to utilize the knowledge and skills of citizen scientists to provide qualitative results. Some selection must be made, since we are not aiming to correct all 200,000 pages which we have digitized, but give such assignments to citizen scientists that would precisely fill the gaps in linguistic research. A typical task would editing and collecting the words in such fields of vocabularies, where the researchers do require more information. For instance, there’s a lack of Hill Mari words in anatomy. We have digitized the books in medicine and we could try to track the words related to human organs by assigning the citizen scientists to edit and collect words with OCR editor. From the nichesourcing’s perspective, it is essential that the altruism plays a central role, when the language communities involve. Upon the nichesourcing, our goal is to reach a certain level of interplay, where the language communities would benefit on the results. For instance, the corrected words in Ingrian will be added onto the online dictionary, which is made freely available for the public and the society can benefit too. This objective of interplay can be understood as an aspiration to support the endangered languages and the maintenance of lingual diversity, but also as a servant of “two masters”, the research and the society.

Translating with the Web. Professional translators' information-seeking behaviour in translation with online resources

Tämän tutkielman aiheena on ammattikääntäjien tiedonhaku, kun käytettävissä on ainoastaan verkkolähteitä. Tutkimuksessa on tarkasteltu, mistä ja miten ammattikääntäjät etsivät tietoa internetistä kääntäessään lähtötekstiä englannista suomeen. Lisäksi tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on osoittaa, että tiedonhakutaidot ja lähdekriittisyys ovat käännöskompetensseja, joita tulisi sekä ylläpitää että opettaa osana kääntäjäkoulutusta. Tutkimuksen aineisto kerättiin empiirisesti käyttämällä kolmea metodia. Käännösprosessi ja sen aikana tapahtunut tiedonhaku tallennettiin käyttäen Camtasia-näyttövideointiohjelmaa ja Translog-II -näppäilyntallennusohjelmaa. Lisäksi tutkimukseen osallistuneet kääntäjät täyttivät kaksi kyselyä, joista ensimmäinen sisälsi taustatietokysymyksiä ja toinen itse prosessiin liittyviä retrospektiivisiä kysymyksiä. Kyselyt toteutettiin Webropol-kyselytyökalulla. Aineistoa kerättiin yhteensä viidestä koetilanteesta. Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin lähemmin kolmen ammattikääntäjän tiedon-hakutoimintoja erottelemalla käännösprosesseista ne tauot, joiden aikana kääntäjät etsivät tietoa internetistä. Käytettyjen verkkolähteiden osalta tutkimuksessa saatiin vastaavia tuloksia kuin aiemmissakin tutkimuksissa: eniten käytettyjä olivat Google, Wikipedia sekä erilaiset verkkosanakirjat. Tässä tutkimuksessa kuitenkin paljastui, että ammattikääntäjien tiedonhaun toimintamallit vaihtelevat riippuen niin kääntäjän erikoisalasta kuin hänen tiedonhakutaitojensa tasosta. Joutuessaan työskentelemään tutun työympäristönsä ja oman erikoisalansa ulkopuolella turvautuu myös osa ammattikääntäjistä alkeellisimpiin tiedonhakutekniikoihin, joita käännöstieteen opiskelijoiden on havaittu yleisesti käyttävän. Tulokset paljastivat myös, että tiedonhaku voi viedä jopa 70 prosenttia koko käännösprosessiin kuluvasta ajasta riippuen kääntäjän aiemmasta lähtötekstin aihepiiriin liittyvästä tietopohjasta ja tiedonhaun tehokkuudesta. Tutkimuksessa saatujen tulosten pohjalta voidaan sanoa, että myös ammattikääntäjien tulisi kehittää tiedonhakutaitojaan pitääkseen käännösprosessinsa tehokkaana. Lisäksi kääntäjien pitäisi muistaa arvioida kriittisesti käyttämiään tietolähteitä: lähdekritiikki on tarpeen erityisesti verkkolähteitä käytettäessä. Tästä syystä tiedonhakutaitoja ja lähdekriittisyyttä tulisikin opettaa ja harjoitella jo osana kääntäjäkoulutusta. Kääntäjien ei myöskään pidä jättää tiedonhakua pelkkien verkkolähteiden varaan, vaan jatkossakin käyttää hyväkseen niin painettuja tietolähteitä kuin myös henkilölähteitä.

Formal development of resilient distributed systems

Resilience is the property of a system to remain trustworthy despite changes. Changes of a different nature, whether due to failures of system components or varying operational conditions, significantly increase the complexity of system development. Therefore, advanced development technologies are required to build robust and flexible system architectures capable of adapting to such changes. Moreover, powerful quantitative techniques are needed to assess the impact of these changes on various system characteristics. Architectural flexibility is achieved by embedding into the system design the mechanisms for identifying changes and reacting on them. Hence a resilient system should have both advanced monitoring and error detection capabilities to recognise changes as well as sophisticated reconfiguration mechanisms to adapt to them. The aim of such reconfiguration is to ensure that the system stays operational, i.e., remains capable of achieving its goals. Design, verification and assessment of the system reconfiguration mechanisms is a challenging and error prone engineering task. In this thesis, we propose and validate a formal framework for development and assessment of resilient systems. Such a framework provides us with the means to specify and verify complex component interactions, model their cooperative behaviour in achieving system goals, and analyse the chosen reconfiguration strategies. Due to the variety of properties to be analysed, such a framework should have an integrated nature. To ensure the system functional correctness, it should rely on formal modelling and verification, while, to assess the impact of changes on such properties as performance and reliability, it should be combined with quantitative analysis. To ensure scalability of the proposed framework, we choose Event-B as the basis for reasoning about functional correctness. Event-B is a statebased formal approach that promotes the correct-by-construction development paradigm and formal verification by theorem proving. Event-B has a mature industrial-strength tool support { the Rodin platform. Proof-based verification as well as the reliance on abstraction and decomposition adopted in Event-B provides the designers with a powerful support for the development of complex systems. Moreover, the top-down system development by refinement allows the developers to explicitly express and verify critical system-level properties. Besides ensuring functional correctness, to achieve resilience we also need to analyse a number of non-functional characteristics, such as reliability and performance. Therefore, in this thesis we also demonstrate how formal development in Event-B can be combined with quantitative analysis. Namely, we experiment with integration of such techniques as probabilistic model checking in PRISM and discrete-event simulation in SimPy with formal development in Event-B. Such an integration allows us to assess how changes and di erent recon guration strategies a ect the overall system resilience. The approach proposed in this thesis is validated by a number of case studies from such areas as robotics, space, healthcare and cloud domain.

BotCloud Detection System

Leveraging cloud services, companies and organizations can significantly improve their efficiency, as well as building novel business opportunities. Cloud computing offers various advantages to companies while having some risks for them too. Advantages offered by service providers are mostly about efficiency and reliability while risks of cloud computing are mostly about security problems. Problems with security of the cloud still demand significant attention in order to tackle the potential problems. Security problems in the cloud as security problems in any area of computing, can not be fully tackled. However creating novel and new solutions can be used by service providers to mitigate the potential threats to a large extent. Looking at the security problem from a very high perspective, there are two focus directions. Security problems that threaten service user’s security and privacy are at one side. On the other hand, security problems that threaten service provider’s security and privacy are on the other side. Both kinds of threats should mostly be detected and mitigated by service providers. Looking a bit closer to the problem, mitigating security problems that target providers can protect both service provider and the user. However, the focus of research community mostly is to provide solutions to protect cloud users. A significant research effort has been put in protecting cloud tenants against external attacks. However, attacks that are originated from elastic, on-demand and legitimate cloud resources should still be considered seriously. The cloud-based botnet or botcloud is one of the prevalent cases of cloud resource misuses. Unfortunately, some of the cloud’s essential characteristics enable criminals to form reliable and low cost botclouds in a short time. In this paper, we present a system that helps to detect distributed infected Virtual Machines (VMs) acting as elements of botclouds. Based on a set of botnet related system level symptoms, our system groups VMs. Grouping VMs helps to separate infected VMs from others and narrows down the target group under inspection. Our system takes advantages of Virtual Machine Introspection (VMI) and data mining techniques.

A software engineering approach to distributed systems for composite modeling

The goal of this thesis is to define and validate a software engineering approach for the development of a distributed system for the modeling of composite materials, based on the analysis of various existing software development methods. We reviewed the main features of: (1) software engineering methodologies; (2) distributed system characteristics and their effect on software development; (3) composite materials modeling activities and the requirements for the software development. Using the design science as a research methodology, the distributed system for creating models of composite materials is created and evaluated. Empirical experiments which we conducted showed good convergence of modeled and real processes. During the study, we paid attention to the matter of complexity and importance of distributed system and a deep understanding of modern software engineering methods and tools.

The grab of the world's land and water resources

In this paper, I review recent developments in global political economy and political economy of development that have captured inter alia the attention of agrarian political economists. I do so through the periscope of two recent publications by Fred pearce, Great Britain's leading eco journalist and an edited volume by Tony Allann, Martin Keulertz, Suvi Sojamo and Jeroen Warner, scholars trained in different disciplines and based at various universities in the UK, the netherlands, and Finland. The account of the pace, places, and perpetrators, procedures, and problems of this particular agrarian model provides fodder for the further development of a locus classicus on what is happening to the land question in this current moment under the capitalist order, a shorthand for which is 'water and land grab'.

Relay protection in active distribution networks

Increasingly growing share of distributed generation in the whole electrical power system’s generating system is currently a worldwide tendency, driven by several factors, encircling mainly difficulties in refinement of megalopolises’ distribution networks and its maintenance; widening environmental concerns adding to both energy efficiency approaches and installation of renewable sources based generation, inherently distributed; increased power quality and reliability needs; progress in IT field, making implementable harmonization of needs and interests of different-energy-type generators and consumers. At this stage, the volume, formed by system-interconnected distributed generation facilities, have reached the level of causing broad impact toward system operation under emergency and post-emergency conditions in several EU countries, thus previously implementable approach of their preliminary tripping in case of a fault, preventing generating equipment damage and disoperation of relay protection and automation, is not applicable any more. Adding to the preceding, withstand capability and transient electromechanical stability of generating technologies, interconnecting in proximity of load nodes, enhanced significantly since the moment Low Voltage Ride-Through regulations, followed by techniques, were introduced in Grid Codes. Both aspects leads to relay protection and auto-reclosing operation in presence of distributed generation generally connected after grid planning and construction phases. This paper proposes solutions to the emerging need to ensure correct operation of the equipment in question with least possible grid refinements, distinctively for every type of distributed generation technology achieved its technical maturity to date and network’s protection. New generating technologies are equivalented from the perspective of representation in calculation of initial steady-state short-circuit current used to dimension current-sensing relay protection, and widely adopted short-circuit calculation practices, as IEC 60909 and VDE 0102. The phenomenon of unintentional islanding, influencing auto-reclosing, is addressed, and protection schemes used to eliminate an sustained island are listed and characterized by reliability and implementation related factors, whereas also forming a crucial aspect of realization of the proposed protection operation relieving measures.

A study of self-directed learning at an Ontario college of applied arts and technology

Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) are currently in the process of restructuring to ensure quality, accountability, and accessibility of college education. References to learner involvement and self-directed learning are prevalent. "Alternative delivery" and "paradigm shift" are current buzzwords within the Ontario CAAT system as an environment is created supportive of change. Instability of funding has also dictated a need for change. Therefore, a focus has become quality of learning with less demand on public resources. This qualitative case study was conducted at an Ontario CAAT to gather descriptive, perceptual data from post-secondary community college educators who were identified as supportive of self-directed learning and from post-secondary, traditional-aged college students who were perceived by their educators to be selfdirected learners. This college was selected because of initiatives to modify its academic paradigm to encourage what was reputed in the Ontario CAAT system to be self-directed learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate how postsecondary, traditional-aged college students and their educators perceive self-directed learning as part of the teaching-learning experience within a community college setting. Educator participants of the study were selected based on the results of a teaching and learning survey intended to identify educators supportive of self-directed learning. A total of 317 surveys were distributed to every full-time educator at the sample college; 192 completed surveys were returned for a return rate of 61 %. Of these, 8% indicated instructional beliefs and values supportive of self-directed learning. A purposive sample of six educators was selected using a maximulp variation sampling strategy. A network selection sampling strategy was used to select a purposive sample of seven post-secondary students who were identified by the sample educators as selfdirected learners. The results of the study show that students and educators have similar perspectives and operating definitions of self-directed learning and all participants believe they either practice or facilitate self-directed learning. However, their perspectives and practices are not consistent with the literature which emphasizes learner autonomy or control in course structure and content. A central characteristic of the participants represented in this study is the service-oriented professions with which each is associated. Experientiallearning opportunities were highly valued for the options provided in increasing learner independence and competencies in reflective practice. Although there were discrepancies between espoused theory and theory in practice in terms of course structure, the process of self-directed learning was being practiced and supported outside the classroom structure in clinical settings, labs and related experiences.

Partnership, politics and public administration: a case study of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources

Efforts to reform the public sector reflect the social, political and economic environment within which government must function. The recent demands by the public for more consensual decision-making, as well as more efficient, effective and responsive public service, have resulted in a number of reform initiatives, including an emphasis on partnership development. The purpose of this thesis is to examine partnership arrangements within the public sector. Specifically, the thesis will assess the value of partnerships and their impact on government by examining six partnership arrangements involving the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR). The OMNR, having recently been awarded the 1992 Institute of Public Administration of Canada Award for Innovative Management, on the theme of partnership development, is being lauded as an example for other government agencies considering similar alliances. The thesis begins by introducing the concept and practice of partnership within the public sector in general and the OMNR specifically. Descriptive analysis of six OMNR partnerships is provided and a number of criteria are used to determine the success of each of these arrangements. Special attention is paid to the political implications of partnerships and to those attributes which appear to contribute to the successful establishment and iii maintenance of partnership arrangements. The conclusion is drawn that partnerships provide the government with an opportunity to address public demands for greater involvement in decision-making while accommodating government's limited financial resources. However, few truly collaborative partnerships exist within the public sector. There are also significant political implications associated with partnerships which must be dealt with both at the political and bureaucratic levels of government. Lastly, it is argued that while partnerships within the OMNR are experiencing some difficulties, they constitute a genuine attempt to broaden the base of decision-making and to incorporate the concerns of stakeholders into resource management.

Water-power at Niagara Falls to be successfully utilized : its objects, facilities and resources, inducements for manufacturers, etc. /

The lithograph, "General view of lands, tunnel and docks of Niagara River Hydraulic Tunnel, Power and Sewer Company," called for p. [4] in the Index, has been removed and encapsulated, and is shelved separately.

Examining sport commitment and intentions to participate in intramural sports : application of the Sport Commitment Model and the Theory of Planned Behaviour in a campus recreational sport setting

Fifty-six percent of Canadians, 20 years of age and older, are inactive (Canadian Community Health Survey, 200012001). Research has indicated that one of the most dramatic declines in population physical activity occurs between adolescence and young adulthood (Melina, 2001; Stephens, Jacobs, & White, 1985), a time when individuals this age are entering or attending college or university. Colleges and universities have generally been seen as environments where physical activity and sport can be promoted and accommodated as a result of the available resources and facilities (Archer, Probert, & Gagne, 1987; Suminski, Petosa, Utter, & Zhang, 2002). Intramural sports, one of the most common campus recreational sports options available for post-secondary students, enable students to participate in activities that are suited for different levels of ability and interest (Lewis, Jones, Lamke, & Dunn, 1998). While intramural sports can positively affect the physical activity levels and sport participation rates of post-secondary students, their true value lies in their ability to encourage sport participation after school ends and during the post-school lives of graduates (Forrester, Ross, Geary, & Hall, 2007). This study used the Sport Commitment Model (Scanlan et aI., 1993a) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) with post secondary intramural volleyball participants in an effort to examine students' commitment to intramural sport and 1 intentions to participate in intramural sports. More specifically, the research objectives of this study were to: (1.) test the Sport Commitment Model with a sample of postsecondary intramural sport participants(2.) determine the utility of the sixth construct, social support, in explaining the sport commitment of post-secondary intramural sport participants; (3.) determine if there are any significant differences in the six constructs of IV the SCM and sport commitment between: gender, level of competition (competitive A vs. B), and number of different intramural sports played; (4.) determine if there are any significant differences between sport commitment levels and constructs from the Theory of Planned Behaviour (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and intentions); (5.) determine the relationship between sport commitment and intention to continue participation in intramural volleyball, continue participating in intramurals and continuing participating in sport and physical activity after graduation; and (6.) determine if the level of sport commitment changes the relationship between the constructs from the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Of the 318 surveys distributed, there were 302 partiCipants who completed a usable survey from the sample of post-secondary intramural sport participants. There was a fairly even split of males and females; the average age of the students was twenty-one; 90% were undergraduate students; for approximately 25% of the students, volleyball was the only intramural sport they participated in at Brock and most were part of the volleyball competitive B division. Based on the post-secondary students responses, there are indications of intent to continue participation in sport and physical activity. The participation of the students is predominantly influenced by subjective norms, high sport commitment, and high sport enjoyment. This implies students expect, intend and want to 1 participate in intramurals in the future, they are very dedicated to playing on an intramural team and would be willing to do a lot to keep playing and students want to participate when they perceive their pursuits as enjoyable and fun, and it makes them happy. These are key areas that should be targeted and pursued by sport practitioners.