Marcelo Ponce

Krit Grover, Marcelo Ponce

Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networks (DTN) are critical for reliable communications in challenged network environments, particularly for space systems where end-to-end connectivity cannot be guaranteed. We present an open-source, full-stack implementation of the Bundle protocol for communicating with the International Space Station (ISS), with complete security features including Bundle Authentication Block (BAB), Payload Integrity Block (PIB), and Payload Confidentiality Block (PCB) using HMAC-SHA256 and AES-256-CBC encryption. The system includes bundle fragmentation and reassembly, priority-based queuing, custody transfer with ACK/NAK mechanisms, and automatic retransmission. Our system also includes a frontend facilitated by a modern responsive web interface. We consider this work highly relevant in the context of computer networking because: i) it demonstrates a full stack, open-source, freely available implementation of this critical and reliable protocol; and ii) it offers an interactive educational and learning framework in the field of computer networks and communications.

Marcelo Ponce, Amit Sandhel

With the emergence of a new pandemic worldwide, a novel strategy to approach it has emerged. Several initiatives under the umbrella of "open science" are contributing to tackle this unprecedented situation. In particular, the "R Language and Environment for Statistical Computing" offers an excellent tool and ecosystem for approaches focusing on open science and reproducible results. Hence it is not surprising that with the onset of the pandemic, a large number of R packages and resources were made available for researches working in the pandemic. In this paper, we present an R package that allows users to access and analyze worldwide data from resources publicly available. We will introduce the covid19.analytics package, focusing in its capabilities and presenting a particular study case where we describe how to deploy the "COVID19.ANALYTICS Dashboard Explorer".