The Internet, the de facto platform for large-scale content distribution, suffers from two issues that limit its manageability, efficiency, and evolution. First, the IP-based Internet is host-centric and agnostic to the content being delivered and, second, the tight coupling of the control and data planes restrict its manageability, and subsequently the possibility to create dynamic alternative paths for efficient content delivery. Here, we present the CURLING system that leverages the emerging Information-Centric Networking paradigm for enabling cost-efficient Internet-scale content delivery by exploiting multicasting and in-network caching. Following the software-defined networking concept that decouples the control and data planes, CURLING adopts an interdomain hop-by-hop content resolution mechanism that allows network operators to dynamically enforce/change their network policies in locating content sources and optimizing content delivery paths. Content publishers and consumers may also control content access according to their preferences. Based on both analytical modeling and simulations using real domain-level Internet subtopologies, we demonstrate how CURLING supports efficient Internet-scale content delivery without the necessity for radical changes to the current Internet.

A major challenge in future mobile networks is how to fulfil the requirements set for 5G networks in terms of latency and throughput. 3GPP has defined a new architecture based on virtualization and Software Defined Networks (SDN) supporting network slices that can fulfil those requirements. In this paper, we present the first realization of the new 5G user plane function (UPF) component that supports SDN and provides optimized transport for reducing latency as required in 5G networks. The proposed UPF is the cornerstone for using different data transport strategies adapted to the needs of different verticals, such as Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) services that require a separate network slice providing an optimized transport for URLLC applications. The paper also discusses how to best migrate from legacy 4G user plane to 5G UPF, so as to ensure a reasonable transition to 5G. In doing so, the objective is not to meet short-term needs but to fulfill the future latency and throughput requirements of emerging applications, and also to provide first performance results of UPF in a realistic testbed environment. 1

Motivated by alleviating CO2 pollution, electric vehicle (EV)-based applications have recently received wide interests from both commercial and research communities by using electric energy instead of traditional fuel energy. Although EVs are inherently with limited traveling distance, such limitation could be overcome by deploying public charging stations (CSs) to recharge EVs' battery during their journeys. In this paper we propose a novel communication framework for on-the-move EV charging scenario, based on the Publish/Subscribe (P/S) mechanism for disseminating necessary CS information to EVs, in order for them to make optimized decisions on where to charge. A core part of our communication framework is the utilization of roadside units (RSUs) to bridge the information flow from CSs to EVs, which has been regarded as a type of cost-efficient communication infrastructure. Under this design, we introduce two complementary communication modes of signal protocols, namely, push and pull modes, in order to enable the required information dissemination operation. Both analysis and simulation show the advantage of the pull mode, in which the information is cached at RSUs to support asynchronous communication. We further propose a remote reservation service based on the pull mode such that the CS-selection decision making can utilize the knowledge of EVs' charging reservation, as published from EVs through RSUs to CSs. Results show that both performances at CS and EV sides are further improved based on using this anticipated information.

The evolution toward emerging active distribution networks (ADNs) can be realized via a real-time state estimation (RTSE) application facilitated by the use of phasor measurement units (PMUs). A critical challenge in deploying PMU-based RTSE applications at large scale is the lack of a scalable and flexible communication infrastructure for the timely (i.e., sub-second) delivery of the high volume of synchronized and continuous synchrophasor measurements. We address this challenge by introducing a communication platform called C-DAX based on the information-centric networking (ICN) concept. With a topic-based publish-subscribe engine that decouples data producers and consumers in time and space, C-DAX enables efficient synchrophasor measurement delivery, as well as flexible and scalable (re)configuration of PMU data communication for seamless full observability of power conditions in complex and dynamic scenarios. Based on the derived set of requirements for supporting PMU-based RTSE in ADNs, we design the ICN-based C-DAX communication platform, together with a joint optimized physical network resource provisioning strategy, in order to enable the agile PMU data communications in near real-time. In this paper, C-DAX is validated via a field trial implementation deployed over a sample feeder in a real-distribution network; it is also evaluated through simulation-based experiments using a large set of real medium voltage grid topologies currently operating live in The Netherlands. This is the first work that applies emerging communication paradigms, such as ICN, to smart grids while maintaining the required hard real-time data delivery as demonstrated through field trials at national scale. As such, it aims to become a blueprint for the application of ICN-based general purpose communication platforms to ADNs.

Information-centric networking (ICN) is an emerging networking paradigm that places content identifiers rather than host identifiers at the core of the mechanisms and protocols used to deliver content to end users. Such a paradigm allows routers enhanced with content-awareness to play a direct role in the routing and resolution of content requests from users, without any knowledge of the specific locations of hosted content. However, to facilitate good network traffic engineering and satisfactory user QoS, content routers need to exchange advanced network knowledge to assist them with their resolution decisions. In order to maintain the location-independency tenet of ICNs, such knowledge (known as context information) needs to be independent of the locations of servers. To this end, we propose CAINE — Context-Aware Information-centric Network Ecosystem — which enables context-based operations to be intrinsically supported by the underlying ICN routing and resolution functions. Our approach has been designed to maintain the location-independence philosophy of ICNs by associating context information directly to content rather than to the physical entities such as servers and network elements in the content ecosystem, while ensuring scalability. Through simulation, we show that based on such location-independent context information, CAINE is able to facilitate traffic engineering in the network, while not posing a significant control signalling burden on the network.

Limited scalability, reliability, and security of todays utility communication infrastructures are main obstacles to the deployment of smart grid applications. The C-DAX project aims at providing and investigating a communication middleware for smart grids to address these problems, applying the information-centric networking and publish/subscribe paradigm. We briefly describe the C-DAX architecture, and extend it with a flexible resilience concept, based on resilient data forwarding and data redundancy. Different levels of resilience support are defined, and their underlying mechanisms are described. Experiments show fast and reliable performance of the resilience mechanism.

Electric Vehicle (EV) based applications have recently received wide interests from both commercial and research communities, thanks to the avoidance of CO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> pollution by using electric energy instead of traditional fuel energy. With the deployment of public Charging Stations (CSs), the travelling distance of EVs could be substantially increased by recharging their electric energy during journeys. Different from the existing research on decision making to improve charging performance, in this paper we focus on how necessary dynamic information in relation to the charging service can be efficiently disseminated to on-the-move EVs which potentially require charging at CSs. We propose an efficient communication framework based on Publish/Subscribe (P/S) mechanism to disseminate necessary information of CSs to EVs. Those EVs subscribing to such information could then make their individual decisions to select a desired CS for charging, according to received information such as expected waiting time. A core part of communication framework is the utilization of Road Side Units (RSUs) to bridge the information flow from CSs to EVs, which has been regarded as a type of cost-efficient communication infrastructure. In this context, we introduce two complementary communication modes, namely Push and Pull Modes, in order to enable the required information dissemination operation. Both options are evaluated based on realistic simulation models, in particular on how information freshness can influence the overall charging performance based on a common CS selection strategy.

The demand for resource-hungry applications whilst on the move is growing, and is being fuelled in particular by the increasing availability of high-quality multimedia services. To this end, micro-mobility protocols play an important role in providing seamless data delivery to terminals as they roam across different networks. However, such protocols typically lead to bottleneck congestion occurring within the access network. Within moving networks, in which a potentially vast number of terminals are present, the bottleneck congestion problem is significantly magnified, and can lead to increased call dropping probability and/or quality-of-service degradation. This paper therefore presents a novel mechanism, designed to ensure that the continuity of all sessions of a moving network is seamlessly preserved as it performs handovers to and within micro-mobility-enabled access networks.

With the advent of various access technologies and increasing number of applications, a set of challenges concerning efficient delivery of ubiquitous services to heterogeneous users and devices have been posed. One of the important challenges is to integrate quality of service (QoS), security and mobility support in heterogeneous networks. To facilitate the interworking of these mechanisms we propose the concept of enhanced node (EN) in this paper. The EN is an intelligent entity with a network sub-layer, which integrates QoS, security and mobility management (MM). ENs are located in the access network and they communicate with each other via signalling. In this paper, the functionalities of the ENs are described and the framework with ENs to integrate QoS, security and MM in IP-based networks is presented. The mechanisms to provide the authenticated and authorized access control and to enhance the secured QoS combined fast handovers are also proposed.

The network mobility reservation protocol was proposed to increase the scalability of QoS provision in moving networks. However, its scalability is undermined when sessions are bursty and short-lived. QoS aggregation addresses this by holding requests at the mobile router for a time before sending a single aggregated reservation to the access network. This letter analyses a cost-optimal QoS aggregation policy under the case of bursty requests, and compares its expected cost efficiency and user waiting time with that of other previously proposed policies. It is shown that the C-policy reduces operator costs compared to other policies, whilst also reducing expected queueing times.

Many existing communication protocols fail to perform efficiently when groups of users move in unison and at high velocity. A classic example is the Mobile IP protocol, which, as it stands, leads to storms of binding updates at every IP handover, but is resolved by the NEMO basic support protocol. However, a problem of similar nature is also existent in Quality of Service protocols, which again tend to produce signalling storms at handover, leading to, somewhat paradoxically, surges of congestion within the access network. While QoS aggregation improves protocol scalability by maintaining a single QoS state for potentially the entire moving network rather than for each individual node, the act of having to constantly maintain this state when sessions are frequently created and terminated undermines its benefit. We therefore propose a dynamic cost-driven QoS aggregation policy, which aims at minimising network operator costs for each aggregation cycle. Simulations of the cost-driven policy show that costs are reduced by up to 6.5% relative to other QoS aggregation policies, with expected user waiting times prior to session establishment increasing by a only a fraction of a second.

We have synthesized intermediates towards the preparation of a dimeric derivative of L-dopa for the potential treatment of Parkinson's disease. We synthesized L-N-(butyloxycarbonyl)-3-(3-hydroxy-ethyl-4-(benzyloxy)-phenyl)alanine benzylester, a compound containing a secondary alcohol moiety that has a unique set of characteristics. Upon reduction of the precursor, which contained a ketone moiety, we synthesized a material that when formed, contained a pair of diastereomers of the secondary alcohol, each diastereomer also exhibiting two individually stable conformational isomers. We believe that the conformational isomers were generated by rotation of the C-N bond of the BOC carbamate, and were so stable that they could be separated by normal phase HPLC techniques.Energy optimization studies and molecular modeling techniques were performed using HyperChem, and rotational barrier energy values were calculated for the different conformational isomers for each of the diastereomers. HPLC and NMR techniques were also used to obtain information about these materials. Using the calculated data from these studies, and analyzing the HPLC chromatograms and NMR spectra we were able to fully determine the assignments for the diastereomers and the individual conformational isomers. We discovered that the SS form was synthesized preferentially over the SR form and, that in both cases. The E conformation was energetically more stable than the Z form.