Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Master’s thesis topic in software technology

jgrondah — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:53:14 +0000

Visualization of SAT-Solvers

The SAT problem — determining if a formula in proposition logic is satisfiable — is decidable because you can construct a truth table. If there are n atomic propositions, there are 2^n assignments, so this is not an efficient algorithm. An efficient algorithm for SAT would solve the P=NP? problem in the affirmative, which is unlikely.

However, many interesting algorithms for SAT (called SAT Solvers) have proved to be very efficient in practice. The algorithms are generally based on the DPLL (David, Putnam, Logemann, Loveland) algorithm and add sophisticated search methods and heuristics.

The Master’s thesis project includes extending a Prolog implementation to include interaction, visualization, explanations and examples that will enable students to better understand how the algorithm works.

The project will be supervised by prof. Lauri Malmi and the main instructor guiding the work will be Prof. Moti Ben-Ari, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.
http://www.weizmann.ac.il/sci-tea/benari/ [www.weizmann.ac.il]

The project can be started any time. Prof. Ben-Ari visits the Department of Computer Science and Engineering on 28-31.5, which allows meeting him to discuss the topic more. Previous knowledge of Prolog is not a prerequisite for the project, but then the student needs to familiarize him/herself to the language during the project.

For more information, contact either Lauri Malmi (Lauri.Malmi@aalto.fi) or prof. Ben-Ari directly.

Reference: Sharad Malik and Lintao Zhang. 2009. Boolean satisfiability from theoretical hardness to practical success. Communications ACM 52, 8 (August 2009), 76-82. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1536616.1536637 [doi.acm.org]

Lecture on “Social networking and computer network design” 9.5. at 16:15 in A106

jgrondah — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:31:30 +0000

The recent development in computer network has enabled a rich set of Internet services and applications such email, online social networks (OSNs), and microblogging systems that are now a very important part of our daily lives. Many computer networks have dual properties. They are physical networks and at the same time human networks. It is tremendously important to exploit this social networking feature to design more efficient and more reliable communication systems.

In this talk, I will illustrate, with several examples, how social networks can be integrated into system design. I will start by introducing several human mobility and social contact experiments with diversified scenarios and presenting two important social metrics, community and centrality, commonly observed in the experiments. Next, I will talk about how these social metrics can be applied to forwarding in opportunistic mobile networks, design of spam protection systems, scaling up of microblogging services, mobile data offloading for cellular networks, cyber-insurance, and recommendation systems.

Open M.Sc. thesis position: “Design and implementation of high-level Internet models on top of a distributed discrete event simulator”

jgrondah — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:28:26 +0000

(Autumn 2012)

Background:

A clean-slate information-centric network (ICN) architecture for Internet is being developed in the PURSUIT EU project. The system under work includes a global rendezvous service based on hierarchical DHT consisting of thousands of nodes dispersed cover different autonomous systems. The evaluation of system of this size is difficult, as router-level simulations do not scale to the whole Internet and global prototype deployment is not feasible. Therefore, we are developing our own distributed discrete event simulator tool, that can be run in a computer cluster for large-scale models. In addition, we have been collecting and combining existing data sets in order to produce a high-level, global models for Internet traffic and topology.

Description of the problem:

The work would consist of further developing the AS-level topology model, that is used in our simulation. Mainly, we are interested in augmenting the network map with high-level geographic information, that could be used to improve the estimated latencies and allow the traffic model to be made aware of the locality of the content.

Currently, we are using CAIDA’s inferred data set of AS-level relationships and an another data set can be used to assign countries to some ASes. Basically, the thesis would design heuristics to produce a complete network map based on the available partial data and the implementation of the developed model on top of our simulation environment. Secondly, our current traffic model needs to be updated to take into account the added detail in the network map by modelling the locality of traffic. Thirdly, the developed models need to validated against some measured real-world data.

A lot of the background work has already been done in another master’s thesis in the project and the main emphasis here would be on the efficient implementation. In addition, we will be writing scientific papers based on our findings.

Minimum requirements:

Further development of heuristics to combine existing Internet topology data sets into a single comprehensive model, that incorporates geographic information for each AS.
The modification of our existing traffic model to take into account the locality of traffic based on the geographic information provided by the network model.
Implementation of the developed traffic and network models on top of the distributed discrete event simulator. The implementation needs to support the optimistic synchronization framework provided by the simulator tool.
Design and implementation of the validation of the model based on measured data.

Possible extensions and alternatives:

In addition to the augmentation of the network model with geographic information, we are interested in the addition of POP-level detail to the AS-relationships map.

Work environment:

The work is conducted as a part of an international research team distributed in multiple sites. We are cooperating with, among others, the University of Cambridge and RWTH Aachen.

Skills needed:

- good spoken/written English
- programming (Python, Java, C),
- algorithm design/implementation, basic calculus and discrete math
- ability to work in a group and motivation to learn new things

Contact:

If you are interested, please contact Arto Karila, arto.karila@hiit.fi, mobile +358 500 527 452.

Guest Lecture: Dr. Vladimir Mazarov, Fri 27th of April at 1:00 p.m, room A106

jgrondah — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:41:48 +0000

NETWORKING GAMES, STRONG NASH EQUILIBRIUM AND OPTIMAL ROUTING

on Friday, April 27th, at 1:00 p.m. in room A106, Computer Science Building, Aalto University School of Science.

Vladimir Mazalov, Prof., Ph.D., Dr. Sci.
Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Many real problems in modern networks and supercomputing such as resource distribution, scheduling and routing, spam fighting, etc. can be solved by game-theoretic methods. The players here can be the users, the jobs, the packages, etc. Networking games can be divided for two classes in respect of the traffic being divided (Wardrope games) or not (KP models) for units. The players can use the selfish and cooperative strategies.

Selfish players have different utility functions (for instance, latency functions of linear, quadratic or exponential form) and the main problem here is to find the equilibrium. That is a part of congestion games. We will consider the main methods of congestion and potential games. For general networks we find the potential functions and use it to construct the Nash equilibrium. Cooperative agents are interested in maximizing the common utility. Comparison of these costs is estimated by the price of anarchy. We present the different
approaches how to find it. We consider the Braess paradox and discuss the conditions for its existence. Some examples of real networks are presented.

Bio:

Vladimir Mazalov finished his PhD studies in Faculty of the Applied Mathematics, Leningrad University in 1980. After that he has mainly worked in research projects funded by the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 1980-1998 in Chita Institute of Natural Resources, East Siberia. Currently, he is Professor of the Chair of Probability Theory and Data Analysis, Petrozavodsk State University and Director of the Institute of Applied Mathematical Research, Karelian Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Notice of a Meeting

jgrondah — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:10:57 +0000

DEAN VISITS DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

THURSDAY 26th OF APRIL AT 13:00 (about 60 min) LECTURE HALL T1

Agenda:

Aalto University´s strategy, dean Kimmo Kaski
SCI SAB report, dean Kimmo Kaski
Current status of reformation of bachelor´s degree, Mari Knuuttila

Open Position: Secretary, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

jgrondah — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:40:48 +0000

Open PhD Research Positions

jgrondah — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:55:05 +0000

Aalto University is a new university with over a century of experience. Created from a high-profile merger between three leading universities in Finland – the Helsinki School of Economics, the Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Art and Design Helsinki – Aalto University opens up new possibilities for strong multi-disciplinary education and research. The university’s ambitious goal is to rank among the top universities in the world in its areas of specialization. At Aalto, there are 20,000 students and a staff of 4,500 including 340 professors.

Aalto University School of Science invites applications for:

PHD RESEARCH POSITIONS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

The research and education at the Aalto University Department of Computer Science and Engineering covers broadly the fields of computer science, software engineering and data communication. The department currently has 13 professors and approximately 150 researchers, teachers, full-time doctoral students, and staff members. Please see http://cse.aalto.fi/ for more information about the department.

In this call we seek phd researchers for Mobile Computing, Networking, Services and Security. Our research portfolio broadly covers the areas of cloud computing, Internet of Things, distributed applications and services, energy-aware communications, Green ICT, mobile networking and security. We have drafted the following five phd research topics:

Energy-aware computing and communications
Social Networking and Information Dissemination
Internet Architecture and network protocols (BGP, TCP, OpenFlow)
Dynamic and large-scale networked systems
Building Scale-Out Systems Using Low-power Processors

We typically address research topics from the technical systems research viewpoint and our research incorporates hands on verification through proof-of-concept implementations and measurements in addition to simulations and mathematical modeling and analysis. More information about our research group, see http://cse.aalto.fi/research/groups/datacommunications/ and more information about our research portfolio, see http://cse.aalto.fi/research/groups/datacommunications/projects/

For additional information, please contact professor Antti Ylä-Jääski, e-mail: antti.yla-jaaski@aalto.fi http://cse.aalto.fi/research/groups/datacommunications/people-2/

The applicants should have a solid MSC degree on computer science. The phd researchers are appointed for a fixed term of 2 to 4 years. The salary is determined based on experience and qualifications; typical salary for a new starting phd student is 2.500 euro/month. As a living and working environment, Finland is consistently ranked highly in quality-of-life and competitiveness studies. According to a Newsweek study in 2010, it is the best country in the world to live. According to an OECD study in 2007, it is the 2nd happiest place in the world. Based on a 2011 report by Monocle Magazine, Helsinki is the best city in the world to live in, and the Economist Intelligence Unit livability ranking laced it the 7th in 2011. Finland has also been ranked the 4th in the Global Competitiveness Index 2011-2012 of the World Economic Forum and the 2nd best in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2011 of Transparency International 2011. Aalto University offers support for moving in Finland. Some information is available at: http://www.aalto.fi/en/for/international/

Application procedure

The applications for the positions are to be filed in the eAGE portal:
https://eage.aalto.fi/?ff/HR_JOB_T3050_PhD

including

CV
transcript of records
one page research plan or research statement (e.g., what you would like to do and achieve in your doctoral studies)
any other material relevant to the application

Closing date for applications: 13th of April 2012

Aalto University reserves the right for to leave the position open, to extend the application period and to consider candidates who have not submitted application during the application period.

In Espoo, March 2012

EIT ICT Labs Cloud Computing Summer School registration now open

jgrondah — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:23:50 +0000

EIT ICT Labs Cloud Computing Summer School at Aalto University 3.-8.6.2012 registration is now opened. More information in the cloud computing summer school pages.

Master thesis topic in Mammoth project and in NRC

jgrondah — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:42:55 +0000

Security Architecture for Short-range Wireless High-bandwidth Memory Access

The project in NRC is for an M.Sc. thesis around the topic of defining and prototyping security architecture for a short-range high-bandwidth wireless memory access technology.

Objectives

To design and implement a security architecture for a short-range high-bandwidth wireless memory access technology.
If feasible, also investigate the security issues for specific usage scenarios of this technology.

Contacts in NRC: Jan-Erik Ekberg (jan-erik.ekberg@nokia.com), N. Asokan (n.asokan@nokia.com)

More information: Antti Ylä-Jääski (antti.yla-jaaski@aalto.fi).

Group communication in Low power and Lossy Networks

Internet of things(IoT) is an integrated part of Future Internet, which mainly focuses on the connectivity and interoperability of all kinds of things. As part of interoperability solutions, Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a new protocol proposed for manipulating constrained devices in a RESTful way. However, constrained devices can be large in number but highly correlated to each other by type or location. For example, all the sensors in some certain room or all the light switches in the same floor may form a group. Thus a group communication mechanism is required to improve the efficiency and decrease the latency of communication and meanwhile reduce the bandwidth for a given application. In the early of this year, IETF CORE working group has created an internet draft of group communication for CoAP, which includes several topologies but does not cover the Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) with multiple 6LoWPAN Border Routers (6LBRs). This thesis will focus on this topology and you are expected to do the following things:

Build up a simulation system based on Contiki OS
Implement Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)v6/Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) protocol in the networking layer
Evaluate the feasibility of real device deployment by measuring footprint, performance, etc.
Finding the limitations and try to find possible ways to improve them

Requirements:

Familiar with C/C++ and Linux programming
Basic knowledge about Operation System and Networking
Experience in embedded programming is a plus

Contact(s): Yang Deng (deng.yang@aalto.fi), Zhonghong Ou (zhonghong.ou@aalto.fi)

References:

[1] RFC3810. Vida, R. and L. Costa, “Multicast Listener Discovery Version 2 (MLDv2) for IPv6″, June 2004.

[2] I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm A. Rahman and E. Dijk, “Group Communication for CoAP”, draft-ietf-core-groupcomm-00 (work in progress),
January 2012

[3] Contiki OS. http://www.contiki-os.org/

Data Communications Software Research Seminar on Tue 6 Mar 2012 in TUAS building

jgrondah — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:20:42 +0000

T-110 / Data Communications Software Research Seminar was held 6.3.2012 this spring in the TUAS building, hall TU3 and the restaurant Ranta. The whole day seminar had short presentations explaining the work done in the projects in the Data Communications Software Research Group. After the seminar there was wine and pizza school in the restaurant Ranta.

Here are some pictures and the agenda.

T-110 Research Seminar, TUAS 6.3.2012_PROGRAM