Dario Bottazzi

M2M-based metropolitan platform for IMS-enabled road traffic management in IoT

Machine-to-machine communications are gaining tremendous interest from mobile network operators, equipment vendors, device manufacturers, as well as research and standardization bodies. Indeed, M2M is a promising technology for the development of Internet of Things communications platforms, with high potential to enable a wide range of applications in different domains. However, providing suitable answers to the issues stemming from IoT platform design requires middleware-level solutions to enable seamless interoperability between M2M-based applications and existing Internetbased services. To the best of our knowledge, available proposals in the field are still immature and tend to be proof of concept prototypes that address specific issues stemming from IoT domains. This article starts from a different perspective and aims at investigating the possibility of implementing M2M solutions on top of currently available, mature, production-level solutions. In this vein, we here present and discuss the design and implementation of an M2M application in the field of road traffic management that integrates, for the sake of efficiency, with a broad IMS-based service infrastructure.

AGAPE: a location-aware group membership middleware for pervasive computing environments

The widespread diffusion of mobile computing along with the integration of telecommunication systems and the Internet enables a scenario where the promise of ubiquitous computing is starting to be realised. This scenario calls for novel services that can be deployed on-demand close to the user and customised to not only client needs, but also to the client current location. In particular, group membership management services should exploit the visibility of client location to organise effective solutions for group communication and interoperation and to promote the design and development of advanced collaborative applications, such as traffic management and e-care ones. The paper describes a middleware for group membership management (AGAPE) that exploits both the visibility of users position and the heterogeneous characteristics of the access terminals to facilitate interoperation in a pervasive computing scenario.

A self-organizing group management middleware for mobile ad-hoc networks

The growing proliferation of portable devices, along with the recent advances in Mobile Ad-Hoc NETworks (MANETs) technology open a new technology scenario where users require to collaborate together with their neighbors any-where, at any-time, and without the need of a priori planned communication infrastructure. However, the highly dynamic nature characterizing MANETs, the impossibility of manual or centralized configuration of these environments, along with the heterogeneous capabilities of user devices complicate much collaboration management and call for the investigation of novel solutions with self-organization properties. Groups and superpeer-based Peer-to-Peer (P2P) models and architectures seem particularly well suited for supporting collaboration in MANETs. The paper proposes CAMPE, a self-organizing group management solution, able to compose logical groups of peers with similar interests and goals, to partition groups in different management domains, and to assign differentiated management roles to available peers according to trade-off solutions between a multiplicity of possibly inconsistent and contrasting management criteria, e.g., peer proximity and mobility patterns. In particular, the CAMPE self-organization support adopts a cooperative game-theoretical approach to collaboration management and bases all management decisions on Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques.

A context-aware group management middleware to support resource sharing in MANET environments

Recent advances in Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANET) technologies promote new opportunities for users to share resources from ubiquitous points of attachment, when changing physical locations and even when no statically deployed network infrastructure is available. However, the highly dynamic nature of Mobile Ad-Hoc environments causes users to experience continuous changes in the set of the locally accessible resources, thus increasing the complexity of resource sharing. Novel middleware solutions are required to support the various management issues involved in resource sharing in MANETs environments. In particular, it is crucial to handle and to propagate up to the application level the visibility of both the users that are willing to group together to share their resources and of the resources they decide to share. The paper proposes a group management middleware (AGAPE) that, as a key feature, exploits the visibility of context information, e.g., user location, user attributes and preferences, access device properties, to create and discover groups of interest for resource sharing, to monitor the availability of groups members, and to dynamically arrange/requalify group members bindings to shared resources as changes in context operating conditions occur. Application developers can exploit the AGAPE support to build on top of it various application-specific resource sharing strategies and mechanisms, such as Global Virtual Data Structures. Finally, the paper presents a MANET-enabled emergency rescue application scenario to show and to evaluate the functioning of AGAPE.

Enabling context-aware group collaboration in MANETs

Recent advances in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) technologies promote new opportunities for anytime and anywhere impromptu collaboration and leverage the provisioning of novel collaborative services, such as emergency rescue, e-care, and troop car management. However, the design and deployment of collaborative services in MANET environments raise new group management challenges. In particular, unpredictable users/devices mobility, frequent disconnection/reconnection of devices and continuous changes in network topology call for novel middleware solutions to handle properly the transient and dynamic formation of ad-hoc groups. The paper proposes a context-aware group membership middleware (AGAPE) that bases group management decisions depending on context information, such as user location, user attributes and preferences, and access device properties. User location determines the scope of group member visibility within a network locality, whereas user requirements and device properties govern the joining to a group and influence the played role of a user within a group. AGAPE provides a set of support services to arrange/dissolve and manage ad-hoc groups on demand and propagates the visibility of available group members and of their context up to the application level to allow applications to adapt collaborative decisions and actions accordingly. The paper also presents a MANET-enabled emergency rescue application scenario to show and to evaluate the functioning of AGAPE.

A Context-Aware Middleware-Level Solution towards a Ubiquitous Healthcare System

Recent advances in wireless technology, sensors and portable devices offer interesting opportunities to enable ubiquitous assistance to individuals in need of prompt help. Providing healthcare services to mobile users, such as, patients, elders, or potential drug abusers, is a rather challenging task. Novel middleware-level supports are required to integrate sensor infrastructures capable of detecting changes in the monitored subjects’ health conditions and of alerting medical personnel, and the victim’s relatives and friends in case of emergency situations. Along this line, the paper envisions a context-aware middleware-level solution dubbed Pervasive Environment for Affective Healthcare (PEACH). PEACH integrates together various sensors in a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) to detect alterations of monitored subjects’ affective and physical conditions, aggregate the sensed information, and also detect potentially dangerous situations for the monitored subject. Finally, PEACH aims at providing outdoor assistance to the victim/patient by quickly promoting the formation of ad hoc rescue groups comprising nearby volunteers. Through encouraging results obtained from both simulations and a practical drug-rehabilitation application testbed, the effectiveness of the envisioned PEACH framework is verified.

Context-Awareness for Impromptu Collaboration in MANETs

The growing diffusion of wireless-enabled portable devices and the recent advances in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) open a new scenario where users can benefit from anywhere/anytime impromptu collaboration. However, the development of collaborative services in MANET environments raises new challenges and calls for novel middleware solutions to handle properly the communication between transiently collaborating partners. The paper proposes AGAPE, a context-aware group communication middleware that permits to select collaborating partners, to schedule incoming messages and to tailor their presentation on the basis of group members context, e.g. depending on members location, attributes, and device properties.

Context-Aware Group Communication in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

The widespread availability of both fixed and wireless network connectivity and the growing market of portable devices are enabling anytime and anywhere impromptu collaboration. The emergence of Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANET) further opens up new possibilities for the provisioning of advanced collaborative services, such as civil protection, e-care, and troop car management. However, the design and the deployment of collaborative applications in MANET scenarios raises new group management challenges. In particular, MANET characteristics, e.g., unpredictable and frequent mobility of users/devices, intermittent device connectivity, continuous variations of network topology, make it impossible any a-priori knowledge about group members availability and ask for novel solutions to handle properly the communication about group members. The paper proposes a context-aware communication model to govern communication on the basis of the characteristics of the communicating parties, such as their location and their profiling information. The model provides communication patterns with different semantics to address both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication needs. The paper shows the implementation of the proposed model in the AGAPE framework for the design, deployment, and support of collaborative applications in MANET environments and presents the functioning of the AGAPE communication support in the context of a civil protection application scenario.

Context-awareness for impromptu collaboration in MANETs

The growing diffusion of wireless-enabled portable devices and the recent advances in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) open a new scenario where users can benefit from anywhere/anytime impromptu collaboration. However, the development of collaborative services in MANET environments raises new challenges and calls for novel middleware solutions to handle properly the communication between transiently collaborating partners. The paper proposes AGAPE, a context-aware group communication middleware that permits to select collaborating partners, to schedule incoming messages and to tailor their presentation on the basis of group members context, e.g. depending on members location, attributes, and device properties.

Supporting context-aware applications for eldercare

Extended life expectancy and a decrease in fertility rates are dramatically increasing the number of seniors who will eventually need professional care assistance. Although there is no clear technical solution to this problem, recent advances in ubiquitous computing offer opportunities to assist elders in their residence, thus reducing the need for professional assistance in special facilities. There have been several studies, but current solutions tend to address specific issues and cannot be easily extended, updated, and customized to meet the complex and evolving requirements of eldercare assistance. This study aims to bridge this gap, and this pa- per presents a context-management framework, called awareness for pervasive environments (APE), that provides easily customizable support for the development of ubiquitous eldercare services and applications.