Postal Markets and Electronic Substitution: Implications for Regulatory Practices and Institutions in Europe

There is an increasing convergence between postal products and telecom applications which suggests the need for a co-evolution of regulation. But there is hardly any discussion in academia or in practice about the consequences for regulation. Relevant questions are: Which parts of current regulation will become redundant? Is there additional regulation needed due to new bottlenecks or changes in consumer behavior? In our qualitative analysis, we investigate the implications of intermodal competition and growing convergence between postal and telecommunications services on regulatory institutions and regimes. We set up a comparison between the networks and compare the scope of universal services and issues concerning market power regulation in the two different industries.Convergence, Regulation, Post, Telecommunication, Universal service obligation, Access

Vehicle to vehicle (V2V) wireless communications

This work focuses on the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, its current challenges, future perspective and possible improvement.V2V communication is characterized by the dynamic environment, high mobility, nonpredective scenario, propagation effects, and also communicating antenna's positions. This peculiarity of V2V wireless communication makes channel modelling and the vehicular propagation quite challenging. In this work, firstly we studied the present context of V2V communication also known as Vehicular Ad-hoc Netwok (VANET) including ongoing researches and studies particularly related to Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), specifically designed for automotive uses with corresponding set of protocols and standards. Secondly, we focused on communication models and improvement of these models to make them more suitable, reliable and efficient for the V2V environment. As specifies the standard, OFDM is used in V2V communication, Adaptable OFDM transceiver was designed. Some parameters as performance analytics are used to compare the improvement with the actual situation. For the enhancement of physical layer of V2V communication, this work is focused in the study of MIMO channel instead of SISO. In the designed transceiver both SISO and MIMO were implemented and studied successfully

Smart grid architecture for rural distribution networks: application to a Spanish pilot network

This paper presents a novel architecture for rural distribution grids. This architecture is designed to modernize traditional rural networks into new Smart Grid ones. The architecture tackles innovation actions on both the power plane and the management plane of the system. In the power plane, the architecture focuses on exploiting the synergies between telecommunications and innovative technologies based on power electronics managing low scale electrical storage. In the management plane, a decentralized management system is proposed based on the addition of two new agents assisting the typical Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system of distribution system operators. Altogether, the proposed architecture enables operators to use more effectively—in an automated and decentralized way—weak rural distribution systems, increasing the capability to integrate new distributed energy resources. This architecture is being implemented in a real Pilot Network located in Spain, in the frame of the European Smart Rural Grid project. The paper also includes a study case showing one of the potentialities of one of the principal technologies developed in the project and underpinning the realization of the new architecture: the so-called Intelligent Distribution Power Router.Postprint (published version

The Hierarchic treatment of marine ecological information from spatial networks of benthic platforms

Measuring biodiversity simultaneously in different locations, at different temporal scales, and over wide spatial scales is of strategic importance for the improvement of our understanding of the functioning of marine ecosystems and for the conservation of their biodiversity. Monitoring networks of cabled observatories, along with other docked autonomous systems (e.g., Remotely Operated Vehicles [ROVs], Autonomous Underwater Vehicles [AUVs], and crawlers), are being conceived and established at a spatial scale capable of tracking energy fluxes across benthic and pelagic compartments, as well as across geographic ecotones. At the same time, optoacoustic imaging is sustaining an unprecedented expansion in marine ecological monitoring, enabling the acquisition of new biological and environmental data at an appropriate spatiotemporal scale. At this stage, one of the main problems for an effective application of these technologies is the processing, storage, and treatment of the acquired complex ecological information. Here, we provide a conceptual overview on the technological developments in the multiparametric generation, storage, and automated hierarchic treatment of biological and environmental information required to capture the spatiotemporal complexity of a marine ecosystem. In doing so, we present a pipeline of ecological data acquisition and processing in different steps and prone to automation. We also give an example of population biomass, community richness and biodiversity data computation (as indicators for ecosystem functionality) with an Internet Operated Vehicle (a mobile crawler). Finally, we discuss the software requirements for that automated data processing at the level of cyber-infrastructures with sensor calibration and control, data banking, and ingestion into large data portals.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Switching on the remote: a new perspective on accessibility in remote Australia

Learning Communities: International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts by https://www.cdu.edu.au/northern-institute/lcj is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.In remote Australia, access to people, goods, services, information and places is difficult because of extreme distances and climates, sparse population, remoteness from markets, and complex economic and socio-cultural dynamics. Most of remote Australia remains disconnected from both the digital revolution and the national transport network due to a lack of adequate infrastructure, affordable and reliable services, and, for most, poor digital literacy. This impedes service delivery including education and health services, economic development and wellbeing of remote residents; contributing to inequalities between remote and non-remote Australians. Whilst the concept of accessibility in transport and telecommunication goods and services is relatively well defined in an urban context and can be measured accordingly, the way accessibility is currently measured fails to capture the complexity of the remote Australian context. The article discusses some of the current knowledge gaps associated with studying accessibility levels in remote Australia with a particular focus on Central Australia. The article presents indicators and tools which could be used to evaluate access issues with practical applications for remote Australia. Developing an accessibility index for remote areas would enable the reconsideration of minimal requirements for sustainable livelihoods in remote areas and the development of effective and appropriate regional development policies and initiatives

A Review of Trip Planning Systems.

This report reviews current information provision in all modes of transport and assesses the needs for and benefits of trip planning systems. The feasibility of trip planning systems is discussed given the current state of technology and information availability and supply. The review was stimulated by technological developments in telecommunications and information technology which are providing the possibility of a greatly enhanced quality of information to aid trip planning decisions. Amongst the conclusions reached were the following: Current information provision is considered deficient in many respects. Travellers are often unaware of alternative routes or services and many are unable to acquire adequate information from one source especially for multi-modal journeys. In addition, there is a lack of providing real time information where it is required (bus stops and train stations) and of effective interaction of static and real time information. Most of the projects, which integrate static and dynamic data, are single mode systems. Therefore there is a need for an integrated trip planning system which can inform and guide on all aspects of transport. Trip planning systems can provide assistance in trip planning (before and during the journey) using one or a number of modes of travel, taking into account travellers preferences and constraints, and effectively integrating static and dynamic data. Trip planning systems could adversely affect traffic demand as people who become aware of new opportunities might be encouraged to make more journeys. It could also affect travellers choice as a result of over-saturation of information, over-reaction to predictive information, and concentration on the same 'best' routes. However, it can be argued, based on existing evidence, that such a system can benefit travellers, and transport operators as well as the public sector responsible for executing transport policies. Travellers can benefit by obtaining adequate information to help them in making optimal decisions and reducing uncertainty and stress associated with travel. Public transport operators can benefit by making their services known to customers, leading to increased patronage. Public transport authorities can use the supply of information to execute their transport policies and exercise more control over traffic management

Distributed workload control for federated service discovery

The diffusion of the internet paradigm in each aspect of human life continuously fosters the widespread of new technologies and related services. In the Future Internet scenario, where 5G telecommunication facilities will interact with the internet of things world, analyzing in real time big amounts of data to feed a potential infinite set of services belonging to different administrative domains, the role of a federated service discovery will become crucial. In this paper the authors propose a distributed workload control algorithm to handle efficiently the service discovery requests, with the aim of minimizing the overall latencies experienced by the requesting user agents. The authors propose an algorithm based on the Wardrop equilibrium, which is a gametheoretical concept, applied to the federated service discovery domain. The proposed solution has been implemented and its performance has been assessed adopting different network topologies and metrics. An open source simulation environment has been created allowing other researchers to test the proposed solution