Towards Real-Time Reliable Edge AI
Vana Kalogeraki, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
Massivizing Computer Systems: VU on the Science, Design, and Engineering of Distributed Systems and Ecosystems
Alexandru Iosup, Computer Science, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands
Taming the Wild West of Social Media: Computational and Data Challenges and Opportunities After the Digital Services Act
Adriana Iamnitchi, Advanced Computing Sciences, Maastricht University, Netherlands
Towards Real-Time Reliable Edge AI
Vana Kalogeraki
Athens University of Economics and Business
Greece
Brief Bio
Vana Kalogeraki is a Professor and Chair at the Department of Informatics and a Director of the Computer Systems and Communications Laboratory at Athens University of Economics and Business. Previously she has held positions as an Associate and Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Riverside and as a Research Scientist at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, CA. She received her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Prof. Vana Kalogeraki has been working in the field of distributed and real-time systems, big data systems, stream processing systems, participatory sensing systems, peer-to-peer systems, crowdsourcing, mobility, resource management and fault-tolerance for over 25 years and has authored and co-authored over 200 papers in journals and conferences proceedings, including co-authoring the OMG CORBA Dynamic Scheduling Standard. Prof. Kalogeraki was invited to give keynote talks at PerFoT2018, MoVid2015, DNCMS 2012, SN2AE 2012, PETRA 2011, DBISP2P 2006 and MLSN 2006 in the areas of IoT, participatory sensing systems and sensor network middleware and delivered tutorials and seminars on peer-to-peer computing. She has served as the General co-Chair of GEC 2023, MDM 2021, SEUS 2009 and WPDRTS 2006 and as a Program co-Chair of MobiQuitous 2023, ACSOS 2021, DASFAA 2021, Middleware 2019, MDM 2017, DEBS 2016, MDM 2011, ISORC 2009, ISORC 2007, ICPS 2005, WPDRTS 2005 and DBISP2P 2003, a Tutorial Chair for IEEE ICDE 2020, ACM DEBS 2015, a Workshops Chair for IEEE SRDS 2015, a Demo Chair for IEEE MDM 2012, a Poster Chair for GEC2021, in addition to other roles such as Area Chair (IEEE ICDCS 2016, 2012) and as program committee member on over 200 conferences. She was also awarded an ERC Starting Independent Researcher Award, a Marie Curie Fellowship, three best paper awards at the 11th ACM International Conference on Distributed Event-Based Systems (DEBS 2017), 24th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS 2009) and the 9th IEEE Annual International Symposium on Applications and the Internet (SAINT 2008), a best technical paper award at ACM PETRA 2018, a Best Student Paper Award at the 11th IEEE/IPSJ International Symposium on Applications and the Internet (SAINT 2011), an IBM best student paper award runner up at MDM 2014, a UC Regents Fellowship Award, UC Academic Senate Research Awards and a research award from HP Labs. She has also received an Award for Excellence in Teaching for the academic year 2018-2019 from the Department of Computer Science, Athens University of Economics and Business. Her research has been supported by an ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant, the European Union, joint EU/Greek "Aristeia" grant, a joint EU/Greek "Thalis" grant, NSF and gifts from SUN and Nokia.
Abstract
The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), the vast numbers of data producing devices, the explosion of big data and the technological innovations, are ushering the power of edge AI. Edge AI, is a promising new area, a combination of Edge Computing and Artificial Intelligence, that brings the colossal benefits of AI into edge systems so that we can analyze data in real-time in an increasingly disruptive world, while at the same time reducing costs and preserving privacy. This promises to bring significant new opportunities to applications and enterprises. In this talk we will discuss recent advances and highlight exciting opportunities towards developing Real-Time and Reliable Edge AI. Specifically, I will present a number of research challenges and novel techniques in the areas of resource management, energy efficiency, reliability and privacy. We will focus mainly and draw our motivation from the following important types of applications in the SmartCity domain: (a) urban disaster and emergency response, and (b) transportation systems.
Massivizing Computer Systems: VU on the Science, Design, and Engineering of Distributed Systems and Ecosystems
Alexandru Iosup
Computer Science, VU University Amsterdam
Netherlands
Brief Bio
Alexandru Iosup is a full professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) and the chair of the VU research group Massivizing Computer Systems. He is also elected chair of the international SPEC-RG Cloud Group. His work in distributed systems and ecosystems, with applications in cloud computing, big data, scientific and business-critical computing, and the metaverse, has received prestigious recognition, including membership in the (Young) Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of the Netherlands, the Netherlands ICT Researcher of the Year award, and a Ph.D. from TU Delft. His leadership and innovation in education led to various awards, including the prestigious Netherlands Higher Education Teacher of the Year. He has also received a knighthood for cultural and scientific merits.
Abstract
Wherever we look, our society is turning digital. Science and engineering, business-critical and economic operations, and online education and gaming rely increasingly on the effective digitalization of their processes. For digitalization to succeed, societal processes must leverage efficient computer systems, effectively and efficiently integrated into larger _ecosystems_, managed primarily without application developer and even client input. However successful until now, we cannot take these ecosystems for granted: the core does not yet rely on sound principles of science and design, and there are warning signs about the scalability, dependability, and sustainability of engineered operations. This is the challenge of massivizing computer systems.
In this talk, inspired by this challenge and by our experience with distributed computer systems for over 15 years, we focus on understanding, deploying, scaling, and evolving computer ecosystems successfully. We posit we can achieve this through an ambitious, comprehensive research program, which starts from the idea that we can address the grand, fundamental challenge by focusing on computer ecosystems rather than merely on (individual, small-scale) computer systems. To this end, we define (distributed) computer ecosystems and differentiate them from (distributed) computer systems. We formulate principles and introduce a reference architecture for computer ecosystems supporting diverse workloads - AI/ML, big data and graph processing, online gaming and metaverse, and business-critical and serverless - and diverse resources and backend services across the computing continuum. We synthesize a framework of resource management and scheduling (RM&S) techniques, which we argue should be explored systematically in the next decade. We show early results obtained experimentally, through controlled real-world experiments, long-term observation, and what-if analysis of short- and long-term scenarios using the OpenDC digital twin for datacenters.
This is a call to the entire community: there is much to discover and achieve, and to get meaningful, long-lasting results we need to form a community spanning distributed systems, performance engineering, software engineering, and more. Our joint work could lead to holistic improvements of applications, services, and processes, together with the computing infrastructure supporting them.
This vision aligns with the Manifesto on Computer Systems and Networking Research in the Netherlands [1], which the speaker co-leads. Many of our examples come from real-world prototyping and experimentation, grand experiments in computer systems, and/or benchmarking and performance analysis work conducted with the Cloud group of SPEC RG [2].
[1] Future Computer Systems and Networking Research in the Netherlands: A Manifesto, 2022. [Online] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.03259
[2] SPEC RG Cloud https://research.spec.org/working-groups/rg-cloud/
Taming the Wild West of Social Media: Computational and Data Challenges and Opportunities After the Digital Services Act
Adriana Iamnitchi
Advanced Computing Sciences, Maastricht University
Netherlands
Brief Bio
Adriana Iamnitchi is Professor, Chair of Computational Social Sciences in the Institute of Data Science at Maastricht University. Her research lies at the intersection of distributed systems and social computing, with current focus on empirical analysis of phenomena in online social environments and designing solutions for modeling them. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Office for Naval Research, and DARPA. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from The University of Chicago and is an ACM Distinguished Member, IEEE Senior Member, and recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award.
Abstract
The surge in social media use over the last decade brought a host of unintended and unanticipated complications, such as disinformation, polarization, and undisclosed content monetization. Some of these problems can be traced back to the lack of regulation governing the digital interactions, algorithmic decisions, monetization, and business strategies that shape the social media landscape. In an effort to address these issues, the European Union has recently approved the Digital Services Act (DSA), aiming to better regulate online spaces, including social media platforms. This talk will delve into computational and data challenges and opportunities that the implementation and enforcement of the DSA may bring.