Context-aware data caching for mobile computing environments

Authors

Stylianos Drakatos, Florida International University

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Major/Program

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor's Name

Niki Pissinou

First Advisor's Committee Title

Co-Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Kia Makki

Second Advisor's Committee Title

Co-Committee Chair

Third Advisor's Name

Christos Douligeris

Fourth Advisor's Name

Christos Koulamas

Fifth Advisor's Name

Kang Yen

Date of Defense

11-3-2006

Abstract

The deployment of wireless communications coupled with the popularity of portable devices has led to significant research in the area of mobile data caching. Prior research has focused on the development of solutions that allow applications to run in wireless environments using proxy based techniques. Most of these approaches are semantic based and do not provide adequate support for representing the context of a user (i.e., the interpreted human intention.). Although the context may be treated implicitly it is still crucial to data management. In order to address this challenge this dissertation focuses on two characteristics: how to predict (i) the future location of the user and (ii) locations of the fetched data where the queried data item has valid answers. Using this approach, more complete information about the dynamics of an application environment is maintained.

The contribution of this dissertation is a novel data caching mechanism for pervasive computing environments that can adapt dynamically to a mobile user's context. In this dissertation, we design and develop a conceptual model and context aware protocols for wireless data caching management. Our replacement policy uses the validity of the data fetched from the server and the neighboring locations to decide

which of the cache entries is less likely to be needed in the future, and therefore a good candidate for eviction when cache space is needed. The context aware driven prefetching algorithm exploits the query context to effectively guide the prefetching process. The query context is defined using a mobile user's movement pattern and requested information context. Numerical results and simulations show that the proposed prefetching and replacement policies significantly outperform conventional ones. Anticipated applications of these solutions include biomedical engineering, telehealth, medical information systems and business.

Identifier

FI15101224

Comments

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Recommended Citation

Drakatos, Stylianos, "Context-aware data caching for mobile computing environments" (2006). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3082.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3082