.g. thread libraries, garbage collectors, OS kernels and hypervisors, form the backbone of almost every safety-critical software system in the world. It is thus highly desirable to formally certify the correctness of these programs. With formal specifications and provably safe components, certified system

-expected complexities in implementing extensions to the storage interface. We describe our implementation process and extract a set of lessons applicable to other SSD prototypes. With our prototype we validate the performance claims of FlashTier and show a 45-52 % performance improvement over caching with an SSD and a

Messaging is a basic service in sensornets. Yet the unique system and application prop-erties of sensornets pose substantial challenges for the messaging design: Firstly, dynamic wireless links, constrained resources, and application diversity challenge the architecture and protocol design

ii iv vTo my parents vi vii Acknowledgements I would first and foremost extend my whole-hearted gratitude to my advisors, An-drea Arpaci-Dusseau and Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau. Andrea and Remzi are the reason that I had the opportunity for this exceptional Ph.D. journey. To this day, I still re-member the moment when they took me as their student and the joy and hope in my heart. Andrea and Remzi have showed me what systems research is like and how much fun and challenging it can be. Before this journey with them, I had always liked and believed in the beauty of mathematics and theory. My initial interest in systems research happened when I took Remzi’s Advanced Operating Systems

Abstract—This paper highlights and characterizes the main obstacle to deploying a robust wireless sensor network testbed: the USB connections that link each of the nodes via ethernet gateways to the central server. Unfortunately, these connections are also the components that, when properly installed, can reduce testbed costs by attaching multiple nodes per gateway. After illustrating how unreliable current solutions can become (regardless of the used sensor nodes, USB cabling, or gateway setup), a set of experiments led to a list of dos and don’ts in testbed deployment. Furthermore, a simple and cost-effective suggestion is presented that allows to bypass current USB backchannel issues, leading to a more robust testbed that avoids manual maintenance of individual nodes. Index Terms—experimentation; testbeds; testbed reliability; sensor node reprogramming; universal serial bus I.

April 29, 2011Für UnsShe had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it Lewis CarrollThe following document, written under the supervision of Dr. reviewed by:

in partial ful2llment of the requirements for the degree of

In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree

Abstract: Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are two recently-developed technologies that uniquely function without xed infrastructure support, and sense at scales, resolutions, and durations previously not possible. While both offer great potential in many applications, developing software for these types of networks is extremely dffcult, preventing their wide-spread use. Three primary challenges are (1) the high level of dynamics within the network in terms of changing wireless links and node hardware con gurations, (2) the wide variety of hardware present in these networks, and (3) the extremely limited computational and energy resources available. Until now, the burden of handling these issues was put on the software application developer. This dissertation presents three novel programming models and middleware systems that address these challenges: Limone, Agilla, and Servilla. Limone reliably handles high levels of dynamics within MANETs. It does this through lightweight coordination primitives that make minimal assumptions about network connectivity. Agilla enables self-adaptive WSN applications via the integration of mobile agent and tuple space programming models, which is critical given the continuously changing network. It is the rst system to successfully demonstrate the feasibility of using mobile agents and tuple spaces within