SOS Message Distribution for Searching Disaster Victims

This chapter presents the design and implementation of the SOSCast application which enables SOS message distribution for searching victims in a disaster-damaged area. During catastrophic disasters such an earthquake or tsunami, people may be injured or trapped in fallen buildings and debris. In situations like these, it is critical that rescue operations must be done within the first 72 h to save many lives. It is also during these events where communication infrastructures are severely damaged, and thus, makes it difficult for victims to ask for help due to the absence of communication channels. By using the SOSCast application in such scenario, victims are able to exchange SOS messages automatically by communicating directly among smartphones with less operation. By collecting these SOS messages, rescuers can find the existences of the victims as mapped on their smartphones. We have shown in our preliminary experiment within a residential area that SOSCast is capable of determining the existence of a propagator based on the collected SOS messages

Calibration of Smartphone-Based Weather Measurements Using Pairwise Gossip

Accurate and reliable daily global weather reports are necessary for weather forecasting and climate analysis. However, the availability of these reports continues to decline due to the lack of economic support and policies in maintaining ground weather measurement systems from where these reports are obtained. Thus, to mitigate data scarcity, it is required to utilize weather information from existing sensors and built-in smartphone sensors. However, as smartphone usage often varies according to human activity, it is difficult to obtain accurate measurement data. In this paper, we present a heuristic-based pairwise gossip algorithm that will calibrate smartphone-based pressure sensors with respect to fixed weather stations as our referential ground truth. Based on actual measurements, we have verified that smartphone-based readings are unstable when observed during movement. Using our calibration algorithm on actual smartphone-based pressure readings, the updated values were significantly closer to the ground truth values

ハッサイ ゼンゴ ノ キンキュウ ジタイ カンリ ノ タメ ノ モバイル ツウシン ト センシング ニ カンスル ケンキュウ

博第1314号甲第1314号博士(工学)奈良先端科学技術大学院大

Calibration of Smartphone-Based Weather Measurements Using Pairwise Gossip

Accurate and reliable daily global weather reports are necessary for weather forecasting and climate analysis. However, the availability of these reports continues to decline due to the lack of economic support and policies in maintaining ground weather measurement systems from where these reports are obtained. Thus, to mitigate data scarcity, it is required to utilize weather information from existing sensors and built-in smartphone sensors. However, as smartphone usage often varies according to human activity, it is difficult to obtain accurate measurement data. In this paper, we present a heuristic-based pairwise gossip algorithm that will calibrate smartphone-based pressure sensors with respect to fixed weather stations as our referential ground truth. Based on actual measurements, we have verified that smartphone-based readings are unstable when observed during movement. Using our calibration algorithm on actual smartphone-based pressure readings, the updated values were significantly closer to the ground truth values