Computer Engineering Commons^™

Making Tradable White Certificates Trustworthy, Anonymous, And Efficient Using Blockchains, Nouman Ashraf, Sachin Sharma, Sheraz Aslam, Khursheed Aurangzeb

Articles

Fossil fuel pollution has contributed to dramatic changes in the Earth’s climate, and this trend will continue as fossil fuels are burned at an ever-increasing rate. Many countries around the world are currently making efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and one of the methods is the Tradable White Certificate (TWC) mechanism. The mechanism allows organizations to reduce their energy consumption to generate energy savings certificates, and those that achieve greater energy savings can sell their certificates to those that fall short. However, there are some challenges to implementing this mechanism, such as the centralized and costly verification and control …

Graph Modeling For Openflow Switch Monitoring, Ali Malik, Ruairí De Fréin

Articles

Network monitoring allows network administrators to facilitate network activities and to resolve issues in a timely fashion. Monitoring techniques in software-defined networks are either (i) active, where probing packets are sent periodically, or (ii) passive, where traffic statistics are collected from the network forwarding elements. The centralized nature of software-defined networking implies the implementation of monitoring techniques imposes additional overhead on the network controller. We propose Graph Modeling for OpenFlow Switch Monitoring (GMSM), which is a lightweight monitoring technique. GMSM constructs a flow-graph overview using two types of asynchronous OpenFlow messages: packet-in and flow-removed, which improve monitoring and decision making. …

Survey Of Routing Techniques-Based Optimization Of Energy Consumption In Sd-Dcn, Mohammed Nsaif, Gergely Kovásznai, Ali Malik, Ruairí De Fréin

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The increasing power consumption of Data Center Networks (DCN) is becoming a major concern for network operators. The object of this paper is to provide a survey of state-of-the-art methods for reducing energy consumption via (1) enhanced scheduling and (2) enhanced aggregation of traffic flows using Software-Defined Networks (SDN), focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. We tackle a gap in the literature for a review of SDN-based energy saving techniques and discuss the limitations of multi-controller solutions in terms of constraints on their performance. The main finding of this survey paper is that the two classes of …

Persuasive Communication Systems: A Machine Learning Approach To Predict The Effect Of Linguistic Styles And Persuasion Techniques, Annye Braca, Pierpaolo Dondio

Articles

Prediction is a critical task in targeted online advertising, where predictions better than random guessing can translate to real economic return. This study aims to use machine learning (ML) methods to identify individuals who respond well to certain linguistic styles/persuasion techniques based on Aristotle’s means of persuasion, rhetorical devices, cognitive theories and Cialdini’s principles, given their psychometric profile.

Cross-Atlantic Experiments On Eu-Us Test-Beds, Sachin Sharma, Avishek Nag, Byrav Ramamurthy

Articles

Today, there are a number of real testbeds worldwide among which Fed4Fire testbeds are prominent in the EU, while POWDER and COSMOS are prominent in the US. This paper aims to validate inter-testbed experiments between the EU and the US by connecting a number of Fed4Fire and US testbeds as part of an NGIAtlantic project. The goal is to compare the hop count, the topology formed, the maximum bandwidth permitted, and the loss and jitter that occurred between different testbeds. Additionally, Software Defined Networking (SDN) experiments between EU and US testbeds are conducted, and an edge-computing use case is developed …

Graph-Based Heuristic Solution For Placing Distributed Video Processing Applications On Moving Vehicle Clusters, Kanika Sharma, Bernard Butler, Brendan Jennings

Articles

Vehicular fog computing (VFC) is envisioned as an extension of cloud and mobile edge computing to utilize the rich sensing and processing resources available in vehicles. We focus on slow-moving cars that spend a significant time in urban traffic congestion as a potential pool of onboard sensors, video cameras, and processing capacity. For leveraging the dynamic network and processing resources, we utilize a stochastic mobility model to select nodes with similar mobility patterns. We then design two distributed applications that are scaled in real-time and placed as multiple instances on selected vehicular fog nodes. We handle the unstable vehicular environment …

Scaling And Placing Distributed Services On Vehicle Clusters In Urban Environments, Kanika Sharma, Bernard Butler, Brendan Jennings

Articles

Many vehicles spend a significant amount of time in urban traffic congestion. Due to the evolution of autonomous vehicles, driver assistance systems, and in-vehicle entertainment, these vehicles have plentiful computational and communication capacity. How can we deploy data collection and processing tasks on these (slowly) moving vehicles to productively use any spare resources? To answer this question, we study the efficient placement of distributed services on a moving vehicle cluster. We present a macroscopic flow model for an intersection in Dublin, Ireland, using real vehicle density data. We show that such aggregate flows are highly predictable (even though the paths …

Ml-Based Online Traffic Classification For Sdns, Mohammed Nsaif, Gergely Kovasznai, Mohammed Abboosh, Ali Malik, Ruairí De Fréin

Articles

Traffic classification is a crucial aspect for Software-Defined Networking functionalities. This paper is a part of an on-going project aiming at optimizing power consumption in the environment of software-defined datacenter networks. We have developed a novel routing strategy that can blindly balance between the power consumption and the quality of service for the incoming traffic flows. In this paper, we demonstrate how to classify the network traffic flows so that the quality of service of each flow-class can be guaranteed efficiently. This is achieved by creating a dataset that encompasses different types of network traffic such as video, VoIP, game …

Rapid Restoration Techniques For Software-Defined Networks, Ali Malik, Ruairí De Fréin, Benjamin Aziz

Articles

There is increasing demand in modern day business applications for communication networks to be robust and reliable due to the complexity and critical nature of such applications. As such, data delivery is expected to be reliable and secure even in the harshest of environments. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is gaining traction as a promising approach for designing network architectures which are robust and flexible. One reason for this is that separating the data plane from the control plane, increases the controller’s ability to configure the network rapidly. When network failure events occur, the network manager may trade-off the optimality of the …

Ambiqual: Towards A Quality Metric For Headphone Rendered Compressed Ambisonic Spatial Audio, Miroslaw Narbutt, Jan Skoglund, Andrew Allen, Michael Chinen, Dan Barry, Andrew Hines

Articles

Spatial audio is essential for creating a sense of immersion in virtual environments. Efficient encoding methods are required to deliver spatial audio over networks without compromising Quality of Service (QoS). Streaming service providers such as YouTube typically transcode content into various bit rates and need a perceptually relevant audio quality metric to monitor users’ perceived quality and spatial localization accuracy. The aim of the paper is two-fold. First, it is to investigate the effect of Opus codec compression on the quality of spatial audio as perceived by listeners using subjective listening tests. Secondly, it is to introduce AMBIQUAL, a full …

Source Separation Approach To Video Quality Prediction In Computer Networks, Ruairí De Fréin

Articles

Time-varying loads introduce errors in the estimated model parameters of service-level predictors in Computer Networks. A load-adjusted modification of a traditional unadjusted service-level predictor is contributed, based on Source Separation (SS). It mitigates these errors and improves service-quality predictions for Video-on-Demand (VoD) by :6 to 2dB.

Monitoring Voip Speech Quality For Chopped And Clipped Speech, Andrew Hines, Jan Skoglund, Anil C. Kokaram, Naomi Harte

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No abstract provided.

Adaptive Ofdm For Wireless Interconnect In Confined Enclosures, Vit Sipal, Javier Gelabert, Christopher J. Stevens, Ben Allen, David Edwards

Articles

This letter considers and recommends OFDM with adaptive subcarrier modulation as a suitable candidate for wireless UWB communication in computer chassis. A rigorous measurement campaign studies the guaranteed spectral efficiency. It concludes that enhancement of the existing WiMedia OFDM systems with a bandwidth of 528 MHz in order to support adaptive OFDM would enable data-rates above 1 Gbps over short ranges, i.e. the spectral efficiency would be doubled. Moreover, the guaranteed spectral efficiency is shown to increase with bandwidth, i.e. the guaranteed data-rate increases better than linearly with bandwidth.

Application Of Stochastic Diffusion For Hiding High Fidelity Encrypted Images, Jonathan Blackledge, Abdulrahman Al-Rawi

Articles

Cryptography coupled with information hiding has received increased attention in recent years and has become a major research theme because of the importance of protecting encrypted information in any Electronic Data Interchange system in a way that is both discrete and covert. One of the essential limitations in any cryptography system is that the encrypted data provides an indication on its importance which arouses suspicion and makes it vulnerable to attack. Information hiding of Steganography provides a potential solution to this issue by making the data imperceptible, the security of the hidden information being a threat only if its existence …

Egoviz – A Mobile Based Spatial Interaction System, Keith Gardiner, Junjun Yin, James Carswell

Articles

This paper describes research carried out in the area of mobile spatial interaction and the development of a mobile (i.e. on-device) version of a simulated web-based 2D directional query processor. The TellMe application integrates location (from GPS, GSM, WiFi) and orientation (from digital compass/tilt sensors) sensing technologies into an enhanced spatial query processing module capable of exploiting a mobile device’s position and orientation for querying real-world 3D spatial datasets. This paper outlines the technique used to combine these technologies and the architecture needed to deploy them on a sensor enabled smartphone (i.e. Nokia 6210 Navigator). With all these sensor technologies …

A Covert Encryption Method For Applications In Electronic Data Interchange, Jonathan Blackledge, Dmitry Dubovitskiy

Articles

A principal weakness of all encryption systems is that the output data can be ‘seen’ to be encrypted. In other words, encrypted data provides a ‘flag’ on the potential value of the information that has been encrypted. In this paper, we provide a new approach to ‘hiding’ encrypted data in a digital image.

In conventional (symmetric) encryption, the plaintext is usually represented as a binary stream and encrypted using an XOR type operation with a binary cipher. The algorithm used is ideally designed to: (i) generate a maximum entropy cipher so that there is no bias with regard to any …

Technology-Aided Participative Methods In Environmental Assessment: An International Perspective, Ainhoa Gonzalez, Alan Gilmer, Ronan Foley, John Sweeney, John Fry

Articles

Provisions for citizen involvement in the assessment of potential environmental effects of certain plans, programmes and projects are present in current legislation. An international survey revealed that public participation is common practice in European and some other countries worldwide. However, a number of issues are observed to affect public involvement in EIA/SEA processes and expert opinion differs when evaluating the effectiveness of existing participative methods. Results suggest that technology-aided methods can improve traditional participation processes. In particular, GIS has the potential to increase community knowledge and enhance involvement by communicating information more effectively. Variable accessibility to technology and data quality …