Indirect Wayfinding Navigation System for the Elderly

Difficulty in wayfinding is one of the signs of ageing. Different types of people have the same difficulty in navigation including older people, people with mild dementia, mild cognitive impairment, and head injury. These problems do not only impact the person’s life and expose them to different risks, but their caregivers also report personal issues such as depression. This study aims to address this issue by creating a smart phone application called Indirect Wayfinding (IW) that helps affected people and their caregivers by acting as a guide to the elderly person. This paper reviews and summarizes the shortages of the current GPS-based solutions that need to be overcome, and then proposes a solution that mainly uses geofencing technology. This paper outlines the conceptual design, the mobile application, an algorithm to detect the direction of the user, feedback on the design from the caregivers, and an evaluation of the geofencing technology

The Design and Use of a Smartphone Data Collection Tool and Accompanying Configuration Language

Understanding human behaviour is key to understanding the spread of epidemics, habit dispersion, and the efficacy of health interventions. Investigation into the patterns of and drivers for human behaviour has often been facilitated by paper tools such as surveys, journals, and diaries. These tools have drawbacks in that they can be forgotten, go unfilled, and depend on often unreliable human memories. Researcher-driven data collection mechanisms, such as interviews and direct observation, alleviate some of these problems while introducing others, such as bias and observer effects. In response to this, technological means such as special-purpose data collection hardware, wireless sensor networks, and apps for smart devices have been built to collect behavioural data. These technologies further reduce the problems experienced by more traditional behavioural research tools, but often experience problems of reliability, generality, extensibility, and ease of configuration. This document details the construction of a smartphone-based app designed to collect data on human behaviour such that the difficulties of traditional tools are alleviated while still addressing the problems faced by modern supplemental technology. I describe the app's main data collection engine and its construction, architecture, reliability, generality, and extensibility, as well as the programming language developed to configure it and its feature set. To demonstrate the utility of the tool and its configuration language, I describe how they have been used to collect data in the field. Specifically, eleven case studies are presented in which the tool's architecture, flexibility, generality, extensibility, modularity, and ease of configuration have been exploited to facilitate a variety of behavioural monitoring endeavours. I further explain how the engine performs data collection, the major abstractions it employs, how its design and the development techniques used ensure ongoing reliability, and how the engine and its configuration language could be extended in the future to facilitate a greater range of experiments that require behavioural data to be collected. Finally, features and modules of the engine's encompassing system, iEpi, are presented that have not otherwise been documented to give the reader an understanding of where the work fits into the larger data collection and processing endeavour that spawned it

Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems Technologies and Operations

As the quarter-century mark in the 21st Century nears, new aviation-related equipment has come to the forefront, both to help us and to haunt us. (Coutu, 2020) This is particularly the case with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These vehicles have grown in popularity and accessible to everyone. Of different shapes and sizes, they are widely available for purchase at relatively low prices. They have moved from the backyard recreation status to important tools for the military, intelligence agencies, and corporate organizations. New practical applications such as military equipment and weaponry are announced on a regular basis – globally. (Coutu, 2020) Every country seems to be announcing steps forward in this bludgeoning field. In our successful 2nd edition of Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Cyber Domain: Protecting USA’s Advanced Air Assets (Nichols, et al., 2019), the authors addressed three factors influencing UAS phenomena. First, unmanned aircraft technology has seen an economic explosion in production, sales, testing, specialized designs, and friendly / hostile usages of deployed UAS / UAVs / Drones. There is a huge global growing market and entrepreneurs know it. Second, hostile use of UAS is on the forefront of DoD defense and offensive planners. They are especially concerned with SWARM behavior. Movies like “Angel has Fallen,” where drones in a SWARM use facial recognition technology to kill USSS agents protecting POTUS, have built the lore of UAS and brought the problem forefront to DHS. Third, UAS technology was exploding. UAS and Counter- UAS developments in navigation, weapons, surveillance, data transfer, fuel cells, stealth, weight distribution, tactics, GPS / GNSS elements, SCADA protections, privacy invasions, terrorist uses, specialized software, and security protocols has exploded. (Nichols, et al., 2019) Our team has followed / tracked joint ventures between military and corporate entities and specialized labs to build UAS countermeasures. As authors, we felt compelled to address at least the edge of some of the new C-UAS developments. It was clear that we would be lucky if we could cover a few of – the more interesting and priority technology updates – all in the UNCLASSIFIED and OPEN sphere. Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Technologies and Operations is the companion textbook to our 2nd edition. The civilian market is interesting and entrepreneurial, but the military and intelligence markets are of concern because the US does NOT lead the pack in C-UAS technologies. China does. China continues to execute its UAS proliferation along the New Silk Road Sea / Land routes (NSRL). It has maintained a 7% growth in military spending each year to support its buildup. (Nichols, et al., 2019) [Chapter 21]. They continue to innovate and have recently improved a solution for UAS flight endurance issues with the development of advanced hydrogen fuel cell. (Nichols, et al., 2019) Reed and Trubetskoy presented a terrifying map of countries in the Middle East with armed drones and their manufacturing origin. Guess who? China. (A.B. Tabriski & Justin, 2018, December) Our C-UAS textbook has as its primary mission to educate and train resources who will enter the UAS / C-UAS field and trust it will act as a call to arms for military and DHS planners.https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1031/thumbnail.jp

CITIES: Energetic Efficiency, Sustainability; Infrastructures, Energy and the Environment; Mobility and IoT; Governance and Citizenship

This book collects important contributions on smart cities. This book was created in collaboration with the ICSC-CITIES2020, held in San José (Costa Rica) in 2020. This book collects articles on: energetic efficiency and sustainability; infrastructures, energy and the environment; mobility and IoT; governance and citizenship

Unmanned Vehicle Systems & Operations on Air, Sea, Land

Unmanned Vehicle Systems & Operations On Air, Sea, Land is our fourth textbook in a series covering the world of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (CUAS). (Nichols R. K., 2018) (Nichols R. K., et al., 2019) (Nichols R. , et al., 2020)The authors have expanded their purview beyond UAS / CUAS systems. Our title shows our concern for growth and unique cyber security unmanned vehicle technology and operations for unmanned vehicles in all theaters: Air, Sea and Land – especially maritime cybersecurity and China proliferation issues. Topics include: Information Advances, Remote ID, and Extreme Persistence ISR; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles & How They Can Augment Mesonet Weather Tower Data Collection; Tour de Drones for the Discerning Palate; Underwater Autonomous Navigation & other UUV Advances; Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems; UUV Integrated Autonomous Missions & Drone Management; Principles of Naval Architecture Applied to UUV’s; Unmanned Logistics Operating Safely and Efficiently Across Multiple Domains; Chinese Advances in Stealth UAV Penetration Path Planning in Combat Environment; UAS, the Fourth Amendment and Privacy; UV & Disinformation / Misinformation Channels; Chinese UAS Proliferation along New Silk Road Sea / Land Routes; Automaton, AI, Law, Ethics, Crossing the Machine – Human Barrier and Maritime Cybersecurity.Unmanned Vehicle Systems are an integral part of the US national critical infrastructure The authors have endeavored to bring a breadth and quality of information to the reader that is unparalleled in the unclassified sphere. Unmanned Vehicle (UV) Systems & Operations On Air, Sea, Land discusses state-of-the-art technology / issues facing U.S. UV system researchers / designers / manufacturers / testers. We trust our newest look at Unmanned Vehicles in Air, Sea, and Land will enrich our students and readers understanding of the purview of this wonderful technology we call UV.https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1035/thumbnail.jp

Negative space of things: a practice-based research approach to understand the role of objects in the Internet of Things

This is a practice-based research thesis situated in the research context of the ‘Internet of Things’, and critiques contemporary theoretical discourse related to the 21st century turn of connecting everyday objects to the World Wide Web. In the last decade we have seen the ‘Internet of Things’ articulated predominately through three commercial design fictions, each a response to the shift towards pervasive”, “ubiquitous” (Weiser 1991), or “context-ware” (Schilit, 1994) computing; where we inhabit spaces with objects capable of sensing, recording and relaying data about themselves and their environments. Through reflecting upon these existing design fictions, through a new combination of theories and practice-based research that embodies them, this thesis proposes a recovery to understanding the role of objects in the ‘Internet of Things’, which this author believes has been lost since its conception in the mid 2000s. In 2000, HP Labs presented Cooltown, which addressed what HP identified as the ‘convergence of Web technology, wireless networks, and portable client devices provides’. Cooltown’s primary discourse was to provide ‘new design opportunities for computer/communications systems, through an infrastructure to support "web presence" for people, places and things.’ (Anders 1998; Barton & Kindberg 2002). IBM’s Smarter Planet followed this in 2008 and shifted importance from the act of connecting objects to understanding the value of data as it flows between these objects in a network (Castells 1996; Sterling 2005; Latour 2005). Finally, Cisco presented The Internet of Everything in 2012 and moved the argument on one stage further, identifying that the importance of connected objects lies in the sum of their communication across silos of networks, where data can provide potential insight from which you can improve services (Bleecker 2006). Despite these design and theoretical fictions, the affordances of the Internet of Things first proposed in the mid 2000s has regressed from data to product, driven largely by unchanged discourse argued by those designers at its conception and also the enticement of being the next Google acquisition; instead of pigeons reporting on the environmental conditions of a city (Da Costa 2006), we have thermostats controllable from your smartphone (www.scottishpower.co.uk/connect). Therefore the aim of this thesis is to re-examine the initial potential of the Internet of Things, which is tested through a series of design interventions as research for art and design, (produced as part of my EPSRC funded doctoral studies on the Tales of Things and Electronic Memory research project and also whilst employed as a research assistant on two EPSRC funded research programmes of work Sixth Sense Transport, and The Connected High Street), to understand how we use data to allow an alternative discourse to emerge in order to recover the role of a networked object, rather than producing prototypical systems

Recent Advances in Cellular D2D Communications

Device-to-device (D2D) communications have attracted a great deal of attention from researchers in recent years. It is a promising technique for offloading local traffic from cellular base stations by allowing local devices, in physical proximity, to communicate directly with each other. Furthermore, through relaying, D2D is also a promising approach to enhancing service coverage at cell edges or in black spots. However, there are many challenges to realizing the full benefits of D2D. For one, minimizing the interference between legacy cellular and D2D users operating in underlay mode is still an active research issue. With the 5th generation (5G) communication systems expected to be the main data carrier for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) paradigm, the potential role of D2D and its scalability to support massive IoT devices and their machine-centric (as opposed to human-centric) communications need to be investigated. New challenges have also arisen from new enabling technologies for D2D communications, such as non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and blockchain technologies, which call for new solutions to be proposed. This edited book presents a collection of ten chapters, including one review and nine original research works on addressing many of the aforementioned challenges and beyond

Enhanced Living Environments

This open access book was prepared as a Final Publication of the COST Action IC1303 “Algorithms, Architectures and Platforms for Enhanced Living Environments (AAPELE)”. The concept of Enhanced Living Environments (ELE) refers to the area of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) that is more related with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Effective ELE solutions require appropriate ICT algorithms, architectures, platforms, and systems, having in view the advance of science and technology in this area and the development of new and innovative solutions that can provide improvements in the quality of life for people in their homes and can reduce the financial burden on the budgets of the healthcare providers. The aim of this book is to become a state-of-the-art reference, discussing progress made, as well as prompting future directions on theories, practices, standards, and strategies related to the ELE area. The book contains 12 chapters and can serve as a valuable reference for undergraduate students, post-graduate students, educators, faculty members, researchers, engineers, medical doctors, healthcare organizations, insurance companies, and research strategists working in this area

Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Cyber Domain

Unmanned Aircraft Systems are an integral part of the US national critical infrastructure. The authors have endeavored to bring a breadth and quality of information to the reader that is unparalleled in the unclassified sphere. This textbook will fully immerse and engage the reader / student in the cyber-security considerations of this rapidly emerging technology that we know as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). The first edition topics covered National Airspace (NAS) policy issues, information security (INFOSEC), UAS vulnerabilities in key systems (Sense and Avoid / SCADA), navigation and collision avoidance systems, stealth design, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms; weapons systems security; electronic warfare considerations; data-links, jamming, operational vulnerabilities and still-emerging political scenarios that affect US military / commercial decisions. This second edition discusses state-of-the-art technology issues facing US UAS designers. It focuses on counter unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) – especially research designed to mitigate and terminate threats by SWARMS. Topics include high-altitude platforms (HAPS) for wireless communications; C-UAS and large scale threats; acoustic countermeasures against SWARMS and building an Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) acoustic library; updates to the legal / regulatory landscape; UAS proliferation along the Chinese New Silk Road Sea / Land routes; and ethics in this new age of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI).https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1027/thumbnail.jp