Amr El-Kadi

Swarm Congestion & Power Aware Routing Protocol for MANETs

The evolution of wireless devices along with the increase in user mobility have created new challenges such as the need to make efficient use of power resources. Nodes in an ad hoc network have limited power resources as well as limited processing power. When routing, a sharp degradation in the network service may result if the routing algorithm does not account for the limited resources, eventually decreasing the network lifetime. The objective of our work is to extend the life time of ad hoc networks through implementing a multi-path congestion and power aware routing protocol. The protocol developed is a swarm-based routing protocol that incorporated both power awareness and load balancing techniques. PowerAnt extended network lifetime by 33% on average; besides, it provided a cheaper energy routing strategy per byte by 23% compared with AODV.

Viewpoint: stop that divorce!

As the 21st century fast approaches, computing professionals still do not have a clear understanding of the nature of their profession. This is unfortunate, especially since the discipline has accumulated enough science over the years to make it stand on its own. Several computing pioneers and professional organizations attempted to define the discipline of computing [1–4]. All of these attempts concluded that computer science is neither a science nor is it engineering in a traditional sense. Computer science defined a new relation between theory and experiments. In computing, unlike other disciplines, we cannot separate theory and engineering due to the nature of the discipline; such separation would be disastrous [3]. Recent advances in genetic algorithms and neural networks are but a few examples of what could be produced when we couple theory with practice. The science and engineering aspects in computer science are much closer than in many other disciplines and that is what makes computer science unique. Still computer science cannot be regarded as a classical practice of engineering; it is a new form of engineering. To quote Hartmanis [4]: “I am deeply convinced that we should not try to draw a sharp line between computer science and engineering and that any attempt to separate them is counterproductive.” Today, most of the confusion about computer science stems from the name of the discipline. The word “science” refers to a body of knowledge; we use it collectively to refer to the fields of engineering as “engineering sciences.” But the title “computer engineer” should not automatically associate with the construction of hardware. Computer design involves instruction-set architecture, organization, and detailed logic design and packaging [5]. Computing problems demand the invention of new engineering methodologies for the exploration of information and intellectual processes. In some cases, the same methodologies are used to develop both hardware and software (such as object-oriented techniques). Computing professionals are concerned with the design and analysis of hardware and software to perform new functions or to perform old functions in new ways [7]. It’s my view that the restriction of engineering to computer design and the exclusion of all other activities is harmful; I cannot imagine organizations or individuals investing in an operating system or a compiler that is not well engineered.

Visual Craft: a visual integrated development environment

Visual Craft is an ongoing project to develop an integrated software development environment which uses visual languages and notations to support object-oriented development. Visual notations are used to provide an intuitive notation for both system design and implementation. The visual programming component is based on a well-defined graph grammar that enables the systematic construction of such environments, as well as syntax-directed translation and code generation. The programming environment is modeled around interactive, derivation-based, syntax-directed editing. This paper outlines the basic components of Visual Craft and gives a more detailed account of the visual programming aspects of this environment.

Cooperative web caching of dynamic web content

Web caching is one of many applications argued to benefit from a switch from a client-server to a peer-to-peer architecture. Several projects suggested the use of a network of peers to provide cached web content in order to help sites survive a burst of user requests. We present a new system that targets web sites with dynamic content and allows them to use a group of a variable number of volunteer peers to provide cached web content to the clients. The main objective of our system is to increase the capacity of a web server, and to reduce the average end user latency. We implement an Internet forums application using our approach as a case study of dynamic web sites, and emulate the implementation on a single machine. We show and analyze the results of experiments we applied on the emulated system, focusing on measurements of average end user latency and the upload bandwidth used by the web server.

Formal Verification of Automotive Design in Compliance With ISO 26262 Design Verification Guidelines

ISO 26262, an automotive functional safety standard, ensures the functional safety of automotive systems by providing requirements and processes to govern the software lifecycle. Each functional system must be classified in terms of safety goals, risks, and automotive safety integrity level (ASIL: A, B, C, and D), with ASIL D, denoting the most stringent safety level. As the risk of the system increases, the ASIL level increases, and the standard highly recommends more stringent methods to ensure safety. ISO 26262 highly recommends that ASIL C and D-classified systems utilize semiformal and formal verification among other techniques to verify software unit design and implementation. In this paper, we compare industrial design verification steps of WatchDog Manager in an effort to be ASIL B-compliant with a proposed nondisruptive methodology to semiformally verify WatchDog Manager UML design via an automated formal framework backbone. This semiformal verification framework will allow automotive software to comply with ASILs C and D formal and semiformal unit design and implementation verification recommended guidelines in ISO 26262. Semiformal UML finite-state machines are automatically compiled into formal notations based on the Symbolic Analysis Laboratory formal notation. We capture requirements in the UML design and compile them automatically into theorems. Model checkers are run against the compiled formal model and theorems to detect counterexamples that violate the requirements in the UML model. We show that semi-formal verification of the design allows us to uncover issues that were detected in testing and production stages of ASIL B-compliant Watchdog Manager existing implementation.

Formal Verification Framework for Automotive UML Designs

Ensuring Software specification compliance via formal methods has remained an academic endeavor for quite some time. Several factors discourage formal methods adoption in the industry. One major factor is the complexity of using formal methods. Software specification compliance in automotive remains in the bulk heavily dependent on traceability matrix, human based reviews, and testing activities conducted on either actual production software level or simulation level. ISO26262 automotive safety standard recommends, although not strongly, using formal notations in automotive systems that exhibit high risk in case of failure yet the industry still heavily relies on semi-formal notations such as UML. The use of semi-formal notations makes specification compliance still heavily dependent on manual processes and testing efforts. In this paper, we propose a methodology where UML finite state machines are compiled into formal notations, specification requirements are mapped into formal model theorems and SAT/SMT solvers are utilized to validate implementation compliance to specification. We apply the methodology on AUTOSARs FlexRay State Manage state machine. Results show how the framework automates the verification of UML based designs, the de-facto standard for automotive systems design, based on an implicit formal methodology while hiding the cons that discouraged the industry from using it. Additionally, the framework automates ISO-26262 system design verification guidelines which would otherwise be verified via human error prone approaches.

Enhanced Mobile IP Protocol

One of the most recent Internet challenges is to support transparent movement of people along with their computers, data and most of all applications. Therefore, Mobile IP has been developed to provide Internet mobility services. This paper aims at enhancing the IETF Mobile IP standard. The model developed in this paper suggests a new caching mechanism, which is based on the Mobile Information Server (MIS). Actually, the MIS is designed to be part of the border router of any network that supports mobility services. Moreover, the paper suggests a peering technique by which information about mobiles hosts could be shared among different MISs. All the design issues including model components as well as mechanisms for caching and peering are described in details. The simulation results show that the proposed design provides improved performance and better bandwidth utilization. The suggested architecture provides other qualitative advantages such as scalability and transparency.

Formal verification of AUTOSAR FlexRay state manager

Automotive software systems have continuously faced challenges in managing complexity associated with functional growth, flexibility of systems so that they can be easily modified, scalability of solutions across several product lines, quality and reliability of systems, and finally the ability to detect errors early in design phases. AUTOSAR was established to develop open standards to address these challenges. Formal method is one way to address the ability to detect errors and ensure compliance to requirements in early design stages. In this paper, AUTOSARs FlexRay State Manager basic software module is formally represented in finite state machine augmented with complex data types. Specification requirements are mapped into formal model theorems and assertions. SMT solvers are utilized to validate design compliance to specification to show the possibility of detecting errors early in the design phase via mapping AUTOSARs specification into formal design notation.

Social networks empowering citizens

Facebook (launched in Feb. 2004) and Twitter (launched in July 2006) are two popular social networks reported to have more than 900 million and 140 million active users, respectively. Both services have affected the social life and activity of people in various ways, yet no one could have imagined that they would affect the future of nations!

gRUP - A globalized approach to software engineering

This research has the main objective of enhancing the Rational Unified Process to better address the emerging new Globalization and Internationalization requirements of modern software, focusing on integrating the Globalization Processes, Artifacts, Roles, Activities, and best practices into the Rational Unified Process (RUP). RUP is a well established Software Development Process (SDP) that intends to guarantee quality by controlling the project schedule, budget, communication, productivity, and trustworthiness. Meanwhile, the gRUP - produced in the coarse of this research - intends to guarantee that the developed software is ready for globalization, matches the required globalization and internationalization requirements, and ensures the implementation of best practices and tests to guarantee that the produced software is globalization ready. gRUP is constructed by incorporating essential globalization activities and artifacts into RUP, and incorporates an additional Globalization Discipline to the standard nine RUP disciplines.