arXiv subjects

Rajiv Ranjan

Publications and source records attributed to Rajiv Ranjan.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Evaluating Sensor Data Quality in Internet ofThings Smart Agriculture Applications

The unprecedented growth of Internet of Things (IoT) and its applications in areas such as Smart Agriculture compels the need to devise newer ways for evaluating the quality of such applications. While existing models for application quality focus on the quality experienced by the end-user (captured using likert scale), IoT applications have minimal human involvement and rely on machine to machine communication and analytics to drive decision via actuations. In this paper, we first present a conceptual framework for the evaluation of IoT application quality. Subsequently, we propose, develop and validate via empirical evaluations a novel model for evaluating sensor data quality that is a key component in assessing IoT application quality. We present an implementation of the sensor data quality model and demonstrate how the IoT sensor data quality can be integrated with a Smart Agriculture application. Results of experimental evaluations conducted using data from a real-world testbed concludes the paper.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2021

Streaming Social Event Detection and Evolution Discovery in Heterogeneous Information Networks

Events are happening in real-world and real-time, which can be planned and organized for occasions, such as social gatherings, festival celebrations, influential meetings or sports activities. Social media platforms generate a lot of real-time text information regarding public events with different topics. However, mining social events is challenging because events typically exhibit heterogeneous texture and metadata are often ambiguous. In this paper, we first design a novel event-based meta-schema to characterize the semantic relatedness of social events and then build an event-based heterogeneous information network (HIN) integrating information from external knowledge base. Second, we propose a novel Pairwise Popularity Graph Convolutional Network, named as PP-GCN, based on weighted meta-path instance similarity and textual semantic representation as inputs, to perform fine-grained social event categorization and learn the optimal weights of meta-paths in different tasks. Third, we propose a streaming social event detection and evolution discovery framework for HINs based on meta-path similarity search, historical information about meta-paths, and heterogeneous DBSCAN clustering method. Comprehensive experiments on real-world streaming social text data are conducted to compare various social event detection and evolution discovery algorithms. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed framework outperforms other alternative social event detection and evolution discovery techniques.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2021

CorrDetector: A Framework for Structural Corrosion Detection from Drone Images using Ensemble Deep Learning

In this paper, we propose a new technique that applies automated image analysis in the area of structural corrosion monitoring and demonstrate improved efficacy compared to existing approaches. Structural corrosion monitoring is the initial step of the risk-based maintenance philosophy and depends on an engineer's assessment regarding the risk of building failure balanced against the fiscal cost of maintenance. This introduces the opportunity for human error which is further complicated when restricted to assessment using drone captured images for those areas not reachable by humans due to many background noises. The importance of this problem has promoted an active research community aiming to support the engineer through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) image analysis for corrosion detection. In this paper, we advance this area of research with the development of a framework, CorrDetector. CorrDetector uses a novel ensemble deep learning approach underpinned by convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for structural identification and corrosion feature extraction. We provide an empirical evaluation using real-world images of a complicated structure (e.g. telecommunication tower) captured by drones, a typical scenario for engineers. Our study demonstrates that the ensemble approach of \model significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art in terms of classification accuracy.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2020

Orchestrating the Development Lifecycle of Machine Learning-Based IoT Applications: A Taxonomy and Survey

Machine Learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT) are complementary advances: ML techniques unlock complete potentials of IoT with intelligence, and IoT applications increasingly feed data collected by sensors into ML models, thereby employing results to improve their business processes and services. Hence, orchestrating ML pipelines that encompasses model training and implication involved in holistic development lifecycle of an IoT application often leads to complex system integration. This paper provides a comprehensive and systematic survey on the development lifecycle of ML-based IoT application. We outline core roadmap and taxonomy, and subsequently assess and compare existing standard techniques used in individual stage.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2020

Priority-based Fair Scheduling in Edge Computing

Scheduling is important in Edge computing. In contrast to the Cloud, Edge resources are hardware limited and cannot support workload-driven infrastructure scaling. Hence, resource allocation and scheduling for the Edge requires a fresh perspective. Existing Edge scheduling research assumes availability of all needed resources whenever a job request is made. This paper challenges that assumption, since not all job requests from a Cloud server can be scheduled on an Edge node. Thus, guaranteeing fairness among the clients (Cloud servers offloading jobs) while accounting for priorities of the jobs becomes a critical task. This paper presents four scheduling techniques, the first is a naive first come first serve strategy and further proposes three strategies, namely a client fair, priority fair, and hybrid that accounts for the fairness of both clients and job priorities. An evaluation on a target platform under three different scenarios, namely equal, random, and Gaussian job distributions is presented. The experimental studies highlight the low overheads and the distribution of scheduled jobs on the Edge node when compared to the naive strategy. The results confirm the superior performance of the hybrid strategy and showcase the feasibility of fair schedulers for Edge computing.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2019

Adaptive Scheduling for Efficient Execution of Dynamic Stream Workflows

Stream workflow application such as online anomaly detection or online traffic monitoring, integrates multiple streaming big data applications into data analysis pipeline. This application can be highly dynamic in nature, where the data velocity may change at runtime and therefore the resources should be managed overtime. To manage these changes, the orchestration of this application requires a dynamic execution environment and dynamic scheduling technique. For the former requirement, Multicloud environment is a visible solution to cope with the dynamic aspects of this workflow application. While for the latter requirement, dynamic scheduling technique not only need to adhere to end user's requirements in terms of data processing and deadline for decision making, and data stream sources location constraints, but also adjust provisioning and scheduling plan at runtime to cope with dynamic variations of stream data rates. Therefore, we propose a two-phase adaptive scheduling technique to efficiently schedule dynamic workflow application in Multicloud environment that can respond to changes in the velocity of data at runtime. The experimental results showed that the proposed technique is close to the lower bound and effective for different experiment scenarios.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2019

BigDataSDNSim: A Simulator for Analyzing Big Data Applications in Software-Defined Cloud Data Centers

Emerging paradigms of big data and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) in cloud data centers have gained significant attention from industry and academia. The integration and coordination of big data and SDN are required to improve the application and network performance of big data applications. While empirical evaluation and analysis of big data and SDN can be one way of observing proposed solutions, it is often impractical or difficult to apply for several reasons, such as expensive undertakings, time consuming, and complexity; in addition, it is beyond the reach of most individuals. Thus, simulation tools are preferable options for performing costeffective, scalable experimentation in a controllable, repeatable, and configurable manner. To fill this gap, we present a new, self-contained simulation tool named BigDataSDNSim that enables the modeling and simulating of big data management systems (YARN), big data programming models (MapReduce), and SDN-enabled networks within cloud computing environments. To demonstrate the efficacy, effectiveness, and features of BigDataSDNSim, a use-case that compares SDN-enabled networks with legacy networks in terms of the performance and energy consumption is presented.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2019

IoTSim-Edge: A Simulation Framework for Modeling the Behaviour of IoT and Edge Computing Environments

This paper proposes a novel simulator IoTSim-Edge, which captures the behavior of heterogeneous IoT and edge computing infrastructure and allows users to test their infrastructure and framework in an easy and configurable manner. IoTSim-Edge extends the capability of CloudSim to incorporate the different features of edge and IoT devices. The effectiveness of IoTSim-Edge is described using three test cases. The results show the varying capability of IoTSim-Edge in terms of application composition, battery-oriented modeling, heterogeneous protocols modeling and mobility modeling along with the resources provisioning for IoT applications.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2018

Realizing Edge Marketplaces: Challenges and Opportunities

The edge of the network has the potential to host services for supporting a variety of user applications, ranging in complexity from data preprocessing, image and video rendering, and interactive gaming, to embedded systems in autonomous cars and built environments. However, the computational and data resources over which such services are hosted, and the actors that interact with these services, have an intermittent availability and access profile, introducing significant risk for user applications that must rely on them. This article investigates the development of an edge marketplace, which is able to support multiple providers for offering services at the network edge, and to enable demand supply for influencing the operation of such a marketplace. Resilience, cost, and quality of service and experience will subsequently enable such a marketplace to adapt its services over time. This article also describes how distributed-ledger technologies (such as blockchains) provide a promising approach to support the operation of such a marketplace and regulate its behavior (such as the GDPR in Europe) and operation. Two application scenarios provide context for the discussion of how such a marketplace would function and be utilized in practice.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2018

End-to-End Service Level Agreement Specification for IoT Applications

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to help solve a wide range of issues that relate to our wellbeing within application domains that include smart cities, healthcare monitoring, and environmental monitoring. IoT is bringing new wireless sensor use cases by taking advantage of the computing power and flexibility provided by Edge and Cloud Computing. However, the software and hardware resources used within such applications must perform correctly and optimally. Especially in applications where a failure of resources can be critical. Service Level Agreements (SLA) where the performance requirements of such applications are defined, need to be specified in a standard way that reflects the end-to-end nature of IoT application domains, accounting for the Quality of Service (QoS) metrics within every layer including the Edge, Network Gateways, and Cloud. In this paper, we propose a conceptual model that captures the key entities of an SLA and their relationships, as a prior step for end-to-end SLA specification and composition. Service level objective (SLO) terms are also considered to express the QoS constraints. Moreover, we propose a new SLA grammar which considers workflow activities and the multi-layered nature of IoT applications. Accordingly, we develop a tool for SLA specification and composition that can be used as a template to generate SLAs in a machine-readable format. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed specification language through a literature survey that includes an SLA language comparison analysis, and via reflecting the user satisfaction results of a usability study.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2018

Demonstration Abstract: A Toolkit for Specifying Service Level Agreements for IoT applications

Today we see the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) in various application domains such as healthcare, smart homes, smart cars, and smart-x applications in smart cities. The number of applications based on IoT and cloud computing is projected to increase rapidly over the next few years. IoT-based services must meet the guaranteed levels of quality of service (QoS) to match users' expectations. Ensuring QoS through specifying the QoS constraints using Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is crucial. Therefore, as a first step toward SLA management, it is essential to provide an SLA specification in a machine-readable format. In this paper, we demonstrate a toolkit for creating SLA specifications for IoT applications. The toolkit is used to simplify the process of capturing the requirements of IoT applications. We present a demonstration of the toolkit using a Remote Health Monitoring Service (RHMS) usecase. The toolkit supports the following: (1) specifying the Service-Level Objectives (SLO) of an IoT application at the application level; (2) specifying the workflow activities of the IoT application; (3) mapping each activity to the required software and hardware resources and specifying the constraints of SLOs and other configuration- related metrics of the required hardware and software; and (4) creating the composed SLA in JSON format.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2018

Fog Computing: Survey of Trends, Architectures, Requirements, and Research Directions

Emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) require latency-aware computation for real-time application processing. In IoT environments, connected things generate a huge amount of data, which are generally referred to as big data. Data generated from IoT devices are generally processed in a cloud infrastructure because of the on-demand services and scalability features of the cloud computing paradigm. However, processing IoT application requests on the cloud exclusively is not an efficient solution for some IoT applications, especially time-sensitive ones. To address this issue, Fog computing, which resides in between cloud and IoT devices, was proposed. In general, in the Fog computing environment, IoT devices are connected to Fog devices. These Fog devices are located in close proximity to users and are responsible for intermediate computation and storage. Fog computing research is still in its infancy, and taxonomy-based investigation into the requirements of Fog infrastructure, platform, and applications mapped to current research is still required. This paper starts with an overview of Fog computing in which the definition of Fog computing, research trends, and the technical differences between Fog and cloud are reviewed. Then, we investigate numerous proposed Fog computing architecture and describe the components of these architectures in detail. From this, the role of each component will be defined, which will help in the deployment of Fog computing. Next, a taxonomy of Fog computing is proposed by considering the requirements of the Fog computing paradigm. We also discuss existing research works and gaps in resource allocation and scheduling, fault tolerance, simulation tools, and Fog-based microservices. Finally, by addressing the limitations of current research works, we present some open issues, which will determine the future research direction.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2018

Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud Computing Enabled Disaster Management

Disaster management demands a near real-time information dissemina-tion so that the emergency services can be provided to the right people at the right time. Recent advances in information and communication technologies enable collection of real-time information from various sources. For example, sensors deployed in the fields collect data about the environment. Similarly, social networks like Twitter and Facebook can help to collect data from people in the disaster zone. On one hand, inadequate situation awareness in disasters has been identified as one of the primary factors in human errors with grave consequences such as loss of lives and destruction of critical infrastructure. On the other hand, the growing ubiquity of social media and mobile devices, and pervasive nature of the Internet-of-Things means that there are more sources of outbound traffic, which ultimately results in the creation of a data deluge, beginning shortly after the onset of disaster events, leading to the problem of information tsunami. In addition, security and privacy has crucial role to overcome the misuse of the system for either intrusions into data or overcome the misuse of the information that was meant for a specified purpose. .... In this chapter, we provide such a situation aware application to support disaster management data lifecycle, i.e. from data ingestion and processing to alert dissemination. We utilize cloud computing, Internet of Things and social computing technologies to achieve a scalable, effi-cient, and usable situation-aware application called Cloud4BigData.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2018

Crowdsensing and privacy in smart city applications

Smartness in smart cities is achieved by sensing phenomena of interest and using them to make smart decisions. Since the decision makers may not own all the necessary sensing infrastructures, crowdsourced sensing, can help collect important information of the city in near real-time. However, involving people brings of the risk of exposing their private information.This chapter explores crowdsensing in smart city applications and its privacy implications.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2018

A Unified Knowledge Representation and Context-aware Recommender System in Internet of Things

Within the rapidly developing Internet of Things (IoT), numerous and diverse physical devices, Edge devices, Cloud infrastructure, and their quality of service requirements (QoS), need to be represented within a unified specification in order to enable rapid IoT application development, monitoring, and dynamic reconfiguration. But heterogeneities among different configuration knowledge representation models pose limitations for acquisition, discovery and curation of configuration knowledge for coordinated IoT applications. This paper proposes a unified data model to represent IoT resource configuration knowledge artifacts. It also proposes IoT-CANE (Context-Aware recommendatioN systEm) to facilitate incremental knowledge acquisition and declarative context driven knowledge recommendation.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2018

Cloud Workload Prediction based on Workflow Execution Time Discrepancies

Infrastructure as a service clouds hide the complexity of maintaining the physical infrastructure with a slight disadvantage: they also hide their internal working details. Should users need knowledge about these details e.g., to increase the reliability or performance of their applications, they would need solutions to detect behavioural changes in the underlying system. Existing runtime solutions for such purposes offer limited capabilities as they are mostly restricted to revealing weekly or yearly behavioural periodicity in the infrastructure. This article proposes a technique for predicting generic background workload by means of simulations that are capable of providing additional knowledge of the underlying private cloud systems in order to support activities like cloud orchestration or workflow enactment. Our technique uses long-running scientific workflows and their behaviour discrepancies and tries to replicate these in a simulated cloud with known (trace-based) workloads. We argue that the better we can mimic the current discrepancies the better we can tell expected workloads in the near future on the real life cloud. We evaluated the proposed prediction approach with a biochemical application on both real and simulated cloud infrastructures. The proposed algorithm has shown to produce significantly (~20%) better workload predictions for the future of simulated clouds than random workload selection.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2017

Spot Pricing in the Cloud Ecosystem: A Comparative Investigation

Background: Spot pricing is considered as a significant supplement for building a full-fledged market economy for the Cloud ecosystem. However, it seems that both providers and consumers are still hesitating to enter the Cloud spot market. The relevant academic community also has conflicting opinions about Cloud spot pricing in terms of revenue generation. Aim: This work aims to systematically identify, assess, synthesize and report the published evidence in favor of or against spot-price scheme compared with fixed-price scheme of Cloud computing, so as to help relieve the aforementioned conflict. Method: We employed the systematic literature review (SLR) method to collect and investigate the empirical studies of Cloud spot pricing indexed by major electronic libraries. Results: This SLR identified 61 primary studies that either delivered discussions or conducted experiments to perform comparison between spot pricing and fixed pricing in the Cloud domain. The reported benefits and limitations were summarized to facilitate cost-benefit analysis of being a Cloud spot pricing player, while four types of theories were distinguished to help both researchers and practitioners better understand the Cloud spot market. Conclusions: This SLR shows that the academic community strongly advocates the emerging Cloud spot market. Although there is still a lack of practical and easily deployable market-driven mechanisms, the overall findings of our work indicate that spot pricing plays a promising role in the sustainability of Cloud resource exploitation.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2017

A Survey on Modeling Energy Consumption of Cloud Applications: Deconstruction, State of the Art, and Trade-off Debates

Given the complexity and heterogeneity in Cloud computing scenarios, the modeling approach has widely been employed to investigate and analyze the energy consumption of Cloud applications, by abstracting real-world objects and processes that are difficult to observe or understand directly. It is clear that the abstraction sacrifices, and usually does not need, the complete reflection of the reality to be modeled. Consequently, current energy consumption models vary in terms of purposes, assumptions, application characteristics and environmental conditions, with possible overlaps between different research works. Therefore, it would be necessary and valuable to reveal the state-of-the-art of the existing modeling efforts, so as to weave different models together to facilitate comprehending and further investigating application energy consumption in the Cloud domain. By systematically selecting, assessing and synthesizing 76 relevant studies, we rationalized and organized over 30 energy consumption models with unified notations. To help investigate the existing models and facilitate future modeling work, we deconstructed the runtime execution and deployment environment of Cloud applications, and identified 18 environmental factors and 12 workload factors that would be influential on the energy consumption. In particular, there are complicated trade-offs and even debates when dealing with the combinational impacts of multiple factors.

cs.DC↗