Near Field Communication: From theory to practice

This book provides the technical essentials, state-of-the-art knowledge, business ecosystem and standards of Near Field Communication (NFC)by NFC Lab - Istanbul research centre which conducts intense research on NFC technology. In this book, the authors present the contemporary research on all aspects of NFC, addressing related security aspects as well as information on various business models. In addition, the book provides comprehensive information a designer needs to design an NFC project, an analyzer needs to analyze requirements of a new NFC based system, and a programmer needs to implement an application. Furthermore, the authors introduce the technical and administrative issues related to NFC technology, standards, and global stakeholders. It also offers comprehensive information as well as use case studies for each NFC operating mode to give the usage idea behind each operating mode thoroughly. Examples of NFC application development are provided using Java technology, and security considerations are discussed in detail. Key Features: Offers a complete understanding of the NFC technology, including standards, technical essentials, operating modes, application development with Java, security and privacy, business ecosystem analysis Provides analysis, design as well as development guidance for professionals from administrative and technical perspectives Discusses methods, techniques and modelling support including UML are demonstrated with real cases Contains case studies such as payment, ticketing, social networking and remote shopping This book will be an invaluable guide for business and ecosystem analysts, project managers, mobile commerce consultants, system and application developers, mobile developers and practitioners. It will also be of interest to researchers, software engineers, computer scientists, information technology specialists including students and graduates.Publisher's Versio

Distributed mobile platforms and applications for intelligent transportation systems

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-75).Smartphones are pervasive, and possess powerful processors, multi-faceted sensing, and multiple radios. However, networked mobile apps still typically use a client-server programming model, sending all shared data queries and uploads through the cellular network, incurring bandwidth consumption and unpredictable latencies. Leveraging the local compute power and device-to-device communications of modern smartphones can mitigate demand on cellular networks and improve response times. This thesis presents two systems towards this vision. First, we present DIPLOMA, which aids developers in achieving this vision by providing a programming layer to easily program a collection of smartphones connected over adhoc wireless. It presents a familiar shared data model to developers, while underneath, it implements a distributed shared memory system that provides coherent relaxed-consistency access to data across different smartphones and addresses the issues that device mobility and unreliable networking pose against consistency and coherence. We evaluated our prototype on 10 Android phones on both 3G (HSPA) and 4G (LTE) networks with a representative location-based photo-sharing service and a synthetic benchmark. We also simulated large scale scenarios up to 160 nodes on the ns-2 network simulator. Compared to a client-server baseline, our system shows response time improvements of 10x over 3G and 2x over 4G. We also observe cellular bandwidth reductions of 96%, comparable energy consumption, and a 95.3% request completion rate with coherent caching. With RoadRunner, we apply our vision to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). RoadRunner implements vehicular congestion control as an in-vehicle smartphone app that judiciously harnesses onboard sensing, local computation, and short-range communications, enabling large-scale traffic congestion control without the need for physical infrastructure, at higher penetration across road networks, and at finer granularity. RoadRunner enforces a quota on the number of cars on a road by requiring vehicles to possess a token for entry. Tokens are circulated and reused among multiple vehicles as they move between regions. We implemented RoadRunner as an Android application, deployed it on 10 vehicles using 4G (LTE), 802.11p DSRC and 802.11n adhoc WiFi, and measured cellular access reductions up to 84%, response time improvements up to 80%, and effectiveness of the system in enforcing congestion control policies. We also simulated large-scale scenarios using actual traffic loop-detector counts from Singapore.by Jason Hao Gao.S.M

Supporting user appropriation of public displays

Despite their prevalence, public engagement with pervasive public displays is typically very low. One method for increasing the relevance of displayed content (and therefore hopefully improving engagement) is to allow the viewer themselves to affect the content shown on displays they encounter – for example, personalising an existing news feed or invoking a specific application on a display of their choosing. We describe this process as viewer appropriation of public displays. This thesis aims to provide the foundations for appropriation support in future ‘open’ pervasive display networks. Our architecture combines three components: Yarely, a scheduler and media player; Tacita, a system for allowing users to make privacy-preserving appropriation requests, and Mercury, an application store for distributing content. Interface points between components support integration with thirdparty systems; a prime example is the provision of Content Descriptor Sets (CDSs) to describe the media items and constraints that determine what is played at each display. Our evaluation of the architecture is both quantitive and qualitative and includes a mixture of user studies, surveys, focus groups, performance measurements and reflections. Overall we show that it is feasible to construct a robust open pervasive display network that supports viewer appropriation. In particular, we show that Yarely’s thick-client approach enables the development of a signage system that provides continuous operation even in periods of network disconnection yet is able to respond to viewer appropriation requests. Furthermore, we show that CDSs can be used as an effective means of information exchange in an open architecture. Performance measures indicate that demanding personalisation scenarios can be satisfied, and our qualitative work indicates that both display owners and viewers are positive about the introduction of appropriation into future pervasive display systems

Adaptive Image Classification on Mobile Phones

The advent of high-performance mobile phones has opened up the opportunity to develop new context-aware applications for everyday life. In particular, applications for context-aware information retrieval in conjunction with image-based object recognition have become a focal area of recent research. In this thesis we introduce an adaptive mobile museum guidance system that allows visitors in a museum to identify exhibits by taking a picture with their mobile phone. Besides approaches to object recognition, we present different adaptation techniques that improve classification performance. After providing a comprehensive background of context-aware mobile information systems in general, we present an on-device object recognition algorithm and show how its classification performance can be improved by capturing multiple images of a single exhibit. To accomplish this, we combine the classification results of the individual pictures and consider the perspective relations among the retrieved database images. In order to identify multiple exhibits in pictures we present an approach that uses the spatial relationships among the objects in images. They make it possible to infer and validate the locations of undetected objects relative to the detected ones and additionally improve classification performance. To cope with environmental influences, we introduce an adaptation technique that establishes ad-hoc wireless networks among the visitors’ mobile devices to exchange classification data. This ensures constant classification rates under varying illumination levels and changing object placement. Finally, in addition to localization using RF-technology, we present an adaptation technique that uses user-generated spatio-temporal pathway data for person movement prediction. Based on the history of previously visited exhibits, the algorithm determines possible future locations and incorporates these predictions into the object classification process. This increases classification performance and offers benefits comparable to traditional localization approaches but without the need for additional hardware. Through multiple field studies and laboratory experiments we demonstrate the benefits of each approach and show how they influence the overall classification rate.Die Einführung von Mobiltelefonen mit eingebauten Sensoren wie Kameras, GPS oder Beschleunigungssensoren, sowie Kommunikationstechniken wie Bluetooth oder WLAN ermöglicht die Entwicklung neuer kontextsensitiver Anwendungen für das tägliche Leben. Insbesondere Applikationen im Bereich kontextsensitiver Informationsbeschaffung in Verbindung mit bildbasierter Objekterkennung sind in den Fokus der aktuellen Forschung geraten. Der Beitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung eines bildbasierten, mobilen Museumsführersystems, welches unterschiedliche Adaptionstechniken verwendet, um die Objekterkennung zu verbessern. Es wird gezeigt, wie Ojekterkennungsalgorithmen auf Mobiltelefonen realisiert werden können und wie die Erkennungsrate verbessert wird, indem man zum Beispiel ad-hoc Netzwerke einsetzt oder Bewegungsvorhersagen von Personen berücksichtigt

2nd Symposium on Management of Future motorway and urban Traffic Systems (MFTS 2018): Booklet of abstracts: Ispra, 11-12 June 2018

The Symposium focuses on future traffic management systems, covering the subjects of traffic control, estimation, and modelling of motorway and urban networks, with particular emphasis on the presence of advanced vehicle communication and automation technologies. As connectivity and automation are being progressively introduced in our transport and mobility systems, there is indeed a growing need to understand the implications and opportunities for an enhanced traffic management as well as to identify innovative ways and tools to optimise traffic efficiency. In particular the debate on centralised versus decentralised traffic management in the presence of connected and automated vehicles has started attracting the attention of the research community. In this context, the Symposium provides a remarkable opportunity to share novel ideas and discuss future research directions.JRC.C.4-Sustainable Transpor

In touch out in the field. Coalescence and interactive innovation of technology for mobile work.

Today, more than 90% of Britons own a mobile phone handset. Yet, the popularity of mobile telephony is a fairly recent phenomenon, with the first mobile phone call in the UK made only 21 years ago. Mobile technology has come a long way since the first mobile call that was made from St Katherine's dock to Vodafone's head office in Newbury. Many interesting mobile computing technologies have surfaced, including pagers, laptop computers, tablet PCs and Blackberries, constantly offering altogether new communicative acts to mobile workers. Innovation of mobile information systems, too, has changed quite dramatically over this time period. What was once an industry marked by low competition and high profit margins for devices developed purely by Research and Development departments now increasingly involves, even requires, the interaction with users for the innovation of new mobile devices in highly competitive environments. Despite the increasing popularity of mobile technologies, the concept of mobility and the innovation of mobile information systems remain largely unexplored. This study takes up the challenge to examine how innovation of mobile technology unfolds today. With this focus, this research explores the relationships between innovators of technology for mobile work and its users. It departs from the prevalent product- oriented view of innovation and treats technology in the making as a conscious human activity, made possible through the trinity of innovator companies, their organisational clients as innovation partners and their particular mobile workers as end users of the technology. This study examines the complex interaction and coalescence of these parties as shaped by their respective organisational activities, their unique motives for cooperation with one another, their use of technology and their relationship to the geographical mobility and distribution of work. From the outset, this study was committed to providing a rigorous examination grounded in actual work. As an Action Researcher, I was very fortunate to be invited to follow the innovation and development of a fundamentally new mobile information system, based on the convergence of mobile telephony and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. The empirical work and theoretical analysis emphasised the epistemological differences among innovation participants and unearthed many complications that shape how interactive innovation of technology for mobile work unfolds. Moreover, the analysis of the empirical work led to the conceptual difference between mobility and pervasiveness of work as it pertains to innovation. It revealed Individual Pervasiveness, or the extent to which an individual's technology is aware of its immediate context and communicates details of its bearer and his behaviour. It also uncovered a Pervasive Order, imposed from superior to mobile worker and made possible in this case through mobile RFID. Together, these two concepts fundamentally change the information flow within mobile work activities. The trajectory from mobility to pervasiveness dramatically reshapes the activities of mobile workers and their superiors and, thus, the activity of interactive innovation of technology for mobile work

The appraisal of Facebook online community: An exposition of mobile commerce in social media reviews

Peer reviewe

Programming sensor networks with nomadic NFC transponders

Abstract We present how NFC transponders can be used for energy efficient programming of closed-loop sensor networks, to update or augment the existing functionality. Use cases include road tunnel inspection, water pipeline monitoring and maintaining safety information on behalf of mine workers. We utilize opportunistic movement of the human operator, the flow of fluid in a pipeline or material in mines, to move the NFC transponder in the system effortlessly and without external network connectivity. Transponders contain mobile agents in their memory, which are injected into the system when transponder comes to the proximity of a node with NFC reader component. Then mobile agents autonomously operate their tasks, i.e. collect and process sensor data in the devices, detect events from data, control physical components and report their results. Mobile agents can adapt to the operational conditions of the system and physical environment, e.g. to save energy or operate in isolated network segments in fault situations. Real-world evaluation shows that this method is energy efficient in comparison with communications atop similar wireless sensor network

Programming sensor networks with nomadic NFC transponders

We present how NFC transponders can be used for energy efficient programming of closed-loop sensor networks, to update or augment the existing functionality. Use cases include road tunnel inspection, water pipeline monitoring and maintaining safety information on behalf of mine workers. We utilize opportunistic movement of the human operator, the flow of fluid in a pipeline or material in mines, to move the NFC transponder in the system effortlessly and without external network connectivity. Transponders contain mobile agents in their memory, which are injected into the system when transponder comes to the proximity of a node with NFC reader component. Then mobile agents autonomously operate their tasks, i.e. collect and process sensor data in the devices, detect events from data, control physical components and report their results. Mobile agents can adapt to the operational conditions of the system and physical environment, e.g. to save energy or operate in isolated network segments in fault situations. Real-world evaluation shows that this method is energy efficient in comparison with communications atop similar wireless sensor network

Information Management in Supply Chain Partnering: Improving Maintenance Processes in Dutch Housing Associations

From the article: "Abstract Maintenance processes of Dutch housing associations are often still organized in a traditional manner. Contracts are based on lowest price instead of ‘best quality for lowest price’ considering users’ demands. Dutch housing associations acknowledge the need to improve their maintenance processes in order to lower maintenance cost, but are not sure how. In this research, this problem is addressed by investigating different supply chain partnering principles and the role of information management. The main question is “How can the organisation of maintenance processes of Dutch housing associations, in different supply chain partnering principles and the related information management, be improved?” The answer is sought through case study research.