From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

Linked Data - the story so far

The term “Linked Data” refers to a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the Web. These best practices have been adopted by an increasing number of data providers over the last three years, leading to the creation of a global data space containing billions of assertions— the Web of Data. In this article, the authors present the concept and technical principles of Linked Data, and situate these within the broader context of related technological developments. They describe progress to date in publishing Linked Data on the Web, review applications that have been developed to exploit the Web of Data, and map out a research agenda for the Linked Data community as it moves forward

Mobile virtual communities for telemedicine: research challenges and opportunities

Today’s mobile devices have become increasingly powerful with enhanced features such as increased CPU power and memory, internet connectivity in multiple ways (multi-homing) and interfacing with external peripheral devices (for instance GPS receiver, medical sensors). The proliferation of these mobile devices combined with an increasing willingness of users to share information available on and around mobile device (e.g. location, user activity) has given rise to Mobile Virtual Communities (MVC). This way, social interaction is now feasible anywhere and anytime. In another paradigm referred to as telemedicine, information and communication technologies are being investigated and employed in areas such as health maintenance and alleviation, cure and prevention of diseases. In general, (mobile) virtual communities have been explored in the telemedicine domain where they were found to be promising in many cases. However, evidence for their effectiveness has yet to be established. With this background and based on our expertise with MVCs and telemedicine, we address a number of aspects including: 1) basic concepts in telemedicine and MVC and analysis of effectiveness and success factors of MVCs in the telemedicine domain; 2) a prototype architecture addressing mobility issues for the MVC in the telemedicine domain; and 3) reflection on the opportunities and research challenges involved in using MVCs in the telemedicine domain

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research

Algorithms for advance bandwidth reservation in media production networks

Media production generally requires many geographically distributed actors (e.g., production houses, broadcasters, advertisers) to exchange huge amounts of raw video and audio data. Traditional distribution techniques, such as dedicated point-to-point optical links, are highly inefficient in terms of installation time and cost. To improve efficiency, shared media production networks that connect all involved actors over a large geographical area, are currently being deployed. The traffic in such networks is often predictable, as the timing and bandwidth requirements of data transfers are generally known hours or even days in advance. As such, the use of advance bandwidth reservation (AR) can greatly increase resource utilization and cost efficiency. In this paper, we propose an Integer Linear Programming formulation of the bandwidth scheduling problem, which takes into account the specific characteristics of media production networks, is presented. Two novel optimization algorithms based on this model are thoroughly evaluated and compared by means of in-depth simulation results

Evaluating Mobile Learning: Reflections on Current Practice

The field of mobile learning is at present characterised by a proliferation of pilots and trials that allow mobile technologies to be tested out in a variety of learning contexts. The sustained deployment of mobile learning will depend on the quality of these pilots and trials, which includes evaluation methodology and reporting. The paper examines current evaluation practice, based on evidence drawn from conference publications, published case studies, and other accounts from the literature. The authors also draw on their work in collecting case studies of mobile learning from a range of recent projects. Issues deserving examination include the apparent objectives of the pilots or trials, the nature of the evaluations, instruments and techniques used, and the analysis and presentation of findings. The paper reflects on the quality of evaluation in mobile learning pilots and trials, in the broader context of evolving practices in the evaluation of educational technologies

Message handling system concepts and services in a land mobile satellite system

A network architecture containing the capabilities offered by the Message Handling System (MHS) to the PRODAT Land Mobile Satellite System (LMSS) is described taking into account the constraints of a preexisting satellite system which is going to become operational. The mapping between MHS services and PRODAT requirements is also reported and shows that the supplied performance can be significantly enhanced to both fixed and mobile users. The impact of the insertion of additional features on the system structure, especially on the centralized control unit, are also addressed

Internet of Things Applications - From Research and Innovation to Market Deployment

The book aims to provide a broad overview of various topics of Internet of Things from the research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies, nanoelectronics, cyber physical systems, architecture, interoperability and industrial applications. It is intended to be a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC – Internet of Things European Research Cluster from technology to international cooperation and the global "state of play".The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European research Cluster on the Internet of Things Strategic Research Agenda and presents global views and state of the art results on the challenges facing the research, development and deployment of IoT at the global level. Internet of Things is creating a revolutionary new paradigm, with opportunities in every industry from Health Care, Pharmaceuticals, Food and Beverage, Agriculture, Computer, Electronics Telecommunications, Automotive, Aeronautics, Transportation Energy and Retail to apply the massive potential of the IoT to achieving real-world solutions. The beneficiaries will include as well semiconductor companies, device and product companies, infrastructure software companies, application software companies, consulting companies, telecommunication and cloud service providers. IoT will create new revenues annually for these stakeholders, and potentially create substantial market share shakeups due to increased technology competition. The IoT will fuel technology innovation by creating the means for machines to communicate many different types of information with one another while contributing in the increased value of information created by the number of interconnections among things and the transformation of the processed information into knowledge shared into the Internet of Everything. The success of IoT depends strongly on enabling technology development, market acceptance and standardization, which provides interoperability, compatibility, reliability, and effective operations on a global scale. The connected devices are part of ecosystems connecting people, processes, data, and things which are communicating in the cloud using the increased storage and computing power and pushing for standardization of communication and metadata. In this context security, privacy, safety, trust have to be address by the product manufacturers through the life cycle of their products from design to the support processes. The IoT developments address the whole IoT spectrum - from devices at the edge to cloud and datacentres on the backend and everything in between, through ecosystems are created by industry, research and application stakeholders that enable real-world use cases to accelerate the Internet of Things and establish open interoperability standards and common architectures for IoT solutions. Enabling technologies such as nanoelectronics, sensors/actuators, cyber-physical systems, intelligent device management, smart gateways, telematics, smart network infrastructure, cloud computing and software technologies will create new products, new services, new interfaces by creating smart environments and smart spaces with applications ranging from Smart Cities, smart transport, buildings, energy, grid, to smart health and life. Technical topics discussed in the book include: • Introduction• Internet of Things Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda• Internet of Things in the industrial context: Time for deployment.• Integration of heterogeneous smart objects, applications and services• Evolution from device to semantic and business interoperability• Software define and virtualization of network resources• Innovation through interoperability and standardisation when everything is connected anytime at anyplace• Dynamic context-aware scalable and trust-based IoT Security, Privacy framework• Federated Cloud service management and the Internet of Things• Internet of Things Application