O modelo de programação baseado em atores é frequentemente utilizado para o desenvolvimento de grandes aplicações e sistemas. Podemos citar como exemplo o serviço de bate-papo do Facebook ou ainda o WhatsApp. Estes sistemas dão suporte a milhares de usuários conectados simultaneamente levando em conta estritas restrições de desempenho e interatividade. Tais sistemas normalmente são amparados por infraestruturas de hardware com processadores de múltiplos núcleos. Normalmente, máquinas deste porte são baseadas em uma estrutura de memória compartilhada hierarquicamente (NUMA - Non-Uniform Memory Access). Nossa análise dos atuais ambientes de execução para atores e a pesquisa na literatura mostram que poucos estudos sobre a adequação deste ambientes a essas plataformas hierárquicas foram conduzidos. Estes ambientes de execução normalmente assumem que o espaço de memória é uniforme o que pode causar sérios problemas de desempenho. Nesta tese nós estudamos os desafios enfrentados por um ambiente de execução para atores quando da sua execução nestas plataformas. Estudamos particularmente os problemas de gerenciamento de memória, de escalonamento e de balanceamento de carga. Neste documento nós também analisamos e caracterizamos as aplicações baseadas no modelo de atores. Tal análise nos permitiu evidenciar o fato de que a execução de benchmarks e aplicações criam estruturas de comunicação peculiares entre os atores. Tais peculiaridades podem, então, ser utilizadas pelos ambientes de execução para otimizar o seu desempenho. A avaliação dos grafos de comunicação e a implementação da prova de conceito foram feitas utilizando um ambiente de execução real, a máquina virtual da linguagem Erlang. A linguagem Erlang utiliza o modelo de atores para concorrência com uma sintaxe clara e consistente. As modificações que nós efetuamos nesta máquina virtual permitiram uma melhora significativa no desempenho de certas aplicações através de uma melhor afinidade de comunicação entre os atores. O escalonamento e o balanceamento de carga também foram melhorados graças à utilização do conhecimento sobre o comportamento da aplicação e sobre a plataforma de hardware. / The actor model is present in several mission-critical systems, such as those supporting WhatsApp and Facebook Chat. These systems serve thousands of clients simultaneously, therefore demanding substantial computing resources usually provided by multi-processor and multi-core platforms. Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architectures account for an important share of these platforms. Yet, research on the suitability of the current actor runtime environments for these machines is very limited. Current runtime environments, in general, assume a flat memory space, thus not performing as well as they could. In this thesis we study the challenges hierarchical shared memory multi-core platforms present to actor runtime environments. In particular, we investigate aspects related to memory management, scheduling, and load-balancing. In this document, we analyze and characterize actor based applications to, in light of the above, propose improvements to actor runtime environments. This analysis highlighted the existence of peculiar communication structures. We argue that the comprehension of these structures and the knowledge about the underlying hardware architecture can be used in tandem to improve application performance. As a proof of concept, we implemented our proposal using a real actor runtime environment, the Erlang Virtual Machine (VM). Concurrency in Erlang is based on the actor model and the language has a consistent syntax for actor handling. Our modifications to the Erlang VM significantly improved the performance of some applications thanks to better informed decisions on scheduling and on load-balancing.

A diferença entre estações de trabalho é considerada desprezível em linhas de montagem tradicionais. Por outro lado, linhas de montagem heterogêneas consideram o problema de indústrias nas quais os tempos das tarefas variam de acordo com alguma característica a ser selecionada para a tarefa. No Problema de Balanceamento e Atribuição de Trabalhadores em Linhas de Montagem (do inglês Assembly Line Worker Assignment and Balancing Problem, ALWABP), os trabalhadores são responsáveis por estações de trabalho e de acordo com as suas habilidades, eles executam as tarefas em diferentes quantidades de tempo. Em alguns casos, os trabalhadores podem até ser incapazes de executar algumas tarefas. No Problema de Balanceamento de Linhas de Montagem Robóticas (do inglês Robotic Assembly Line Balancing Problem, RALBP), há diferentes tipos de robôs e o conjunto de tarefas de cada estação deve ser executada por um robô. Robôs do mesmo tipo podem ser usados múltiplas vezes. Nós propomos métodos exatos e heurísticos para a minimização do tempo de ciclo destes dois problemas, para um número fixo de estações. Os problemas têm características similares que são exploradas para produzir limitantes inferiores, métodos inferiores, models de programação inteira mista, e regras de redução e dominância. Para a estratégia de ramificação do método de branch-and-bound, entretanto, as diferenças entre os problemas forçam o uso de dois algoritmos diferentes. Uma estratégia orientada a tarefas tem os melhores resultados para o ALWABP-2, enquanto uma estratégia orientada a estações tem os melhores resultados para o RALBP-2. Nós mostramos que os limitantes inferiores, heurísticas, modelos de programação inteira mista e algoritmos de branch-and-bound para estes dois problemas são competitivos com os métodos do estado da arte da literatura. / The difference among workstations is assumed to be negligible in traditional assembly lines. Heterogeneous assembly lines consider the problem of industries in which the task times vary according to some property to be selected for the task. In the Assembly Line Worker Assignment and Balancing Problem (ALWABP), workers are assigned to workstations and according to their abilities, they execute tasks in different amounts of time. In some cases they can even be incapable of executing some tasks. In the Robotic Assembly Line Balancing Problem (RALBP) there are different types of robots and each station must be executed by a robot. Multiple robots of the same type may be used. We propose exact and heuristic methods for minimizing the cycle time of these two problems, for a fixed number of stations. The problems have similar characteristics that are explored to produce lower bounds, heuristic methods, mixed-integer programming models, and reduction and dominance rules. For the branching strategy of the branch-and-bound method, however, the differences among the problem force the use of two different algorithms. A task-oriented strategy has the best results for the ALWABP-2 while a station-oriented strategy has the best results for the RALBP-2. The lower bounds, heuristics, MIP models and branch-and-bound algorithms for these two problems are shown to be competitive with the state-of-the-art methods in the literature.

Le nombre de smartphones vendus a récemment dépassé celui des ordinateurs. Ces appareils tendent à regrouper de plus en plus de fonctions, ceci grâce à des applications de plus en plus variées telles que la vidéo conférence, la réalité augmentée, ou encore les jeux vidéo. Le support de ces applications est assuré par des ressources de calculs hétérogènes qui sont spécifiques aux différents types de traitements et qui respectent les performances requises et les contraintes de consommation du système. Les applications graphiques, telles que les jeux vidéo, sont par exemple accélérées par un processeur graphique. Cependant les applications deviennent de plus en plus complexes. Une application de réalité augmentée va par exemple nécessiter du traitement d'image, du rendu graphique et un traitement des informations à afficher. Cette complexité induit souvent une variation de la charge de travail qui impacte les performances et donc les besoins en puissance de calcul de l'application. Ainsi, la parallélisation de l'application, généralement prévue pour une certaine charge, devient inappropriée. Ceci induit un gaspillage des ressources de calcul qui pourraient être exploitées par d'autres applications ou par d'autres étages de l'application. Un pipeline de rendu graphique a été choisi comme cas d'utilisation car c'est une application dynamique et qui est de plus en plus répandu dans les appareils mobiles. Cette application a été implémentée et parallélisée sur un simulateur d'architecture multi-cœurs. Un profilage a confirmé l'aspect dynamique, le temps de calcul de chaque donnée ainsi que le nombre d'objets à calculer variant de manière significative dans le temps et que la meilleure répartition du parallélisme évolue en fonction de la scène rendue. Ceci nous a amenés à définir un système permettant d'adapter, au fil de l'exécution, le parallélisme d'une application en fonction d'une prédiction faite de ses besoins. Le choix d'un nouveau parallélisme nécessite de connaître les besoins en puissance de calcul des différents étages, en surveillant les transferts de données entre les étages de l'application. Enfin, l'adaptation du parallélisme implique une nouvelle répartition des tâches en fonction des besoins des différents étages qui est effectuée grâce à un contrôleur central. Le système a été implémenté dans un simulateur précis au niveau TTLM afin d'estimer les gains de performances permis par l'adaptation dynamique. Une architecture permettant l'accélération de différents types d'applications que ce soit généralistes ou graphiques a été définie et comparée à d'autres architectures multi-cœurs. Le coût matériel de cette architecture a de plus été quantifié. Ainsi, pour un support matériel dont la complexité est inférieure à 1,5 % du design complet, on démontre des gains de performance allant jusqu'à 20 % par rapport à certains déploiements statiques, ainsi que la capacité à gérer dynamiquement un nombre de ressources de calcul variable. / The amount of smartphone sales recently surpassed the desktop computer ones. This is mainly due to the smart integration of many functionalities in the same architecture. This is also due to the wide variety of supported applications like augmented reality, video conferencing and video games. The support of these applications is made by heterogeneous computing resources specialized to support each application type thus allowing to meet required performance and power consumption. For example, multimedia applications are accelerated by hardware modules that help video encoding and decoding and video game 3D rendering is accelerated by specialized processors (GPU). However, applications become more and more complicated. As an example, augmented reality requires image processing, 3D rendering and computing the information to display. This complexity often comes with a variation of the computing load, which dynamically changes application performance requirements. When this application is implemented in parallel, the way parallelism is chosen for a specific workload, becomes inefficient for a different one. This leads to a waste in computing resources and our objective is to optimize the usage of all available computing resources at runtime. The selected use case is a graphic rendering pipeline application because it is a dynamic application, which is also widely used in mobile devices. This application has been implemented and parallelized on a multicore architecture simulator. The profiling shows that the dynamicity of the application, the time and the amount of data needed to compute vary. The profiling also shows that the best balance of the parallelism depends on the rendered scene; a dynamic load balancing is therefore required for this application. These studies brought us about defining a system allowing to dynamically adapt the application parallelism depending on a prediction of its computing requirements, which can be performed by monitoring the data exchanges between the application tasks. Then the new parallelism is calculated for each stage by a central controller that manages the whole application. This system has been implemented in a Timed-TLM simulator in order to estimate performance improvements allowed by the dynamic adaptation. An architecture allowing to accelerate mobile applications, such as general-purpose and 3D applications, has been defined and compared to other multicore architectures. The hardware complexity and the performance of the architecture have also been estimated. For an increased complexity lower that 1,5%, we demonstrate performance improvements up to 20% compared with static parallelisms. We also demonstrated the ability to support a variable amount of resources.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo avaliar o conjunto de decisões tomadas pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal em sede de controle concentrado de constitucionalidade em matéria ambiental. Para tal utilizou-se como método de avaliação conceitos da Teoria dos Direitos Fundamentais de Robert Alexy, uma vez que essa aparece frequentemente citada nos votos dos Ministros. Para tal foram selecionadas vinte decisões que preenchiam critérios da pesquisa. Elas foram posteirormente separadas em grupos, nos quais o direito ao meio ambiente ecologicamente equilibrado aparece em conflito com: direito à cultura; direito à propriedade; princípio da livre iniciativa; e princípio do desenvolvimento nacional. Após traçadas as conclusões parciais, sobre cada um dos binômios, o conjunto de decisões foi analizado como um todo. Oportunidade que foi determinado um mapa dos agentes mais comuns no processo de controle de constitucionalidade em matéria ambiental, assim como um padrão nos votos dos Ministros, negando a existência de conflitos entre o meio ambiente e outros direitos fundamentais. / This paper aims to assess the set of decisions taken under judicial review process by the Federal Supreme Court in environmental matters. To this purpose it was used as an evaluation method concepts of the Theory of Fundamental Rights written by Robert Alexy, since this is frequently mentioned by the judges. To this end it was selected twenty decisions that met the search criteria. They were separated into groups, in which the right to an ecologically balanced environment appears in conflict with: right to culture, the right to property; principle of free enterprise, and the principle of national development. After the partial conclusions drawn on each of the conflicting rights, the set of decisions as a whole was analyzed. In this opportunity it was developed a map of the most common agents in the of judicial review process in environmental matters, as well as it was stablished patterns in the judges` votes, denying the existence of conflicts between the environment and other fundamental rights.

Uma metodologia para desenvolvimento de programas paralelos eficientes deve especificar mecanismos capazes de caracterizar o comportamento das aplicações e permitir estudos sobre o desempenho de diferentes modelos de soluções. Nos ambientes distribuídos, em particular, a eficiência da solução também está relacionada a estratégia utilizada na divisão e distribuição do trabalho entre os processos que cooperam na solução do problema. Para abordar estes aspectos, uma metodologia, denominada PEMPIs-Het (Performance Estimation of MPI Programs in Heterogeneous Systems), é especificada e apresentada nesta tese. A metodologia permite a modelagem, avaliação e predição de desempenho de programas paralelos em ambientes homogêneos e heterogêneos. Técnicas de modelagem analítica são utilizadas para representar o comportamento das aplicações no ambiente distribuído. Um modelo gráfico, denominado DP*Graph++, é proposto para ilustrar as principais estruturas do código da aplicação e facilitar análises sobre a complexidade algorítmica do programa. Algumas aplicações são modeladas e a precisão das predições é verificada através de testes experimentais. Os modelos de desempenho permitem uma estimativa pontual para o tempo de execução da aplicação. Entretanto, uma estratégia alternativa, baseada em intervalos de predição, também é discutida e avaliada. Algumas estratégias para balanceamento de carga de aplicações paralelas distribuídas são implementadas e avaliadas. Estasestratégias utilizam informações de um vetor com índices de desempenho (Vector of Relative Performances - VRP), gerados pelos modelos analíticos, para especificar a divisão e distribuição do trabalho. Estes índices caracterizam a capacidade computacional das máquinas. Uma formalização matemática é apresentada para explicar como os índices são determinados. ) Testes experimentais são realizados para verificar a aplicabilidade das estratégias e a eficiência no balanceamento das cargas. / A methodology for developing efficient parallel programs must specify mechanisms capable of characterizing the behavior of applications and allow studies on the performance of different solution models. In distributed environments, in particular, the solution efficiency is also related to strategy adopted in the division and distribution of work among the processes which cooperate in the solution of the problem. To address these issues, a methodology, called PEMPIs-Het (Performance Estimation of MPI Programs in Heterogeneous Systems), is specified and presented in this thesis. The methodology allows performance modeling, evaluation and prediction of parallel programs in homogeneous and heterogeneous environments. Analytical modeling techniques are used to represent the applications behavior in the distributed environment. A graph model, called DP*Graph++, is proposed to illustrate the main structures of the application code and facilitate some analyses about the program algorithmic complexity. Some applications are modeled and the accuracy of predictions is verified by experimental tests. The models allow estimate a punctual performance to the application execution time. Meanwhile, an alternative strategy, based on prediction intervals, is also discussed and evaluated. Some strategies for load balancing of distributed parallel applications are implemented and evaluated. These strategies use information from a vector with performance indexes (Vector of RelativePerformances - VRP), generated by analytical models to specify the division and distribution of work. These indexes characterize the machines computational capacity. A mathematical formalization is presented to explain how the rates are determined. Experimental tests are conducted to verify the applicability and effectiveness of the strategies in load balancing

Submitted by Erika Demachki (erikademachki@gmail.com) on 2014-10-08T19:01:14Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - LEANDRO ALEXANDRE FREITAS - 2011.pdf: 2571517 bytes, checksum: 785d31a14166c0c65a61a93c157e4e37 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-10-09T11:25:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - LEANDRO ALEXANDRE FREITAS - 2011.pdf: 2571517 bytes, checksum: 785d31a14166c0c65a61a93c157e4e37 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T11:25:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - LEANDRO ALEXANDRE FREITAS - 2011.pdf: 2571517 bytes, checksum: 785d31a14166c0c65a61a93c157e4e37 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-18 / The Future Internet concepts and designs of 4WARD project concerns a clean-slate architecture with various networking innovations, including a new connectivity paradigm called Generic Path (GP). In GP architecture, several facilities are designed to efficiently support complex value-added applications and services with assured Quality of Service (QoS). GPs mainly abstract underlying network heterogeneity, and any entity, regardless its scope (technology, location or architectural layer) communicate each other in a single way via a common interface. To that, cooperation with network-layer provisioning mechanisms is required in the sense to map data paths meeting session-demanded resources (QoS requirements - minimum bandwidth and maximum delay/loss experience) into appropriate GPs. In contrast as support today, robust and scalable QoS-provisioning facilities are strongly required for efficient GP allocations. Therefore, this dissertation introduces the QoS-Routing and Resource Control (QoSRRC), a set of GP-compliant facilities to cope with the hereinabove requirements. QoSRRC complements GP architecture with QoS-oriented routing, aided with load balancing, to select paths meeting session-demands while keeping residual bandwidth to increase user experience. For scalability, QoS-RRC operates based on an overprovisioning-centric approach, which places low state storage and network operations. Initial QoS-RRC performance evaluation was carried out in Network Simulator v.2 (NS2), demonstrating drastic improvements of flow delay experience and bandwidth use among a relevant state-of-the-art solution. Moreover, the impact of QoS-RRC compared to current IP QoS and routing standards on the user experience has been evaluated, by analysing main objective and subjective Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics, namely Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), The Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), Video Quality Metric (VQM) and Mean Opinion Score (MOS). / Os conceitos e modelos para Internet do Futuro no Projeto 4WARD abordam uma arquitetura clean-slate ("recomeçar a Internet do zero") com várias inovações na rede, incluindo um novo paradigma de conectividade, chamado Caminho Genérico (Generic Path - GP). Na arquitetura GP, várias facilidades foram projetadas para suportar eficientemente complexas aplicações de valor agregado e serviços com garantia de Qualidade de Serviço (Quality of Service - QoS). Os GPs abstraem principalmente a heterogeneidade das redes e de qualquer entidade, independentemente de seu escopo (tecnologia, localização ou camada de arquitetural). Para isso, a cooperação da camada de rede com mecanismos de aprovisionamento é necessária, de modo a mapear as demandas dos recursos exigidos pela sessão (requisitos de QoS, como por exemplo largura de banda mínima e máximo atraso/perda) nos GPs adequados. Em contraste com o suporte atual, o aprovisionamento de QoS robusto e escalável é fortemente exigido para alocações eficientes de GPs. Portanto, esta dissertação apresenta o QoS-Routing and Resource Control (QoS-RRC), um mecanismo de apoio a criação de GPs de modo a lidar com suas exigências. O QoS-RRC complementa arquitetura GP com roteamento orientado a QoS, auxiliado com balanceamento de carga, para selecionar os caminhos que vão ao encontro as demandas da sessão, enquanto mantém largura de banda residual para aumentar a experiência do usuário. Para obter escalabilidade, o QoS-RRC opera com base em uma abordagem centrada no aprovisionamento, que emprega baixo armazenamento de estado e poucas operações de rede. A avaliação de desempenho do QoS-RRC foi realizada com o simulador Network Simulator v.2 (NS2), demonstrando drásticas melhorias da qualidade dos fluxos quanto a experiência de atraso e largura de banda, se comparado com as soluções do estado da arte. Além disso, o impacto do QoS-RRC em comparação com o atual QoS das redes IP e os mecanismos de roteamento padrão, sobre a experiência do usuário, também foi avaliado, analisando métricas objetivas e subjetivas de Qualidade da Experiência (Quality of Expericence - QoE), ou seja, Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), Video Quality Metric (VQM) e Mean Opinion Score (MOS).

The increasing number of mobile devices challenges the current radio frequency (RF) networks. The conventional RF spectrum for wireless communications is saturating, motivating to develop other unexplored frequency bands. Light Fidelity (LiFi) which uses more than 300 THz of the visible light spectrum for high-speed wireless communications, is considered a promising complementary technology to its RF counterpart. LiFi enables daily lighting infrastructures, i.e. light emitting diode (LED) lamps to realise data transmission, and maintains the lighting functionality at the same time. Since LiFi mainly relies on line-of-sight (LoS) transmission, users in indoor environments may experience blockages which significantly affects users' quality of service (QoS). Therefore, hybrid LiFi and RF networks (HLRNs) where LiFi supports high data rate transmission and RF offers reliable connectivity, can provide a potential solution to future indoor wireless communications. In HLRNs, efficient load balancing (LB) schemes are critical in improving the traffic performance and network utilisation. In this thesis, the optimisation-based scheme (OBS) and the evolutionary game theory (EGT) based scheme (EGTBS) are proposed for load balancing in HLRNs. Specifically, in OBS, two algorithms, the joint optimisation algorithm (JOA) and the separate optimisation algorithm (SOA) are proposed. Analysis and simulation results show that JOA can achieve the optimal performance in terms of user data rate while requiring high computational complexity. SOA reduces the computational complexity but achieves low user data rates. EGTBS is able to achieve a better performance/complexity trade-off than OBS and other conventional load balancing schemes. In addition, the effects of handover, blockages, orientation of LiFi receivers, and user data rate requirement on the throughput of HLRNs are investigated. Moreover, the packet latency in HLRNs is also studied in this thesis. The notion of LiFi service ratio is introduced, defined as the proportion of users served by LiFi in HLRNs. The optimal LiFi service ratio to minimise system delay is mathematically derived and a low-complexity packet flow assignment scheme based on this optimum ratio is proposed. Simulation results show that the theoretical optimum of the LiFi service ratio is very close to the practical solution. Also, the proposed packet flow assignment scheme can reduce at most 90% of packet delay compared to the conventional load balancing schemes at reduced computational complexity.

In mobile networks, the mobile core plays a crucial role in providing connectivity between mobile user devices and external packet data networks such as the Internet. Through the years, along with the dramatical changes in radio access networks, the mobile core has also been evolved from being a circuit-based analog telephony system in its first generation (1G) to become a purely packet-based network called the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) in the current generation (4G). In recent years, the explosion of mobile data traffic and devices and the advent of new services have led to the investigation of the next generation of mobile networks, i.e., 5G. A wide range of technologies has been proposed as candidates for the development of 5G. Among other technology candidates, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) have been widely considered to be key enablers for the network architecture of 5G, especially the mobile packet core (MPC) network. This thesis aims at identifying benefits and challenges of introducing SDN and NFV to re-achitect the current MPC network architecture towards 5G and addressing some of the challenges. To this end, we conduct a comprehensive literature review of the state-of-the-art work leveraging SDN and NFV to re-design the 4G EPC architecture. Through this survey work, several research questions for future work have been identified and we contribute to address two of them in this thesis. Firstly, since most of the current works focus on unicast services, we propose an SDN/NFV-based MPC architecture for providing multicast and broadcast services. Our numerical results show that the proposed architecture can reduce the total signaling cost compared to the traditional architecture. Secondly, we address the question regarding the scalability of the control plane. We take the Mobility Management Entity (MME) - one of the EPC key control plane entities - as a case study. In our work, the MME is deployed as a cluster of multiple virtual instances (vMMEs) and a front-end load balancer. We focus on investigating different approaches to achieve better load balancing among these vMMEs, which in turn improves scalability. Our experimental results suggest that carefully selected load balancing algorithms can significantly reduce the control plane latency. / In mobile networks, the mobile core plays a crucial role in providing connectivity between mobile user devices and external packet data networks such as the Internet. After more than three decades, the mobile core has been gradually evolved through four generations and is called the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) in the current generation (4G). In recent years, the explosion of mobile data traffic and devices and the advent of new services have led to the investigation of the next generation of mobile networks, i.e., 5G. Among other technology candidates, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) have been widely considered to be key enablers for the network architecture of 5G, especially the mobile packet core (MPC) network. This thesis aims at identifying benefits and challenges of introducing SDN and NFV to re-achitect the current MPC architecture towards 5G and addressing some of the challenges. To this end, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the existing SDN/NFV-based MPC architectures. Through this survey work, several research questions for future work have been identified and we contribute to address two of the research questions. Firstly, we propose an SDN/NFV-based MPC architecture for providing multicast and broadcast services. Secondly, we tackle the scalability problem of the Mobility Management Entity (MME) - one of the EPC key control plane entities. In particular, we investigate different approaches to achieve better load balancing among virtual MMEs in a virtual and distributed MME design, which in turn improves scalability. / HITS, 4707

Within the broad topical designation of “smart grid,” research in demand response, or demand-side management, focuses on investigating possibilities for electrically powered devices to adapt their power consumption patterns to better match the availability of intermittent renewable energy sources, especially wind. Devices such as battery chargers, heating and cooling systems, and computers can be controlled to change the time, duration, and magnitude of their power consumption while still meeting workload constraints such as deadlines and rate of throughput. This thesis presents a system by which a computer server, or multiple servers in a data center, can estimate the power imbalance on the electrical grid and use that information to dynamically change the power consumption as a service to the grid. Implementation on a testbed demonstrates the system with a hypothetical but realistic usage case scenario of an online video streaming service in which there are workloads with deadlines (high-priority) and workloads without deadlines (low-priority). The testbed is implemented with real servers, estimates the power imbalance from the grid frequency with real-time measurements of the live outlet, and uses a distributed, real-time algorithm to dynamically adjust the power consumption of the servers based on the frequency estimate and the throughput of video transcoder workloads. Analysis of the system explains and justifies multiple design choices, compares the significance of the system in relation to similar publications in the literature, and explores the potential impact of the system.

Using data from the biopharmaceutical industry, this study analyzes the relationship between internal and external exploration (exploitation) and the moderating role of firm characteristics. We argue that the characteristics of a firm - in particular a firm's vertical scope - are an important but so far overlooked contingency factor determining the relationship between internal and external exploration (exploitation). Our findings indicate that differences in vertical scope result in alternative combinations of internal and external exploration. While specialized firms tend to focus either on exploration or exploitation both within the firm as well as with their alliance portfolio, vertically integrated firms prefer to balance exploration and exploitation across firm boundaries. (authors' abstract) / Series: Working Papers / Institute for Strategic Management