A. Helmy's picture NOMADS group logo

Ahmed Helmy
Associate Professor
Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Department
Founder and Director: Mobile Networking Laboratory (NOMADS group)
College of Engineering, University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611
email: helmy at ufl.edu

CIS6930/4930 Mobile Networking [Advanced topics in computer networks] - Spring 2012 (Announcements) - (Experiments) - (Instructor's Website) - (Course Evaluations)

- "Designing, analyzing and implementing the next killer 'i' networking mobile app" -

Lecture Slides

(Please check the reading materials links below for related readings and references. Slides and topics subject to update throughout the semester.)
  1. Introductory Lectures:Introduction (pptx)
  2. Mobility Modeling Tutorial (1): Synthetic Mobiliy 1
  3. Mobility Modeling Tutorial (2): Trace-based Mobility 2. [Related talk on 'data-driven design for mobile social networks' (posted Feb 23)]
  4. Geo-services in wireless networks: Geographic Routing, Geocast and Geographic storage/retrieval systems
  5. Caching for routing and resource discovery in ad hoc mobile networks
  6. Hierarchical architectures for routing and resource discovery in ad hoc mobile networks
  7. Group topic presentation abstracts, references, slides:
  8. Group project presentation abstracts, references, slides:
    • - [Apr 10]: Group 2, Group 4:
      • - Group 2, Trust propagation (A reputation based recommendation system over trusted nodes(iTrust): Abstract (pdf). References (pdf)).
        • - Presentation slides (pptx) (updated after the presentation based on feedback).
        • - Note from Grp2:
          • "There were some questions which were answered in class and some which were not. Following are the questions and our answers to them :-
          • 1. Do you see value in querying only the trusted nodes ? If you trust one node, you don't query about its "trust-worthiness" ? Ans: Yes, point of "Trust propagation" in a way is to find whether the given trust score/information is valid or not. At the higher level, only two types of nodes are going to be there - trusted/un-trusted nodes. We are finding out information about the Un-trusted nodes, so who do we ask - Trusted nodes. As far as the second part of the question goes, we do have a REPUTATION factor to the trusted nodes, so if the reputation is low, most likely their opinion/trust will not have much weight. In Uno Model(previously called Selfish model), we will be asking just one node, in that case we will not be faced with this situation, only the global model will be affected.
          • 2. How do you decide on a Threshold? Ans: Person to person, First-hand trust score may vary. Person A can give his/her very close friends a Trust of 90, but Person B might not be the social kind and will give his friends Trust of 70. So we should vary the threshold and check if recommendations can be made. Threshold can be varied from 0.10-0.30 in steps of 0.05(hard-coded). Though I think, factors affecting the threshold can be worked on in the future. Evaluation Metrics : Another area to be worked on in the future because evaluation of trust/system can be done in many ways. Just have to find new ways of doing it.
          • 3. Suggestion : Integration with a Social Network, eg: Facebook. This is a wonderful idea. Thank You Giacomo. This is a good idea, because that way you can get a better network and this increases scalability and gives a much better view to SOCIAL BEHAVIOR."
      • - Group 4: Behavior-Aware Search Engine (BASE) abstract (pdf).
    • - [Apr 12]: Group 5: Collision avoidance in Vehicular Networks using V2V-V2R communication (Abstract) - (Presentation slides ppt).
    • - [Apr 17]: Group 1 (Profile-based participatory sensing recruitment/collection), Group 3 (HELP!):
      • - Group 3: Heuristic for an Emergency aLert Protocol (HELP !) [Abstract and references (pdf)].
      • - Group 1: Autonomous and Distributed Recruitment and Data Collection Framework for Opportunistic Sensing [Abstract and references (pdf)].
  9. - [Apr 19]: Project progress discussion, initial brief demos, Exp II questions/submission, reflections/voting on presentations and ideas, course evaluations.
  10. - [Apr 24]: Project report submission (hard copy, in a file with all previous material given back to students throughout the semester), final demos.

Announcements:(in reverse chronological order)

  1. [Apr 23] Final day of class: Every group will get 10-15mins if they so choose to demo the latest in their projects, either using actual implementation, simulation, visualization/animation, graphs, or results/findings. Please come to class to submit your latest project reports, and discuss any final items regarding class. Also submit any missing paper reports. Remember, you are not only submitting the final report, but also a file that contains all the hard copy material you've gotten back throughout the semester. Hope you had a great learning experience this semester, and wish you all the best of luck in this class and in your future careers. Best Regards, -Ahmed.
  2. [Apr 23] A reminder to complete the course evaluations. The section 4930 is also open for evaluations now. Thanks!
  3. [Apr 18] Attendance tomorrow (Thursday) is very important, as we'll go over several logistics for the end of semester, submit the exp 2 reports, collected paper reviews, go over early demos and project reports and conduct voting for the best presenters, ideas, etc. Also please bring your laptops (or smartphones) to conduct on-line course evaluation (important to evaluate Prof.s performance at the undergrad and graduate level teaching). Please come with your ideas and feedback. Thanks!
  4. [Apr 18] Course evaluations are up at https://evaluations.ufl.edu, please take a few minutes to complete it. See why evaluations are important in this short ppt presentation.
  5. [Apr 17] Updated pointer to the parser code from Arijit at https://github.com/felix8/Parser. Thanks to Arijit, and everyone who provided feedback !
  6. [Apr 17] Arijit wants to share his code [Thanks, and hope it works well!]. The following note is from Arijit:
    • - I have written a Python file that parses Android mobile traces and generates data points for Experiment 2 (all 12 questions under Trace Analysis). I would like to share this code with the rest of the students in class since Python is optimized for such tasks and more time could be spent analyzing the traces rather than struggling with generating them through more conventional language like C/C++/Java. The code is at http://codepad.org/ub0Bsrse.
    • - All one needs to do is: 1. copy the text onto a empty file and rename it parser.py. 2. Install Python 2.6 (or more recent versions but not Python 3.0) 3. Run the program using terminal as 'python parser.py'
  7. [Apr 16] Deadline for Exp II for those who want extension has been extended til Thursday afternoon without penalty. If you want to submit tomorrow you can still do that and get extra points.
  8. [Apr 14] Note from Udayan: I have done a minor update to the parser program (added a readme file) and program to convert nokia trace format to android trace format. Please use this parser file instead of the previous one.
  9. [Apr 12] Note on paper reviews and submission of material:
    • - Most paper reviews I got had incomplete paper citation (please include the conf, year, authors, title, just as you would when referencing the paper in your report).
    • - At the end of the 'Summary' section, please provide a summary of results and findings (qualitatitively and quantitatively).
    • - Please keep all the papers you get back from me (especially those that were graded or had written comments on them). You will be asked to provide those papers along with your final report so I can include them in the final grading round without missing anything. I would suggest you keep a copy for your records too. You can also include email exchanges with me if you think they had an evaluation or something that can help your evaluation.
  10. [Apr 10] Exp 2: Exp II detailed instructions (pdf) and due dates (Apr 17th for full credit) [Thanks to Udayan and Saeed !] (see Experiments section for more details).
  11. [Apr 9] Recap on Exp II (from class blackboard): see snapshot. See experiments section below for more details.
  12. [Apr 9] All groups should send email as soon as possible with the title, abstract and references for their project presentations.
  13. [Apr 2] This week we will have interactive discussions regarding the project progress. Please come prepared to talk about your project, progress on your ideas, problems your facing and feedback you're looking for. Each group should get between 10-15mins presenting their ideas. I expect everyone to participate in discussions and feedback.
  14. [Mar 28] Q: How many paper reviews should I submit? A: At least four (either individually or with your group, but you need to know the details even if you submit with your group). The papers that you submit reviews for have to be different from those that you use in your presentations. You also need to 'spread' the reviews in time (i.e., do not submit 4 or 3 paper reviews at one time, and plan ahead).
  15. [Mar 21] Re-visited: The timeline for submitting project (proposal, report) material is as follows: (Pls check formats at the bottom of this page)
    • - Feb. 14: Initial project proposal draft. (Done!)
    • - Feb. 16: Initial project proposal. (Done!)
    • - Mar. 1: Final project proposal. (Done!)
    • - Mar. 22: Initial project report (with project ideas (and optionally initial results)).
    • - Apr. 3: Initial project report (with refined project ideas and initial results).
    • - Apr. 19-24: Final report submission & demos.
    [Note: think of the final project report as a working document starting with the initial proposal, and growing/maturing over the course of the semester into a conference-like paper to be submitted at the end of the semester. It is not intended that you start a new document with every submission.]
  16. [Mar 21] Next week there is the IEEE INFOCOM conference that I will be attending with many of the Ph.D. students, so I do not plan to have any lectures per se. There will not be presentations by the groups. Next time we meet Apr 3, I would like to have every group present a 5-10 update on the project ideas and progress, along with questions on any challenges or problems faced (which should result in positive and beneficial feedback for everyone).
  17. [Mar 21] The initial project report was requested on Mar 22. I understand that most groups do not have a lot (or any) initial results yet. So for the 22nd you can submit the latest ideas you have in a document extending the final project proposal. It is important to submit the report tomorrow to get feedback on your latest ideas. Then on Apr 3rd you can submit a follow on to that (another extension of the document) providing the initial results so I can give you feedback on those. Let me know if you will not be able to submit an initial report tomorrow to get feedback on your ideas.
  18. [Mar 20] All groups should follow up on their presentations, sending updated slides and emails with answers to questions raised in the presentation (and not answered). These all count towards your grade. Also for those presenting in upcoming slots, you should send topic and reference information ahead of time so that it counts towards your grade.
  19. [Mar 10] If you have not submitted your iTrust deliverable on Mar 7th to Udayan (ukumar@cise.ufl.edu) please do so as soon as possible to avoid getting more penalty points for that deliverable's credit. Also please continue to submit (upload or email) your weekly traces to Saeed (saeed@cise.ufl.edu) and Udayan for the rest of the semester.
  20. [Mar 9] Clarification regarding topic presentation:
    • - Q: Should my topic presentation be very different from my project topic?
    • - A: On the contrary. Your topic presentation can (and should) be closely related to the topic of your project. You will present the background and related work during the topic presentation. In the project presentation you will present 'your own work' on the project.
    • - Q: Should everyone in my group present in every presentation?
    • - A: No. You can have a subset of the members present in the topic presentation (e.g., 2 or 3 of 5). The only restriction is that every student in class must present at least once in the semester (i.e., must take part in at least one of the two presentations). Students presenting in the first presentation can still take part in the 2nd presentation, but that's optional. It is up to the group to decide who is going to present and for how long. Each group should manage its time carefully. Based on prior experience time is hard to manage with unexpected questions coming your way. But your total time as a group is limited to 50 mins and will be enforced to keep the class schedule. The presenters should clearly indicate their name on the slides and say it before the presentation. Grading for the presentation is done individually, with credit given to the presenter and those who helped prepare the presentation. I will follow up with email feedback to each of you in the week after each presentation.
    • - Q: What should I do before my presentation and when should I do it?
    • - A: You should (as a group) send me email as soon as you can, including the suggested topic presentation title, abstract and a list of references (4-6 suggested readings). I will send you feedback as soon as I read the email.
    • - Note that the presentation is 'NOT' only a summary of the papers your read, but it's a presentation in which you will discuss and analyze the papers presented, and compare them in your own way. I hope to see a 'high level' summary of the presented studies at the beginning, and a qualitative comparison at the end. If you are able to motivate specific ideas in your project based on the presentation, then do that towards the end; this will provide a nice bridge to your project presentation later in the semester. Good luck to all, and let your efforts show !
  21. [Feb 28] Experiment I deliverables and clarification:
    • - The deliverables for exp I (including records and traces for iTrust) must be submitted individually by each student in class. It is ok to submit this information as part of one group report, but it is not ok to use traces or info from a subset of members only. Every individual member must submit their own info.
    • - The deadlines for the deliverables are: i- Mar 1, ii- an update on Mar 7th (a 2nd delivery) [if you are not able to submit on Mar 7 then submit anytime between Mar 2nd afternoon and Mar 7th. The more time you collect traces the higher the quality of the traces and the more the score/extra points.]
    • - The deliverable of Exp 1 should include the following (in addition to what's in the handout under the Experiments section):
      • 1- Please Indicate whether you are using an Android device, Nokia or both. [If you are using both please submit feedback for the Android device at least. The Nokia feedback will be optional in this case.]
      • 2- Please rate (on a scale of 100) the utility/usefulness of the iTrust app and the information it provides (including encounter and location visitation history, trust scores, etc.]
      • 3- How do you think iTrust can help you in your mobile experience (or otherwise)? [mention at least 3 services that you think are practical]
  22. [Feb 24] Article related to computers controlling intersections in vehicular networks here.
  23. [Feb 22] Experiment 1: All students need to register their mac addresses for the devices collecting the data and running iTrust. This way we will be able to identify who is uploading the data so you can get credit for it for Exp I. If you are getting 'unknown' as your mac address please 'refresh' and if that doesn't work please see Udayan in the lab or send him email 'ukumar@cise.ufl.edu'. You can also register any other devices under your name for the mapping between mac and username, but that's optional.
  24. [Feb 20] Information about experiment 1 are available here. More in the experiments section. [Thanks to Udayan with help from Saeed!]
  25. [Feb 13] The timeline for submitting project (proposal, report) material is as follows: (Pls check formats at the bottom of this page)
    • - Feb. 14: Initial project proposal draft.
    • - Feb. 16: Initial project proposal.
    • - Mar. 1: Final project proposal.
    • - Mar. 22: Initial project report.
    • - Apr. 19-24: Final report submission & demos.
  26. [Feb 5] Related conference program available at HotMobile. This may inspire some ideas for projects.
  27. [Jan 31] How do I run iTrust if I don't have Android phone? For those who want to check out the mobile Nokia devices [called Nokia N800 or N810 internet tablet, they look like smartphones] please check with Udayan or Saeed (send them email to meet in the lab). The devices run a version of open linux and they do run a version of the iTrust app (if you don't have an Android phone or if you want to have another device). It's better if you check out devices as a team so you can collaborate on the experiment (we have devices for all students enrolled in class). Udayan tells me that we have an iTrust implementation that can also run on linux laptops.
  28. [Jan 23] The 'iTrust' app website is up (thanks Udayan!) at http://128.227.176.22:8182/iTrust.html. Please visit the website, read about the app, and download if you can. Also, please contact Udayan for any feedback or questions you might have.
  29. [Jan 23] The first experiment (including an individual part and a group part) will include a first part that requires you to collect information about the bluetooth devices you encounter. As a first step, you can visit the following website: http://128.227.176.22:8182/ to register your device and information. If you are running 'iTrust' app on your Android phone (you can get it directly from Udayan), then you can easily register from the app itself. If you do not have an Android phone, you can check out a Nokia device that runs the app (from the lab, to be set up in coordination with the TAs Saeed Moghaddam saeed@cise.ufl.edu and Udayan Kumar ukumar@cise.ufl.edu).
  30. [Jan 22] Please start teaming up with other students to form groups. The groups will initially be used to conduct experiments and brain-storm about project topics and directions. Later on, you will be performing a semester-long project with a group (does not have to be the same as the experiments group, but in most cases it is, unless you request a change). Once you have formed a group please send me email (and Cc' the TAs, Saeed saeed@cise.ufl.edu, and Udayan ukumar@cise.ufl.edu ). Please include the names of the people in your group (normally between 3-5), with your emails and a point of contact (one member who's going to be the main point of communication with the group if/when needed). If you are having difficulty forming your group, please let me and TAs know and we'll help out.
  31. [Jan 6] Here is an initial version of the syllabus. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions! Reading material likely to change. Updates and changes will be posted to this website.
  32. [Jan 6] Welcome to class and happy new year ! The first class meeting will be on Jan 7th, Tues. 2nd-3rd periods [from 8:30am til 10:25] in CSE E121. Attendance of the lectures (especially the first few) is a must in order to organize the students into groups and start signing up for topics. If you need to miss a lecture for extraordinary circumstances please let me and your group know.
  33. [Jan 6] Class meets 8:30-10:25am Tues and 9:35-10:25am on Thurs in CSE E121. Do your best to attend every lecture. Attendance and discussion counts.

Experiments

[Note: Please check the annoucements section also for more information on experiments.]
  1. Exp I:
  2. - Exp II: (Due date: Apr 17th for full credit)
    • - Recap on Exp II (from class blackboard): see snapshot.
    • - Step by step:
      • 1. Update & upload traces,
      • 2. (for Android phones) update app (2 mins),
      • 3. analysis of encounter and location statistics, comment on friendship, etc.,
      • 4. iTrust evaluation (using existing filters),
      • 5. iTrust evaluation using new filter.
    • - Exp II detailed instructions (pdf) [updated Apr 13] and due dates (Apr 17th for full credit) [Thanks to Udayan and Saeed !]
    • - Potentially useful parser: the parser for generating the iTrust scores (.zip) (by Udayan)
    • - Updated traces at: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~ukumar/traces-10-april-2012.zip [thanks to Udayan].
    • - [Apr 14] Note from Udayan: I have done a minor update to the parser program (added a readme file) and program to convert nokia trace format to android trace format. Please use this parser file instead of the previous one.
  3. - Exp III (optional/extra): (Due date: up to Apr 24th)
    • - Any implementation (even as part of your project) can be submitted for extra credit in a brief report.
    • - Participation in experiments by other groups can be submitted for extra credit in a brief report.

Reading materials pointers

(Note: part of the student exercise in this course is to search for and identify high quality reading material)
  1. ieeexplore.ieee.org then search by author or title,. etc
  2. www.acm.org then digital library and then search
  3. Google Scholar.
  4. www.cise.ufl.edu/~helmy and look up the following topics: Mobility Modeling and Analysis, Robust Geographic Protocols and Services, Resource Discovery and Query Resolution. Other journal publications, conference papers or book chapters.
  5. Earlier CIS6930 Courses:
    1. CIS6930 Spring 07
    2. CIS6930 Spring 08
    3. CIS6930 Spring 09
    4. CIS6930 Spring 10
    5. CIS6930 Spring 11
  6. Earlier course EE499 including:
    1. Reading list
    2. Announcements
    3. Projects
  7. Earlier course EE599 including:
    1. Announcements
  8. The following book chapters:
    1. Resource Discovery using Contact-based Loose Hierarchies.
      Full reference: A. Helmy, "Efficient Resource Discovery in Wireless AdHoc Networks: Contacts Do Help", Book chapter in "Resource Management in Wireless Networking", Springer, ISBN: 0-387-23807-7, Vol. 16, 2005.
      [Earlier Version in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Jan '05]
      Also, see the work on TRANSFER, MARQ and CARD.
    2. A Survey of Mobility Models. Full Reference: F. Bai, A. Helmy, "A Survey of Mobility Modeling and Analysis in Wireless Adhoc Networks", Book Chapter in the book "Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks", Springer, October 2006, ISBN: 978-0-387-25483-8.
    3. The IMPORTANT Framework for Modeling and Analysis of Mobility.
      Full reference: F. Bai, A. Helmy, "The IMPORTANT Framework for Analyzing and Modeling the Impact of Mobility in Wireless Adhoc Networks", Book Chapter in the upcoming book on "Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks", Springer, October 2006, ISBN: 978-0-387-25483-8.
      [Earlier versions of this work appeared in Ad Hoc Networks Journal - Elsevier, Vol. 1, Issue 4, pp. 383 - 403, November 2003, and IEEE INFOCOM, pp. 825-835, April 2003.]
      Also see the work on PATHS
    4. Geographic routing and geographic services protocols in wireless networks.
      Full reference: K. Seada, A. Helmy, "Geographic Services for Wireless Networks", Book Chapter in the "Handbook of Algorithms for Wireless Networking and Mobile Computing" published by Chapman & Hall/CRC, pp. 343-364, January 2006, ISBN: 1-58488-465-7.
      Also see the work published at SenSys 04 for the effect of lossy links on geographic routing (extended version in ACM Trans. on Sensor Networks, Spring 08), and the work in IPSN 04 on effects of localization errors on geographic routing (extended version in Ad Hoc Networks Journal - El-sevier, Aug 07).
  9. Some recent and closely related papers: (more coming soon. Pls check instructor's webpage for links to papers and tools)
    1. Time-variant community (TVC) mobility model
    2. Mining mobile societies
    3. Profile-cast
    4. Gender-based analysis
  • How to start research? (A personal note for networking students)
  • Paper Reviews: (also available through the EE499 website)
    1. Review template (.pdf)
    2. Review instructions (.pdf)
    3. Review sample 1 (.pdf), Review sample 2 (.pdf)
  • Outline and format for the Project proposal and Project report:
    1. Project proposal outline
    2. Project report outline
    • Office Hours: Prof. office hours are: Tue 10:30-11:30am, Thurs 10:30-11:30am in CSE426. TA office hours are: TBA, TA Room E309.
    [Office hours may vary, watch for potential occasional updates. If you can't come to the above office hours send me email and I'll setup an appointment at another time for you.]