A DHCP-based IP address autoconfiguration for MANETs

Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) are expected to become more and more important in the upcoming years, playing a significant role in 4G networks. In order to enable the deployment of IP services in such networks, IP address autoconfiguration mechanisms are required. Although the ad hoc topic has been a very intense research area, with a plethora of published papers about routing, there is a lack of proposals of address autoconfiguration with enough support from the technical community. This paper presents a mechanism suited for MANETs connected to the Internet, reusing existing and widely deployed address autoconfiguration protocols, such as DHCPv6 and Router Advertisements

Performance tuning of a smartphone-based overtaking assistant

ITS solutions suffer from the slow pace of adoption by manufacturers despite the interest shown by both consumers and industry. Our goal is to develop ITS applications using already available technologies to make them affordable, quick to deploy, and easy to adopt. In this paper we introduce EYES, an overtaking assistance solution that provides drivers with a real-time video feed from the vehicle located just in front. Our application thus provides a better view of the road ahead, and of any vehicles travelling in the opposite direction, being especially useful when the front view of the driver is blocked by large vehicles. We evaluated our application using the MJPEG video encoding format, and have determined the most effective resolution and JPEG quality choice for our case. Experimental results from the tests performed with the application in both indoor and outdoor scenarios, allow us to be optimistic about the effectiveness and applicability of smartphones in providing overtaking assistance based on video streaming in vehicular networks

Approach to climatophilous vegetation series of Serra da Estrela (Portugal)

This work contains the study results of climatophilous vegetation series from Serra da Estrela, the highest mountain on the Portuguese mainland. Located in central-northern Portugal in the Estrelensean Sector (Carpetan-Leonese Subprovince), the Serra da Estrela has several bioclimatic stages, mainly resulting from slope and altitude ranges: mesomediterranean, submediterranean mesotemperate, supramediterranean, submediterranean supratemperate, and submediterranean orotemperate. In each of these belts are observed changes in plant communities that determine variations in terms of the vegetation series. The methodology was based on Dynamic-Catenal Phytosociology. The results show the presence of five climatophilous series; their structural characteristics and dynamics are described in this paper: 1. Lycopodio clavati–Junipereto nani S.; 2. Saxifrago spathularis–Betuleto celtibericae S.; 3. Holco mollis–Querco pyrenaicae S.; 4. Arbuto–Querco pyrenaicae cytisetoso grandiflori S.; e 5. Viburno tini–Querco roboris S

Determining the relative position of vehicles considering bidirectional traffic scenarios in VANETS

Researchers pertaining to both academia and industry have shown strong interest in developing and improving the existing critical ITS solutions. In some of the existing solutions, specially the ones that aim at providing context aware services, the knowledge of relative positioning of one node by other nodes becomes crucial. In this paper we explore, apart from the conventional use of GPS data, the applicability of image processing to aid in determining the relative positions of nodes in a vehicular network. Experiments conducted show that both the use of location information and image processing works well and can be deployed depending on the requirement of the application. Our experiments show that the results that used location information were affected by GPS errors, while the use of image processing, although producing more accurate results, require significantly more processing power

A novel on-board Unit to accelerate the penetration of ITS services

In-vehicle connectivity has experienced a big expansion in recent years. Car manufacturers have mainly proposed OBU-based solutions, but these solutions do not take full advantage of the opportunities of inter-vehicle peer-to-peer communications. In this paper we introduce GRCBox, a novel architecture that allows OEM user-devices to directly communicate when located in neighboring vehicles. In this paper we also describe EYES, an application we developed to illustrate the type of novel applications that can be implemented on top of the GRCBox. EYES is an ITS overtaking assistance system that provides the driver with real-time video fed from the vehicle located in front. Finally, we evaluated the GRCbox and the EYES application and showed that, for device-to-device communication, the performance of the GRCBox architecture is comparable to an infrastructure network, introducing a negligible impact

EYES : a novel overtaking assistance system for vehicular networks

Developments in the ITS area are received with great expectation by both consumers and industry. Despite their huge potential benefits, ITS solutions suffer from the slow pace of adoption by manufacturers. In this paper we propose EYES, an ITS system that aims at helping drivers in overtaking. The system autonomously creates a network of the devices running EYES, and provides drivers with a video feed from the vehicle located just ahead, thus presenting a better view of any vehicles coming from the opposite direction and the road ahead. This is specially useful when the front view of the driver is blocked by large vehicles, and thus the decision whether to overtake can be taken based on the visuals provided by the application. We have validated EYES, the proposed overtaking assistance system, in both indoor and realistic scenarios involving vehicular network, and preliminary results allow being optimistic about its effectiveness and applicability

Messiah: An ITS drive safety application

This article describes a novel safety application based on the open source navigation software OsmAnd, which runs on the Android platform. The application offers vehicles with "smart navigation", and maintains a network of the vehicles that use our application. The process of network creation and maintenance is important as our application enables vehicles to communicate with one another to exchange useful information. The main function of the application is to inform vehicles of relevant vehicles approaching, termed as "administrative vehicles" in this article, and include ambulances, police cars and fire brigades. Based on the received information, our application notifies the driver, who can now take navigation decisions based on it. While developing the application, problems were found when attempting to create an Ad-hoc network. A solution to the problem of managing the Ad-hoc network has been proposed and is under development

La maja maldita: Late Portrait of a Femme Fatale

Este artículo analiza la pintura La maja maldita (1918) de Federico Beltrán Massés y la vincula al soneto que le dedicó el poeta Armand Godoy en 1926. El análisis da cabida al contexto sociocultural de ambas obras y a la recepción crítica y popular de uno de los artistas más significativos del art déco español.This article analyses La maja maldita (1918), a painting by Federico Beltrán Massés, and relates the pictorial work to a sonnet that Armand Godoy wrote under its inspiration. The study reflects the social and cultural context of both works, and researches into the critical reception of one of Spanish art déco’s most prominent artists