NextServe Framework: Supporting Services Over Content-Centric Networking

The future Internet architecture aims to reformulate the way the content/service is requested to make it location-independent. Information-Centric Networking is a new network paradigm, which tries to achieve this goal by making content objects identified and requested by name instead of address. In this paper, we extend Information-Centric Networking architecture to support services in order to be requested and invoked by names. We present NextServe framework, which is a service framework with a human-readable self-explanatory naming scheme. NextServe is inspired by the object-oriented programming paradigm and is applicable with real-world scenarios.

Information-Centric Networking in Mobile and Opportunistic Networks

Information Centric Networking (ICN) as an emerging paradigm for the Future Internet has initially been rather focusing on bandwidth savings in wired networks, but there might also be some significant potential to support communication in mobile wireless networks as well as opportunistic network scenarios, where end systems have spontaneous but time-limited contact to exchange data. This chapter addresses the reasoning why ICN has an important role in mobile and opportunistic networks by identifying several challenges in mobile and opportunistic Information-Centric Networks and discussing appropriate solutions for them. In particular, it discusses the issues of receiver and source mobility. Source mobility needs special attention. Solutions based on routing protocol extensions, indirection, and separation of name resolution and data transfer are discussed. Moreover, the chapter presents solutions for problems in opportunistic Information-Centric Networks. Among those are mechanisms for efficient content discovery in neighbour nodes, resume mechanisms to recover from intermittent connectivity disruptions, a novel agent delegation mechanisms to offload content discovery and delivery to mobile agent nodes, and the exploitation of overhearing to populate routing tables of mobile nodes. Some preliminary performance evaluation results of these developed mechanisms are provided.

A Case for CDN-as-a-Service in the Cloud: A Mobile Cloud Networking Argument

Content Distribution Networks are mandatory components of modern web architectures, with plenty of vendors offering their services. Despite its maturity, new paradigms and architecture models are still being developed in this area. Cloud Computing, on the other hand, is a more recent concept which has expanded extremely quickly, with new services being regularly added to cloud management software suites such as OpenStack. The main contribution of this paper is the architecture and the development of an open source CDN that can be provisioned in an on-demand, pay-as-you-go model thereby enabling the CDN as a Service paradigm. We describe our experience with integration of CDNaaS framework in a cloud environment, as a service for enterprise users. We emphasize the flexibility and elasticity of such a model, with each CDN instance being delivered on-demand and associated to personalized caching policies as well as an optimized choice of Points of Presence based on exact requirements of an enterprise customer. Our development is based on the framework developed in the Mobile Cloud Networking EU FP7 project, which offers its enterprise users a common framework to instantiate and control services. CDNaaS is one of the core support components in this project as is tasked to deliver different type of multimedia content to several thousands of users geographically distributed. It integrates seamlessly in the MCN service life-cycle and as such enjoys all benefits of a common design environment, allowing for an improved interoperability with the rest of the services within the MCN ecosystem.

RC-NDN: Raptor Codes Enabled Named Data Networking

Information-centric networking (ICN) has been proposed to cope with the drawbacks of the Internet Protocol, namely scalability and security. The majority of research efforts in ICN have focused on routing and caching in wired networks, while little attention has been paid to optimizing the communication and caching efficiency in wireless networks. In this work, we study the application of Raptor codes to Named Data Networking (NDN), which is a popular ICN architecture, in order to minimize the number of transmitted messages and accelerate content retrieval times. We propose RC-NDN, which is a NDN compatible Raptor codes architecture. In contrast to other coding-based NDN solutions that employ network codes, RC-NDN considers security architectures inherent to NDN. Moreover, different from existing network coding based solutions for NDN, RC-NDN does not require significant computational resources, which renders it appropriate for low cost networks. We evaluate RC-NDN in mobile scenarios with high mobility. Evaluations show that RC-NDN outperforms the original NDN significantly. RC-NDN is particularly efficient in dense environments, where retrieval times can be reduced by 83% and the number of Data transmissions by 84.5% compared to NDN.

Feasibility of Information-Centric Networking Integration into LTE Mobile Networks

With the current growth of mobile devices usage, mobile net- works struggle to deliver content with an acceptable Quality of Experience. In this paper, we propose the integration of Information Centric Networking into 3GPP Long Term Evolution mobile networks, allowing its inherent caching feature to be explored in close proximity to the end users by deploying components inside the evolved Node B. Apart from the advantages brought by Information-Centric Networking’s content requesting paradigm, its inherent caching features enable lower latencies to access content and reduce traffic at the core network. Results show that the impact on the evolved Node B performance is low and ad- vantages coming from Information-Centric Networking are considerable. Thus, mobile network operators reduce operational costs and users end up with a higher perceived network quality even in peak utilization periods.

Fostering networking behavior, career planning and optimism, and subjective career success: An intervention study

The present study evaluated personal resource-oriented interventions supporting the career development of young academics, working at German universities within the STEM fields. The study sought to foster subjective career success by improving networking behavior, career planning, and career optimism. The study involved a quasi-experimental pre-post intervention with two intervention and two control groups (N = 81 research associates). Participants of the first intervention group received networking training; participants of the second intervention group received the same networking training plus individual career coaching. Participants of both intervention groups were female. Participants of the control groups (i.e., male vs. female group) did not participate in any intervention. As expected, path analyses, based on mean differences frompre-test to post-test, revealed an increase in career planning and career optimism within the networking plus career coaching intervention group, that was indirectly positively related to changes in subjective career success. Contrary to our expectations, the networking group training alone and in combination with the career coaching showed no effectiveness in fostering networking behavior. Results are discussed in the context of career counseling and intervention effectiveness studies.

Load Balancing in LTE Mobile Networks with Information-Centric Networking

Mobile networks usage rapidly increased over the years, with great consequences in terms of performance requirements. In this paper, we propose mechanisms to use Information-Centric Networking to perform load balancing in mobile networks, providing content delivery over multiple radio technologies at the same time and thus efficiently using resources and improving the overall performance of content transfer. Meaningful results were obtained by comparing content transfer over single radio links with typical strategies to content transfer over multiple radio links with Information-Centric Networking load balancing. Results demonstrate that Information-Centric Networking load balancing increases the performance and efficiency of 3GPP Long Term Evolution mobile networks while greatly improving the network perceived quality for end users.

Effectiveness of Justice-Based Measures in Managing Trust and Privacy Concerns on Social Networking Sites: Intercultural Perspective

The unprecedented success of social networking sites (SNSs) has been recently overshadowed by concerns about privacy risks. As SNS users grow weary of privacy breaches and thus develop distrust, they may restrict or even terminate their platform activities. In the long run, these developments endanger SNS platforms’ financial viability and undermine their ability to create individual and social value. By applying a justice perspective, this study aims to understand the means at the disposal of SNS providers to leverage the privacy concerns and trusting beliefs of their users—two important determinants of user participation on SNSs. Considering that SNSs have a global appeal, empirical tests assess the effectiveness of justice measures for three culturally distinct countries: Germany, Russia and Morocco. The results indicate that these measures are particularly suited to address trusting beliefs of SNS audience. Specifically, in all examined countries, procedural justice and the awareness dimension of informational justice improve perceptions of trust in the SNS provider. Privacy concerns, however, are not as easy to manage, because the impact of justice-based measures on privacy concerns is not universal. Beyond theoretical value, this research offers valuable practical insights into the use of justice-based measures to promote trust and mitigate privacy concerns in a cross-cultural setting.

Research Note—Why Following Friends Can Hurt You: An Exploratory Investigation of the Effects of Envy on Social Networking Sites among College-Age Users

Research findings on how participation in social networking sites (SNSs) affects users’ subjective well-being are equivocal. Some studies suggest a positive impact of SNSs on users’ life satisfaction and mood, whereas others report undesirable consequences such as depressive symptoms and anxiety. However, whereas the factors behind the positive effects have received significant scholarly attention, little is known about the mechanisms that underlie the unfavorable consequences. To fill this gap, this study uses social comparison theory and the responses of 1,193 college-age Facebook users to investigate the role of envy in the SNS context as a potential contributor to those undesirable outcomes. Arising in response to social information consumption, envy is shown to be associated with reduced cognitive and affective well-being as well as increased reactive self-enhancement. These preliminary findings contribute to the growing body of information systems research investigating the dysfunctional consequences of information technology adoption in general and social media participation in particular.

Persistent Caching in Information-Centric Networking

Information-centric networking (ICN) is a new communication paradigm that aims at increasing security and efficiency of content delivery in communication networks. In recent years, many research efforts in ICN have focused on caching strategies to reduce traffic and increase overall performance by decreasing download times. Since caches need to operate at line-speed, they have only a limited size and content can only be stored for a short time. However, if content needs to be available for a longer time, e.g., for delay-tolerant networking or to provide high content availability similar to content delivery networks (CDNs), persistent caching is required. We base our work on the Content-Centric Networking (CCN) architecture and investigate persistent caching by extending the current repository implementation in CCNx. We show by extensive evaluations in a YouTube and webserver traffic scenario that repositories can be efficiently used to increase content availability by significantly increasing the cache hit rates.

Trends in Human-Centric Multimedia Networking Scenarios

The evolution of wireless access technologies and mobile devices, together with the constant demand for video services, has created new Human-Centric Multimedia Networking (HCMN) scenarios. However, HCMN poses several challenges for content creators and network providers to deliver multimedia data with an acceptable quality level based on the user experience. Moreover, human experience and context, as well as network information play an important role in adapting and optimizing video dissemination. In this paper, we discuss trends to provide video dissemination with Quality of Experience (QoE) support by integrating HCMN with cloud computing approaches. We identified five trends coming from such integration, namely Participatory Sensor Networks, Mobile Cloud Computing formation, QoE assessment, QoE management, and video or network adaptation.

Social Networking Obliterates Etiquette: Thumbs Drum in Rise of Multitasking Rudeness

This pilot study investigates selected etiquette issues that appear to have arisen with the prevalence of hand-held electronic communications. Researchers surveyed college undergraduates, graduates, and faculty about the appropriateness of multitasking when others are present, whether they thank people with a hand-written note, by telephone, or by email, and the appropriateness of their preferred means of saying thank you. This study raises questions about etiquette issues when using electronic communications.