Development and Performance Evaluation of a Connected Vehicle Application Development Platform (CVDeP)

Connected vehicle (CV) application developers need a development platform to build, test and debug real-world CV applications, such as safety, mobility, and environmental applications, in edge-centric cyber-physical systems. Our study objective is to develop and evaluate a scalable and secure CV application development platform (CVDeP) that enables application developers to build, test and debug CV applications in realtime. CVDeP ensures that the functional requirements of the CV applications meet the corresponding requirements imposed by the specific applications. We evaluated the efficacy of CVDeP using two CV applications (one safety and one mobility application) and validated them through a field experiment at the Clemson University Connected Vehicle Testbed (CU-CVT). Analyses prove the efficacy of CVDeP, which satisfies the functional requirements (i.e., latency and throughput) of a CV application while maintaining scalability and security of the platform and applications

Synchronization in wireless communications

The last decade has witnessed an immense increase of wireless communications services in order to keep pace with the ever increasing demand for higher data rates combined with higher mobility. To satisfy this demand for higher data rates, the throughput over the existing transmission media had to be increased. Several techniques were proposed to boost up the data rate: multicarrier systems to combat selective fading, ultra wide band (UWB) communications systems to share the spectrum with other users, MIMO transmissions to increase the capacity of wireless links, iteratively decodable codes (e.g., turbo codes and LDPC codes) to improve the quality of the link, cognitive radios, and so forth

The role of urban living labs in a smart city

In a rapidly changing socio-technical environment cities are increasingly seen as main drivers for change. Against this backdrop, this paper studies the emerging Urban Living Lab and Smart City concepts from a project based perspective, by assessing a series of five Smart City initiatives within one local city ecosystem. A conceptual and analytical framework is used to analyse the architecture, nature and outcomes of the Smart City Ghent and the role of Urban Living Labs. The results of our analysis highlight the potential for social value creation and urban transition. However, current Smart City initiatives face the challenge of evolving from demonstrators towards real sustainable value. Furthermore, Smart Cities often have a technological deterministic, project-based approach, which forecloses a sustainable, permanent and growing future for the project outcomes. ‘City-governed’ Urban Living Labs have an interesting potential to overcome some of the identified challenges

Technology and Caregiving: Emerging Interventions and Directions for Research.

An array of technology-based interventions has increasingly become available to support family caregivers, primarily focusing on health and well-being, social isolation, financial, and psychological support. More recently the emergence of new technologies such as mobile and cloud, robotics, connected sensors, virtual/augmented/mixed reality, voice, and the evermore ubiquitous tools supported by advanced data analytics, coupled with the integration of multiple technologies through platform solutions, have opened a new era of technology-enabled interventions that can empower and support family caregivers. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for identifying and addressing the challenges that may need to be overcome to effectively apply technology-enabled solutions for family caregivers. The paper identifies a number of challenges that either moderate or mediate the full use of technologies for the benefit of caregivers. The challenges include issues related to equity, inclusion, and access; ethical concerns related to privacy and security; political and regulatory factors affecting interoperability and lack of standards; inclusive/human-centric design and issues; and inherent economic and distribution channel difficulties. The paper concludes with a summary of research questions and issues that form a framework for global research priorities

What's APPening to news? A mixed-method audience-centred study on mobile news consumption

News is increasingly being consumed on a multitude of media devices, including mobile devices. In recent years, mobile news consumption has permeated individuals’ news consumption repertoires. The main purpose of this study is twofold: (1) gain insight in how mobile news outlets infiltrated the broader news media repertoires of mobile device owners and (2) understand in what circumstances mobile news is consumed within these news media repertoires. The key is to understand how and why this widening agency in appropriating various places and social spaces in everyday life relates to general news media consumption (Peters, 2012). This two-phased study aims to illuminate how mobile device owners position their mobile news consumption in relation to other types of news media outlets. First, a guiding cluster analysis of a large-scale questionnaire (N = 1279) was preformed, indicating three types of news consumers. Second, in order to thicken the originally derived clusters, a mixed-method study was set up, combining objective data originating from mobile device logs with more subjective audience constructions through personal diaries and face-to-face interviews (N = 30). This study reveals the Janus-faced nature of mobile news. On the one hand, the majority of news consumers dominantly relies on traditional media outlets to stay informed, only to supplement with online mobile services in specific circumstances. Even then, there is at least a tendency to stick to trusted brand materials. On the other hand, these mobile news outlets/products do seem to increasingly infiltrate the daily lives of mobile audiences who were previously disengaged with news

The SATIN component system - a metamodel for engineering adaptable mobile systems

Mobile computing devices, such as personal digital assistants and mobile phones, are becoming increasingly popular, smaller, and more capable. We argue that mobile systems should be able to adapt to changing requirements and execution environments. Adaptation requires the ability-to reconfigure the deployed code base on a mobile device. Such reconfiguration is considerably simplified if mobile applications are component-oriented rather than monolithic blocks of code. We present the SATIN (system adaptation targeting integrated networks) component metamodel, a lightweight local component metamodel that offers the flexible use of logical mobility primitives to reconfigure the software system by dynamically transferring code. The metamodel is implemented in the SATIN middleware system, a component-based mobile computing middleware that uses the mobility primitives defined in the metamodel to reconfigure both itself and applications that it hosts. We demonstrate the suitability of SATIN in terms of lightweightedness, flexibility, and reusability for the creation of adaptable mobile systems by using it to implement, port, and evaluate a number of existing and new applications, including an active network platform developed for satellite communication at the European space agency. These applications exhibit different aspects of adaptation and demonstrate the flexibility of the approach and the advantages gaine