Parameter-based mechanism for unifying user interaction, applications and communication protocols

In the smart building control industry, creating a platform to integrate different communication protocols and ease the interaction between users and devices is becoming increasingly important. BATMP is a platform designed to achieve this goal. In this paper, the authors describe a novel mechanism for information exchange, which introduces a new concept, Parameter, and uses it as the common object among all the BATMP components: Gateway Manager, Technology Manager, Application Manager, Model Manager and Data Warehouse. Parameter is an object which represents a physical magnitude and contains the information about its presentation, available actions, access type, etc. Each component of BATMP has a copy of the parameters. In the Technology Manager, three drivers for different communication protocols, KNX, CoAP and Modbus, are implemented to convert devices into parameters. In the Gateway Manager, users can control the parameters directly or by defining a scenario. In the Application Manager, the applications can subscribe to parameters and decide the values of parameters by negotiating. Finally, a Negotiator is implemented in the Model Manager to notify other components about the changes taking place in any component. By applying this mechanism, BATMP ensures the simultaneous and concurrent communication among users, applications and devices.

Building an ontology catalogue for smart cities

Apart from providing semantics and reasoning power to data, ontologies enable and facilitate interoperability across heterogeneous systems or environments. A good practice when developing ontologies is to reuse as much knowledge as possible in order to increase interoperability by reducing heterogeneity across models and to reduce development effort. Ontology registries, indexes and catalogues facilitate the task of finding, exploring and reusing ontologies by collecting them from different sources. This paper presents an ontology catalogue for the smart cities and related domains. This catalogue is based on curated metadata and incorporates ontology evaluation features. Such catalogue represents the first approach within this community and it would be highly useful for new ontology developments or for describing and annotating existing ontologies.

Capacity Building through education, research and collaboration: AFRICA BUILD, an eHealth Case Study

AFRICA BUILD (AB) is a Coordination Action project under the 7th European Framework Programme having the aim of improving the capacities for health research and education in Africa through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This project, started in 2012, has promoted health research, education and evidence-based practice in Africa through the creation of centers of excellence, by using ICT,?know-how?, eLearning and knowledge sharing, through Web-enabled virtual communities.

Distribution of microservices for hardware interoperability in the Smart Grid

Due to the significant increase of population and their natural desire of improving their standard of living, usage of energy extracted from world commodities, especially shaped as electricity, has increased in an intense manner during the last decades. This fact brings up a challenge with a complicated solution, which is how to guarantee that there will be enough energy so as to satisfy the energy demand of the world population. Among all the possible solutions that can be adopted to mitigate this problem one of them is almost of mandatory adoption, which consists of rationalizing energy utilization, in a way that its wasteful usage is minimized and it can be leveraged during a longer period of time. One of the ways to achieve it is by means of the improvement of the power distribution grid, so that it will be able to react in a more efficient manner against common issues, such as energy demand peaks or inaccurate electricity consumption forecasts. However, in order to be able to implement this improvement it is necessary to use technologies from the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) sphere that often present challenges in some key areas: advanced metering infrastructure integration, interoperability and interconnectivity of the devices, interfaces to offer the applications, security measures design, etc. All these challenges may imply slowing down the adoption of the smart grid as a system to prolong the lifespan and utilization of the available energy. A proposal for an intermediation architecture that will make possible solving these challenges is put forward in this Master Thesis. Besides, one implementation and the tests that have been carried out to know the performance of the presented concepts have been included as well, in a way that it can be proved that the challenges set out by the smart grid can be resolved. RESUMEN. Debido al incremento significativo de la poblaci��n y su deseo natural de mejorar su nivel de vida, la utilizaci��n de la energ��a extra��da de las materias primas mundiales, especialmente en forma de electricidad, ha aumentado de manera intensa durante las ��ltimas d��cadas. Este hecho plantea un reto de soluci��n complicada, el cual es c��mo garantizar que se dispondr�� de la energ��a suficiente como para satisfacer la demanda energ��tica de la poblaci��n mundial. De entre todas las soluciones posibles que se pueden adoptar para mitigar este problema una de ellas es de casi obligatoria adopci��n, la cual consiste en racionalizar la utilizaci��n de la energ��a, de tal forma que se minimice su malgasto y pueda aprovecharse durante m��s tiempo. Una de las maneras de conseguirlo es mediante la mejora de la red de distribuci��n de electricidad para que ��sta pueda reaccionar de manera m��s eficaz contra problemas comunes, tales como los picos de demanda de energ��a o previsiones imprecisas acerca del consumo de electricidad. Sin embargo, para poder implementar esta mejora es necesario utilizar tecnolog��as del ��mbito de las TIC (Tecnolog��as de la Informaci��n y la Comunicaci��n) que a menudo presentan problemas en algunas ��reas clave: integraci��n de infraestructura de medici��n avanzada, interoperabilidad e interconectividad de los dispositivos, interfaces que ofrecer a las aplicaciones, dise��o de medidas de seguridad, etc. Todos estos retos pueden implicar una ralentizaci��n en la adopci��n de la red el��ctrica inteligente como un sistema para alargar la vida y la utilizaci��n de la energ��a disponible. En este Trabajo Fin de M��ster se sugiere una propuesta para una arquitectura de intermediaci��n que posibilite la resoluci��n de estos retos. Adem��s, una implementaci��n y las pruebas que se han llevado a cabo para conocer el rendimiento de los conceptos presentados tambi��n han sido incluidas, de tal forma que se demuestre que los retos que plantea la red el��ctrica inteligente pueden ser solventados.

Urban wind energy: empirical optimization of high-rise building roof shape for the wind energy exploitation

El programa Europeo HORIZON2020 en Futuras Ciudades Inteligentes establece como objetivo que el 20% de la energ��a el��ctrica sea generada a partir de fuentes renovables. Este objetivo implica la necesidad de potenciar la generaci��n de energ��a e��lica en todos los ��mbitos. La energ��a e��lica reduce dr��sticamente las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y evita los riesgos geo-pol��ticos asociados al suministro e infraestructuras energ��ticas, as�� como la dependencia energ��tica de otras regiones. Adem��s, la generaci��n de energ��a distribuida (generaci��n en el punto de consumo) presenta significativas ventajas en t��rminos de elevada eficiencia energ��tica y estimulaci��n de la econom��a. El sector de la edificaci��n representa el 40% del consumo energ��tico total de la Uni��n Europea. La reducci��n del consumo energ��tico en este ��rea es, por tanto, una prioridad de acuerdo con los objetivos "20-20-20" en eficiencia energ��tica. La Directiva 2010/31/EU del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo de 19 de mayo de 2010 sobre el comportamiento energ��tico de edificaciones contempla la instalaci��n de sistemas de suministro energ��tico a partir de fuentes renovables en las edificaciones de nuevo dise��o. Actualmente existe una escasez de conocimiento cient��fico y tecnol��gico acerca de la geometr��a ��ptima de las edificaciones para la explotaci��n de la energ��a e��lica en entornos urbanos. El campo tecnol��gico de estudio de la presente Tesis Doctoral es la generaci��n de energ��a e��lica en entornos urbanos. Espec��ficamente, la optimization de la geometr��a de las cubiertas de edificaciones desde el punto de vista de la explotaci��n del recurso energ��tico e��lico. Debido a que el flujo del viento alrededor de las edificaciones es exhaustivamente investigado en esta Tesis empleando herramientas de simulaci��n num��rica, la mec��nica de fluidos computacional (CFD en ingl��s) y la aerodin��mica de edificaciones son los campos cient��ficos de estudio. El objetivo central de esta Tesis Doctoral es obtener una geometr��a de altas prestaciones (u ��ptima) para la explotaci��n de la energ��a e��lica en cubiertas de edificaciones de gran altura. Este objetivo es alcanzado mediante un an��lisis exhaustivo de la influencia de la forma de la cubierta del edificio en el flujo del viento desde el punto de vista de la explotaci��n energ��tica del recurso e��lico empleando herramientas de simulaci��n num��rica (CFD). Adicionalmente, la geometr��a de la edificaci��n convencional (edificio prism��tico) es estudiada, y el posicionamiento adecuado para los diferentes tipos de aerogeneradores es propuesto. La compatibilidad entre el aprovechamiento de las energ��as solar fotovoltaica y e��lica tambi��n es analizado en este tipo de edificaciones. La investigaci��n prosigue con la optimizaci��n de la geometr��a de la cubierta. La metodolog��a con la que se obtiene la geometr��a ��ptima consta de las siguientes etapas: - Verificaci��n de los resultados de las geometr��as previamente estudiadas en la literatura. Las geometr��as b��sicas que se someten a examen son: cubierta plana, a dos aguas, inclinada, abovedada y esf��rica. - An��lisis de la influencia de la forma de las aristas de la cubierta sobre el flujo del viento. Esta tarea se lleva a cabo mediante la comparaci��n de los resultados obtenidos para la arista convencional (esquina sencilla) con un parapeto, un voladizo y una esquina curva. - An��lisis del acoplamiento entre la cubierta y los cerramientos verticales (paredes) mediante la comparaci��n entre diferentes variaciones de una cubierta esf��rica en una edificaci��n de gran altura: cubierta esf��rica estudiada en la literatura, cubierta esf��rica integrada geom��tricamente con las paredes (planta cuadrada en el suelo) y una cubierta esf��rica acoplada a una pared cilindrica. El comportamiento del flujo sobre la cubierta es estudiado tambi��n considerando la posibilidad de la variaci��n en la direcci��n del viento incidente. - An��lisis del efecto de las proporciones geom��tricas del edificio sobre el flujo en la cubierta. - An��lisis del efecto de la presencia de edificaciones circundantes sobre el flujo del viento en la cubierta del edificio objetivo. Las contribuciones de la presente Tesis Doctoral pueden resumirse en: - Se demuestra que los modelos de turbulencia RANS obtienen mejores resultados para la simulaci��n del viento alrededor de edificaciones empleando los coeficientes propuestos por Crespo y los propuestos por Bechmann y S��rensen que empleando los coeficientes est��ndar. - Se demuestra que la estimaci��n de la energ��a cin��tica turbulenta del flujo empleando modelos de turbulencia RANS puede ser validada manteniendo el enfoque en la cubierta de la edificaci��n. - Se presenta una nueva modificaci��n del modelo de turbulencia Durbin k ��� e que reproduce mejor la distancia de recirculaci��n del flujo de acuerdo con los resultados experimentales. - Se demuestra una relaci��n lineal entre la distancia de recirculaci��n en una cubierta plana y el factor constante involucrado en el c��lculo de la escala de tiempo de la velocidad turbulenta. Este resultado puede ser empleado por la comunidad cient��fica para la mejora del modelado de la turbulencia en diversas herramientas computacionales (OpenFOAM, Fluent, CFX, etc.). - La compatibilidad entre las energ��as solar fotovoltaica y e��lica en cubiertas de edificaciones es analizada. Se demuestra que la presencia de los m��dulos solares provoca un descenso en la intensidad de turbulencia. - Se demuestran conflictos en el cambio de escala entre simulaciones de edificaciones a escala real y simulaciones de modelos a escala reducida (t��nel de viento). Se demuestra que para respetar las limitaciones de similitud (n��mero de Reynolds) son necesarias mediciones en edificaciones a escala real o experimentos en t��neles de viento empleando agua como fluido, especialmente cuando se trata con geometr��as complejas, como es el caso de los m��dulos solares. - Se determina el posicionamiento m��s adecuado para los diferentes tipos de aerogeneradores tomando en consideraci��n la velocidad e intensidad de turbulencia del flujo. El posicionamiento de aerogeneradores es investigado en las geometr��as de cubierta m��s habituales (plana, a dos aguas, inclinada, abovedada y esf��rica). - Las formas de aristas m��s habituales (esquina, parapeto, voladizo y curva) son analizadas, as�� como su efecto sobre el flujo del viento en la cubierta de un edificio de gran altura desde el punto de vista del aprovechamiento e��lico. - Se propone una geometr��a ��ptima (o de altas prestaciones) para el aprovechamiento de la energ��a e��lica urbana. Esta optimizaci��n incluye: verificaci��n de las geometr��as estudiadas en el estado del arte, an��lisis de la influencia de las aristas de la cubierta en el flujo del viento, estudio del acoplamiento entre la cubierta y las paredes, an��lisis de sensibilidad del grosor de la cubierta, exploraci��n de la influencia de las proporciones geom��tricas de la cubierta y el edificio, e investigaci��n del efecto de las edificaciones circundantes (considerando diferentes alturas de los alrededores) sobre el flujo del viento en la cubierta del edificio objetivo. Las investigaciones comprenden el an��lisis de la velocidad, la energ��a cin��tica turbulenta y la intensidad de turbulencia en todos los casos. ABSTRACT The HORIZON2020 European program in Future Smart Cities aims to have 20% of electricity produced by renewable sources. This goal implies the necessity to enhance the wind energy generation, both with large and small wind turbines. Wind energy drastically reduces carbon emissions and avoids geo-political risks associated with supply and infrastructure constraints, as well as energy dependence from other regions. Additionally, distributed energy generation (generation at the consumption site) offers significant benefits in terms of high energy efficiency and stimulation of the economy. The buildings sector represents 40% of the European Union total energy consumption. Reducing energy consumption in this area is therefore a priority under the "20-20-20" objectives on energy efficiency. The Directive 2010/31/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 2010 on the energy performance of buildings aims to consider the installation of renewable energy supply systems in new designed buildings. Nowadays, there is a lack of knowledge about the optimum building shape for urban wind energy exploitation. The technological field of study of the present Thesis is the wind energy generation in urban environments. Specifically, the improvement of the building-roof shape with a focus on the wind energy resource exploitation. Since the wind flow around buildings is exhaustively investigated in this Thesis using numerical simulation tools, both computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and building aerodynamics are the scientific fields of study. The main objective of this Thesis is to obtain an improved (or optimum) shape of a high-rise building for the wind energy exploitation on the roof. To achieve this objective, an analysis of the influence of the building shape on the behaviour of the wind flow on the roof from the point of view of the wind energy exploitation is carried out using numerical simulation tools (CFD). Additionally, the conventional building shape (prismatic) is analysed, and the adequate positions for different kinds of wind turbines are proposed. The compatibility of both photovoltaic-solar and wind energies is also analysed for this kind of buildings. The investigation continues with the buildingroof optimization. The methodology for obtaining the optimum high-rise building roof shape involves the following stages: - Verification of the results of previous building-roof shapes studied in the literature. The basic shapes that are compared are: flat, pitched, shed, vaulted and spheric. - Analysis of the influence of the roof-edge shape on the wind flow. This task is carried out by comparing the results obtained for the conventional edge shape (simple corner) with a railing, a cantilever and a curved edge. - Analysis of the roof-wall coupling by testing different variations of a spherical roof on a high-rise building: spherical roof studied in the litera ture, spherical roof geometrically integrated with the walls (squared-plant) and spherical roof with a cylindrical wall. The flow behaviour on the roof according to the variation of the incident wind direction is commented. - Analysis of the effect of the building aspect ratio on the flow. - Analysis of the surrounding buildings effect on the wind flow on the target building roof. The contributions of the present Thesis can be summarized as follows: - It is demonstrated that RANS turbulence models obtain better results for the wind flow around buildings using the coefficients proposed by Crespo and those proposed by Bechmann and S0rensen than by using the standard ones. - It is demonstrated that RANS turbulence models can be validated for turbulent kinetic energy focusing on building roofs. - A new modification of the Durbin k ��� e turbulence model is proposed in order to obtain a better agreement of the recirculation distance between CFD simulations and experimental results. - A linear relationship between the recirculation distance on a flat roof and the constant factor involved in the calculation of the turbulence velocity time scale is demonstrated. This discovery can be used by the research community in order to improve the turbulence modeling in different solvers (OpenFOAM, Fluent, CFX, etc.). - The compatibility of both photovoltaic-solar and wind energies on building roofs is demonstrated. A decrease of turbulence intensity due to the presence of the solar panels is demonstrated. - Scaling issues are demonstrated between full-scale buildings and windtunnel reduced-scale models. The necessity of respecting the similitude constraints is demonstrated. Either full-scale measurements or wind-tunnel experiments using water as a medium are needed in order to accurately reproduce the wind flow around buildings, specially when dealing with complex shapes (as solar panels, etc.). - The most adequate position (most adequate roof region) for the different kinds of wind turbines is highlighted attending to both velocity and turbulence intensity. The wind turbine positioning was investigated for the most habitual kind of building-roof shapes (flat, pitched, shed, vaulted and spherical). - The most habitual roof-edge shapes (simple edge, railing, cantilever and curved) were investigated, and their effect on the wind flow on a highrise building roof were analysed from the point of view of the wind energy exploitation. - An optimum building-roof shape is proposed for the urban wind energy exploitation. Such optimization includes: state-of-the-art roof shapes test, analysis of the influence of the roof-edge shape on the wind flow, study of the roof-wall coupling, sensitivity analysis of the roof width, exploration of the aspect ratio of the building-roof shape and investigation of the effect of the neighbouring buildings (considering different surrounding heights) on the wind now on the target building roof. The investigations comprise analysis of velocity, turbulent kinetic energy and turbulence intensity for all the cases.

Inter-organizational information systems adoption for service innovation in building sector

The building sector has experienced a significant decline in recent years in Spain and Europe as a result of the financial crisis that began in 2007. This drop accompanies a low penetration of information and communication technologies in inter-organizational oriented business processes. The market decrease is causing a slowdown in the building sector, where only flexible small and medium enterprises (SMEs) survive thanks to specialization and innovation in services, which allow them to face new market demands. Inter-organizational information systems (IOISs) support innovation in services, and are thus a strategic tool for SMEs to obtain competitive advantage. Because of the inherent complexity of IOIS adoption, this research extends Kurnia and Johnston's (2000) theoretical model of IOIS adoption with an empirical model of IOIS characterization. The resultant model identifies the factors influencing IOIS adoption in SMEs in the building sector, to promote further service innovation for competitive and collaborative advantages. An empirical longitudinal study over six consecutive years using data from Spanish SMEs in the building sector validates the model, using the partial least squares technique and analyzing temporal stability. The main findings of this research are the four ways an IOIS might contribute to service innovation in the building sector. Namely: a) improving client interfaces and the link between service providers and end users; b) defining a specific market where SMEs can develop new service concepts; c) enhancing the service delivery system in traditional customer?supplier relationships; and d) introducing information and communication technologies and tools to improve information management.

Study of OLSR protocol with Network Simulator 2 over Linux

Until a few years ago, most of the network communications were based in the wire as the physical media, but due to the advances and the maturity of the wireless communications, this is changing. Nowadays wireless communications offers fast, secure, efficient and reliable connections. Mobile communications are in expansion, clearly driven by the use of smart phones and other mobile devices, the use of laptops, etc��� Besides that point, the inversion in the installation and maintenance of the physical medium is much lower than in wired communications, not only because the air has no cost, but because the installation and maintenance of the wire require a high economic cost. Besides the economic cost we find that wire is a more vulnerable medium to external threats such as noise, sabotages, etc��� There are two different types of wireless networks: those which the structure is part of the network itself and those which have a lack of structure or any centralization, in a way that the devices that form part of the network can connect themselves in a dynamic and random way, handling also the routing of every control and information messages, this kind of networks is known as Ad-hoc. In the present work we will proceed to study one of the multiple wireless protocols that allows mobile communications, it is Optimized Link State Routing, from now on, OLSR, it is an pro-active routing, standard mechanism that works in a distributed in order to stablish the connections among the different nodes that belong to a wireless network. Thanks to this protocol it is possible to get all the routing tables in all the devices correctly updated every moment through the periodical transmission of control messages and on this way allow a complete connectivity among the devices that are part of the network and also, allow access to other external networks such as virtual private networks o Internet. This protocol could be perfectly used in environments such as airports, malls, etc��� The update of the routing tables in all the devices is got thanks to the periodical transmission of control messages and finally it will offer connectivity among all the devices and the corresponding external networks. For the study of OLSR protocol we will have the help of the network simulator ���Network Simulator 2���, a freeware network simulator programmed in C++ based in discrete events. This simulator is used mainly in educational and research environments and allows a very extensive range of protocols, both, wired networks protocols and wireless network protocols, what is going to be really useful to proceed to the simulation of different configurations of networks and protocols. In the present work we will also study different simulations with Network Simulator 2, in different scenarios with different configurations, wired networks, and Ad-hoc networks, where we will study OLSR Protocol. RESUMEN. Hasta hace pocos a��os, la mayor��a de las comunicaciones de red estaban basadas en el cable como medio f��sico pero debido al avance y madurez alcanzados en el campo de las comunicaciones inal��mbricas esto est�� cambiando. Hoy d��a las comunicaciones inal��mbricas nos ofrecen conexiones veloces, seguras, eficientes y fiables. Las comunicaciones m��viles se encuentran en su momento de m��xima expansi��n, claramente impulsadas por el uso de tel��fonos y dem��s dispositivos m��viles, el uso de port��tiles, etc��� Adem��s la inversi��n a realizar en la instalaci��n y el mantenimiento del medio f��sico en las comunicaciones m��viles es much��simo menor que en comunicaciones por cable, ya no s��lo porque el aire no tenga coste alguno, sino porque la instalaci��n y mantenimiento del cable precisan de un elevado coste econ��mico por norma. Adem��s del coste econ��mico nos encontramos con que es un medio m��s vulnerable a amenazas externas tales como el ruido, escuchas no autorizadas, sabotajes, etc��� Existen dos tipos de redes inal��mbricas: las constituidas por una infraestructura que forma parte m��s o menos de la misma y las que carecen de estructura o centralizaci��n alguna, de modo que los dispositivos que forman parte de ella pueden conectarse de manera din��mica y arbitraria entre ellos, encarg��ndose adem��s del encaminamiento de todos los mensajes de control e informaci��n, a este tipo de redes se las conoce como redes Ad-hoc. En el presente Proyecto de Fin de Carrera se proceder�� al estudio de uno de los m��ltiples protocolos inal��mbricos que permiten comunicaciones m��viles, se trata del protocolo inal��mbrico Optimized Link State Routing, de ahora en adelante OLSR, un mecanismo est��ndar de enrutamiento pro-activo, que trabaja de manera distribuida para establecer las conexiones entre los nodos que formen parte de las redes inal��mbricas Ad-hoc, las cuales carecen de un nodo central y de una infraestructura pre-existente. Gracias a este protocolo es posible conseguir que todos los equipos mantengan en todo momento las tablas de ruta actualizadas correctamente mediante la transmisi��n peri��dica de mensajes de control y as�� permitir una completa conectividad entre todos los equipos que formen parte de la red y, a su vez, tambi��n permitir el acceso a otras redes externas tales como redes privadas virtuales o Internet. Este protocolo ser��a usado en entornos tales como aeropuertos La actualizaci��n de las tablas de enrutamiento de todos los equipos se conseguir�� mediante la transmisi��n peri��dica de mensajes de control y as�� finalmente se podr�� permitir conectividad entre todos los equipos y con las correspondientes redes externas. Para el estudio del protocolo OLSR contaremos con el simulador de redes Network Simulator 2, un simulador de redes freeware programado en C++ basado en eventos discretos. Este simulador es usado principalmente en ambientes educativos y de investigaci��n y permite la simulaci��n tanto de protocolos unicast como multicast. El campo donde m��s se utiliza es precisamente en el de la investigaci��n de redes m��viles Ad-hoc. El simulador Network Simulator 2 no s��lo implementa el protocolo OLSR, sino que ��ste implementa una amplia gama de protocolos, tanto de redes cableadas como de redes inal��mbricas, lo cual va a sernos de gran utilidad para proceder a la simulaci��n de distintas configuraciones de redes y protocolos. En el presente Proyecto de Fin de Carrera se estudiar��n tambi��n diversas simulaciones con el simulador NS2 en diferentes escenarios con diversas configuraciones; redes cableadas, redes inal��mbricas Ad-hoc, donde se estudiar�� el protocolo antes mencionado: OLSR. Este Proyecto de Fin de Carrera consta de cuatro apartados distintos: Primeramente se realizar�� el estudio completo del protocolo OLSR, se ver��n los beneficios y contrapartidas que ofrece este protocolo inal��mbrico. Tambi��n se ver��n los distintos tipos de mensajes existentes en este protocolo y unos peque��os ejemplos del funcionamiento del protocolo OLSR. Seguidamente se har�� una peque��a introducci��n al simulador de redes Network Simulator 2, veremos la historia de este simulador, y tambi��n se har�� referencia a la herramienta extra NAM, la cual nos permitir�� visualizar el intercambio de paquetes que se produce entre los diferentes dispositivos de nuestras simulaciones de forma intuitiva y amigable. Se har�� menci��n a la plataforma MASIMUM, encargada de facilitar en un entorno acad��mico software y documentaci��n a sus alumnos con el fin de facilitarles la investigaci��n y la simulaci��n de redes y sensores Ad-hoc. Finalmente se ver��n dos ejemplos, uno en el que se realizar�� una simulaci��n entre dos PCs en un entorno Ethernet y otro ejemplo en el que se realizar�� una simulaci��n inal��mbrica entre cinco dispositivos m��viles mediante el protocolo a estudiar, OLSR.

A new way of teaching different subjects in a foreign language in the Building Engineering Degree at the Universidad Polit��cnica.

The European Union has been promoting linguistic diversity for many years as one of its main educational goals. This is an element that facilitates student mobility and student exchanges between different universities and countries and enriches the education of young undergraduates. In particular, a higher degree of competence in the English language is becoming essential for engineers, architects and researchers in general, as English has become the lingua franca that opens up horizons to internationalisation and the transfer of knowledge in today���s world. Many experts point to the Integrated Approach to Contents and Foreign Languages System as being an option that has certain benefits over the traditional method of teaching a second language that is exclusively based on specific subjects. This system advocates teaching the different subjects in the syllabus in a language other than one���s mother tongue, without prioritising knowledge of the language over the subject. This was the idea that in the 2009/10 academic year gave rise to the Second Language Integration Programme (SLI Programme) at the Escuela Arquitectura T��cnica in the Universidad Polit��cnica Madrid (EUATM-UPM), just at the beginning of the tuition of the new Building Engineering Degree, which had been adapted to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) model. This programme is an interdisciplinary initiative for the set of subjects taught during the semester and is coordinated through the Assistant Director Office for Educational Innovation. The SLI Programme has a dual goal; to familiarise students with the specific English terminology of the subject being taught, and at the same time improve their communication skills in English. A total of thirty lecturers are taking part in the teaching of eleven first year subjects and twelve in the second year, with around 120 students who have voluntarily enrolled in a special group in each semester. During the 2010/2011 academic year the degree of acceptance and the results of the SLI Programme have been monitored. Tools have been designed to aid interdisciplinary coordination and to analyse satisfaction, such as coordination records and surveys. The results currently available refer to the first and second year and are divided into specific aspects of the different subjects involved and into general aspects of the ongoing experience.

Next Generation of Energy Residential Gateways for Demand Response and Dynamic Pricing

Predictions about electric energy needs, based on current electric energy models, forecast that the global energy consumption on Earth for 2050 will double present rates. Using distributed procedures for control and integration, the expected needs can be halved. Therefore implementation of Smart Grids is necessary. Interaction between final consumers and utilities is a key factor of future Smart Grids. This interaction is aimed to reach efficient and responsible energy consumption. Energy Residential Gateways (ERG) are new in-building devices that will govern the communication between user and utility and will control electric loads. Utilities will offer new services empowering residential customers to lower their electric bill. Some of these services are Smart Metering, Demand Response and Dynamic Pricing. This paper presents a practical development of an ERG for residential buildings.

Building Trust for Lambda-Congenial Secret Groups

Establishing trust while preserving privacy is a challenging research problem. In this paper we introduce lambda -congenial secret groups which allow users to recognize trusted partners based on common attributes while preserving their anonymity and privacy. Such protocols are different from authentication protocols, since the latter are based on identities, while the former are based on attributes. Introducing attributes in trust establishment allows a greater flexibility but also brings up several issues. In this paper, we investigate the problem of building trust with attributes by presenting motivating examples, analyzing the security requirements and giving an informal definition. We also survey one of the most related techniques, namely private matching, and finally present solutions based on it.

Formal verification of safety protocol in train control system

In order to satisfy the safety-critical requirements, the train control system (TCS) often employs a layered safety communication protocol to provide reliable services. However, both description and verification of the safety protocols may be formidable due to the system complexity. In this paper, interface automata (IA) are used to describe the safety service interface behaviors of safety communication protocol. A formal verification method is proposed to describe the safety communication protocols using IA and translate IA model into PROMELA model so that the protocols can be verified by the model checker SPIN. A case study of using this method to describe and verify a safety communication protocol is included. The verification results illustrate that the proposed method is effective to describe the safety protocols and verify deadlocks, livelocks and several mandatory consistency properties. A prototype of safety protocols is also developed based on the presented formally verifying method.

ICTD Work, Plus mFeel : improving communication in resource-poor settings

This issue's Works-In-Progress department has four entries related to the issue's theme, Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD). They are ���Sustainable ICT in Agricultural Value Chains���, ���Measuring Social Inclusion in Primary Schools���, ���An Architecture for Green Mobile Computation���, and ���Improving Communication in Resource-Poor Settings���. A fifth entry, ���mFeel: An Affective Mobile System���, covers the mFeel mobile system, which combines context awareness with affective and cognitive techniques.

Model-Driven Methodology for Rapid Deployment of Smart Spaces based on Resource-Oriented Architectures

Advances in electronics nowadays facilitate the design of smart spaces based on physical mash-ups of sensor and actuator devices. At the same time, software paradigms such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Web of Things (WoT) are motivating the creation of technology to support the development and deployment of web-enabled embedded sensor and actuator devices with two major objectives: (i) to integrate sensing and actuating functionalities into everyday objects, and (ii) to easily allow a diversity of devices to plug into the Internet. Currently, developers who are applying this Internet-oriented approach need to have solid understanding about specific platforms and web technologies. In order to alleviate this development process, this research proposes a Resource-Oriented and Ontology-Driven Development (ROOD) methodology based on the Model Driven Architecture (MDA). This methodology aims at enabling the development of smart spaces through a set of modeling tools and semantic technologies that support the definition of the smart space and the automatic generation of code at hardware level. ROOD feasibility is demonstrated by building an adaptive health monitoring service for a Smart Gym.

Using online presence to improve online collaborative learning

Social software tools have become an integral part of students? personal lives and their primary communication medium. Likewise, these tools are increasingly entering the enterprise world (within the recent trend known as Enterprise 2.0) and becoming a part of everyday work routines. Aiming to keep the pace with the job requirements and also to position learning as an integral part of students? life, the field of education is challenged to embrace social software. Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) emerged as a concept that makes use of social software to facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing, group formation around common interests, active participation and reflective thinking in online learning settings. Furthermore, social software allows for establishing and maintaining one?s presence in the online world. By being aware of a student's online presence, a PLE is better able to personalize the learning settings, e.g., through recommendation of content to use or people to collaborate with. Aiming to explore the potentials of online presence for the provision of recommendations in PLEs, in the scope of the OP4L project, we have develop a software solution that is based on a synergy of Semantic Web technologies, online presence and socially-oriented learning theories. In this paper we present the current results of this research work.

Ubiquitous green computing techniques for high demand applications in smart environments

Ubiquitous sensor network deployments, such as the ones found in Smart cities and Ambient intelligence applications, require constantly increasing high computational demands in order to process data and offer services to users. The nature of these applications imply the usage of data centers. Research has paid much attention to the energy consumption of the sensor nodes in WSNs infrastructures. However, supercomputing facilities are the ones presenting a higher economic and environmental impact due to their very high power consumption. The latter problem, however, has been disregarded in the field of smart environment services. This paper proposes an energy-minimization workload assignment technique, based on heterogeneity and application-awareness, that redistributes low-demand computational tasks from high-performance facilities to idle nodes with low and medium resources in the WSN infrastructure. These non-optimal allocation policies reduce the energy consumed by the whole infrastructure and the total execution time.