6LoWPAN vs Zigbee

Written by Akiba

Wednesday, 04 March 2009

After the euphoria of the Zigbee/RF4CE announcement wears off, I still have this lingering sense that the picture isn't really complete. Although the coordinated press releases of the Zigbee Alliance members kind of pounded the message into everyone's brain and cements a second huge potential market for Zigbee, it pretty much just means that along with being an electrical metering protocol, it will also be known as a remote control protocol. This is actually really good news, but chances are that it will end up similar to Bluetooth which was never really able to shake its reputation as a wireless earpiece protocol. One clear thing is that Zigbee now has two large markets under its belt and that's important because it's pretty much the only standard wireless sensor networking protocol that can claim this. This makes it king of the hill, only it's members shouldn't be too complacent because that hill is still really small. Being an industry leader has its advantages such as having a greater chance of survival but unfortunately doesn't necessarily mean that consumers will adopt it. Sure, it can be forced down people's throats by having a Zigbee enabled meter or a Zigbee/RF4CE remote control to come with your Sony Bravia, but if the Zigbee Alliance isn't careful, that's pretty much where it'll end. The real danger for Zigbee is in assuming that because they have the largest potential markets, that consumers will flock to the technology. The true test for any technology is in adoption. This is where 6LoWPAN has the advantage. If you don't know, 6LoWPAN is an IETF draft standard that specifies how IPv6 frames will be carried over the 802.15.4 wireless protocol. The benefit that this protocol, or actually I would be more correct in saying header compression scheme, has over Zigbee is that you can use TCP/IP as the communications mechanism. Notice I didn't mention anything about 6LoWPAN being better than Zigbee, or more efficient, faster, lower power, tastes great, or less filling. Those would be fighting words and I don't want to set off a religious war. The truth is that technological superiority doesn't really matter in terms of adoption except for technical purists, aka geeks. What really matters is that 6LoWPAN uses TCP/IP and TCP/IP doesn't have an adoption curve. There is a huge amount of existing infrastructure, developers, software, standards, and knowledge that people just kind of accept it like air. It's what most of the world uses on a daily basis, whether they know it or not. The weakness of 6LoWPAN is that they don't have a real market for the protocol at the moment and it's mostly because of some technical issues. The main problem lies in the fact that they don't have any standards in place to govern device interoperability of each wireless sensor node. Zigbee spent a lot of time on device interoperability for the nodes and defined standard device profiles that behave in well documented ways. This means that one node can discover what services another node provides, and access those services in a standardized way. They also set up the test labs with testing equipment, checklists, training, certification procedures, and pass/fail criteria to ensure that the devices that make it through the testing and get the Zigbee certified logo adhere to these profiles. Although many people will probably bash me and say that it still doesn't guarantee interoperability, it's still better than anything that 6LoWPAN currently has. Well, I'd better make my point quickly or else I'm going to end up being hated by both groups. My point is that Zigbee has the device interoperability specification and testing infrastructure in place and it also has access to two potentially large markets that are gateways into the consumer home. 6LoWPAN has access to a huge amount of infrastructure, a disgustingly large pool of protocol developer geeks, and TCP/IP which is the lingua franca of communications all over the world. When I said that something felt like it was missing, I really meant that Zigbee needs 6LoWPAN and conversely, 6LoWPAN needs Zigbee. If they could somehow put aside their ideological differences and pointless debates on protocol efficiency, and somehow combine their strengths, this could be a rare case where the sum is exponentially greater than its parts. Not only would something like this re-define how people think of the internet and interact with it, it would also bring some really huge guns into the game…like on the order of Cisco, Microsoft, Google, and Intel. This would be on top of companies like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, and Philips that came along with RF4CE. It would also bring a shower of media interest, funding, and most importantly, excitment back into the tech industry which, in this humble open-source developer's opinion, is something that it is desperately in need of. So yes, the Zigbee and RF4CE tie up is great, but the real holy grail is if Zigbee and 6LoWPAN could settle their differences and work together to really create…dare I say it…the "Internet of Things". Source: http://freaklabs.org

Mencemaskan Kualitas Guru Besar (Profesor Masturbasi)

MENTERI Pendidikan Nasional (Mendiknas) M. Nuh mengatakan bahwa guru besar Indonesia belum mumpuni. Pernyataan itu disampaikan ketika Mendiknas mengadakan pertemuan dengan kalangan media di Surabaya beberapa waktu lalu, sehubungan dengan banyaknya pengukuhan guru besar (gubes) yang diselenggarakan perguruan tinggi negeri (PTN) dan perguruan tinggi swasta (PTS).

Prof. Dr. Monyeto__Perfecto_Profesoro

Mendiknas menyatakan bahwa syarat menjadi gubes relatif mudah. Seorang dosen (PTN maupun PTS) yang memiliki ijazah S-3 dapat mengajukan jabatan menjadi gubes dengan melampirkan sejumlah angka kredit di bidang tridarma perguruan tinggi yang telah diperoleh.

Pernyataan M. Nuh itu perlu menjadi renungan kita semua. Mengapa seorang menteri sampai menyatakan kegundahannya seperti itu?

Dalam menjalankan tugas di perguruan tinggi (PT), seorang dosen (baik gubes atau non-gubes) diwajibkan untuk melaksanakan tridarma perguruan tinggi yang meliputi pendidikan, penelitian, dan pengabdian kepada masyarakat. Di bidang pendidikan, saya tidak melihat ada hal penting yang menjadi kegundahan Mendiknas. Hampir tidak ada satu pun gubes di Indonesia yang tidak mumpuni di bidang pendidikan.

Demikian juga pengabdian kepada masyarakat yang meliputi kegiatan, di antaranya, ceramah dalam seminar, nara sumber dalam pelatihan, kursus, dan sejenisnya, pasti telah dilaksanakan dengan mumpuni oleh semua gubes di Indonesia. Di bidang penelitian juga tidak ada masalah. Semua gubes pasti telah melakukan kegiatan itu. Di antara keseluruhan aktivitas tridarma perguruan tinggi, kegiatan penelitian minimal 25 persen harus dipenuhi seorang gubes (juga dosen non-gubes).

Kualitas Penelitian Rendah

Lalu, apa yang menjadi kegundahan Mendiknas? Mungkin, jawabannya adalah kualitas penelitian yang dilakukan hampir sebagian besar gubes di Indonesia relatif rendah jika dibandingkan dengan negara tetangga, apalagi dengan negara maju (Eropa dan Amerika). Diperkirakan, tidak lebih dari 20 persen hasil penelitian gubes di Indonesia menghiasi jurnal internasional. Sebanyak 80 persen lainnya hanya diterbitkan dalam jurnal nasional, bahkan jurnal fakultas atau universitas yang hanya dibaca dan disitir oleh teman sejawat.

Bahkan, tidak ada satu pun hasil penelitian rektor di dua PTN terkenal di Jawa Barat dan Jawa Timur -kalau kita simakcurriculum vitae-nya- muncul di jurnal internasional. Karya internasionalnya terbatas pada naskah yang dipresentasikan di international conferences atau seminars, yang menurut ahli di Barat hanya merupakan forum komunikasi antarahli. Naskah di dua kegiatan itu baru dapat diterima dan dimuat di jurnal internasional setelah di-review sedikitnya oleh dua ahli sebidang. Jika memenuhi syarat, karya itu diterima. Jika tidak memenuhi syarat, ditolak.

Suatu survei oleh Scientific American menunjukkan bahwa kontribusi ilmuwan (termasuk gubes) Indonesia pada khazanah pengembangan dunia ilmu setiap tahun hanya sekitar 0,012 persen (12 publikasi/100.000 ahli), yang jauh berada di bawah kalau dibandingkan dengan USA yang besarnya lebih dari 20 persen. Oleh beberapa ahli barat, jerih payah upaya ilmuwan Indonesia untuk ikut berkontribusi terhadap perkembangan khazanah ilmiah dunia diistilahkanlost science in the third world.

Pernyataan bernada sumbang itu terutama disebabkan hasil yang disumbangkan ilmuwan Indonesia tidak sampai ke hadapan mitra bestari sesama ilmuwannya yang sebidang hanya karena ditulis dalam berkala yang berjangkauan terbatas. Keterbatasannya disebabkan sempitnya sirkulasi persebaran publikasi dan berkala tiras yang sedikit sehingga tidak dilanggan oleh perpustakaan utama pusat kegiatan ilmiah internasional, serta penggunaan bahasa yang tak terbacakan secara luas. Akibatnya, judul tulisan karya ilmuwan Indonesia tak tertampilkan dalam layanan cepat bibliografi dan kata kuncinya tak terambil oleh penyedia pindaian internet.

Keprihatinan Mendiknas sebenarnya terletak pada peraturan yang dibuat oleh Mendiknas sendiri tentang syarat-syarat menjadi gubes. Di dalam peraturan sama sekali tidak ada persyaratan bahwa untuk menjadi gubes harus memiliki karya publikasi internasional. Karena kemudahan itu, banyak fakultas dan universitas mengambil peluang untuk berlomba-lomba membuat jurnal baru di lembaga masing-masing. Banyak dosen membuat penelitian ala kadarnya, lalu memublikasikan di jurnal lembaga masing-masing agar cepat naik jabatan.

Profesor Masturbasi

Karena kemudahan menjadi gubes di Indonesia, kini ada istilah Profesor Masturbasi. Yakni, seseorang yang mendapatkan gelar keprofesorannya melalui karya yang dilakukan sendiri. Penelitian dilakukan sendiri (biaya sendiri, tidak berkolaborasi dengan lembaga lain), ditulis sendiri (tidak di-review oleh ahli sebidang dari negara lain, tetapi di-review oleh teman sendiri), dipublikasikan di jurnalnya (milik lembaga sendiri), lalu untuk naik pangkat/jabatan sendiri. Cerdas juga yang membuat istilah tersebut karena masturbasi memang dilakukan sendiri, bahkan cenderung sembunyi-sembunyi.

Sekarang Indonesia telanjur memiliki begitu banyak gubes. Dan, haruskah kita teruskan mencetak gubes-gubes baru dengan kriteria yang kita miliki sekarang? Sudah saatnya Mendiknas mempertimbangkan untuk membuat persyaratan baru menjadi gubes. Salah satu di antaranya, harus memiliki sedikitnya dua atau tiga publikasi internasional (bukaninternational conferences atau seminars).

Jika persyaratan ini dilaksanakan, niscaya Indonesia akan memiliki gubes-gubes yang mumpuni di segala bidang (tridarma perguruan tinggi). Dan, Mendiknas dijamin tidak akan gundah lagi.

Bagi dosen yang sudah gubes, tetapi belum pernah sama sekali memublikasikan karyanya di jurnal internasional (jumlah gubes ini sangat banyak di Indonesia), inilah saat yang tepat untuk melaksanakan itu(menulis di jurnal internasional). Hal itu tentu saja tidak berlebihan, apalagi berkaitan dengan diberikannya tunjangan profesi dan tunjangan kehormatan kepada gubes. Semoga. (*)


Sumber :
*). Agoes Soegianto, Guru Besar Biologi Lingkungan Universitas Airlangga
Radar Sulteng :  17 Februari 2010

How to Write a Technical Article

The above title is a note taken from <http://gems.leme.org.pt/PmWiki/index.php/Resources/HowToWriteATechnicalArticle>. I post the link here to benefit myself in writing research paper.
The note applies to technical papers in computer science and electrical engineering, with emphasis on papers in systems and networks.

Click the link above for detail description.
Hopefully, the link above will benefit others as well.

How to Read a Research Paper

Among the questions that you should ask yourself when reading a research paper are the following:

1. What is the research paradigm that the author is using? Example paradigms are psychological experiments, formalization and theorem proving, and artifact design and construction. If the paper is part of a well established field, you should describe the field and its current state.
   
   
2. What is the problem area with which the paper is concerned? For example, "Automatic Generation of Compilers from Denotational Semantic Descriptions of the Source Code" would describe a research paper on compilation.
   
3. What is the author's thesis? That is, what is he/she trying to convince you of?
   
4. Summarize the author's argument. That is, how does the author go about trying to convince you of the thesis?
   
5. Does the author describe other work in the field? If so, how does the research described in the paper differ from the other work?
   
6. Does the paper succeed? Are you convinced of the thesis by the time that you have finished reading the paper?
   
7. Does the author indicate how the work should be followed up on? Does the paper generate new ideas.
   
   
8. Some papers implicitly or explicitly provide a new way of doing things or of thinking about problems. If your paper does so, describe the approach.
   

From: http://gems.leme.org.pt/PmWiki/index.php/Resources/HowToReadAResearchPaper