A Digital Rights Management System based on Cloud

In the current Internet, digital entertainment contents, such as video or audio files, are easily accessible due to the new multimedia technologies and to broadband network connections. This causes considerable economic loss to global media players since digital contents, once legitimately obtained, can be illegitimately shared through file sharing services on the Internet. Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems have been proposed to support the protection of copyrighted digital contents. Even though such systems have been widely adopted and promoted by global media players, they are based on proprietary mechanisms that usually work only in closed, monolithic environments. In this regard, systems based on watermarking technologies appear more suited to protect digital copyrighted content. This paper describes the implementation scheme of a DRM system able to ensure the copyright protection of digital content according to an innovative buyer-friendly watermarking protocol. The DRM system has been implemented by exploiting a cloud environment in order to improve the overall performance of the system. In particular, cloud behaves as a service infrastructural provider, since the content provider involved in the watermarking protocol uses cloud to speed up the watermark embedding process and to save storage and bandwidth costs needed to store and to deliver protected contents

Assisted Navigation Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Actuator and Robot Networks

Wireless Sensor, Actuator and Robot Networks (WSARNs) are made of mobile and static sensor nodes that interact in order to collaboratively perform specific tasks, such as supporting assisted navigation for mobile robotic nodes that carry out requested operations in hostile environments, where the human presence is impracticable. In this regard, it is worth noting that assisted navigation algorithms have a highly dynamic nature, and are implemented by sensor nodes that are characterized by limited transmission power and lean autonomy in terms of computing and memory capacity. This paper presents an improved version of the assisted navigation algorithm based on the concept of “credit field”. The main aim of the proposed algorithm is to reduce and balance the energy consumption among the static sensor nodes when running the algorithm to manage the presence of obstacles and adversary areas, thus extending the lifetime of WSARNs. The algorithm has been tested on a hybrid sensor network that employs Mica2 Motes as static sensor nodes and Lego Mindstorms robots integrated with a Stargate board developed by Crossbow as mobile nodes

Digital Copyright Protection: Focus on Some Relevant Solutions

Copyright protection of digital content is considered a relevant problem of the current Internet since content digitalization and high performance interconnection networks have greatly increased the possibilities to reproduce and distribute digital content. Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems try to prevent the inappropriate or illegal use of copyrighted digital content. They are promoted by the major global media players, but they are also perceived as proprietary solutions that give rise to classic problems of privacy and fair use. On the other hand, watermarking protocols have become a possible solution to the problem of copyright protection. They have evolved during the last decade, and interesting proposals have been designed. This paper first presents current trends concerning the most significant solutions to the problem of copyright protection based on DRM systems and then focuses on the most promising approaches in the field of watermarking protocols. In this regard, the examined protocols are discussed in order to individuate which of them can better represent the right trade-off between opposite goals, such as, for example, security and easy of use, so as to prove that it is possible to implement open solutions compatible with the current web context without resorting to proprietary architectures or impairing the protection of copyrighted digital content

A Deterministic Algorithm for the Deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are made up by communicating sensor nodes that gather and elaborate information from real world in a distributed and coordinated way in order to deliver an intelligent support to human activities. They are used in many fields such as national security, surveillance, health care, biological detection, and environmental monitoring. However, sensor nodes are characterized by limited wireless communication and computing capabilities as well as reduced on-board battery power. Therefore, they have to be carefully deployed in order to cover the areas to be monitored without impairing network lifetime. This paper presents a new deterministic algorithm to solve the coverage problem of well-known areas by means of wireless sensor networks. The proposed algorithm depends on a small set of parameters and can control sensor deployment within areas even in the presence of obstacles. Moreover, the algorithm makes it possible to control the redundancy degree that can be obtained in covering a region of interest so as to achieve a network deployment characterized by a minimum number of wireless sensor nodes

The Building Information Model and the IFC standard: analysis of the characteristics necessary for the acoustic and energy simulation of buildings

The new European Directive 2014/24 / EU requires for all member States the use of BIM procedures in the construction of public buildings. The countries belonging to the European Union shall be obliged to transpose the Directive and adapt their procedures to that effect. The paper analyzes the IFC format, the only recognized by the European Directive Standards for BIM procedures, in order to assess its use for simulations of buildings. IFC, described by the ISO 16739 (2013), is today a standard that describes the topology of the constructive elements of the building and what belongs to it overall. The format includes geometrical information on the room and on all building components, including details of the type for performance (transmittance, fire resistance, sound insulation), in other words it is an independent object file for the software producers to which, according to the European Directive, it will be compulsory to refer in the near future, during the different stages of the life of a building from the design phase, to management and possible demolition at the end of life. The IFC initiative began in 1994, when an industry consortium invested in the development of a set of C ++ classes that can support the development of integrated applications. Twelve US companies joined the consortium: these companies that were included initially are called the consortium "Industry Alliance for Interoperability". In September 1995 the Alliance opened up membership to all interested parties, and in 1997 changed its name to "International Alliance for Interoperability". The new alliance was reconstituted as a non-profit organization, with the aim of developing and promoting the '' Industry Foundation Class "(IFC) as a neutral data model for the building product that were useful to gather information throughout the life cycle of a building facility. Since 2005 the Alliance has been carrying out its activities through its national chapters called SMART building. The present study aims at evaluating the IFC, comparing the information and data contained in it, with other formats already used for energy simulations of buildings such as the gbXML (Green Building XML), highlighting the missing required information and proposing the inclusion of new ones to issue the energy and acoustic simulation. More generally the attention is focused to building physics simulation software devoted to exploit the BIM model potential enabling interoperability

an adaptive neural network model for thermal characterization of building components

Abstract Building materials are usually characterized in stationary or almost-stationary conditions and mono dimensional heat flow regime. The existing standards (such as ISO 9869 or EN ISO 6946, EN 12664, EN 12667, ISO 8302 etc), require experiments carried out in steady-state conditions, with a very fine control of the measuring parameters with the aim to apply a simple and reproducible procedure for the determination of thermal properties. However, the thermodynamic conditions that lead to a steady-state operating mode and mono dimensional flow are very difficult to obtain (in real conditions) or very expensive and time consuming (in climate chambers). In this paper the authors present the development of a method for thermal characterization of building components, inferring the steady-state conditions, when only measures in transient conditions are available. The method, based on an adaptive linear neural network (ALNN) model also could be have the potentialities to determine the thermal diffusivity from a significant transient behavior ad hoc imposed. The study targets multilayered walls homogeneous and the results are compared with the experimental data measured by a climate chamber that operate according to the standard EN 1266

Incidence of the Ventilation Holes and the Mechanical Ventilation Systems of Façade on the Noise Insulation

This study will assess the influence on the acoustic insulation of façade of small elements such as ventilation holes or mechanical ventilation systems. These elements are present to ensure an appropriate air exchange, and they can be with or without heat recovery units. The noise insulation of façade, taking into account such ventilation holes, was evaluated starting from the calculations carried in accordance with the procedures laid down by the standard EN 12354 and performing measurements concerning specific case studies