Antonio Liotta

"Sample chapter "A Peek at the Future Internet" available at
http://www.springer.com/978-94-007-1472-4

<< Beautifully written, this book takes the reader on a compelling tour of the state of affairs in today’s Internet and the challenges it faces for supporting pervasive services of tomorrow. The approach adopted by the authors looks at the big picture, discussing the evolution of the Internet from a rigidly defined layered architecture to an interactive multi-faceted system providing, beyond connectivity, a more generative next-generation network infrastructure. In this context, the authors describe a selection of some of the prominent network mechanisms that may help in shaping the architecture of the future Internet. Overall, this book is informative, enjoyable, and an excellent reference source for every student, network professional, or researcher interested in the post-Internet era. >>

Prof. Raouf Boutaba, University of Waterloo (Canada)


Since its inception in the 1970s the Internet has become larger, faster and wireless. It is the biggest machine ever built, the “generative” engine of our digital society. However, the software that runs the global network has not seen any substantial upgrade since the early 1990s. It is now evident that the existing mechanisms that transport data around the Internet are no longer adequate for the new breed of Web applications. This book explains why the time is ripe for a complete overhaul in view of the Future Internet. Through a series of simple examples, the authors present a wealth of network mechanisms, starting from those that sustain the Web today. Readers will become familiar with a range of advanced protocols that will make the Internet more ubiquitous, reactive, proactive, information-driven, distribution-efficient and searchable. This book presents a selection of remarkable research ideas, making them accessible to the non-specialist reader.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. On the Way to the Pervasive Web
1.1 The Net, a Tool for Everyone 1.2 The Inexorable Transformation of Internet applications 1.3 The Application’s Mutiny 1.4 Everything on the Move 1.5 New Interaction Paradigms Emerge 1.6 The Scent of Pervasive Applications 1.7 The Billion Dollar Question.- References.
2 The Network, as We Know It
2.1 The Multiple Facets of Networks 2.2 Networks from the Eyes of an Ordinary User 2.3 Invite a Programmer to Understand What’s in the Cloud 2.4 A Network Engineer to Turn a Switch into a Router 2.5 The Computer Science of a Router 2.6 Simple Math to Stabilize the Net 2.7 Life of a Commuter 2.8 The Three Fundamental Principles.- References.
3 Six Problems for the Service Provider
3.1 The Net has Ossified 3.2 Problem 1: Not Truly Ubiquitous 3.3 Problem 2: The Unresponsive Net 3.4 Problem 3: Too Much, Too Stale Signaling 3.5 Problem 4: Lack of Parallelism 3.6 Problem 5: Data Agnosticism 3.7 Problem 6: Inadequate Net-search Engine 3.8 Concluding Remarks.- References.
4 Spontaneous Networks
4.1 The Gift of Ubiquity 4.2 Spontaneous Connectivity 4.3 The Hidden-terminal Problem 4.4 The Exposed-terminal Problem 4.5 Preventive Measures to Avoid Collision 4.6 Path Discovery in a Volatile Network 4.7 The KISS Approach.- References.
5 Reactive Networks
5.1 Why Networks on Demand? 5.2 A Traffic-free Network 5.3 Our First Path 5.4 Path Management 5.5 Our Second Path 5.6 Global Synchronization 5.7 Error Management 5.8 Remarks on Reactive Networks.- References.
6 Proactive networks
6.1 From Reactive to Responsive 6.2 Keep the Network Ready 6.3 How do I Find My Multipoint Relay? 6.4 Life of an OLSR Node 6.5 The Node’s Information Repository 6.6 Shortest Path over the MPR Sub-topology 6.7 A Complete Example 6.8 How Proactive Can You Be? 6.9 The Power of Hybrid Protocols.- References.
7 Content-aware Networks
7.1 Routers Should Read the Content 7.2 A Network on Top of the Physical Network 7.3 Centralized Assignment of Node Identifiers 7.4 Centralized Entry-point Discovery 7.5 Multiple Bootstrap Servers 7.6 Decentralized Assignment of Node Identifiers 7.7 Entry Point Discovery via Underlying Links 7.8 Content is an Asset at the Edges.- References.
8 Distribution-efficient Networks
8.1 Publishing goes beyond Bootstrapping 8.2 The Two Flavors of Virtual Networking 8.3 Creating Unstructured Neighborhoods 8.4 Making Yourself Known in Unstructured Neighborhoods 8.5 Unstructured Resource Publishing 8.6 Secure a Role in Structure Worlds 8.7 Build Strict Formations 8.8 Place Links and Resources into a Structured Ring 8.9 Data-awareness via Protocol-agnosticism.- References.
9 Discovering Virtual Resources
9.1 Four Ways to Reach a Resource 9.2 Assessment of Discovery Mechanisms 9.3 Containing the Proliferation of Discovery Messages 9.4 Blind Discovery for Unstructured Networks 9.5 Informed Discovery in Unstructured Networks 9.6 Discovery in Loosely-Structured Networks 9.7 Deterministic Discovery in Structured Networks.- References.
10 A Peek at the Future Internet
10.1 The Fourth Networking Principle: Beyond Mere Connectivity 10.2 Internet of Things: Sense and Influence your Environment 10.3 Small, Large Networks 10.4 Manage the Autonomics 10.5 Dependable Networks 10.6 The Fine Line Between Freedom, Security and Privacy 10.7 Energy-efficient Networks 10.8 No Matter What, the Network will Remain Generative.- References.
Index"

ABSTRACT Purpose – This paper aims to argue on the efficiency of Quality of Service (QoS)-based adaptive streaming with regards to perceived quality Quality of Experience (QoE). Although QoS parameters are extensively used even by high-end adaptive streaming algorithms, achieved QoE fails to justify their use in real-time streaming videos with high motion. While subjective measurements of video quality are difficult to be applied at runtime, objective QoE assessment can be easier to automate. For end-to-end QoS optimization of live streaming of high-motion video, objective QoE is a more applicable approach. This paper contributes to the understanding of how specific QoS parameters affect objective QoE measurements on real-time high-motion video streaming. Design/methodology/approach – The paper approached the question through real-life and extensive experimentation using the Skype adaptive mechanisms. Two Skype terminals were connected through a QoS impairment box. A reference video was used as input to one Skype terminal and streamed on one direction. The impairment box was stressing the stream with different conditions. Received video was stored and compared against the reference video. Findings – After the experimental analysis, the paper concludes that adaptive mechanisms based on QoS-related heuristics fail to follow unexpected changes to stream requirements. High-motion videos are an example of this variability, which makes the perceived quality sensitive to jitter more than to packet loss. More specifically, Skype seems to use if-else heuristics to decide its behavior to QoS changes. The weaknesses to high-motion videos seem to lie on this rigidity. Research limitations/implications – Due to the testbed developed, the results may be different if experiments are run over networks with simultaneous streams and a variety of other traffic patterns. Finally, other streaming clients and algorithms would contribute to a more reliable generalization. Practical implications – The paper motivates video streaming engineers to emphasize their efforts toward QoE and end-to-end optimization. Originality/value – The paper identifies the need of a generic adaptive streaming algorithm able to accommodate a big range of video characteristics. The effect of QoS variability to high-motion video streaming helps in modeling and design.

Monitoring and controlling the user&#39;s perceived quality, in modern video services is a challenging proposition, mainly due to the limitations of current Image Quality Assessment (IQA) algorithms. Subjective Quality of Experience (QoE) is widely used to get a right impression, but unfortunately this can not be used in real world scenarios. In general, objective QoE algorithms represent a good substitution for the subjective ones, and they are split in three main directions: Full Reference (FR), Reduced Reference (RR), and No Reference (NR). From these three, the RR IQA approach offers a practical solution to assess the quality of an impaired image due to the fact that just a small amount of information is needed from the original image. At the same time, keeping in mind that we need automated QoE algorithms which are context independent, in this paper we introduce a novel stochastic RR IQA metric to assess the quality of an image based on Deep Learning, namely Restricted Boltzman...

As the number of mobile devices increases, so do the complexity of wireless networks and the user&#39;s requirements. This tendency makes necessary for Multimedia Services to take the needed actions to adapt to the upcoming technology. A prominent example of this type of services is HTTP Adaptive Video Streaming Applications. In this research, we have studied how the latest HTTP Adaptive Streaming techniques, mainly developed for standard computers, could be adapted and used in mobile wireless devices. Furthermore, inspired by these solutions, which usually make use of Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms to find the suitable streaming rate, we have conceived a novel smart video player client in Java for Android platform using the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) protocol. We have assessed the performance of our proposed solution in a self-developed wireless test-bed under different network conditions. Thus, we have seen that by including in the reward function contribu...

ABSTRACT Generally, in machine learning applications, the problem of missing data has significant effect on the prediction performance. For a given missing data problem, it is not straightforward to select a treatment approach in combination with a classification model due to several factors such as the pattern of data and nature of missing data. The selection becomes more difficult for applications such as intelligent lighting, where there is high degree of randomness in the pattern of data. In this paper, we study pairs of probabilistic missing data treatment methods and classification models to identify the best pair for a dataset gathered from an office environment for intelligent lighting.We evaluate the performance in simulations using a new metric called Relevance Score. Experimental results show that the CPOF (Conditional Probability based only on the Outcome and other Features) method in combination with the DecisionTable (DT) classifier is the most suitable pair for implementation.

Given the considerable trend towards multi-party, peer-to-peer (P2P) communication, many are looking at the P2P computing paradigm as the means to extend the capability and scalability of Internet-based services. Current P2P frameworks are, however, largely incompatible with each other and do not address all the requirements of mobile computing. Here we propose a novel solution to peer group management which is &amp;amp;#x27;autonomic&amp;amp;#x27;,&amp;amp;#x27;mobile friendly&amp;amp;#x27;and &amp;amp;#x27;service driven&amp;amp;#x27;. We illustrate how our approach facilitates mobile P2P ...

Abstract Evolving paradigms of parallel transport mechanisms are necessary to satisfy the ever increasing need of high performing communication systems. Parallel transport mechanisms can be described as a technique to send several data simultaneously using several parallel channels. The authors&amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27; survey captures the entire building blocks in designing next generation parallel transport mechanisms by firstly analyzing the basic structure of a transport mechanism using a point to point scenario. They then proceed to ...

Monitoring has been described by Joyce et al. as “the process of dynamic collection, interpretation and presentation of information concerning objects or software processes under scrutiny”[64]. In his book on network and system management, Sloman has later defined distributed monitoring as “the essential means for obtaining the information required about the components of a distributed system in order to make management decisions and subsequently control their behavior”[72].

Web applications bring about extraordinary breakthroughs regarding our digital ecosystem. Pretty much anything with a chip and a radio interface can connect to the Web. However, many advocate a complete overhaul of the Internet as the only means to sustain innovation and productivity. Nobody knows what the next-generation of the Internet will look like; though important clues are visible as years of research have already generated phenomenal ideas. Together, we&amp;amp;amp;#x27;ll bring a range of network mechanisms “out of the lab” ...

The Internet “connectivity machine” is the generative engine of our modern digital society. It has been the launching pad of the Web (now the Web 2.0), truly the largest and most versatile information system ever built. While the Web phenomenon relentlessly continues, scientists worldwide are now living the dream of yet a more generative next-generation network. This chapter explores some prominent research directions, discussing the Internet of Things, context-aware networks, small world networks, scale-free networks, autonomic ...

Abstract The concept of intelligent lighting facilitates the use of machine learning models to adapt the lighting application behavior based on changing context. Ideally, a complete dataset without missing values is used to train the learning algorithm. Nevertheless, it is common to have missing data values in the dataset, eg due to lack of rich enough user interfaces such as smart phones. In this paper, we study various probabilistic approaches to treat missing feature values in a dataset collected from an office breakout area. This ...

Maximum Likelihood Difference Scaling (MLDS) used as a method for subjective assessment of video quality alleviates the inconveniencies associated with high variation and biases common in rating methods. However, the number of tests in a MLDS study rises fairly quickly with the number of samples that we want to test. This makes the MLDS studies not scalable for the diverse video delivery environments commonly met in pervasive media networks. To tackle this issue we have developed an active learning approach that ...

Abstract Research has shown that environment lighting influences the behavior of the employees in an office setting highly, making lighting configuration in an office space crucial. A breakout area may be used by the employees for various activities that need to be supported by different lighting conditions, eg informal meetings or personal retreat. The desired lighting conditions depend on user preferences and other contextual data observable in the environment. In this paper, we introduce a new method for building ...

Abstract Wireless Body Sensor Networks (WBSNs) have proved to be a suitable technology for supporting the monitoring of physical and physiological activities of the human body. However, avoiding erroneous behavior of WBSN-based systems is an issue of fundamental importance, especially for critical health-care applications. In this regard, proper self-healing techniques should be able to fulfill requirements such as fault tolerance and reliability by detecting, and possibly recovering, faults and errors at runtime. In this paper, we focus on ...

Abstract Wireless Body Sensor Networks (WBSN) have proved to be a potential technology for developing applications that can monitor and control physical and biochemical parameters on the human body. Developing such applications is rather cumbersome, since these have to meet a combination of conflicting requirements. Achieving accuracy, efficiency, correctness, fault-tolerance, adaptability and reliability on WBSN is tricky because these features have to be provided beyond the design/implementation phase, notably at ...