Speaker: Gloria-Cerasela Crişan (Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacău, Romania)

Date: 13th of March, 2024

Time: 3:30pm

Place: Room G4.1

Presentation title: "Heterogeneous transportation systems: truck-and-drone for efficient deliveries"

Short bio:

Gloria Cerasela Crişan received the degree in informatics from the University of Bucharest, Romania, in 1986, and the Ph.D. degree in informatics from the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Romania, in 2008. Since 2016, she has been an Associate Professor with the Department of Mathematics and Informatics, Faculty of Sciences, Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacău, Romania. Her research interests include combinatorial optimization problems, metaheuristics, transportation and logistics problems, and GIS.

Abstract:

Last-mile delivery (in fact, the last leg of the parcel journey) is generally estimated as having complex logistic aspects and important impact on customer satisfaction. Traditionally, getting a parcel from the last hub to the customer is done using a motor vehicle (car, truck, boat) or a bicycle. Drones (or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - UAVs) do not need roads, and differentiate their service from the traditional transportation modes in multiple ways: light weight, small consumption, high speed, small capacity, short range, weather vulnerability (vs. heavy weight, high consumption, small speed, big capacity, wide range, weather resilience - for trucks, for example). Truck-and-drone cooperative transportation systems are used for about ten years, with major results in customer satisfaction, cost reduction and environmental impact (therefore at the individual, businesses, and societal levels). This presentation aims to describe some theoretical approaches and practical results of such mixed parcel delivery networks.

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Speaker: Bruno Jesus

Date: 13th of March, 2024

Time: 3:30pm

Place: Room G4.1

Presentation title: "Security and Robustness of Gateways on IoT Systems"

Short bio:

PhD student at the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra, currently a researcher in the Software and Systems Engineering group at the Center for Informatics and Systems (CISUC), where he conducts research related to IoT systems, security, and privacy. Holds a master's degree in Computer Science from the Postgraduate Program at the Centro de Informática (CIn) of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (2010), with a research focus on RFID technology and anti-collision protocols. Graduated in Computer Science from the Universidade Federal de Alagoas (2006). Has teaching experience in the field of Computer Science, with emphasis on Introduction to Programming and Computer Networks, as well as in Distance Education. Holds a technical degree in informatics from the Instituto Federal de Alagoas (2004) with a specialization in Systems Analysis and Network Administration.

Abstract:

Internet-based systems are present in people’s daily lives, helping to perform various activities and providing greater comfort and ease in communication. In this context of diversification, every day more devices have access to the network, further increasing the reach and distribution of information worldwide. According to the Internet Society, “extending network connectivity and computing power to objects, devices, sensors, and other artifacts that are not normally considered computers” is called the Internet of Things (IoT). Some of the devices, in the IoT systems, are critical devices. In our work, we focus on gateways responsible for collecting and sending data from sensors to an application or the cloud. Because of this, they are the most vulnerable device to be attacked and need maximum security. In our work we intend to identify the main issues related to the robustness and security of integration frameworks used in IoT gateways, by testing the robustness of these components, creating a test case methodology, and performing many test cases for each endpoint. Finally, we will check the behavior of the frameworks in the presence of errors and problems with the data sent.

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Speaker: André Bento

Date: 13th of March, 2024

Time: 3:30pm

Place: Room G4.1

Presentation title: "Towards Optimal Scaling of Cloud Services"

Short bio:

André Bento is a PhD student at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He received his MSc in 2019 from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, with a thesis on Observing and Controlling Performance in Microservices. His main research topics are anomaly detection, observability, and optimization of resources for cloud services. His research interests include cloud computing, microservices, monitoring, and other distributed systems topics.

Abstract:

Cloud services have become increasingly popular for developing large-scale applications due to the abundance of resources they offer. The scalability and accessibility of these resources have made it easier for organizations of all sizes to develop and implement sophisticated and demanding applications to meet demand instantly. As monetary fees are involved in the use of the cloud, one of the challenges for application developers and operators is to balance their budget constraints with crucial quality attributes, such as availability. Industry standards usually default to solutions that cannot simultaneously consider competing objectives. Our research addresses this challenge by proposing a Cost-Availability Aware Scaling (CAAS) approach that uses multi-objective optimization of availability and cost. We evaluate CAAS using two open-source microservices applications, yielding improved results compared to the industry standard CPU-based Autoscaler (AS). CAAS can find optimal system configurations with higher availability, between 1 and 2 nines on average, and reduced costs, 6% on average, with the first application, and 1 nine of availability on average, and reduced costs up to 18% on average, with the second application. The gap in the results between our model and the default AS suggests that operators can significantly improve the operation of their applications.