abstract: Internet of Things (IoT) is emerging as part of the infrastructures for advancing a large variety of applications involving connections of many intelligent devices, leading to smart communities. Due to the severe limitation of the computing resources of IoT devices, it is common to offload tasks of various applications requiring substantial computing resources to computing systems with sufficient computing resources, such as servers, cloud systems, and/or data centers for processing. However, this offloading method suffers from both high latency and network congestion in the IoT infrastructures. Recently edge computing has emerged to reduce the negative impacts of tasks offloading to remote computing systems. As edge computing is in close proximity to IoT devices, it can reduce the latency of task offloading and reduce network congestion. Yet, edge computing has its drawbacks, such as the limited computing resources of some edge computing devices and the unbalanced loads among these devices. In order to effectively explore the potential of edge computing to support IoT applications, it is necessary to have efficient task management and load balancing in edge computing networks. In this dissertation research, an approach is presented to periodically distributing tasks within the edge computing network while satisfying the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of tasks. The QoS requirements include task completion deadline and security requirement. The approach aims to maximize the number of tasks that can be accommodated in the edge computing network, with consideration of tasks’ priorities. The goal is achieved through the joint optimization of the computing resource allocation and network bandwidth provisioning. Evaluation results show the improvement of the approach in increasing the number of tasks that can be accommodated in the edge computing network and the efficiency in resource utilization. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Engineering 2018

The concurrent development (CD) project is defined as the concurrent development of both hardware and software that is integrated together later for a deliverable product. The CD Scheduling Problem (CDSP) is defined as most CD baseline project schedules being developed today are overly optimistic. That is, they finish late. This study researches those techniques being used today to produce CD project schedules and looks for ways to close the gap between the baseline project schedule and reality. In Chapter 1, the CDSP is introduced. In Chapter 2, a review is made of published works. A review is also made of commercial scheduling software applications to uncover their techniques as well as a review of organizations doing research on improving project scheduling. In Chapter 3, the components of the CDSP are analyzed for ways to improve. In Chapter 4, the overall methodology of the research is discussed to include the development of the Concurrent Development Scheduling Model (CDSM) that quantifies the factors driving optimism. The CDSM is applied to typical CD schedules with the results compared to Monte Carlo simulations of the same schedules. The results from using the CDSM on completed CD projects are also presented. The CDSM does well in predicting the outcome. In Chapter 5, the results of the experiments run to develop the CDSM are given. In Chapter 6 findings and recommendations are given. Specifically, a list of findings is given that a decision maker can use to analyze a baseline project schedule and assess the schedules optimism. These findings will help define the risks in the CD schedule. Also included is a list of actions that the decision maker may be able to take to reduce of the risk of the project to improve the chances of coming in on time.

This thesis presents a new design process in which design specifications and task distribution are determined from a parallel multi user prospective. Using this method, projects are more easily decomposed into tasks that can be performed concurrently, thus decreasing the design time. Also, a framework is provided to determine the correct distribution of available talent and stakeholders that can be utilized on a given project. The research suggests that by involving the necessary stakeholders in a multi user setting, changes can be made quickly and without additional approval wait time. By including individuals from the various areas of required talent, persons of expertise will be able to work together in a mode of shared design rather than an iterative design process. Decreasing iterations as well as reducing wait time for approval will reduce the overall design time significantly. This method has been tested and validated utilizing controlled tests simulating real life situations of much larger scale. The validation results show that the new method does in fact improve design time and overall achievement of initial design goals

The assingment of tasks to resources of a workflow system is called task distribution. The task distribution is an important activity for workflow systems, because it is necessary to ensure that a task is performed by the appropriate resource in due time. There are several approaches to task distribution in workflow systems. This work innovates by using a Link Analysis technique applied to the task distribution. The Link Analysis is used to rank the result of a web query. The rank is performed by considering the relevance of the pages. This work presents the application of Link Analysis in the context of workflow task distribution. We have proposed a new task distribution algorithm (wf-hits) based on Link Analysis algorithm. We have compared wf-hits against other related ones. This comparison have considered quantitative and qualitative aspects. The experiments have shown that the use of wf-hits has improved workflow systems 25% in quantitative terms meanwhile the qualitative terms has maintained the same level of similar related works. / A entrega de tarefas para que sejam executadas pelos recursos de um sistema de work ow é chamada de distribuição de tarefas. A distribuição de tarefas é uma atividade importante para os sistemas de work ow, pois ´e necessário assegurar que uma determinada tarefa seja executada pelo recurso apropriado no tempo devido. Há várias abordagens para a distribuição de tarefas em sistemas de workflow. Este trabalho inova ao utilizar uma técnica oriunda da Análise de Ligações (Link Analysis) aplicada à distribuição de tarefas. A Link Analysis é utilizada para classificar o resultado de uma consulta na internet. A classificação é realizada considerando a relevância das páginas. O presente trabalho propõe a aplicação da Link Analysis no contexto da distribuição de tarefas em sistemas de work ow. É proposto um novo algoritmo para a distribuição de tarefas (wf-hits) que é baseado no algoritmo de Link Analysis. O algoritmo wf-hits é comparado com trabalhos correlatos em termos quantitativos e qualitativos. Os experimentos realizados mostraram que a utilização do wf-hits na distribuição de tarefas aos recursos em sistemas de workflow representa ganhos na ordem de 25% em termos quantitativos mantendo os mesmos patamares de qualidade dos trabalhos relacionados. / Mestre em Ciência da Computação