Strategic Intelligence Monitor on Personal Health Systems (SIMPHS): Report on Typology/Segmentation of the PHS Market

This market segmentation reports for Personal Health Systems (PHS) describes the methodological background and illustrates the principles of classification and typology regarding different fragments forming this market. It discusses different aspects of the market for PHS and highlights challenges towards a stringent and clear-cut typology or defining market segmentation. Based on these findings a preliminary hybrid typology and indications and insights are created in order to be used in the continuation of the SIMPHS project. It concludes with an annex containing examples and cases studies.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ

Robotics and automation in the city: a research agenda

Globally cities are becoming experimental sites for new forms of robotic and automation technologies applied across a wide variety of sectors in multiple areas of economic and social life. As these innovations leave the laboratory and factory, this paper analyses how robotics and automation systems are being layered upon existing urban digital networks, extending the capabilities and capacities of human agency and infrastructure networks, and reshaping the city and citizen’s everyday experiences. To date, most work in this field has been speculative and isolated in nature. We set out a research agenda that goes beyond analysis of discrete applications and effects, to investigate how robotics and automation connect across urban domains and the implications for: differential urban geographies, the selective enhancement of individuals and collective management of infrastructures, the socio-spatial sorting of cities and the potential for responsible urban innovation

Multichannel power line communication

Power line communication (PLC) is the technology in which the data signals of a communication system are transmitted through the conductors of a power delivery infrastructure. The unique environment of the PLC channels create specific challenges and requirements, which need to be modeled and analyzed properly in order to obtain a clear understanding of the communication system as well as attaining the ability to further improve the performance and reliability of the transmission. Moreover, the demand for increased data throughput as well as increased reliability and robustness of the transmission is of fundamental importance in any communication system as it is in PLC systems. In order to address these challenges and demands, the concept of multichannel PLC is studied and developed in this thesis. Multichannel PLC in this context is referred to the transmission of multiple information-carrying signals though the power line channel from one source to one destination. We study multiple scenarios of multichannel data transmission in order to cover the diverse situations and requirements of a PLC transmission. One of the multichannel scenarios discussed in this thesis is the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission, in which multiple data signals are transmitted via spatially separated PLC channels. Another scenario discussed in this thesis is the cooperative transmission between the source and destination of a PLC system by means of intermediate relay nodes in the network. Finally, the multiband transmission by utilizing different parts of the available PLC spectrum is studied. The core objective of this thesis is to develop and study novel algorithms and models to address the challenges and problems introduced in different scenarios of the multichannel PLC. These problems can be categorized as the channel selection problem for MIMO transmission, the relay selection problem for the cooperative communication, and the spectrum assignment problem for the multiband transmission. The basis of all these problems is a decision making problem, which can greatly influence the performance of the system. To address these decision making problems, a powerful mathematical tool, namely the multi-armed bandit model, is used to model the different problems emerging in different scenarios of the multichannel PLC. This modeling approach is then used as a building block for developing machine learning algorithms in order to solve the aforementioned selection problems. Finally, novel machine learning algorithms are developed and their performances are analyzed and assessed. It is shown that the machine learning approach can considerably improve the performance of the multichannel PLC systems compared to the existing state of the art approaches, by enabling the selecting agent, i.e. the PLC transmitter, to perform intelligent decisions which improves the overall performance.Die Power-Line-Communication (PLC) ist die Technologie, bei der die Datensignale eines Kommunikationssystems über die Leiter einer Energieversorgungsinfrastruktur übertragen werden. Die einzigartige Umgebung der PLC-Kanäle stellt konkrete Herausforderungen und Anforderungen dar, die modelliert und analysiert werden müssen, um ein klares Verständnis des Kommunikationssystems zu erhalten und die Fähigkeit zur Verbesserung der Leistung und Zuverlässigkeit der Übertragung zu erreichen. Darüber hinaus ist in Kommunikationssystem die Nachfrage nach erhöhtem Datendurchsatz, sowie erhöhter Zuverlässigkeit und Robustheit der Übertragung von grundlegender Bedeutung. Um diesen Herausforderungen und Anforderungen gerecht zu werden, wird in dieser Arbeit das Konzept der Mehrkanal-PLC untersucht und weiterentwickelt. Die Mehrkanal-PLC wird in diesem Zusammenhang auf die Übertragung mehrerer informationstragenden Signale über den PLC-Kanal von einer Quelle zu einem Ziel bezogen. Wir untersuchen mehrere Szenarien der Mehrkanal-Datenübertragung, um die vielfältigen Anforderungen einer PLC-Übertragung zu behandeln. Eines der in dieser Arbeit besprochenen Mehrkanal-Szenarien ist die Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output-Übertragung (MIMO), bei der mehrere Datensignale über räumlich getrennte PLC-Kanäle übertragen werden. Ein weiteres Szenario, das in dieser Arbeit diskutiert wird, ist die kooperative Übertragung zwischen der Quelle und dem Ziel eines PLC-Systems mittels Zwischenrelais als Knoten im Netzwerk. Schließlich wird die Multiband-Übertragung unter Verwendung unterschiedlicher Teile des verfügbaren PLC-Spektrums untersucht. Das Kernziel dieser Arbeit ist es, neuartige Algorithmen und Modelle zu entwickeln und zu untersuchen, um die Herausforderungen und Probleme zu lösen, die in verschiedenen Szenarien der Mehrkanal-PLC existieren. Diese Probleme sind als das Kanalauswahlproblem für die MIMO-Übertragung, das Relaiauswahlproblem für die kooperative Kommunikation und das Spektrum-Zuweisungsproblem für die Multibandübertragung kategorisiert werden. Die Basis all dieser Probleme ist ein Entscheidungsproblem, das die Leistungsfähigkeit des Systems stark beeinflussen kann. Um diese Probleme lösen zu können, wird ein mathematisches Werkzeug, nämlich das mehrarmige Bandit-Modell, verwendet, um die verschiedenen Probleme zu modellieren, die sich in verschiedenen Szenarien der Mehrkanal-PLC ergeben. Dieser Modellierungsansatz wird als Baustein für die Entwicklung von maschinellen Lernalgorithmen verwendet, um die zuvor beschriebenen Auswahlprobleme zu lösen. Schließlich werden neuartige maschinelle Lernalgorithmen entwickelt und ihre Leistungen analysiert sowie bewertet. Es zeigt sich, dass der maschinelle Lernansatz die Leistungsfähigkeit der Mehrkanal-PLC-Systeme im Vergleich zu den bestehenden Ans\"atzen des Standes der Technik erheblich verbessern kann, indem es dem Auswahlagenten, d.h. dem PLC-Sender, ermöglicht, intelligente Entscheidungen durchzuführen, die die Gesamtleistung verbessern

Powerline Kommunikation: Wesentliche Technologien um PLC in CE-Geräte zu integrieren

In-house PLT (Powerline Telecommunication) enables new and highly convenient networking functions without the need for additional cables on mains-powered devices. Since wireless networks are not able to reach sufficient throughput between different rooms or even floors, PLC is considered to be the ideal backbone home network medium, providing complementary and seamless interaction with wireless networks. The need to communicate information is not new. The historical overview of this thesis compares the development of PLT to radio broadcast technologies. The consumer expects technologies to operate without interferences. Today, there are coexistence problems between these two technologies. Why does this happens, and how the problems can be resolved are the main issues of this thesis. Initial calculations of the channel capacity provide encouraging results for using the mains cabling as a communication medium. Chapter 3 forecasts how PLT modems could develop in the future. The usage of frequencies above 30 MHz will increase the throughput rate. Next, the utilization of the 3rd wire (the protective earth) for communication enhances the coverage and the reliability of powerline transmissions. The reception of common mode signals and the usage of MIMO technologies enable 8 transmission paths between one pair of outlets, which improves the performance of the bad, strongly attenuated channels. Today, the main challenge for the mass deployment of PLT is the lack of harmonized international standards on interoperability and electromagnetic interference. The absence of a standard results in the undesirable situation of PLT modems interfering with technologies from different vendors and also with radio applications. Solutions for solving these problems are given in chapter 4 and chapter 5. The approach of ‘Smart Notching’ - monitoring the existence of receivable radio broadcast stations at the time and location where a PLT modem is operating, received wide resonance in the PLT and radio broadcast communities. ‘Smart Notching’, also called ‘Dynamic Notching’ or ‘Adaptive Notching’ is considered to be the key factor in solving the endless discussions about the interferences to HF radio broadcast. Details on the creation of ETSI TS 102 578 and the implementation of a demonstrator system is documented in chapter 5. Field tests conducted together with the EBU verified the efficiency of the concept. The jointly executed tests by representatives from the radio broadcast and the PLT communities became a historical event which brought the two technologies, radio receivers and PLT modems, back into one house. Finally, a vision of the future coordination of EMC and conclusions are presented.Heutige Modems zur Powerline Telekommunikation (PLT) können im Betrieb den Empfang von Kurzwellen-Rundfunk beeinträchtigen, wenn Modem und Rundfunk-Empfänger in unmittelbarer Nachbarschaft betrieben werden. Eine neue Generation von PLT Modems, in denen das Konzept von 'Smart Notching' - dem intelligenten Einfügen von Lücken in das Kommunikationsspektrum - implementiert ist, zeigt keine Interferenzen mit dem Empfang von Rundfunkdiensten. Das Rauschen auf der Niederspannungsinstallation enthält neben sonstigen Signalen - durch andere Geräte hervorgerufen - aufgrund der Antennenwirkung Information über Rundfunksender. Beim ‚Smart Notching’ erkennen PLT Modems am Betriebsort die Existenz von Rundfunksignalen, indem sie das Signalspektrum auf der Netzleitung messen. Die Echtzeit- Bewertung der aktuellen Situation am Betriebsort ermöglicht eine Adaption des PLT Systems. Damit wird die Elektromagnetische Verträglichkeit nicht a priori (zum Herstellungs-Zeitpunkt) durch Schirmung oder eine globale Reduktion des Sendepegels, sondern durch Design des Verfahrens (welches während des Betriebs angewendet wird) hergestellt. Diese Doktorarbeit beschreibt nach einem kurzen Überblick zur Historie des Rundfunks und der Datenübertragung über das Energieverteilnetz Messungen zur Ermittlung der theoretischen Kanalkapazität. Anschließend wird ein Ausblick gegeben, wohin sich zukünftige PLT Modems entwickeln werden. Dies sind vor allem der Frequenzbereich oberhalb von 30 MHz sowie die Nutzung der dritten Kupferader in den Netzleitungen: der Schutzerde. Die Verwendung von MIMO-Algorithmen (aus der kabellosen Funkübertragung (z.B. WiFi) bereits bekannt) verbessert vor allem die Wahrscheinlichkeit, eine hohe Datenrate im Gebäude sicher zu verteilen. Sorge bereitet bei PLT ebenfalls die Koexistenz mit weiteren PLT-Systemen, sowie zu xDSL. Hierfür wird ein Vorschlag gemacht, um die Interferenzen zu nicht kompatiblen PLToder DSL-Systemen zu vermeiden, ohne dass die Systeme sich gegenseitig gezielt Informationen zusenden. Das bereits oben erwähnte Konzept des ‚Smart Notching’ wird detailliert erläutert und die Implementierung eines Demonstrators auf FPGA-Basis dokumentiert. Abschließend wird noch beschrieben, wie ‚Smart Notching’ gemeinsam mit der EBU getestet wurde und wie es seinen Weg in die Welt der Standardisierung gefunden hat. Der Veröffentlichung des Standards ETSI TS 102 578 wurde im Juli 2008 einstimmig von ETSI PLT zugestimmt

Autonomous decision-making for socially interactive robots

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorThe aim of this thesis is to present a novel decision-making system based on bio-inspired concepts to decide the actions to make during the interaction between humans and robots. We use concepts from nature to make the robot may behave analogously to a living being for a better acceptance by people. The system is applied to autonomous Socially Interactive Robots that works in environments with users. These objectives are motivated by the need of having robots collaborating, entertaining or helping in educational tasks for real situations with children or elder people where the robot has to behave socially. Moreover, the decision-making system can be integrated into this kind of robots in order to learn how to act depending on the user profile the robot is interacting with. The decision-making system proposed in this thesis is a solution to all these issues in addition to a complement for interactive learning in HRI. We also show real applications of the system proposed applying it in an educational scenario, a situation where the robot can learn and interact with different kinds of people. The last goal of this thesis is to develop a robotic architecture that is able to learn how to behave in different contexts where humans and robots coexist. For that purpose, we design a modular and portable robotic architecture that is included in several robots. Including well-known software engineering techniques together with innovative agile software development procedures that produces an easily extensible architecture.El objetivo de esta tesis es presentar un novedoso sistema de toma de decisiones basado en conceptos bioinspirados para decidir las acciones a realizar durante la interacción entre personas y robots. Usamos conceptos de la naturaleza para hacer que el robot pueda comportarse análogamente a un ser vivo para una mejor aceptación por las personas. El sistema está desarrollado para que se pueda aplicar a los llamados Robots Socialmente Interactivos que están destinados a entornos con usuarios. Estos objetivos están motivados por la necesidad de tener robots en tareas de colaboración, entretenimiento o en educación en situaciones reales con niños o personas mayores en las cuales el robot debe comportarse siguiendo las normas sociales. Además, el sistema de toma de decisiones es integrado en estos tipos de robots con el fin de que pueda aprender a actuar dependiendo del perfil de usuario con el que el robot está interactuando. El sistema de toma de decisiones que proponemos en esta tesis es una solución a todos estos desafíos además de un complemento para el aprendizaje interactivo en la interacción humano-robot. También mostramos aplicaciones reales del sistema propuesto aplicándolo en un escenario educativo, una situación en la que el robot puede aprender e interaccionar con diferentes tipos de personas. El último objetivo de esta tesis es desarrollar un arquitectura robótica que sea capaz de aprender a comportarse en diferentes contextos donde las personas y los robots coexistan. Con ese propósito, diseñamos una arquitectura robótica modular y portable que está incluida en varios robots. Incluyendo técnicas bien conocidas de ingeniería del software junto con procedimientos innovadores de desarrollo de sofware ágil que producen una arquitectura fácilmente extensible.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y AutomáticaPresidente: Fabio Bonsignorio.- Secretario: María Dolores Blanco Rojas.- Vocal: Martin Stoele

Ill. teach. home econ. (1973)

Description based on: Vol. 17, no. 2 (Nov.-Dec. 1973); title from cover.Education index 0013-1385 -1992Current index to journals in education 0011-3565Bibliography of agriculture 0006-153

Telemedicine

Telemedicine is a rapidly evolving field as new technologies are implemented for example for the development of wireless sensors, quality data transmission. Using the Internet applications such as counseling, clinical consultation support and home care monitoring and management are more and more realized, which improves access to high level medical care in underserved areas. The 23 chapters of this book present manifold examples of telemedicine treating both theoretical and practical foundations and application scenarios

SUTMS - Unified Threat Management Framework for Home Networks

Home networks were initially designed for web browsing and non-business critical applications. As infrastructure improved, internet broadband costs decreased, and home internet usage transferred to e-commerce and business-critical applications. Today’s home computers host personnel identifiable information and financial data and act as a bridge to corporate networks via remote access technologies like VPN. The expansion of remote work and the transition to cloud computing have broadened the attack surface for potential threats. Home networks have become the extension of critical networks and services, hackers can get access to corporate data by compromising devices attacked to broad- band routers. All these challenges depict the importance of home-based Unified Threat Management (UTM) systems. There is a need of unified threat management framework that is developed specifically for home and small networks to address emerging security challenges. In this research, the proposed Smart Unified Threat Management (SUTMS) framework serves as a comprehensive solution for implementing home network security, incorporating firewall, anti-bot, intrusion detection, and anomaly detection engines into a unified system. SUTMS is able to provide 99.99% accuracy with 56.83% memory improvements. IPS stands out as the most resource-intensive UTM service, SUTMS successfully reduces the performance overhead of IDS by integrating it with the flow detection mod- ule. The artifact employs flow analysis to identify network anomalies and categorizes encrypted traffic according to its abnormalities. SUTMS can be scaled by introducing optional functions, i.e., routing and smart logging (utilizing Apriori algorithms). The research also tackles one of the limitations identified by SUTMS through the introduction of a second artifact called Secure Centralized Management System (SCMS). SCMS is a lightweight asset management platform with built-in security intelligence that can seamlessly integrate with a cloud for real-time updates

Network and service monitoring in heterogeneous home networks

Home networks are becoming dynamic and technologically heterogeneous. They consist of an increasing number of devices which offer several functionalities and can be used for many different services. In the home, these devices are interconnected using a mixture of networking technologies (for example, Ethernet, Wifi, coaxial cable, or power-line). However, interconnecting these devices is often not easy. The increasing heterogeneity has led to significant device- and service-management complexity. In addition, home networks provide a critical "last meters" access to the public telecom and Internet infrastructure and have a dramatic impact on to the end-to-end reliability and performance of services from these networks. This challenges service providers not only to maintain a satisfactory quality of service level in such heterogeneous home networks, but also to remotely monitor and troubleshoot them. The present thesis work contributes research and several solutions in the field of network and service monitoring in home networks, mainly in three areas: (1) providing automatic device- and service-discovery and configuration, (2) remote management, and (3) providing quality of service (QoS). With regard to the first area, current service discovery technology is designed to relieve the increasing human role in network and service administration. However, the relevant Service Discovery Protocols (SDPs) are lacking crucial features namely: (1) they are not platform- and network-independent, and (2) they do not provide sufficient mechanisms for (device) resource reservation. Consequently, devices implementing different SDPs cannot communicate with each other and share their functionalities and resources in a managed way, especially when they use different network technologies. As a solution to the first problem, we propose a new proxy server architecture that enables IP-based devices and services to be discovered on non-IP based network and vice versa. We implemented the proxy architecture using UPnP respectively Bluetooth SDP as IP- and non-IP-based SDPs. The proxy allows Bluetooth devices and UPnP control points to discover, access, and utilize services located on the other network. Validation experiments with the proxy prototype showed that seamless inter-working can be achieved keeping all proxy functionalities on a single device, thus not requiring modification of currently existing UPnP and Bluetooth end devices. Although the proxy itself taxes the end-to-end performance of the service, it is shown to be still acceptable for an end user. For mitigating resource conflicts in SDPs, we propose a generic resource reservation scheme with properties derived from common SDP operation. Performance studies with a prototype showed that this reservation scheme significantly improves the scalability and sustainability of service access in SDPs, at a minor computational cost. With regard to the second area, it is known that the end-to-end quality of Internet services depends crucially on the performance of the home network. Consequently, service providers require the ability to monitor and configure devices in the home network, behind the home gateway (HG). However, they can only put limited requirements to these off-the-shelf devices, as the consumer electronics market is largely outside their span of control. Therefore they have to make intelligent use of the given device control and management protocols. In this work, we propose an architecture for remote discovery and management of devices in a highly heterogeneous home network. A proof-of-concept is developed for the remote management of UPnP devices in the home with a TR-069/UPnP proxy on the HG. Although this architecture is protocol specific, it can be easily adapted to other web-services based protocols. Service providers are also asking for diagnostic tools with which they can remotely troubleshoot the home networks. One of these tools should be able to gather information about the topology of the home network. Although topology discovery protocols already exist, nothing is known yet about their performance. In this work we propose a set of key performance indicators for home network topology discovery architectures, and how they should be measured. We applied them to the Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) protocol and the Link-Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP). Our performance measurement results show that these protocols do not fulfill all the requirements as formulated by the service providers. With regard to the third area, current QoS solutions are mostly based on traffic classification. Because they need to be supported by all devices in the network, they are relatively expensive for home networks. Furthermore, they are not interoperable between different networking technologies. Alternative QoS provision techniques have been proposed in the literature. These techniques require end-user services to pragmatically adapt their properties to the actual condition of the network. For this, the condition of the home network in terms of its available bandwidth, delay, jitter, etc., needs to be known in real time. Appropriate tools for determining the available home network resources do not yet exist. In this work we propose a new method to probe the path capacity and available bandwidth between a server and a client in a home network. The main features of this method are: (a) it does not require adaptation of existing end devices, (b) it does not require pre-knowledge of the link-layer network topology, and (c) it is accurate enough to make reliable QoS predictions for the most relevant home applications. To use these predictions for effective service- or content-adaptation or admission control, one should also know how the state of the home network is expected to change immediately after the current state has been probed. However, not much is known about the stochastic properties of traffic in home networks. Based on a relatively small set of traffic observations in several home networks in the Netherlands, we were able to build a preliminary model for home network traffic dynamics

Feature Papers "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: State of the Art and Future Perspectives"

The "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: States of the Art and Future Perspectives" publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities