Mobile Computing Systems Programming: A Graduate Distributed Computing Course

Mobile devices are ubiquitous: they encompass portable audio and video players, digital cameras, tablet PCs and PDAs, as well as cell phones and smart phones. A Sept. 2006 Cellular News story (http://www.cellular-news.com/story/19223.php) estimated that there are more than 2.5 billion mobile phones worldwide. Although the mobile systems market is large and the career opportunities for students are excellent, relatively few universities offer mobile computing courses, much less teach mobile systems programming. Because mobile networks are likely to drive computing for the foreseeable future, the University of Melbourne Computer Science and Software Engineering Department created a Master of Engineering in Distributed Computing degree program.The MEDC program educates graduate students in rapidly evolving key areas such as distributed computing, mobile computing, pervasive computing, and sensor networks. I teach CSSE 653: Mobile Computing Systems Programming.     

Multi-Sensor Context-Awareness in Mobile Devices and Smart Artifacts

The use of context in mobile devices is receiving increasing attention in mobile and ubiquitous computing research. In this article we consider how to augment mobile devices with awareness of their environment and situation as context. Most work to date has been based on integration of generic context sensors, in particular for location and visual context. We propose a different approach based on integration of multiple diverse sensors for awareness of situational context that can not be inferred from location, and targeted at mobile device platforms that typically do not permit processing of visual context. We have investigated multi-sensor context-awareness in a series of projects, and report experience from development of a number of device prototypes. These include development of an awareness module for augmentation of a mobile phone, of the Mediacup exemplifying context-enabled everyday artifacts, and of the Smart-Its platform for aware mobile devices. The prototypes have been explored in various applications to validate the multi-sensor approach to awareness, and to develop new perspectives of how embedded context-awareness can be applied in mobile and ubiquitous computing.     

Energy Optimisation for Mobile Device Power Consumption: A Survey and a Unified View of Modelling for a Comprehensive Network Simulation

The need for the analysis of energy consumption has become greater due to the constrained resources of mobile devices afforded by the increased usage of mobile devices and the environmental footprint of large-scale, distributed systems. Energy usage has previously been modelled for a variety of use cases in order to optimise its consumption, through both simulation and real-world use. As computing devices become ubiquitous, more mobile, and highly varied in their components and use; the networks which interconnect them have become highly dynamic in tandem. This is partly due to the mobility of devices and the constantly fluctuating resource requirements. Whilst simulation of energy consumption within networks has been conducted for specific use cases (e.g. Cloud and wireless networks), it is often not examined from a unified view. This paper attempts to review the state-of-the-art in network energy consumption, modelling, and simulation from the perspective of heterogeneous networks but with a focus upon mobile devices, and then propose a gap in which a unified view is needed. Such views will assist in understanding more about the complex relationships between varied, synergistic device types, such as those which compose mobile cloud networks.     

Swarm intelligence‐based anycast routing protocol in ubiquitous networks

As digital devices with communication capability become more pervasive, we are entering the era of ubiquitous computing, as predicted by Mark Weiser. In ubiquitous environments, distributed context management servers are deployed everywhere to provide information and computing resources for users anytime and anywhere. Smart handheld computing devices with context‐aware applications may retrieve context information from the nearest server. This study investigates the problem of routing packets to the nearest server in a ubiquitous environment. An anycast routing protocol based on swarm intelligence, referred to as ARPSI, is proposed to route packets dynamically to a nearby server in a mobile, ad hoc, wireless network. Based on swarm intelligence, ARPSI is able to find a short path to a neighboring server efficiently and quickly. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of ARPSI and our simulation results show that ARPSI achieves a higher packet delivery ratio, shorter routing path to anycast servers, and lower control packet overhead than the AODV‐based anycast protocol (A‐AODV) protocol. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young mobile users: Radical and individual – Not

The use of mobile phones by youth has stirred a plethora of research in different fields. Literature has analyzed in length the changes and adoption patterns related to the evolving telecommunications industry. This body of knowledge often makes assumptions on the changes in consumer profiles and the value of different features. In this study we take an longitudinal approach by analysing the results of 1 928 responses to an online questionnaire conducted in Finland to students of a university in the Spring 2012 and on against the reanalysis of the responses of the Finnish students of upper secondary schools in the Spring 2001 and study on undergraduate students in 2006–2007. The results indicate that the youth and young adults of Finland, often argued to be an advanced country for mobile services, are surprisingly conservative towards new mobile devices and services. The changes in technology and service offering in a decade, has had a limited impact in attitudes and feature valuation, which sets significant implications to increasing adoption and usage.     

Aerial edge computing for 6G

In the 6 th generation mobile communication system(6 G) era, a large number of delay-sensitive and computation-intensive applications impose great pressure on resource-constrained Internet of things(IoT) devices. Aerial edge computing is envisioned as a promising and cost-effective solution, especially in hostile environments without terrestrial infrastructures. Therefore, this paper focuses on integrating aerial edge computing into 6 G for providing ubiquitous computing services for IoT devices...     

Integrating context-aware public displays into a mobile hospital information system

Hospitals are convenient settings for deployment of ubiquitous computing technology. Not only are they technology-rich environments, but their workers experience a high level of mobility resulting in information infrastructures with artifacts distributed throughout the premises. Hospital information systems (HISs) that provide access to electronic patient records are a step in the direction of providing accurate and timely information to hospital staff in support of adequate decision-making. This has motivated the introduction of mobile computing technology in hospitals based on designs which respond to their particular conditions and demands. Among those conditions is the fact that worker mobility does not exclude the need for having shared information artifacts particular locations. In this paper, we extend a handheld-based mobile HIS with ubiquitous computing technology and describe how public displays are integrated with handheld and the services offered by these devices. Public displays become aware of the presence of physicians and nurses in their vicinity and adapt to provide users with personalized, relevant information. An agent-based architecture allows the integration of proactive components that offer information relevant to the case at hand, either from medical guidelines or previous similar cases.     

On-Site Volume Rendering with GPU-Enabled Devices

Now that high-performance computing systems can rely more on a cloud based infrastructure, it becomes much more important to have ubiquitous data processing and visualization capability. This will allow data sharing among numerous clients using shared data repositories through a secure web server. Thanks to the wide availability of GPU support in today’s mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, as well as the recently published WebGL standard, pervasive computing for high-quality and real-time volume rendering may be realized on such high-performance platforms. We have invented two high-performance volume renderers, namely, single-pass GPU ray caster and fast 3D texture slicer, for both mobile and desktop platforms. Rigorous experiments and performance assessments reveal that the proposed mobile 3D image rendering system outperforms the existing approaches in the literature.     

TTL Prediction Schemes and the Effects of Inter-Update Time Distribution on Wireless Data Access

Modern mobile networks, such as GPRS and UMTS, support wireless data applications. One successful example is the ever popular i-Mode in Japan. Wireless data services (wireless Internet) become more important as more and more customers of handheld devices enjoy the convenience of the ubiquitous computing. To improve the effective wireless data access, the time-to-live (TTL) management for data entries becomes important due to its use in effective caching design. In this paper, we study three TTL prediction schemes and investigate the effects of the inter-update time distribution on the wireless data access. Performance analysis is carried out via simulations as well as analytical modeling. We expect our results will be useful for the future wireless data access systems, in which transmission power for mobile devices is more limited.     

Issues in integrating cellular networks WLANs, AND MANETs: a futuristic heterogeneous wireless network

The popularity of wireless communication systems can be seen almost everywhere in the form of cellular networks, WLANs, and WPANs. In addition, small portable devices have been increasingly equipped with multiple communication interfaces building a heterogeneous environment in terms of access technologies. The desired ubiquitous computing environment of the future has to exploit this multitude of connectivity alternatives resulting from diverse wireless communication systems and different access technologies to provide useful services with guaranteed quality to users. Many new applications require a ubiquitous computing environment capable of accessing information from different portable devices at any time and everywhere. This has motivated researchers to integrate various wireless platforms such as cellular networks, WLANs, and MANETs. Integration of different technologies with different capabilities and functionalities is an extremely complex task and involves issues at all layers of the protocol stack. This article envisions an architecture for state-of-the-art heterogeneous multihop networks, and identifies research issues that need to be addressed for successful integration of heterogeneous technologies for the next generation of wireless and mobile networks.     

Mobile computing and ubiquitous networking: concepts, technologies and challenges

With the rapidly increasing penetration of laptop computers, which are primarily used by mobile users to access Internet services, support of Internet services in a mobile environment become an increasing need. The opportunities emerging from these technologies give rise to new paradigms such as mobile computing and ubiquitous networking. However, there are numerous challenges such as reliability and quality of service, infrastructure costs, energy efficiency of mobile devices, among others. This paper analyzes concepts, technologies and challenges related to these paradigms. The major challenges include mobility, disconnection and scale, new information medium and new resource limitations. As a fundamental characteristics of mobile environments, the user can see the same computing environment regardless of his or her current location. The most exciting promises of mobile computing and ubiquitous networking stay an entire new class of applications and potential new massive markets combining personal computing and consumer electronics.     

Mobile next-generation networks

Mobile next-generation networks (NGNs) are a necessary element in reaching the goal of truly ubiquitous computing. The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System, the third-generation mobile service concept, is a technology step to mobile NGNs. We can view NGNs as a merger of the Internet and intranets with mobile networks and with media and broadcast technologies. The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is-from a radio perspective-a third-generation cellular technology, which is defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in its IMT-2000 framework (2001). From a conceptual point of view, it represents a technology step to mobile NGNs' facilitating ubiquitous computing. Researchers conceived UMTS to combine Internet protocol (IP) and mobile technologies to offer personal communication and personalized content everywhere. Its goal is to apply Internet protocols for mobile services control and end-to-end applications. By analyzing the trends of key technologies, we can see how they drive the evolution of the Internet and mobile communications toward mobile NGNs. In this article, I describe the IP-based approach of UMTS for the provision of mobile multimedia services. The integration of WLAN into the UMTS architecture could indicate that the field is moving toward separating mobile and fixed Internet.     

Designing mobile computing systems using distributed objects

This article examines the application of distributed objects to the construction of highly available distributed systems for mobile, ubiquitous computing. High availability for the end user entails the provision of ubiquitous access and flexible resource-sharing. The defining characteristics of mobile computing, such as the frequent movement of users and hosts, the scarcity of network and local computing resources available to the mobile host, and the possibility of disconnections, present difficult challenges in providing high availability for clients in a distributed object system. Meeting these challenges requires dynamic object management techniques in the distributed server architecture on the fixed wired network, as well as object replica management techniques to achieve connection transparency and disconnected operation in the mobile client architecture. Various issues and solutions in constructing a dynamic distributed object-oriented architecture capable of supporting mobile computing are presented     

Novel Untraceable Authenticated Key Agreement Protocol Suitable for Mobile Communication

Communication network has grown to the stage where it becomes ubiquitous. It allows us to access to on-line services at anytime, anywhere and by any devices. This brings out new services, that was previous only accessible via computers, now are available on mobile devices such as e-commerce applications. These applications require mobile users to be authenticated in order to use the services. In this paper, we proposed a novel authenticated key agreement scheme that allows users and servers mutually authenticate each other. Our scheme also conceals users’ identities from adversaries; this is provided in initiator untraceability property of the scheme. Furthermore, the scheme has good computation cost as well as communication and storage costs; thus, the proposed scheme is suitable for the mobile devices.     

A critical evaluation of location based services and their potential

This Editorial lead article for the Journal of Location Based Services surveys this complex and multi-disciplinary field and identifies the key research issues. Although this field has produced early commercial disappointments, the inevitability that pervasive location-aware services on mobile devices will emerge means that much research is needed to inform these developments. The article reviews firstly: the science and technology of positioning, geographic information science, mobile cartography, spatial cognition and interfaces, information science, ubiquitous computing; and secondly the business, content and legal, social and ethics aspects, before synthesising the key issues for this new field.     

A formal context specific trust model (FTM) for multimedia and ubiquitous computing environment

In order to ensure secure sharing of resources in an ad-hoc network of handheld devices in a multimedia and ubiquitous computing environment, mutual collaboration is essential. However, the limitations, such as poor storage and computational capability of these multimedia and ubiquitous devices stand as the bottleneck for effective sharing of resources. As a result of this drawback, the adversaries are obtaining access to the new doors for security breaches. Mutual Trust is the weapon used to combat security violations by restricting malicious devices from participating in any interaction in such an open and dynamic environment. In this paper, we present a context-specific and reputation-based trust model along with a brief survey and a comparative study of the existing trust models found in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, our model is the first formal trust model for multimedia and ubiquitous computing, which incorporates multi-hop recommendation capability and flexible behavioral model to handle interactions among devices. The other major contribution of this universal trust model is a simple protocol for circumventing malicious recommendations and handling them for achieving accuracy. This paper also illustrates the implementation and evaluation detailed of our proposed omnipresent formal trust model.     

Mobile agent based framework for mobile ubiquitous application development

Ubiquitous computing which enabled by the availability of mobile, heterogeneous devices that supply context information, is currently not matured by the lack of programming support for the design and development of context-aware applications. Especially, ubiquitous computing environment is not static which can be compensable dynamically according to need of environment. Mobile agent is a very efficient framework applications can cooperative in heterogeneous environment. Therefore, we have developed a mobile agent based framework that significantly eases the development of mobile, context-aware applications. The framework allows developers to fuse data from disparate sensors, represent application context, and reason efficiently about context, without the need to write complex code. An event based communication paradigm designed specifically for ad-hoc wireless environments is incorporated, which supports loose coupling between sensors, actuators and application components.     

OCSM: an optimized channel split method—towards real-time and on-demand data broadcast scheduling

Wireless Networks - In recent years, it has been witnessed a boom in the development of mobile networks and a great increase in the computing ability of mobile devices. The rapid booming in client...     

Towards a Ubiquitous Robotic Companion: Design and Implementation of Ubiquitous Robotic Service Framework

In recent years, motivated by the emergence of ubiquitous computing technologies, a new class of networked robots, ubiquitous robots, has been introduced. The Ubiquitous Robotic Companion (URC) is our conceptual vision of ubiquitous service robots that provide users with the services they need, anytime and anywhere in ubiquitous computing environments. To realize the vision of URC, one of the essential requirements for robotic systems is to support ubiquity of services: that is, a robot service must be always available even though there are changes in the service environments. Specifically robotic systems need to be automatically interoperable with sensors and devices in current service environments, rather than statically preprogrammed for them. In this paper, the design and implementation of a semantic‐based ubiquitous robotic space (SemanticURS) is presented. SemanticURS enables automated integration of networked robots into ubiquitous computing environments exploiting Semantic Web Services and AI‐based planning technologies.     

Ubiquitous Machine-to-Machine Service Networks

In the near future,there will be many more embedded devices than there are mobile phones.When these devices are connected to the Internet,many novel kinds of ubiquitous service will be enabled.