Embedded interactive systems: back to the real world

Smart Things are commonly understood as wireless ad-hoc networked, mobile, autonomous, special purpose computing appliances, usually interacting with their environment implicitly via a variety of sensors on the input side and actuators on the output side. Such smart appliances have started to populate the with hidden or services, thus building up an of associated with real world objects. With the embedding of invisible technology into everyday things, however, also the intuitive perception of services disappears. We believe that it has potential advantages to support the perception of smart appliance via novel interactive visual experiences. For this purpose we have developed and built DigiScope, a see-through based visual real time perception system for worlds to support interactive theater experience in mixed reality spaces. A case study is presented that demonstrates the use of DigiScope to percept the services of our smart Internet appliance SmartCase. Opposed to previous work on mixed reality based augmentation of reality, the DigiScope approach allows for a multiuser, collaborative real time perceptual experience.

As a significant ecological corridor from west to east across China, the Yangtze River Economical Belt (YREB) is in great need of green development and transformation. Rather than only focusing on the overall growth of green productivity, it is important to identify whether the technical change is biased towards economic performance or green performance in promoting green productivity. By employing the biased technical change theory and Malmquist index decomposition method, we analyze the green biased technical change in terms of industrial water resources in YREB at the output side and the input side respectively. We find that the green biased technical change varies during 2006–2015 at both the input side and output side in YREB. At the input side, water-saving biased technical change is generally dominant compared to water-using biased technical change during 2006–2015, presenting the substitution effects of non-water production factors. At the output side, the economy-growth biased technical change is the main force to promote green productivity, whereas the role of water-conservation biased technical change is insufficient. The green performance at the output side needs to be strengthened compared to the economic performance in YREB. A series of water-related environmental policies introduced in China since 2008 have promoted the green biased technical change both at the input side and the output side in YREB, but the policy effects at the output side is still inadequate compared to that at the input side. The technological innovation in sewage treatment and control need to catch up with the economic growth in YREB. Our research gives insights to enable a deeper understanding of the green biased technical change in YREB and will benefit more focused policy-making of green innovation.

ZigBee is popular for Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) devices because of its low power consumption, built-in security method and ratified specifications. With these features, it is also suitable to be used with medical sensor devices. Medical sensors in a human body self organize a ZigBee Personal Area Network (PAN). These PANs are interconnected and form a HealthNet. For the interconnection, a ZigBee PAN detects existence of another PAN with beacon detection or active channel scan. Different ZigBee interconnection schemes are used after detection. PAN bridge method uses special bridge node that works for different PANs with time division method. PAN merge method temporarily changes PAN coordinator's role as bridge node and merges two PANs. Peer-to-peer network temporarily share all resources when two PANs are met, but all PANs have to use the same channel and operate as an ad-hoc network. In this paper, we perform extensive evaluations using NS-2 simulations to compare PAN interconnection methods. Results show that the PAN bridge is the most useful method because it is not affected by router/node ratio and is applicable to different channel usages.

The wireless optical communication is a kind of broadband access technology, it can be said that it properly combined with the optical fiber and wireless communication technology. More to say, it is a powerful supplement of modern optical fiber communication. In this paper, based on the advantages of wireless optical communication technology, this paper introduces the wireless optical communication technology in the application of 2G network, 3G network and extends the application in backbone network, and analyzes the common problems and solutions in the wireless optical communication. With the advance of technology, the wireless optical communications technology development prospects will be more and more broad, is worthy of popularization and application.

The interconnection of all things and industrial integration is the current trend of the times. Among them, the interconnection of all things is the demand of informationization of the times, and the industrial integration is the demand of industrial development. The interconnection of all things is realized based on wireless communication technology. It is necessary to combine the development of the tourist area and the surrounding culture. The relationship between tourist attractions and culture needs to be fully and effectively developed. In order to fully explore the advantages of the cooperation between the two, it is necessary to combine modern technology to package the tour process of each characteristic culture of the scenic spot. Virtual reality is a modern technology that can combine culture and tourism. Wireless communication and VR technology are applied to the development of integration of culture and tourism. The process of tourism will promote profound changes in the tourism model. Under the demand for informatization in various industries, the tourism industry is gradually developing in this direction. The integration of culture and tourism will also be driven by informatization and technology. This paper analyzes the current situation of culture and tourism, summarizes the problems existing in the current process of integration of culture and tourism, and finally puts forward targeted solutions. Mainly in the process of the integration and development of tourism and cultural industries, the traditional culture and scenic spots are the basic factors, combined with wireless communication and virtual reality technology, to develop a tourism industry with technological characteristics of the new era.

The present paper studies the performance of a high-speed third-generation (3.5G) networking technology (Enhanced Uplink), in collaboration with well known personal area networks (i.e. Zigbee and Bluetooth) and wireless local area network (WLAN) technology, for delivering pervasive healthcare applications. The association of personal and local area networks along with the 3.5G network is a critical factor for successful development of pervasive e-health services perceived by end-users. In this paper, we propose a methodology for performance assessment based on the joint uplink transmission of voice, real-time video and biomedical data, such us electrocardiogram, vital signals and heart sounds. Various scenarios were concerned for point of care applications in real-time and near-real-time modes and in random locations, where no other system but 3.5G is available. The accomplishment of quality of service (QoS) was explored through the delay and the jitter of the networks' parameters, attributing the joint network system for best performance in the context of the desired e-health services.

Three main factors are crucial for determining the relationship between direct democracy and minority protection in Hungary: first, the ethnic composition of the country; second, the Hungarian minorities living in the neighbouring countries; and third, the quality of the new democratic system installed in 1990. Viewing these elements together, it becomes clear that minority protection in the context of Hungarian direct democracy does not primarily concern ethnic minorities, but rather the political minorities, i.e. the opposition. Hungarian direct democracy is embedded in a predominantly representative constitutional system, which seeks to ensure parliamentary supremacy, democracy and the rule of law. In this system national minorities are protected through individual and collective rights. The protection of political minorities, however, results from the interplay of the different elements of the overall system of political decision-making, which regulates the interaction between direct and representative democracy: There are mechanisms for safeguarding the rights of the political minorities on both the input and output sides of the referendum process. On the input side, the National Election Committee plays the role of the foremost gatekeeper. It has to decide on the admissibility of the referendum questions. On the output side there are two kinds of safeguards, the first group relating to the principles of parliamentarianism, by which procedural rights are granted to the opposition, the second to the legal protection of rights by the Constitutional Court, which plays the role of a guardian of last resort of the rule of law on the output side.

The fifth generation (5G) wireless systems have been begun to be widely deployed over the world in recent years. As the 5G technology will not be able to meet the demands of the huge data traffic growth from massively interconnected devices that is forecasted for future years, the attention of the research community is shifting toward what will be the next innovations in wireless communication architectures and technologies for beyond 5G. The topic of beyond 5G wireless communication technologies has gained much momentum in the industry and the research community very recently. In this issue of IEEE Wireless Communications, we are pleased to present two Special Issues to bring together researchers, industry practitioners, and individuals working on the related areas to address some of these technical challenges for 5G and beyond wireless communication technologies. The Special Issue on “6G: The Paradigm for Future Wireless Communications” includes a collection of nine articles presented by Guest Editors S. Mumtaz, C. Jiang, A. Tölli, A. Al-Dulaimi, M. Butt, H. M. Asif, and I. Ashraf; the other Special Issue, on “Smart, Optimal, and Explainable Orchestration of Network Slices in 5G and Beyond Networks,” includes a collection of five articles presented by Guest Editors Z. M. Fadlullah, M. M. Fouda, K. Rabie, and R. Li. Thanks to the two Guest Editor teams who did an excellent job in editing these two Special Issues for our readers. Please stay tuned for new developments in the research area of beyond 5G wireless communication technologies, and read the editorials and the articles in the Special Issues.

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) have been attracting increasing interest for supporting a new generation of ubiquitous computing systems with great potential for many applications. However, the communication paradigms in WSNs differ from the ones associated to traditional wireless networks, triggering the need for efficient wireless communication technology. Several wireless technologies have emerged ranging from short and medium distance. Bluetooth, ZigBee and Impulse Radio Ultra Wide Band (IR-UWB) are three popular short range wireless communications. Due to its various features and advantages (especially low power consumption and low complexity), IR-UWB is a very promising wireless communication technology for WSN. In this paper, we evaluate the main features and advantages of this new technology (IR-UWB) for WSN in terms of transmission time, data coding and power consumption compared to Bluetooth and ZigBee. To analyze and evaluate the main features and advantages of IR-UWB as an efficient short range wireless communication technology for WSN, we used MiXiM platform under OMNet++ simulator.

Access to general purpose information and communication technology (ICT) is not equally distributed on our planet: developed countries represent about 70% of all Internet users, while its percentage of Internet hosts has raised from 90% in 2000 to about 99% in 2002. Things change dramatically if we look at mobile and wireless technology: developing countries already represent about 40% of mobile connections in 2000, with a foreseen growth rate that is faster in developing countries than in developed ones in the period 2000-2005 (mainly due to India and the People’s Republic of China). This trend is driven by the new perspectives offered by mobile electronic technology applications that provide an alternative to poor telecommunication infrastructures still common in many developing countries. The technological evolution in wireless data communications is introducing a rich landscape of new services relying on three main technologies: • proximity (or personal) area networks (PANs), composed of personal and wearable devices capable of automatically setting up transient communication environments (also known as ad hoc networks); • wireless local area network technologies (WLANs); and • a third generation of mobile telecommunications (3G), gradually replacing General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and the related set of technologies collectively called “2.5 Generation” (2.5G). PAN is a new technology bringing the “always connected” principle to the personal space. On the other hand, 3G systems and WLANs have coexisted for a while; what is new is their interconnection, aimed at decoupling terminals and applications from the access method. 3G mobile networks already provide video-capable bandwidth, global roaming for voice and data, and access to Internet-rich online content. Thanks to their increasing integration, PANs, WLANs, and 3G networks will extend the user’s connectivity in a complementary and hierarchical manner; in the fullness of time, they will provide all the functionalities of an Integrated Services Multimedia Network (ISMN), enabling a whole set of new business models and applications. The fusion of these technologies will eventually result in an ultimate ubiquitous wireless system that will be operated from anywhere, including homes, business locations, vehicles, and even commercial aircrafts. However, although wireless communications provide great flexibility and mobility, they often come at the expense of security. Indeed, wireless communications rely on open and public transmission media that expose new vulnerabilities in addition to the security threats found in wired networks. A number of specific open issues and even inherent dangers, some of which had been already identified and described in the early stages of wireless technology adoption, are yet to be solved (Howard, 2000). For instance, with wireless communications, important and vital information is often placed on a mobile device that is vulnerable to theft and loss. In addition, information is transmitted over the unprotected airwaves, and finally, 3G networks are getting smaller and more numerous, causing opportunities for hackers and other abusers to increase.

The year 2005 witnesses the third occasion that the Wireless Personal Area and Ad-hoc Networks minitrack is part of the annual HICSS conference. This year there was a substantial increase in submissions (thus a substantial decrease in the acceptance rate), indicating the growing importance of research in this area. The minitrack is also focused on fundamental challenges and issues arising in wireless sensor networks and their applications. Wireless sensor networks differ from other wireless networks in the need for unattended and very low-energy operation, in the possibility of collaboration and distributed sensor calibration, and in the mission oriented nature of most sensor networks. Thus our mini track looks at two very important streams of research. After a strict review process nine papers were selected to be included in the program of the minitrack. The first paper is titled “BT-Crowds: Crowds-style Anonymity with Bluetooth and Java,” presenting an interesting idea on how anonymity can be achieved when sending messages in WPAN environments. Our second paper revisits scatternet formation issues of Bluetooth based ad hoc networks thus the title: “A Dynamic and Distributed Scatternet Formation Protocol for Real-life Bluetooth Scatternets.” The third paper is titled “Secure Dynamic Source Routing” and presents a new variant of the DSR routing protocol with special emphasis on security. In the fourth paper, the discussion concerns “Routing Based Feedback towards Applications in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks,” where routing notifications are relayed via event channels. “A Location Service Mechanism for Position-Based Multicasting in Wireless Mobile Ad hoc Networks” is the title of the fifth paper in the minitrack. It presents some innovative ideas on how location information can be managed for multicast communications in ad-hoc networks. In the sixth paper, “Sliding Window Protocol for Secure Group Communication in Ad Hoc Networks,” the authors propose a sliding window protocol for determining multiple routes in a multi-communications environment. In the seventh paper titled “Ad Hoc Routing Protocol Avoiding Route Breaks Based on AODV,” the authors propose improvements to the well-known AODV ad hoc routing protocol The eight paper, “Joint Scheduling and Routing Algorithm for Ad Hoc Wireless,” presents an innovative and interesting idea wrapped around an iterative algorithm on power control. In the final paper of the minitrack, “Performance Issues of Ad Hoc Routing Protocols in a Network Scenario used for VideoPhone Applications,” the authors present a simulation based performance analysis of different ad hoc routing protocols using the application pointed to in the title. These papers highlight some of the issues and work towards solutions in Personal Area and ad hoc networks which are among the most active research fields in wireless networking. We believe that the papers will provide opportunities for researchers to come together and discuss and debate the results of the interesting experiments that are described in the papers. We are confident that the minitrack will achieve its goal of bringing together leading researchers, to present new results and discuss synergies between the two areas. We also take this opportunity to thank all the reviewers for their valuable and professional work as well as all the authors who submitted papers and thus helped us to create such a strong minitrack. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to the conference organizers for their hard work and help.

Nowadays, a hybrid of communication technologies including a variety of wired and wireless technologies have been used in smart grid. Each wireless communication technology has its advantages and disadvantages. Short-range links, high power consumption, high cost, or a mesh topology are the main characters for wireless technologies. Due to wireless connection problems in mesh topology and a large amount of infrastructure required to build a reliable network, the costs of deployment for smart grid are still amazing. Recently, a new wireless technology Low-Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) has challenged typical wireless connection. It is characterized by low-cost and long-range transmission technologies, and enables power efficient communication over very long distances using a simple topology. In this paper, we introduce the new wireless technology to implement the applications in smart grid, and discuss its advantages and the potential opportunities and challenges that can bring to smart grid.

Wireless mesh networking is a promising technology for numerous applications which appeals especially to those applications that cannot be directly supported by other wireless technologies. The commercial success of Wi-Fi and the advances in many wireless technologies have in part stimulated the development of wireless mesh networks. The persistent driving force, however, comes from the envisioned advantages of wireless mesh techniques themselves, including extended coverage, robustness, self-configuration, easy maintenance, and low cost. This article presents an overview of this emerging technology, focusing on the technical merits and related standards activities of IEEE and ZigBee that are actively applying the concept of multi-hop mesh techniques in the field of wireless networking technologies, ranging from personal area networks (PANs) to metropolitan area networks (MANs)

A novel three-phase full-bridge power factor corrector is presented in this paper. The corrector operates in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM), the peak of input current follows the input voltage automatically. It can achieve zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) for the leading-leg switches and zero-current-switching (ZCS) for the lagging-leg switches without adding any auxiliary device. Due to the adoption of high frequency transformer, the electrical isolation between input and output sides and output voltage regulation could be achieved. The corrector is very suitable for charging systems. It can reduce the voltage stress of the switches of the DC/DC converters used in the later stage as well as achieve a high power factor (PF) in the input side. Some introduction and analysis about the corrector has been given. Finally, the analysis on this corrector has been verified through simulation and experiment.

Gastrointestinal micro-bionic robot checkups system in clinical applications has very broad prospects and important significance, which has become one of the hot research fields of medical equipment at home and abroad. In this paper, based on the micro machining technology, micro actuation technology, microelectronics technology, wireless communication technology, wireless power transfer technology and clinical medical technology, this study focused on the system design and the locomotion compatibility of a miniature biomimetic robotic examination system for gastrointestinal tract. The aim is to provide a new effective approach and reference for the design of robotic endoscope system. The result shows that the miniature bionic creeping robotic system runs stably and has good move performance. This generation of miniature bionic creeping robotic system is very important for the further research. Development of the gastrointestinal tract considers running checkups micro-robots its efficacy and safety analysis of the compatibility of that robot and the human gastrointestinal tract.