Security, Edge and Cloud Lab

Abstract

The Fog computing paradigm makes use of dispersed, diverse, and resource-limited devices located at the network edge to effectively implement Internet of Things (IoT) application services that demand low latency and substantial bandwidth. At the same time, the adoption of microservice-based architectures in the IoT domain is on the rise due to their ability to align with the swift evolution and deployment demands of highly dynamic IoT applications and to elastically scale to fulfill load demands. In complex environments like Fog federations, characterized by highly heterogeneous computing and networking resources, the effective allocation of microservices to available nodes, while ensuring compliance with required Quality of Service (QoS) constraints, represents a significant challenge. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of OptiFog, a comprehensive framework that enables users to model, simulate, and validate microservice placement solutions within a realistic testbed environment. Compared to state-of-the-art approaches, OptiFog offers developers a controlled environment for experimenting with placement solutions while providing the assurance that the resulting deployments will meet the targeted QoS requirements in real-world scenarios, specifically in terms of service execution time and energy consumption of Fog nodes. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach, we implemented and evaluated a representative use case, involving both sub-optimal and optimal microservice placement, and utilizing real-world microservices drawn from the IoT domain.

Year: 2026 | Pages: 1499 - 1514

ISSN: 1932-4537 | DOI: 10.1109/TNSM.2025.3648449

Abstract

The underrepresentation of women and girls in STEM is a global issue influenced by various social, cultural, and institutional factors, including gender stereotypes, limited engagement opportunities, and insufficient support from educators. Early interventions are essential, and teachers require effective tools and strategies for delivering STEM education that is both enjoyable and inclusive. The TechLARP Erasmus+ project aims to upskill prospective and current STEM educators in genderinclusive and arts-based approaches to deliver engaging STEM education to children and youth. This paper presents the results of good practices currently in place to engage children and young students in STEM through arts-based approaches. We identified various interventions, their contributions, requirements, and challenges they address. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in implementing technology-related interventions using arts-based approaches, most of which were run in European countries. We analyzed the interviews to identify the main themes that could inspire the design of future interventions. The research offers preliminary insights into key characteristics to consider when designing engaging and inclusive STEM experiences. The study revealed diverse, creative approaches-such as design thinking, role-playing, embodied learning, and maker spaces-that effectively engage young learners. It also highlighted common factors in scalability, replicability, skill development, and collaboration between stakeholders. These findings address two key issues: the need for teacher training in gender-inclusive STEM education and the development of strategies to boost girls' interest and skills in STEM. Future steps of this research will include an in-depth analysis of the results in comparison to the relevant literature on current practices. These will help design extensive guidelines to support educators in implementing arts-based practices.

Year: 2025 | Pages: 1 - 9

DOI: 10.1109/WEEF-GEDC66748.2025.11256327

Abstract

The number of STEM camps and extracurricular initiatives has risen considerably in recent years, driven by the increasing emphasis on the workforce shortage in STEM fields. However, despite their growth, these programs often suffer from a lack of structured evaluation practices, a well-known issue that hinders a comprehensive understanding of their effectiveness. This work focuses specifically on outreach initiatives and proposes ELEVATE-AI, a standardized evaluation platform that includes data-cleaning procedures, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and regression analysis to measure impacts effectively. Furthermore, we discuss the potential integration of AI-based tools to support non-experts in interpreting the results of the proposed analysis flow. The platform aims to lower technical barriers, promote systematic assessment, and encourage the widespread adoption of data-driven practices in evaluating CS and STEM outreach activities. To facilitate adoption and reproducibility, the platform will be made available as an open-source tool.

Year: 2025 | Pages: 499 - 506

ISSN: 2300-5963 | DOI: 10.15439/2025F3908

Abstract

Understanding the actual energy consumption of edge devices, such as Raspberry Pi boards, is becoming increasingly important as these platforms play a central role in real-world IoT applications. Power consumption information is typically sourced from manufacturer datasheets or coarse approximations, which often fail to reflect operational dynamics under realistic workloads. In this paper, we present an open tool for reproducible empirical characterization of edge device power consumption across varying computational workloads. The tool exploits affordable, off-the-shelf hardware for power measurement in combination with system-level metrics and automated workload generation through the stress-ng framework. Power data are collected at high temporal resolution and analyzed using regression models to derive load-dependent energy profiles suitable for integration into system-level energy modeling. Alongside this, we provide a toolchain and a set of Jupyter notebooks to facilitate reproducibility, cross-platform comparison, and future expansion by the community.

Year: 2025 | Pages: 01 - 07

DOI: 10.23919/softcom66362.2025.11197310

Abstract

None

Year: 2025 | Pages: 256 - 265

ISSN: 2516-2810 | DOI: 10.34190/icgr.8.1.3528

Abstract

None

Year: 2025 | Pages: 1.0 - 7.0

DOI: 10.1109/vtc2025-fall65116.2025.11309990

Abstract

None

Year: 2024 | Pages: 156 - 163

ISBN: 9798331510183 | DOI: 10.1109/NCA61908.2024.00033

Abstract

The utilization of Web-based interactive analytical tools in the research field is on the rise. Languages like Python and R are becoming widely adopted for analysis due to their extensive libraries and - mainly in the Python case - thanks to a relatively smooth learning curve for data analysis purposes. Consequently, tools like Jupyter Notebook have become the de facto standard for data analysis. These tools offer numerous benefits, such as a browser-based interface, reproducible workflows, and integration of text, code, and results in one document, making them attractive even to non-computer scientists. However, they face challenges in sharing and real-time collaboration, which both the Jupyter community and commercial solutions are addressing. Based on feedback from our researchers and experiences in multidisciplinary fields, our research aimed to integrate the Jupyter Notebook into a broader online file storage system for an enriched research workflow. Specifically, we developed an open-source application for Nextcloud called NextPyter. The application integrates Jupyter Notebook within the Nextcloud platform using Docker technology, enhancing friendly utilization and real-time collaboration.

Year: 2024 | Pages: 1 - 9

ISBN: 9798400704192 | DOI: 10.1145/3626203.3670516

Abstract

None

Year: 2024 | Pages: 172 - 177

ISBN: 9789532901382 | DOI: 10.23919/SoftCOM62040.2024.10721726

Abstract

None

Year: 2023 | Pages: 65 - 73

ISSN: 2516-2810 | DOI: n/a

Abstract

In the last few years, the web-based interactive computational environment called Jupyter notebook has been gaining more and more popularity as a platform for collaborative research and data analysis, becoming a de-facto standard among researchers. In this paper we present a first implementation of Sophon, an extensible web platform for collaborative research based on JupyterLab. Our aim is to extend the functionality of JupyterLab and improve its usability by integrating it with Django. In the Sophon project, we integrate the deployment of dockerized JupyterLab instances into a Django web server, creating an extensible, versatile and secure environment, while also being easy to use for researchers of different disciplines.

Year: 2022 | Pages: n/a - 4

ISBN: 9781450391610 | DOI: 10.1145/3491418.3535163

Abstract

In the last few years, several initiatives based on extracurricular activities have been organized in many countries around the world, with the aim to reduce the digital gender gap in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields. Among them, the Digital Girls summer camp, organized every year since 2014 by two Italian universities with the aim to attract female students to ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) disciplines, represents quite a unique initiative for its characteristics of long-duration (3–4 entire weeks) and complete gratuitousness for the participants. The COVID-19 emergency imposed severe changes to such activities, that had to be modified and carried out in the online mode as a consequence of social distancing. However, on one hand, the general lack of high-quality evaluations of these initiatives hinders the possibility to understand the actual impact of extracurricular activities on the future academic choices of the participants. On the other hand, the availability of data collected over different editions of Digital Girls has allowed us to analyze the summer camp impact and to evaluate the pros and cons of in-presence and online activities. The main contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we present an overview of existing experiences, at the national (Italian) and international levels, to increase female participation in integrated STEM and ICT fields. Second, we analyze how summer camp participation can influence girls’ future academic choices, with specific attention to ICT-related disciplines. In particular, the collection of a significant amount of data through anonymous surveys conducted before and after the camp activities over the two editions allowed us to evidence the different impacts of in-presence and online extracurricular activities.

Year: 2021 | Pages: 1 - 15

ISSN: 2227-7102 | DOI: 10.3390/educsci11110715

Abstract

The last Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) report about the digital performance of the EU member states shows that a large part of the EU population still lacks basic digital skills, even though most jobs require such skills. The report also evidences the extremely low rates of females enrolled at computer sciences and information engineering academic courses, resulting not only in a massive loss of talent for companies and economies, but also perpetuating gaps in gender inequality in the ICT-related fields. To counteract these effects, the engineering and computer science departments of two Italian universities have organized, since 2014, an innovative form of summer camp, namely ‘Digital Girls’, dedicated to female students of the third and fourth grade of the high schools. The summer camp provides girls with a learning experience, based on a team-working and learn-by-doing approach, about coding applied to creative and innovative fields, such as video game programming or Arduino-controlled robot making, and with the exposition to inspiring female role models from academia and industry. For its scope, nature (free for the girls to participate) and duration (3-4 entire weeks), the summer camp Digital Girls represents a unique experience not only in Italy but also, at the best of our knowledge, in the world. The COVID-19 emergency imposed deep changes to the 2020 edition of the summer camp, that was carried out completely online and based on different activities with respect to past editions realized in presence. In this paper, we analyzed the summer camp experience through its different editions, highlighting the impact of such activity on girls attitudes and on their plans for future studies and careers. The availability of data on several and deeply different editions of the summer camp allows us to highlight pros and cons of different approaches in carrying out similar extra-curricular activities to reduce the gender gap in ICT education.

Year: 2021 | Pages: 104 - 113

ISSN: 2516-2810 | DOI: 10.34190/IGR.21.051

Abstract

Digital technology is increasingly central to our lives, particularly among young people. However, a severe concern remains about the existing digital gender gap: despite the demand for ICT professionals is more and more increasing, women are under-represented in the ICT sectors and their low participation rates can be traced back to school years with internalised gender stereotypes. The present work explores the summer camp “Digital girls” case study with the aim of involving women from an early age in traditionally male sectors. The summer camp is organized by the engineering and computer science departments of two Italian universities that from 2014 have decided to undertake work to disseminate and raise awareness of ICT issues to girls in high school. The summer camp offers a protected context in which participants learn the principles of computer programming and are exposed to workshops on social networks, free software, cybersecurity, and interact with female ICT experts. The paper focuses on the analysis of data relating to the correlation between previous programming experience and the choice of university studies and social perceptions of the work environment.

Year: 2021 | Pages: 193 - 205

ISSN: 2213-8684 | DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-84311-3_18