The demand for performance and resources that is placed on the system is dictated by the application alone in non-interactive environments, and by a combination of application and user interactions in interactive environments. Understanding user interaction can provide valuable information about which resources will be needed ahead of time. This leads to performance optimizations such as better resource allocations for applications that can utilize a given resource more productively, and transitioning devices to a more appropriate energy performance state before the demand arrives. The challenge is to provide a performance/energy schedule that best matches the task at hand, since keeping the device in one performance level is not energy efficient due to the continually changing demand placed on the device. This dissertation addresses the challenge of designing energy efficient systems by examining the role of user interaction in energy consumption and in providing an energy-performance schedule that adequately accommodates user demand. It is shown that system performance can be tailored to a user's pattern of interaction and it's energy-performance schedule optimized.First, a detailed design of context capture systems in Linux's X-Window System is presented with an evaluation of the associated storage and computation overheads. Due to the overall low complexity of the application window representations, the overheads of computing interaction identifiers and storing a secondary representation of the application interface within the context capture system are likewise low. Additionally, a Microsoft Windows-based context capture system leveraging the Active Accessibility framework is discussed and applied to improving the navigation of cascading pull-down menus.Secondly, this dissertation addresses the application of interaction capture in energy and delay management of Wireless Network Interface Controllers/Cards (WNICs) and hard drives. The Interaction Aware Prediction (IAP) system for WNICs is evaluated showing that the available power modes can be effectively managed to provide energy efficiency while maintaining performance. Similarly, the Interaction Aware Spin-up Prediction (IASP) uses interaction awareness to reduce or eliminate the interactive delays associated with aggressive hard disk energy management.

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) offer flexibility, mobility, and scalability to educational institutions. Students are increasingly expecting anywhere, anytime access to online resources. Secondary school administrators, who serve a similar population as the National Job Corps Program (NJCP), realize that student success in the 21st century workplace depends upon the student's ability to use new and emerging technologies, including wireless technology. Computer access anytime and anywhere is crucial to the success of students today. Wireless technology has been broadly deployed at educational institutions, such as the Hartford Job Corps Academy (HJCA), but little is known about how these networks are deployed and used, specifically at a Job Corps center. HJCA deployed a WLAN in 2005. Information about the core aspects of the design and implementation of anytime, anywhere initiatives, such as wireless solutions in education, is needed to complement the current research. The NJCP does not have a model for standardizing, organizing, and maintaining wireless networks. The goal of this investigation was to develop a model for planning, designing, and implementing a wireless solution for the Job Corps system. The case study findings from the investigation and the systems development life cycle (SDLC) provided the framework for structuring WLANs at other Job Corps centers. This framework also facilitated the investigation and a determination of the significance of the case study findings, and the analysis and development of the WLAN implementation model for the NJCP. The findings of the HJCA investigation from multiple sources are presented. Using the SDLC framework and the findings from the case study, the NJCP WLAN implementation model is presented. The NJCP WLAN implementation model may be used to facilitate the deployment of WLANs at government-operated, education and training facilities, such as the NJCP.

[pt] A pesquisa em redes móveis e computação pervasiva têm demonstrado que adaptação dinâmica e sensibilidade ao contexto são requisitos básicos para aplicações nestes ambientes. Muitos dos trabalhos sobre adaptação dinâmica sensível ao contexto encontrados na literatura se baseiam nas informações de contexto de dispositivos para selecionar e executar uma determinada adaptação, mas somente no próprio dispositivo. Para aplicações distribuídas cientes do contexto envolvendo um grupo de dispositivos portáteis, executando em uma rede sem fio, por vezes faz-se necessária uma adaptação conjunta e coordenada de todos os dispositivos do grupo, adaptação essa que depende de um contexto global do grupo. Este trabalho apresenta Moratus, um protocolo para obter o contexto global de um grupo de dispositivos e executar uma única adaptação de serviços de comunicação em todos os dispositivos de forma coordenada. Este protocolo também leva em conta e trata desconexões involuntárias de membros do grupo durante o processo. O Moratus é o elemento central de um middleware, o SACS, que permite que tal adaptação coordenada ocorra de forma transparente e sem interrupção para a aplicação distribuída que usa o middleware. / [en] Research in mobile networks and pervasive computing has shown that dynamic adaptation and context-awareness are basic requirements for applications executing in such environments. Many of the works about context-awareness dynamic adaptation found in the literature use the device's context information to execute an adaptation only locally at the device. For distributed, context-aware applications composed of a group of portable devices (executing in a wireless network) sometimes it is necessary to perform a collective and coordinated adaptation at all the devices of the group, and where this adaptation depends on the global context of the group. This thesis presents Moratus, a protocol that processes the global context of a group and executes a unique adaptation of a communication service at all devices in the group in a coordinated way. This protocol also handles unplanned disconnections of group members during the adaptation process. Moratus is the central element of a middleware named SACS, which allows that such coordinated adaptation is performed transparently and without disruption for the distributed application based on this middleware.

O surgimento das modernas tecnologias de comunicação e informação multimídia vem impactando e transformando a vida da sociedade atual, alterando hábitos e costumes de seus usuários. A visualização destes efeitos não tem sido diferente no universo da TV Digital. A sua inovadora proposta de interatividade entre usuário e emissora, promete revolucionar hábitos e costumes dos telespectadores. A implementação do Canal de Interatividade da TV Digital através da Internet é uma proposta particular do sistema brasileiro de TV Digital e pretende melhorar a qualidade de vida da população provendo interatividade no sistema, além de conduzir à melhoria da qualidade da programação oferecida aos seus telespectadores. Outro tipo de tecnologia de comunicação que atualmente vem ganhando cada vez mais espaço no cotidiano é a tecnologia de comunicação sem fio, especialmente aquelas que oferecem altas taxas de transferência de dados e aquelas que oferecem grande mobilidade, tornando as comunicações cada vez mais personalizadas e pessoais. Como grande inovação, este trabalho propõe a implementação do Canal de Interatividade da TV Digital através da Internet, utilizando redes de comunicação sem fio, com mais de uma tecnologia de comunicação sem fio presente no mesmo Terminal de Acesso à TV digital, tirando proveito da inovativa metodologia de reconfiguração de Rádio Definido por Programa de Computador. Desta forma, permiti-se que, quando uma determinada rede de comunicação sem fio estiver indisponível em dado momento e/ou região, o sistema se reorganize e utilize outra rede de comunicação sem fio que esteja à disposição. / The sprouting of the modern communication technologies and multimedia information comes impacting and transforming the life of the current society, modifying habits and customs of its users. The visualization of these effects has not been different in the universe of the Digital TV. Its innovative proposal of interactivity between the user and the broadcaster, promises to revolutionize habits and customs of the viewers. The implementation of the Interactivity Channel of the Digital TV through the Internet is a particular proposal of the Brazilian DTV system and intends to improve the quality of life of the population providing interactivity of the system, beyond leading to the improvement of the quality of the offered programming to its viewers. Another type of communication technology that currently comes ga ining each time more space in the daily life is the wireless technology, especially those which offer high data rates and those which offer great mobility, becoming each time more personalized and personal. As great innovation, this dissertation considers the implementation of the Interactivity Channel of the Digital TV through the Internet, using wireless communication, with more than one wireless technology in the same Set-Top-Box, taking off advantage of the innovative Software Defined Radio reconfiguration methodology. In such a way, it is allowed when one determined wireless network will be unavailable at any given time and/or region, the system if reorganizes itself and uses another available wireless network.

Les progrès dans l'architecture de réseau informatique ajoutent continuellement de nouvelles fonctionnalités aux problèmes de routage des véhicules. Dans cette thèse, le problème de tournée des véhicules avec la collecte de donnée sans fil (WT-VRP) est étudié. Il recherche un itinéraire pour le véhicule chargé de collecter des informations auprès des stations ainsi qu'un planning efficace de collecte d'informations. La nouvelle fonctionnalité ajoutée ici est la possibilité de récupérer des informations via une transmission sans fil, sans visiter physiquement les stations du réseau. Le WT-VRP a des applications dans la surveillance sous-marine et la surveillance environnementale. Nous discutons les critères pour mesurer l'efficacité d'une solution et proposons des formulations de programmation linéaire en nombre entier mixte pour résoudre le problème. Des expériences computationnelles ont été réalisées pour accéder à la complexité numérique du problème et pour comparer les solutions selon les critères proposés. Ensuite, nous avons renforcé certains modèles ainsi que considéré différentes suppositions pour le réseaux sans fils. Finalement, pour être capable de résoudre le problème dans des réseaux de grande échelle, nous avons développés des méthodes heuristiques pour le WT-VRP. / The vehicle routing problem is one of the most studied problems in Operations Research.Different variants have been treated in the past 50 years and with technologicaladvances, new challenges appear. In this thesis, we introduce a new variation of theVRP appearing in wireless networks. The new characteristic added to this well-knowproblem is the possibility of pick-up information via wireless transmissions. In the contextconsidered here, a unique base station is connected with the outside and a vehicleis responsible for collecting information via wireless connection to the vehicle when it islocated in another sufficiently close station. Simultaneous transmissions are permitted.Time of transmission depends on the distance between stations, the amount of informationtransmitted, and other physical factors (e.g obstacles along the way, installedequipment). Information to be sent outside of the network is continuously generatedin each station at a constant rate. The first contribution of this thesis is the introductionof a mixed ILP formulation for a variation in which it is only possible to send all theinformation or nothing during a wireless transmission. For this model three differentstrategies are investigated: maximizing total amount of information extracted an theend of the time horizon; maximizing the average of the information in the vehicle ateach time point; and maximizing the satisfaction of each station at the end of the timehorizon. Each strategy is translated as a different objective function for the mixed ILPformulation. The problem is then reformulated by accepting the option of sending onlypart of the information during a wireless transmission and considering only the firststrategy,(i.e. maximizing the amount of information extracted at the end of the horizontime). For this new version, we present three mixed ILP formulations, each one withadvantages and disadvantages. These mixed ILP models are compared according to theCPU time, amount of information collected, gap of unresolved instances, etc. Becausein real life we need to solve problems with a large number of stations, in this thesis,we also propose heuristics methods for the second version of the problem introduced.We build some heuristics that do not depend on the mixed ILP model (as for exampleGreedy heuristics) and also matheuristcs. In our matheuristics our best model (a vehicleevent model) is used as a base for the development of construction of Heuristics aswell as local search heuristics.

O surgimento das modernas tecnologias de comunicação e informação multimídia vem impactando e transformando a vida da sociedade atual, alterando hábitos e costumes de seus usuários. A visualização destes efeitos não tem sido diferente no universo da TV Digital. A sua inovadora proposta de interatividade entre usuário e emissora, promete revolucionar hábitos e costumes dos telespectadores. A implementação do Canal de Interatividade da TV Digital através da Internet é uma proposta particular do sistema brasileiro de TV Digital e pretende melhorar a qualidade de vida da população provendo interatividade no sistema, além de conduzir à melhoria da qualidade da programação oferecida aos seus telespectadores. Outro tipo de tecnologia de comunicação que atualmente vem ganhando cada vez mais espaço no cotidiano é a tecnologia de comunicação sem fio, especialmente aquelas que oferecem altas taxas de transferência de dados e aquelas que oferecem grande mobilidade, tornando as comunicações cada vez mais personalizadas e pessoais. Como grande inovação, este trabalho propõe a implementação do Canal de Interatividade da TV Digital através da Internet, utilizando redes de comunicação sem fio, com mais de uma tecnologia de comunicação sem fio presente no mesmo Terminal de Acesso à TV digital, tirando proveito da inovativa metodologia de reconfiguração de Rádio Definido por Programa de Computador. Desta forma, permiti-se que, quando uma determinada rede de comunicação sem fio estiver indisponível em dado momento e/ou região, o sistema se reorganize e utilize outra rede de comunicação sem fio que esteja à disposição. / The sprouting of the modern communication technologies and multimedia information comes impacting and transforming the life of the current society, modifying habits and customs of its users. The visualization of these effects has not been different in the universe of the Digital TV. Its innovative proposal of interactivity between the user and the broadcaster, promises to revolutionize habits and customs of the viewers. The implementation of the Interactivity Channel of the Digital TV through the Internet is a particular proposal of the Brazilian DTV system and intends to improve the quality of life of the population providing interactivity of the system, beyond leading to the improvement of the quality of the offered programming to its viewers. Another type of communication technology that currently comes ga ining each time more space in the daily life is the wireless technology, especially those which offer high data rates and those which offer great mobility, becoming each time more personalized and personal. As great innovation, this dissertation considers the implementation of the Interactivity Channel of the Digital TV through the Internet, using wireless communication, with more than one wireless technology in the same Set-Top-Box, taking off advantage of the innovative Software Defined Radio reconfiguration methodology. In such a way, it is allowed when one determined wireless network will be unavailable at any given time and/or region, the system if reorganizes itself and uses another available wireless network.

Wireless network placement of transmitters, such as base stations for 2G and 3G, access points for WLAN, is a NP-hard problem, since many factors have to be considered, like QoS, coverage, cost, etc. In wireless network placement problem, the goal is to find a set of transmitters which achieves the widest coverage on a given map and spends the minimal cost. In this thesis, we propose a novel variable-length genetic algorithm for solving this problem. Most of existing methods for solving wireless network placement problem, to our best knowledge, users must assign an upper bound or a total number of transmitters for placement. Unlike these existing methods, the proposed algorithm can search the optimal number of transmitters automatically. In addition, the proposed algorithm can find near optimal solutions even in heterogeneous transmitters placement problem, i.e., transmitters with different power radius or cost. The results on several benchmarks are very close to the optimal solutions, which validate the capability of the proposed method in finding the numbers, the types, are the positions of transmitters in heterogeneous wireless network environment.

The aggregate interference distribution in cognitive radio networks is studied in a rigorous and analytical way using the popular Poisson point process model. While a number of results are available for this model for non-cognitive radio networks, cognitive radio networks present extra levels of difficulties for the analysis, mainly due to the exclusion region around the primary receiver, which are typically addressed via various ad-hoc approximations (e.g., based on the interference cumulants) or via the large-deviation analysis. Unlike the previous studies, we do not use here ad-hoc approximations but rather obtain the asymptotic interference distribution in a systematic and rigorous way, which also has a guaranteed level of accuracy at the distribution tail. This is in contrast to the large deviation analysis, which provides only the (exponential) order of scaling but not the outage probability itself. Unlike the cumulant-based analysis, our approach provides a guaranteed level of accuracy at the distribution tail. Additionally, our analysis provides a number of novel insights. In particular, we demonstrate that there is a critical transition point below which the outage probability decays only polynomially but above which it decays super-exponentially. This provides a solid analytical foundation to the earlier empirical observations in the literature and also reveals what are the typical ways outage events occur in different regimes. The analysis is further extended to include interference cancelation and fading (from a broad class of distributions). The outage probability is shown to scale down exponentially in the number of canceled nearest interferers in the below-critical region and does not change significantly in the above-critical one. The proposed asymptotic expressions are shown to be accurate in the non-asymptotic regimes as well.

In this thesis, we characterize the proprietary active scanning algorithm of several wireless network interface cards. Our experiments are the first of its kind to observe the complete scanning process as the wireless network interface cards probe all the channels in the 2.4GHz spectrum. We discuss the: 1) correlation of channel popularity during active scanning and access point channel deployment popularity; 2) number of probe request frames statistics on each channel; 3) channel probe order; and 4) dwell time. The knowledge gained from characterizing wireless network interface cards is important for the following reasons: 1) it helps one understand how active scanning is implemented in different hardware and software; 2) it can be useful in identifying a wireless rogue host; 3) it can help implement Active Scanning in network simulators; and 4) it can radically influence research in the familiar fields like link-layer handovers and effective deployment of access points.

With advances in hardware miniaturization and wireless communication technologies even small portable wireless devices have much communication bandwidth and computing power. These devices include smartphones, tablet computers, and personal digital assistants. Users of these devices expect to run software applications that they usually have on their desktop computers as well as the new applications that are being developed for mobile devices. Web browsing, social networking, gaming, online multimedia playing, global positioning system based navigation, and accessing emails are examples of a few popular applications. Mobile versions of thousands of desktop applications are already available in mobile application markets, and consequently, the expected operational time of smartphones is rising rapidly. At the same time, the complexity of these applications is growing in terms of computation and communication needs, and there is a growing demand for energy in smartphones. However, unlike the exponential growth in computing and communication technologies, in terms of speed and packaging density, battery technology has not kept pace with the rapidly growing energy demand of these devices. Therefore, designers are faced with the need to enhance the battery life of smartphones. Knowledge of how energy is used and lost in the system components of the devices is vital to this end. With this view, we focus on modeling and evaluating the energy performance of smartphones in this thesis. We also propose techniques for enhancing the energy efficiency and functionality of smartphones. The detailed contributions of the thesis are as follows: (i) we present a nite state machine based model to estimate the energy cost of an application running on a smartphone, and provide practical approaches to extract model parameters; (ii) the concept of energy cost pro le is introduced to assess the impact of design decisions on energy cost at an early stage of software design; (iii) a generic architecture is proposed and implemented for enhancing the capabilities of smartphones by sharing resources; (iv) we have analyzed the Internet tra c of smartphones to observe the energy saving potentials, and have studied the implications on the existing energy saving techniques; and nally, (v) we have provided a methodology to select user level test cases for performing energy cost evaluation of applications. All of our concepts and proposed methodology have been validated with extensive measurements on a real test bench. Our work contributes to both theoretical understanding of energy e ciency of software applications and practical methodologies for evaluating energy e ciency. In summary, the results of this work can be used by application developers to make implementation level decisions that affect the energy efficiency of software applications on smartphones. In addition, this work leads to the design and implementation of energy e cient smartphones.