Anastasios Zafeiropoulos

Cutting the energy bills of Internet Service Providers and telecoms through power management

The energy consumption of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector has been increasing recently; this sector is estimated to account for 2% of the total energy consumption. An even more aggressively increasing trend is the volume of Internet traffic and the number of connected devices. Thus, reducing the energy needs of the Internet is recognised as one of the main challenges that the ICT sector will have to face in the near future to reduce its overall energy footprint. Introducing energy-efficient techniques, both at the device level and the network level, is required.The main goal of this work is to quantitatively evaluate the potential energy savings from applying energy-efficient techniques, while examining the trade-off between network performance and the achieved energy savings.We introduce a categorisation of the energy-aware design space, focusing on the existing techniques in the device data plane, and contribute an analytical framework to represent the impact of energy-aware technologies and solutions for network devices. Our energy profile model represents the diverse energy-aware states of the network devices and is applied over two reference scenarios, one of a large-scale Telco (Telecom Italia) and one of a medium size Internet Service Provider (GRNET), to evaluate the impact of each energy-aware technology and the energy savings potential at the Home, Access, Metro/Transport and Core parts of each network.The results show the estimates of energy savings exceed 60% in many cases, while maintaining the same quality of service as in the energy-agnostic case.

Standardizing a reference model and autonomic network architectures for the self-managing future internet

Research efforts at network design in the area of Autonomic Networking and Self-Managing Networks have reached a maturity level that forms a strong foundation toward standardization of architectural principles of the Self-Managing Future Internet. Therefore, an Industry Specification Group (ISG) on Autonomic network engineering for the self-managing Future Internet (AFI) has been established under the auspices of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Upon its creation, the main stakeholders agreed to harmonize the previous developments and the most recent trends in the very vital field of autonomic and self-managing networks. Particularly, the life cycle of AFI is structured by Work Items providing the foundation for ETSI Group Specifications. So far AFI has been focusing on scenarios, use cases, and requirements for the autonomic/selfmanaging Future Internet, as well as on architectural reference model for autonomic networking and self-management. Most recently, AFI has continued with a new Work Item on requirements analysis and specification of implementation-oriented solutions for autonomics and self-management. At the same time, as a part of the global ecosystem, AFI is establishing strategic liaisons with the standards developing organizations and research community.

A Semantic-Based Architecture for Sensor Data Fusion

In this paper, we present a three-layer flexible architecture which intends to help developers and end users to take advantage of the full potential that modern sensor networks can offer. The proposed architecture deals with issues regarding data aggregation, data enrichment and finally, data management and querying using semantic Web techniques. Semantics are used in order to extract meaningful information from the sensorpsilas raw data and thus facilitate smart applications development over large-scale sensor networks. We describe an open, standards-based, modular architecture which is based on the current standardization efforts of the open geospatial consortium (OGC) and extends them to support semantic Web techniques comprising a core of reusable components and interfaces for supporting different types of services, through Web technologies.

An Electronic Infrastructure for Research and Treatment of the Thalassemias and Other Hemoglobinopathies: The Euro-Mediterranean Ithanet Project

Hemoglobin (Hb) disorders are common, potentially lethal monogenic diseases, posing a global health challenge. With worldwide migration and intermixing of carriers, demanding flexible health planning and patient care, hemoglobinopathies may serve as a paradigm for the use of electronic infrastructure tools in the collection of data, the dissemination of knowledge, the harmonization of treatment, and the coordination of research and preventive programs. ITHANET, a network covering thalassemias and other hemoglobinopathies, comprises 26 organizations from 16 countries, including non-European countries of origin for these diseases (Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Tunisia and Turkey). Using electronic infrastructure tools, ITHANET aims to strengthen cross-border communication and data transfer, cooperative research and treatment of thalassemia, and to improve support and information of those affected by hemoglobinopathies. Moreover, the consortium has established the ITHANET Portal, a novel web-based instrument for the dissemination of information on hemoglobinopathies to researchers, clinicians and patients. The ITHANET Portal is a growing public resource, providing forums for discussion and research coordination, and giving access to courses and databases organized by ITHANET partners. Already a popular repository for diagnostic protocols and news related to hemoglobinopathies, the ITHANET Portal also provides a searchable, extendable database of thalassemia mutations and associated background information. The experience of ITHANET is exemplary for a consortium bringing together disparate organizations from heterogeneous partner countries to face a common health challenge. The ITHANET Portal as a web-based tool born out of this experience amends some of the problems encountered and facilitates education and international exchange of data and expertise for hemoglobinopathies.

A context-aware middleware for real-time semantic enrichment of distributed multimedia metadata

This paper investigates the problem of the real-time integration and processing of multimedia metadata collected by a distributed sensor network. The discussed practical problem is the efficiency of the technologies used in creating a Knowledge Base in real-time. Specifically, an approach is proposed for the real-time, rule-based semantic enrichment of lower level context features with higher-level semantics. The distinguishing characteristic is the provision of an intelligent middleware-based architecture on which low level components such as sensors, feature extraction algorithms, data sources, and high level components such as application-specific ontologies can be plugged. Throughout the paper, Priamos, a middleware architecture based on Semantic Web technologies is presented, together with a stress-test of the system’s operation under two test case scenarios: A smart security surveillance application and a smart meeting room application. Performance measurements are conducted and corresponding results are exposed.

Cognitive radio-aided wireless sensor networks for emergency response

A lot of research effort has been put into wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and several methods have been proposed to minimize the energy consumption and maximize the networks lifetime. However, little work has been carried out regarding WSNs deployed for emergency situations. We argue that such WSNs should function under a flexible channel allocation scheme when needed and be able to operate and adapt in dynamic, ever-changing environments coexisting with other interfering networks (IEEE 802.11b/g, 802.15.4, 802.15.1). In this paper, a simple and efficient method for the detection of a single operational frequency channel that guarantees satisfactory communication among all network nodes is proposed. Experimental measurements carried out in a real environment reveal the coexistence problem among networks in close proximity that operate in the same frequency band and prove the validity and efficiency of our approach.

NEURON: Enabling Autonomicity in Wireless Sensor Networks

Future Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) will be ubiquitous, large-scale networks interconnected with the existing IP infrastructure. Autonomic functionalities have to be designed in order to reduce the complexity of their operation and management, and support the dissemination of knowledge within a WSN. In this paper a novel protocol for energy efficient deployment, clustering and routing in WSNs is proposed that focuses on the incorporation of autonomic functionalities in the existing approaches. The design of the protocol facilitates the design of innovative applications and services that are based on overlay topologies created through cooperation among the sensor nodes.

Linked Data Analytics in Interdisciplinary Studies: The Health Impact of Air Pollution in Urban Areas

The design of solutions that are able to exploit the available data collected in smart cities environments can lead to insights that can guide the implementation of approaches that have the potential to significantly improve the quality of life within a city. Such solutions include tools for the production of advanced analytics considering data fusion challenges. The preparation of qualitative input data sets, collected in many cases through heterogeneous sources and represented in various formats, constitute a very important step toward a meaningful analysis. Such input data sets, combined with approaches that reduce the data processing burden and support the easy and flexible-in terms of configuration-replication of an analysis, can lead to the next generation analytics tools. In this paper, a novel approach toward the production and consumption of linked data analytics in urban environments is presented. The approach is based on the exploitation of linked data principles, enhancing the ability of managing and processing of data, in ways not available before. In addition to the description of the overall technical approach, the application of the proposed solution into a real-life scenario for examining the health impact of outdoor air pollution in urban areas within an international, national, and regional perspective is detailed. A set of interesting results are produced along with their interpretation toward the provision of suggestions for policy making purposes.

Providing Personalized Energy Management and Awareness Services for Energy Efficiency in Smart Buildings

Considering that the largest part of end-use energy consumption worldwide is associated with the buildings sector, there is an inherent need for the conceptualization, specification, implementation, and instantiation of novel solutions in smart buildings, able to achieve significant reductions in energy consumption through the adoption of energy efficient techniques and the active engagement of the occupants. Towards the design of such solutions, the identification of the main energy consuming factors, trends, and patterns, along with the appropriate modeling and understanding of the occupants’ behavior and the potential for the adoption of environmentally-friendly lifestyle changes have to be realized. In the current article, an innovative energy-aware information technology (IT) ecosystem is presented, aiming to support the design and development of novel personalized energy management and awareness services that can lead to occupants’ behavioral change towards actions that can have a positive impact on energy efficiency. Novel information and communication technologies (ICT) are exploited towards this direction, related mainly to the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT), data modeling, management and fusion, big data analytics, and personalized recommendation mechanisms. The combination of such technologies has resulted in an open and extensible architectural approach able to exploit in a homogeneous, efficient and scalable way the vast amount of energy, environmental, and behavioral data collected in energy efficiency campaigns and lead to the design of energy management and awareness services targeted to the occupants’ lifestyles. The overall layered architectural approach is detailed, including design and instantiation aspects based on the selection of set of available technologies and tools. Initial results from the usage of the proposed energy aware IT ecosystem in a pilot site at the University of Murcia are presented along with a set of identified open issues for future research.

Challenges and opportunities in renovating public sector information by enabling linked data and analytics

Linked Data has become the current W3C recommended approach for publishing data on the World Wide Web as it is sharable, extensible, and easily re-usable. An ecosystem of linked data hubs in the Public Sector has the potential to offer significant benefits to its consumers (other public offices and ministries, as well as researchers, citizens and SMEs), such as increased accessibility and re-use value of their data through the use of web-scale identifiers and easy interlinking with datasets of other public data providers. The power and flexibility of the schema-defying Linked Data, however, is counterbalanced by inborn factors that diminish the potential for cost-effective and efficient adoption by the Public Sector. The paper analyzes these challenges in view of the current state-of-the-art in linked data technologies and proposes a technical framework that aims to hide the underlying complexity of linked data while maintaining and promoting the interlinking capabilities enabled by the Linked Data Paradigm. The paper presents the innovations behind our proposed solutions as well as their advantages, especially for the non-expert users.