Social cars : sensing, gathering, sharing and conveying social cues to road users

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) resembles the infrastructure for ubiquitous computing in the car. It encompasses a) all kinds of sensing technologies within vehicles as well as road infrastructure, b) wireless communication protocols for the sensed information to be exchanged between vehicles (V2V) and between vehicles and infrastructure (V2I), and c) appropriate intelligent algorithms and computational technologies that process these real-time streams of information. As such, ITS can be considered a game changer. It provides the fundamental basis of new, innovative concepts and applications, similar to the Internet itself. The information sensed or gathered within or around the vehicle has led to a variety of context-aware in-vehicular technologies within the car. A simple example is the Anti-lock Breaking System (ABS), which releases the breaks when sensors detect that the wheels are locked. We refer to this type of context awareness as vehicle/technology awareness. V2V and V2I communication, often summarized as V2X, enables the exchange and sharing of sensed information amongst cars. As a result, the vehicle/technology awareness horizon of each individual car is expanded beyond its observable surrounding, paving the way to technologically enhance such already advanced systems. In this chapter, we draw attention to those application areas of sensing and V2X technologies, where the human (driver), the human’s behavior and hence the psychological perspective plays a more pivotal role. The focal points of our project are illustrated in Figure 1: In all areas, the vehicle first (1) gathers or senses information about the driver. Rather than to limit the use of such information towards vehicle/technology awareness, we see great potential for applications in which this sensed information is then (2) fed back to the driver for an increased self-awareness. In addition, by using V2V technologies, it can also be (3) passed to surrounding drivers for an increased social awareness, or (4), pushed even further, into the cloud, where it is collected and visualized for an increased, collective urban awareness within the urban community at large, which includes all city dwellers.

Using mobile technology and augmented reality to increase data reliability for environmental assessment

Climate change and land use pressures are making environmental monitoring increasingly important. As environmental health is degrading at an alarming rate, ecologists have tried to tackle the problem by monitoring the composition and condition of environment. However, traditional monitoring methods using experts are manual and expensive; to address this issue government organisations designed a simpler and faster surrogate-based assessment technique for consultants, landholders and ordinary citizens. However, it remains complex, subjective and error prone. This makes collected data difficult to interpret and compare. In this paper we describe a work-in-progress mobile application designed to address these shortcomings through the use of augmented reality and multimedia smartphone technology.

Socially aware computing constructs

Every day we are confronted with social interactions with other people. Our social life is characterised by norms that manifest as attitudinal and behavioural uniformities among people. With greater awareness about our social context, we can interact more efficiently. Any theory or model of human interaction that fails to include social concepts could be suggested to lack a critical element. This paper identifies the construct of social concepts that need to be supported by future context-aw are systems from an interdisciplinary perspective. It discusses the limitations of existing context-aware systems to support social psychology theories related to the identification and membership of social groups. We argue that social norms are among the core modelling concepts that future context-aware systems need to capture with the view to support and enhance social interactions. A detailed summary of social psychology theory relevant to social computing is given, followed by a formal definition of the process with each such norm advertised and acquired. The social concepts identified in this paper could be used to simulate agent interactions imbued with social norms or use ICT to facilitate, assist, enhance or understand social interactions. They also could be used in virtual communities modelling where the social awareness of a community as well as the process of joining and exiting a community are important.

Unpacking user relations in an emerging ubiquitous computing environment : introducing the bystander

The move towards technological ubiquity is allowing a more idiosyncratic and dynamic working environment to emerge that may result in the restructuring of information communication technologies, and changes in their use through different user groups' actions. Taking a ‘practice’ lens to human agency, we explore the evolving roles of, and relationships between these user groups and their appropriation of emergent technologies by drawing upon Lamb and Kling's social actor framework. To illustrate our argument, we draw upon a study of a UK Fire Brigade that has introduced a variety of technologies in an attempt to move towards embracing mobile and ubiquitous computing. Our analysis of the enactment of such technologies reveals that Bystanders, a group yet to be taken as the central unit of analysis in information systems research, or considered in practice, are emerging as important actors. The research implications of our work relate to the need to further consider Bystanders in deployments other than those that are mobile and ubiquitous. For practice, we suggest that Bystanders require consideration in the systems development life cycle, particularly in terms of design and education in processes of use.

Tools for Mobile Multimedia Programming and Development

Mobile devices are rapidly developing into the primary technology for users to work, socialize, and play in a variety of settings and contexts. Their pervasiveness has provided researchers with the means to investigate innovative solutions to ever more complex user demands. Tools for Mobile Multimedia Programming and Development investigates the use of mobile platforms for research projects, focusing on the development, testing, and evaluation of prototypes rather than final products, which enables researchers to better understand the needs of users through image processing, object recognition, sensor integration, and user interactions. This book benefits researchers and professionals in multiple disciplines who utilize such techniques in the creation of prototypes for mobile devices and applications. This book is part of the Advances in Wireless Technologies and Telecommunication series collection.

Three social car visions to improve driver behaviour

The social cost of road injury and fatalities is still unacceptable. The driver is often mainly responsible for road crashes, therefore changing the driver behaviour is one of the most important and most challenging priority in road transport. This paper presents three innovative visions that articulate the potential of using Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communication for supporting the exchange of social information amongst drivers. We argue that there could be tremendous benefits in socialising cars to influence human driving behaviours for the better and that this aspect is still relevant in the age of looming autonomous cars. Our visions provide theoretical grounding how V2V infrastructure and emerging human–machine interfaces (HMI) could persuade drivers to: (i) adopt better (e.g. greener) driving practices, (ii) reduce drivers aggressiveness towards pro-social driving behaviours, and (iii) reduce risk-taking behaviour in young, particularly male, adults. The visions present simple but powerful concepts that reveal ‘good’ aspects of the driver behaviour to other drivers and make them contagious. The use of self-efficacy, social norms, gamification theories and social cues could then increase the likelihood of a widespread adoption of such ‘good’ driving behaviours.

Pedestrians Effects on Indoor MIMO-OFDM Channel Capacity

Temporal variations caused by pedestrian movement can significantly affect the channel capacity of indoor MIMOOFDM wireless systems. This paper compares systematic measurements of MIMO-OFDM channel capacity in presence of pedestrians with predicted MIMO-OFDM channel capacity values using geometric optics-based ray tracing techniques. Capacity results are presented for a single room environment using 5.2 GHz with 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4 arrays as well as a 2.45 GHz narrowband 8x8 MIMO array. The analysis shows an increase of up to 2 b/s/Hz on instant channel capacity with up to 3 pedestrians. There is an increase of up to 1 b/s/Hz in the average capacity of the 4x4 MIMO-OFDM channel when the number of pedestrians goes from 1 to 3. Additionally, an increment of up to 2.5 b/s/Hz in MIMO-OFDM channel capacity was measured for a 4x4 array compared to a 2x2 array in presence of pedestrians. Channel capacity values derived from this analysis are important in terms of understanding the limitations and possibilities for MIMO-OFDM systems in indoor populated environments.

A study of Chinese private passenger cars based on BP neural network

This study employs BP neural network to simulate the development of Chinese private passenger cars. Considering the uncertain and complex environment for the development of private passenger cars, indicators of economy, population, price, infrastructure, income, energy and some other fields which have major impacts on it are selected at first. The network is proved to be operable to simulate the progress of chinese private passenger cars after modeling, training and generalization test. Based on the BP neural network model, sensitivity analysis of each indicator is carried on and shows that the sensitivity coefficients of fuel price change suddenly. This special phenomenon reveals that the development of Chinese private passenger cars may be seriously affected by the recent high fuel price. This finding is also consistent with facts and figures

Towards continuous surveillance of fruit flies using sensor networks and machine vision

In Australia, the Queensland fruit fly (B. tryoni), is the most destructive insect pest of horticulture, attacking nearly all fruit and vegetable crops. This project has researched and prototyped a system for monitoring fruit flies so that authorities can be alerted when a fly enters a crop in a more efficient manner than is currently used. This paper presents the idea of our sensor platform design as well as the fruit fly detection and recognition algorithm by using machine vision techniques. Our experiments showed that the designed trap and sensor platform is capable to capture quality fly images, the invasive flies can be successfully detected and the average precision of the Queensland fruit fly recognition is 80% from our experiment.

Multi-edge decimation in multi-modal 3D collaborative applications

Multi-resolution modelling has become essential as modern 3D applications demand 3D objects with higher LODs (LOD). Multi-modal devices such as PDAs and UMPCs do not have sufficient resources to handle the original 3D objects. The increased usage of collaborative applications has created many challenges for remote manipulation working with 3D objects of different quality. This paper studies how we can improve multi-resolution techniques by performing multiedge decimation and using annotative commands. It also investigates how devices with poorer quality 3D object can participate in collaborative actions.

Context change archetypes : understanding the impact of context change on business processes

The emergence of Enterprise Resource Planning systems and Business Process Management have led to improvements in the design, implementation, and overall management of business processes. However, the typical focus of these initiatives has been on internal business operations, assuming a defined and stable context in which the processes are designed to operate. Yet, a lack of context-awareness for external change leads to processes and supporting information systems that are unable to react appropriately and timely enough to change. To increase the alignment of processes with environmental change, we propose a conceptual framework that facilitates the identification of context change. Based on a secondary data analysis of published case studies about process adaptation, we exemplify the framework and identify four general archetypes of context-awareness. The framework, in combination with the learning from the case analysis, provides a first understanding of what, where, how, and when processes are subjected to change.

Channel-aware routing in MANETs with route handoff

In wireless mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), packet transmission is impaired by radio link fluctuations. This paper proposes a novel channel adaptive routing protocol which extends the Ad-hoc On-Demand Multipath Distance Vector routing protocol (AOMDV) to accommodate channel fading. Specifically, the proposed Channel Aware AOMDV (CA-AOMDV) uses the channel average non-fading duration as a routing metric to select stable links for path discovery, and applies a preemptive handoff strategy to maintain reliable connections by exploiting channel state information. Using the same information, paths can be reused when they become available again, rather than being discarded. We provide new theoretical results for the downtime and lifetime of a live-die-live multiple path system, as well as detailed theoretical expressions for common network performance measures, providing useful insights into the differences in performance between CA-AOMDV and AOMDV. Simulation and theoretical results show that CA-AOMDV has greatly improved network performance over AOMDV.

Using Web 2.0 tools to facilitate knowledge transfer in complex organisational environments : a primer

An often neglected but well recognised aspect of successful engineering asset management is the achievement of co-operation and collaboration between various occupational, functional and hierarchical levels present within complex technical environments. Engineering and technical contexts have been well documented for the presence of highly cohesive groups based around around functional or role orientations. However while highly cohesive groups are potentially advantageous they are also often correlated with the emergence of knowledge and information silos based around those same functional or occupational clusters. Improved collaboration and co-operation between groups has been demonstrated to result in a number of positive outcomes at an individual, group and organisational level. Example outcomes include an increased capacity for problem solving, improved responsiveness and adaptation to organisational crises, higher morale and an increased ability to leverage workforce capability. However, an essential challenge for organisations wishing to overcome informational silos is to implement mechanisms that facilitate, encourage and sustain interactions between otherwise disconnected groups. This paper reviews the ability of Web 2.0 technologies and mobile computing devices to facilitate and encourage knowledge sharing between “silo’d” groups. Commonly available tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Wiki’s and others will be reviewed in relation to their applicability, functionality and ease-of-use by engineering and technical personnel. The paper also documents three case examples of engineering organisations that have successfully employed Web 2.0 to achieve superior knowledge management. With a number of clear recommendations he paper is an essential starting point for any organization looking at the use of new generation technologies for achieving the significant outcomes associated with knowledge transfer.

Using Web 2.0 tools to facilitate knowledge transfer in complex organisational environments : a primer

An often neglected but well recognised aspect of successful engineering asset management is the achievement of co-operation and collaboration between various occupational, functional and hierarchical levels present within complex technical environments. Engineering and technical contexts have been well documented for the presence of highly cohesive groups based around around functional or role orientations. However while highly cohesive groups are potentially advantageous they are also often correlated with the emergence of knowledge and information silos based around those same functional or occupational clusters. Improved collaboration and co-operation between groups has been demonstrated to result in a number of positive outcomes at an individual, group and organisational level. Example outcomes include an increased capacity for problem solving, improved responsiveness and adaptation to organisational crises, higher morale and an increased ability to leverage workforce capability. However, an essential challenge for organisations wishing to overcome informational silos is to implement mechanisms that facilitate, encourage and sustain interactions between otherwise disconnected groups. This paper reviews the ability of Web 2.0 technologies and mobile computing devices to facilitate and encourage knowledge sharing between “silo’d” groups. Commonly available tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Wiki’s and others will be reviewed in relation to their applicability, functionality and ease-of-use by engineering and technical personnel. The paper also documents three case examples of engineering organisations that have successfully employed Web 2.0 to achieve superior knowledge management. With a number of clear recommendations the paper is an essential starting point for any organization looking at the use of new generation technologies for achieving the significant outcomes associated with knowledge transfer.

A rights management approach to protection of privacy in a cloud of electronic health records

A patient-centric DRM approach is proposed for protecting privacy of health records stored in a cloud storage based on the patient's preferences and without the need to trust the service provider. Contrary to the current server-side access control solutions, this approach protects the privacy of records from the service provider, and also controls the usage of data after it is released to an authorized user.