Ahsan Ikram

Approaching the Internet of things IoT: a modelling, analysis and abstraction framework

The evolution of communication protocols, sensory hardware, mobile and pervasive devices, alongside social and cyber‐physical networks, has made the Internet of things (IoT) an interesting concept with inherent complexities as it is realised. Such complexities range from addressing mechanisms to information management and from communication protocols to presentation and interaction within the IoT. Although existing Internet and communication models can be extended to provide the basis for realising IoT, they may not be sufficiently capable to handle the new paradigms that IoT introduces, such as social communities, smart spaces, privacy and personalisation of devices and information, modelling and reasoning. With interaction models in IoT moving from the orthodox service consumption model, towards an interactive conversational model, nature‐inspired computational models appear to be candidate representations. Specifically, this research contests that the reactive and interactive nature of IoT makes chemical reaction‐inspired approaches particularly well suited to such requirements. This paper presents a chemical reaction‐inspired computational model using the concepts of graphs and reflection, which attempts to address the complexities associated with the visualisation, modelling, interaction, analysis and abstraction of information in the IoT. Copyright

IMS-MBMS Convergence for Next Generation Mobile Networks

Mobile and wireless communication standards and technologies have witnessed rapid enhancements in the last few years. Dynamic, interactive, rich content and location based services such as IPTV, multimedia conferencing, buddy lists and presence have emerged. However, multimedia services often prove to be heavy on radio resources and multicast or broadcast is a resource efficient transmission mode. Currently, IMS only supports unicast transmission, so 3GPP MBMS is selected as the broadcast/multicast delivery technology. In this paper, we propose a converged IMS and MBMS architecture, designed to support the next generation of multimedia multicast services. A comprehensive network entity design is also elaborated. This work is carried out as part of EU-IST project C-MOBILE (IST-2005-27423).

Distributed Analysis and Load Balancing System for Grid Enabled Analysis on Hand-Held Devices Using Multi-agents Systems

Handheld devices, while growing rapidly, are inherently constrained and lack the capability of executing resource hungry applications. This paper presents the design and implementation of distributed analysis and load-balancing system for hand-held devices using multi-agents system. This system enables low resource mobile handheld devices to act as potential clients for Grid enabled applications and analysis environments. We propose a system, in which mobile agents will transport, schedule, execute and return results for heavy computational jobs submitted by handheld devices. Moreover, in this way, our system provides high throughput computing environment for hand-held devices.

Experiences with AR plots: design issues and recommendations for augmented reality based mobile games

Digital games have the potential for changing attitudes towards social issues such as climate change and sustainability. This paper presents the experience of developing a prototype locative game with an augmented reality interface that is designed to fit in with the fractured nature of travel time on public transport. We discuss the technical challenges, usability issues and game design approaches used to work within these constraints.

IMS - MBMS Integration: Functional Analysis & Architectural Design

The introduction of IMS into a network operators core network enables substantial possibilities for broadcast/multicast applications. Besides the radio efficient MBMS, other access technologies e.g. DVB-H, Wi-Fi (802.11) etc., can also serve as a delivery platform with IMS as the controlling entity. Currently, IMS only supports unicast transmission, this paper explores the functional and architectural implications of a broadcast/multicast enabled IMS. MBMS is selected as the broadcast/multicast delivery technology. A functional analysis is carried out to identify the main features offered/supported by MBMS, including an interface analysis. Two integration approaches are adopted; network architectures and network entity designs are proposed for both. In the first approach IMS applications can use MBMS and the BM-SC is left unchanged; this IMS-MBMS integration is appropriate for 3GPP R7/R8 architecture, but it fails to support heterogeneous delivery technologies. The second approach considers the functions of the BM-SC to be distributed across the various IMS entities and is more appropriate to the long-term vision of the 3GPP SAE/LTE architecture. This work is carried out as part of EU-IST project C-MOBILE (IST-2005-27423).

Grid enabled data analysis on handheld devices

The requirement for information on portable, handheld devices demands the realization of increasingly complex applications for increasingly small and ubiquitous devices. This trend promotes the migration of technologies that were originally developed for desktop computers to handheld devices. With the onset of grid computing, users of handheld devices should be able to accomplish much more complex tasks, by accessing the processing and storage resources of the grid. This paper describes the development, features, and performance aspects of a grid enabled analysis environment designed for handheld devices. We also describe some differences in the technologies required to run these applications on desktop machines and handheld devices. In addition, we propose a prototype agent-based distributed architecture for carrying out high-speed analysis of physics data on handheld devices.

An artificial chemistry based framework for personal and social context aware smart spaces

Supporting context-aware services and applications that are delivered to a user as they move through a smart space is a challenge. The complexity of awareness and interaction requires an efficient interaction and adaptation model. Most research prototypes comprise of many models and extensive middleware which seems excessive for simple context-aware applications involving pervasive devices. Part of the problem is finding a conceptual abstraction which is compact and concise yet can exclusively model all the dynamism and expressivity required for such a system. In this paper we propose a context aware architecture based on a smart space context model and a middleware inspired by chemical reactions.

A cloud resource management model for the creation and orchestration of social communities

Managing resources, context and data in mobile clouds is a challenging task. Specific aspects of spontaneity, large interaction space and dynamic interaction share a metaphorical resemblance to chemistry, chemical reactions and solutions. In this paper, it is argued that by adopting a nature-inspired chemical computing model, a mobile cloud resource management model can be evolved to serve as the basis for novel service modelling and social computing in mobile clouds. To support the argument, a chemistry inspired computation model, Chemistry for Context Awareness (C2A), is extended with Higher Order Chemical Language (HOCL) and High Level Petri-net Graph (HLPNG) formalisms. A scenario and simulation-based evaluation of the proposed model, focusing on two applications dynamic service composition and social communities identification, is also presented in this paper. The formal encoding of C2A validates its assumptions, enabling formal execution and analysis of context-based interactions that are derived using C2A principles.

Investigating the Role of Handheld devices in the accomplishment of Grid-Enabled Analysis Environment

We investigate the role of handheld devices as a potential platform to be used in the Grid Enabled Analysis Environment (GAE) by porting desktop PC-based analysis software to run on Pocket PCs and other handhelds. This will enable them to be used for the analysis of data from the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), which goes online in 2006 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The environment currently comprises client soft- ware that runs on the Pocket PC providing interactive analysis features on the device and a remote data server named Clarens, which functions as a portal to the Grid, and ensures secure and authenticated access to the CMS data.

A Chemical Model to Enable Context Awareness

Modeling ad-hoc context-aware services and applications that are delivered to a user as they move through a smart space has always been fraught with difficulty. It requires representation, management and inference of context, dynamic update of both context & application domain models, reasoning matching, querying and triggering of services. Quite often these systems comprise of many models and extensive middleware which seems excessive for simple context-aware applications involving mobile and wireless devices. Configuring and triggering services automatically whilst traversing a particular space further compounds the complexity. Part of the problem is finding a conceptual abstraction which is compact and concise yet can inclusively model all the dynamism and expressivity required of such a system. In this paper we propose a Chemical Model inspired by Mendeleevs periodic table that we have experimented with and shows promise in fulfilling these requirements.