Field test of multi-hop image sensing network prototype on a city-wide scale

Open Access funded by Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommuniocations Under a Creative Commons license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Wireless multimedia sensor network drastically stretches the horizon of traditional monitoring and surveillance systems, of which most existing research have utilised Zigbee or WiFi as the communication technology. Both technologies use ultra high frequencies (mainly 2.4 GHz) and suffer from relatively short transmission range (i.e. 100 m line-of-sight). The objective of this paper is to assess the feasibility and potential of transmitting image information using RF modules with lower frequencies (e.g. 433 MHz) in order to achieve a larger scale deployment such as a city scenario. Arduino platform is used for its low cost and simplicity. The details of hardware properties are elaborated in the article, followed by an investigation of optimum configurations for the system. Upon an initial range testing outcome of over 2000 m line-of-sight transmission distance, the prototype network has been installed in a real life city plot for further examination of performance. A range of suitable applications has been proposed along with suggestions for future research.Peer reviewe

Formal Specification and Testing of a Management Architecture

The importance of network and distributed systems management to supply and maintain services required by users has led to a demand for management facilities. Open network management is assisted by representing the system resources to be managed as objects, and providing standard services and protocols for interrogating and manipulating these objects. This paper examines the application of formal description techniques to the specification of managed objects by presenting a case study in the specification and testing of a management architecture. We describe a formal specification of a management architecture suitable for scheduling and distributing services across nodes in a distributed system. In addition, we show how formal specifications can be used to generate conformance tests for the management architecture

Study of the Materials Microstructure using Topological Properties of Complex Networks

A method for mapping a two-dimensional color image of the microstructure of the material to a complex network is proposed. Each image elements is assigned to node network. A weighted combination of distance metrics - the Euclidean distance and the Manhattan distance - defines whether there is or not an edge between corresponding nodes. The first metric is used to calculate the spatial distance between the picture elements (pixels), the second metric takes into account the contrast between the brightness of pixels in the gray scale. On the basis of the topological properties of the constructed network the edge pixels were detected that allows us to identify the border areas in the microstructure of materials. The proposed method can be used in automated systems of materialographic analysis

Barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe

The Eurobarometer Survey of the <i>EAPC Task Force on the Development of Palliative Care in Europe</i> is part of a programme of work to produce comprehensive information on the provision of palliative care across Europe. Aim: To identify barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe. Method: A qualitative survey was undertaken amongst boards of national associations, eliciting opinions on opportunities for, and barriers to, palliative care development. By July 2006, 44/52 (85%) European countries had responded to the survey; we report here on the results from 22/25 (88%) countries in Western Europe. Analysis: Data from the Eurobarometer survey were analysed thematically by geographical region and by the degree of development of palliative care in each country. Results: From the data contained within the Eurobarometer, we identified six significant barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe: (i) Lack of palliative care education and training programmes (ii) Lack of awareness and recognition of palliative care (iii) Limited availability of/knowledge about opioid analgesics (iv) Limited funding (v) Lack of coordination amongst services (vi) Uneven palliative care coverage. Conclusion: Findings from the EAPC Eurobarometer survey suggest that barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe may differ substantially from each other in both their scope and context and that some may be considered to be of greater significance than others. A number of common barriers to the development of the discipline do exist and much work still remains to be done in the identified areas. This paper provides a road map of which barriers need to be addressed

Opportunities and enabling technologies for 5G and beyond-5G spectrum sharing

In this paper an overview is given of the current status of 5G industry standards, spectrum allocation, and use cases, followed by initial investigations of new opportunities for spectrum sharing in 5G and the underlying technologies to enable efficient sharing, considering both licensed and unlicensed scenarios and spectrum both below 6 GHz and in the millimeter-wave frequency range

Multimode Monitoring of Oxy-gas Combustion through Flame Imaging, Principal Component Analysis and Kernel Support Vector Machine

This paper presents a method for the multimode monitoring of combustion stability under different oxy-gas fired conditions based on flame imaging, principal component analysis and kernel support vector machine (PCA-KSVM) techniques. The images of oxy-gas flames are segmented into premixed and diffused regions through Watershed Transform method. The weighted color and texture features of the diffused and premixed regions are extracted and projected into two subspaces using the PCA to reduce the data dimensions and noises. The multi-class KSVM model is finally built based on the flame features in the principal component subspace to identify the operation condition. Two classic multivariate statistic indices, i.e. Hotelling’s T2 and squared prediction error (SPE), are used to assess the normal and abnormal states for the corresponding operation condition. The experimental results obtained on a lab-scale oxy-gas rig show that the weighted color and texture features of the defined diffused and premixed regions are effective for detecting the combustion state and that the proposed PCA-KSVM model is feasible and effective to monitor a combustion process under variable operation conditions