arXiv subjects

Emanuele Carlini

Publications and source records attributed to Emanuele Carlini.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Accelerating Dynamic Graph Clustering on GPU Architectures with cuGraph

This work addresses community detection in temporal networks through GPU-accelerated extensions of spectral clustering and modularity-based algorithms originally designed for static graphs. Built on the NVIDIA RAPIDS ecosystem, the framework enables the characterization and tracking of communities in snapshot-based dynamic graphs, either by Leiden greedy optimization with multi-GPU support via Dask-based workload distribution, or eigendecomposition of a symmetric Bethe-Hessian operator. Our multislice modularity backend achieves up to roughly three orders of magnitude speedup over the CPU reference under an equal-work budget, depending on graph density and snapshot count, while preserving compatibility with existing graph analytics pipelines. We demonstrate its applicability on real-world and synthetic datasets, facilitating exploratory analysis of structural network properties over time. Such capabilities are relevant across several application domains, such as epidemic spreading, financial systems, cybersecurity, and trajectory and mobility analysis. We release our implementation as free and open-source software, including Python bindings through the NetworkX-Temporal library for ease of use and zero-code acceleration with existing codebases.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2026

Learning and Clustering on Temporal Graphs: Principles, Primitives, and Pooling

This work focuses on the problem of learning on temporal graphs, with particular emphasis on the task of clustering: obtaining coarse-grained representations by aggregating information from nodes, edges, and temporal dynamics - a task related to pooling in machine learning on graphs, or community detection in network science. Although graph neural networks reach state-of-the-art performance across many downstream graph tasks, their advantage over established descriptive and inferential clustering algorithms is far less settled, especially under demands of efficiency and recovery accuracy. We frame this tension through three linked perspectives: principles, connecting graph learning and community detection through shared spectral foundations and detectability thresholds in stochastic block model regimes; primitives, making spectral clustering and multislice modularity optimization tractable through GPU-accelerated temporal backends; and pooling, viewing principled community detection as a theory-grounded coarse-graining operator for temporal graphs. Our results indicate that algorithmic methods remain the appropriate tool where attributes are absent or weak - scalability rather than accuracy being the binding obstacle - while neural models are most compelling when structural, temporal, and attribute signals align. By making temporal clustering scalable, GPU-accelerated primitives suggest a route toward theory-grounded pooling, while raising a central question: when does community-based coarse-graining preserve the dynamics needed for downstream learning tasks?

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

Privacy Evaluation of Generative Models for Trajectory Generation

Trajectory data is fundamental to modern urban intelligence, yet its sensitivity raises significant privacy concerns. Generative models such as Generative Adversarial Networks, Variational Autoencoders, and Diffusion Models have been developed to generate realistic synthetic trajectory data by capturing underlying spatiotemporal distributions and mobility patterns. Although these models are often assumed to preserve privacy due to their generative nature, this assumption does not necessarily hold. In this work, we investigate the intersection of generative trajectory modeling and privacy evaluation. By identifying applicable empirical methods for assessing privacy preservation in trajectory generation tasks, we demonstrate a significant gap in the evaluation of privacy for generative trajectory models. Motivated by this gap, we implement Membership Inference Attacks against representative models, demonstrating the feasibility of using such empirical privacy evaluation methods and showing that their generative nature does not eliminate privacy risks.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

Trade-offs in Decentralized Agentic AI Discovery Across the Compute Continuum

Agentic systems deployed across the compute continuum need discovery mechanisms that remain effective across cloud, edge, and intermittently connected domains. In some emerging agentic architectures, decentralized discovery is already an active design direction, placing DHT-based lookup on the path toward agent directories. This paper studies the trade-offs among major structured-overlay families for agent discovery, comparing Chord, Pastry, and Kademlia as candidate indexing substrates within a shared control-plane framework. Using a benchmark subset centered on a 4096-node stationary comparison and a representative 4096-node churn benchmark, the paper characterizes how discovery reliability, startup behavior, and control-plane overhead vary across these overlays. The goal is to clarify the operating points they expose for agent discovery across edge-to-cloud environments.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2026

Usable Agent Discovery for Decentralized AI Systems

Large-scale agentic systems run on distributed infrastructures where many software agents share physical hosts and are discovered via peer-to-peer mechanisms. Discovery must handle node-level churn from failures and host departures and agent-level churn from demand-driven activation, deactivation, and state changes. Their interaction reshapes classic trade-offs between structured and unstructured overlays. We study decentralized agent discovery under this two-level churn, assuming nodes host multiple agents, overlays are structured or gossip-based, and agents switch between warm and cold states. Using Kademlia as a structured and Cyclon+Vicinity as a gossip baseline, we compare stable, node-churn-only, agent-cooling-only, and combined regimes to see when routing efficiency, resilience, and service readiness align or favor different designs. Structured overlays are more robust and efficient in stable and node-churn regimes, while gossip-based overlays remain competitive and can be faster when readiness dominates.

cs.MA↗

arXiv2025

A Parallel and Distributed Rust Library for Core Decomposition on Large Graphs

In this paper, we investigate the parallelization of $k$-core decomposition, a method used in graph analysis to identify cohesive substructures and assess node centrality. Although efficient sequential algorithms exist for this task, the scale of modern networks requires faster, multicore-ready approaches. To this end, we adapt a distributed $k$-core algorithm originally proposed by Montresor et al. to shared-memory systems and implement it in Rust, leveraging the language's strengths in concurrency and memory safety. We developed three progressively optimized versions: SequentialK as a baseline, ParallelK introducing multi-threaded message passing, and FastK further reducing synchronization overhead. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets, including road networks, web graphs, and social networks, show that FastK consistently outperforms both SequentialK and ParallelK, as well as a reference Python implementation available in the NetworkX library. Results indicate up to an 11x speedup on 16 threads and execution times up to two orders of magnitude faster than the Python implementation.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2025

A Fast-Converging Decentralized Approach to the Weighted Minimum Vertex Cover Problem

We address the problem of computing a Minimum Weighted Vertex Cover (MWVC) in a decentralized network. MWVC, a classical NP-hard problem, is foundational in applications such as network monitoring and resource placement. We propose a fully decentralized protocol where each node makes decisions using only local knowledge and communicates with its neighbors. The method is adaptive, communication-efficient, and avoids centralized coordination. We evaluate the protocol on real-world and synthetic graphs, comparing it to both centralized and decentralized baselines. Our results demonstrate competitive solution quality with reduced communication overhead, highlighting the feasibility of MWVC computation in decentralized environments.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2025

Decentralized and Self-adaptive Core Maintenance on Temporal Graphs

Key graph-based problems play a central role in understanding network topology and uncovering patterns of similarity in homogeneous and temporal data. Such patterns can be revealed by analyzing communities formed by nodes, which in turn can be effectively modeled through temporal $k$-cores. This paper introduces a novel decentralized and incremental algorithm for computing the core decomposition of temporal networks. Decentralized solutions leverage the ability of network nodes to communicate and coordinate locally, addressing complex problems in a scalable, adaptive, and timely manner. By leveraging previously computed coreness values, our approach significantly reduces the activation of nodes and the volume of message exchanges when the network changes over time. This enables scalability with only a minimal trade-off in precision. Experimental evaluations on large real-world networks under varying levels of dynamism demonstrate the efficiency of our solution compared to a state-of-the-art approach, particularly in terms of active nodes, communication overhead, and convergence speed.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2025

ImPORTance: Machine Learning-Driven Analysis of Global Port Significance and Network Dynamics for Improved Operational Efficiency

Seaports play a crucial role in the global economy, and researchers have sought to understand their significance through various studies. In this paper, we aim to explore the common characteristics shared by important ports by analyzing the network of connections formed by vessel movement among them. To accomplish this task, we adopt a bottom-up network construction approach that combines three years' worth of AIS (Automatic Identification System) data from around the world, constructing a Ports Network that represents the connections between different ports. Through this representation, we utilize machine learning to assess the relative significance of various port features. Our model examined such features and revealed that geographical characteristics and the port's depth are indicators of a port's importance to the Ports Network. Accordingly, this study employs a data-driven approach and utilizes machine learning to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to the extent of ports. Our work aims to inform decision-making processes related to port development, resource allocation, and infrastructure planning within the industry.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

Power- and Fragmentation-aware Online Scheduling for GPU Datacenters

The rise of Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models is driving increased GPU usage in data centers for complex training and inference tasks, impacting operational costs, energy demands, and the environmental footprint of large-scale computing infrastructures. This work addresses the online scheduling problem in GPU datacenters, which involves scheduling tasks without knowledge of their future arrivals. We focus on two objectives: minimizing GPU fragmentation and reducing power consumption. GPU fragmentation occurs when partial GPU allocations hinder the efficient use of remaining resources, especially as the datacenter nears full capacity. A recent scheduling policy, Fragmentation Gradient Descent (FGD), leverages a fragmentation metric to address this issue. Reducing power consumption is also crucial due to the significant power demands of GPUs. To this end, we propose PWR, a novel scheduling policy to minimize power usage by selecting power-efficient GPU and CPU combinations. This involves a simplified model for measuring power consumption integrated into a Kubernetes score plugin. Through an extensive experimental evaluation in a simulated cluster, we show how PWR, when combined with FGD, achieves a balanced trade-off between reducing power consumption and minimizing GPU fragmentation.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

Graph Neural Networks and Reinforcement Learning for Proactive Application Image Placement

The shift from Cloud Computing to a Cloud-Edge continuum presents new opportunities and challenges for data-intensive and interactive applications. Edge computing has garnered a lot of attention from both industry and academia in recent years, emerging as a key enabler for meeting the increasingly strict demands of Next Generation applications. In Edge computing the computations are placed closer to the end-users, to facilitate low-latency and high-bandwidth applications and services. However, the distributed, dynamic, and heterogeneous nature of Edge computing, presents a significant challenge for service placement. A critical aspect of Edge computing involves managing the placement of applications within the network system to minimize each application's runtime, considering the resources available on system devices and the capabilities of the system's network. The placement of application images must be proactively planned to minimize image tranfer time, and meet the strict demands of the applications. In this regard, this paper proposes an approach for proactive image placement that combines Graph Neural Networks and actor-critic Reinforcement Learning, which is evaluated empirically and compared against various solutions. The findings indicate that although the proposed approach may result in longer execution times in certain scenarios, it consistently achieves superior outcomes in terms of application placement.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

Urgent Edge Computing

This position paper introduces Urgent Edge Computing (UEC) as a paradigm shift addressing the evolving demands of time-sensitive applications in distributed edge environments, in time-critical scenarios. With a focus on ultra-low latency, availability, resource management, decentralization, self-organization, and robust security, UEC aims to facilitate operations in critical scenarios such as disaster response, environmental monitoring, and smart city management. This paper outlines and discusses the key requirements, challenges, and enablers along with a conceptual architecture. The paper also outlines the potential applications of Urgent Edge Computing

cs.NI↗

arXiv2021

Efficient Resources Distribution for an Ephemeral Cloud/Edge continuum

This paper presents the idea and the concepts behind the vision of an Ephemeral Cloud/Edge Continuum, a cloud/edge computing landscape that enables the exploitation of a widely distributed, dynamic, and context-aware set of resources. The Ephemeral Continuum answer to the need of combining a plethora of heterogeneous devices, which nowadays are pervasively embedding anthropic environments, with both federations of cloud providers and the resources located at the Edge. The aim of the Ephemeral Continuum is to realise a context-aware and personalised federation of computational, data and network resources, able to manage their heterogeneity in a highly distributed deployment.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2021

TEACHING -- Trustworthy autonomous cyber-physical applications through human-centred intelligence

This paper discusses the perspective of the H2020 TEACHING project on the next generation of autonomous applications running in a distributed and highly heterogeneous environment comprising both virtual and physical resources spanning the edge-cloud continuum. TEACHING puts forward a human-centred vision leveraging the physiological, emotional, and cognitive state of the users as a driver for the adaptation and optimization of the autonomous applications. It does so by building a distributed, embedded and federated learning system complemented by methods and tools to enforce its dependability, security and privacy preservation. The paper discusses the main concepts of the TEACHING approach and singles out the main AI-related research challenges associated with it. Further, we provide a discussion of the design choices for the TEACHING system to tackle the aforementioned challenges

cs.AI↗

arXiv2018

An edge-fog-cloud platform for anticipatory learning process designed for Internet of Mobile Things

This paper presents a novel architecture for data analytics targeting an anticipatory learning process in the context of the Internet of Mobile Things. The architecture is geo-distributed and composed by edge, fog, and cloud resources that operate collectively to support such an anticipatory learning process. We designed the architecture to manage large volumes of data streams coming from the IoMT devices, analyze in successive phases climbing up in the hierarchy of resources from edge, fog and cloud. We discuss the characteristics of the analytical tasks at each layer. We notice that the amount of data being transported in the network decreases going from the edge, to the fog and finally to the cloud, while the complexity of the computation increases. Such design allows to support different kind of analytical needs, from real-time to historical according to the type of resource being utilized. We have implemented the proposed architecture as a proof-of-concept using the transit data feeds from the area of Greater Moncton, Canada.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2016

Challenges to be addressed for realising an Ephemeral Cloud Federation

This paper sketches the challenges to address to realise a support able to achieve an Ephemeral Cloud Federation, an innovative cloud computing paradigm that enables the exploitation of a dynamic, personalised and context-aware set of resources. The aim of the Ephemeral Federation is to answer to the need of combining private data-centres with both federation of cloud providers and the resource on the edge of the network. The goal of the Ephemeral Federation is to deliver a context-aware and personalised federations of computational, data and network resources, able to manage their heterogeneity in a highly distributed deployment, which can dynamically bring data and computation close to the final user.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2015

Combining Peer-to-Peer and Cloud Computing for Large Scale On-line Games

This thesis investigates the combination of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and Cloud Computing to support Massively Multiplayer On- line Games (MMOGs). MMOGs are large-scale distributed applications where a large number of users concurrently share a real-time virtual environment. Commercial MMOG infrastructures are sized to support peak loads, incurring in high economical cost. Cloud Computing represents an attractive solution, as it lifts MMOG operators from the burden of buying and maintaining hardware, while offering the illusion of infinite machines. However, it requires balancing the tradeoff between resource provisioning and operational costs. P2P- based solutions present several advantages, including the inherent scalability, self-repairing, and natural load distribution capabilities. They require additional mechanisms to suit the requirements of a MMOG, such as backup solutions to cope with peer unreliability and heterogeneity. We propose mechanisms that integrate P2P and Cloud Computing combining their advantages. Our techniques allow operators to select the ideal tradeoff between performance and economical costs. Using realistic workloads, we show that hybrid infrastructures can reduce the economical effort of the operator, while offering a level of service comparable with centralized architectures.

cs.DC↗