Heterogeneous sensor database framework for the sensor observation service: integrating remote and in-situ sensor observations at the database backend

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Ús de Sensor Web Enablement per a gestió de dades marines i accés al servei d'observació de sensors a través de client Android

El present treball és un estudi de l'estat de Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) aplicat a l'àmbit marí d'investigació oceanogràfica. Per assolir aquest objectiu s'han avaluat les diferents solucions d'arquitectura de sistemes més adients a la problemàtica indicada i s'ha dissenyat un client de Sensor Observation Service (SOS) per plataforma mòbil Android que permeti consultar la descripció del sensor (SensorML) i conjunts d'observacions mitjançant estàndards oberts de SWE i peticions web (SOAP). Els dissenys anteriorment indicats han permès que quedés palès l'ampli ventall de possibilitats i avantatges que s'obtenen pel fet d'emprar SWE, ja que ens permet integrar fàcilment les dades proporcionades pels sensors i les pròpies descripcions dels sensors en diferents entorns, tal i com és el cas del disseny presentat en Android, a través d'estàndards oberts independents de les múltiples especificacions de cada fabricant, en un entorn, com és l'àmbit de la investigació marina on hi ha una gran heterogeneïtat de sensors i protocols.

Adding SOS Core & transactional profiles support to a web thin client

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Creating a GWT web application for the SOS standard enhanced profile

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Integración de sensores de teléfonos en servicios de sensores OGC

Presentación de gvSIG Mobile Sensor, que integra la tecnología SOS (Sensor Observation Service) en los dispositivos móviles a partir de una nueva extensión de gvSIG Mobile. Esta funcionalidad almacena las peticiones SOS en plantillas, representado a los distintos sensores registrados. Las plantillas sirven para transformar los datos obtenidos por el sensor en un instante dado, en peticiones de inserción de observación válidas para el servicio SOS-T

gvSIG Sensores

El protocolo SOS (Sensor Observation Service) es una especificación OGC dentro de la iniciativa Sensor Web Enablement (SWE), que permite acceder a las observaciones y datos de sensores heterogéneos de una manera estándar. En el proyecto gvSIG se ha abierto una línea de investigación entorno a la SWE, existiendo en la actualidad dos prototipos de clientes SOS para gvSIG y gvSIG Mobile. La especificación utilizada para describir las medidas proporcionadas por sensores es Observation & Measurement (O&M) y la descripción de los metadatos de los sensores (localización. ID, fenómenos medidos, procesamiento de los datos, etc) se obtiene a partir del esquema Sensor ML. Se ha implementado el siguiente conjunto de operaciones: GetCapabilities para la descripción del servicio; DescribeSensor para acceder a los metadatos del sensor y el GetObservation para recibir las observaciones. En el caso del prototipo para gvSIG escritorio se puede acceder a los datos procedentes de los distintos grupos de sensores “offerings” añadiéndolos en el mapa como nuevas capas. Los procedimientos o sensores que están incluidos en un “offering” son presentados como elementos de la capa que se pueden cartografiar en el mapa. Se puede acceder a las observaciones (GetObservation) de estos sensores filtrando los datos por intervalo de tiempo y propiedad del fenómeno observado. La información puede ser representada sobre el mapa mediante gráficas para una mejor comprensión con la posibilidad de comparar datos de distintos sensores. En el caso del prototipo para el cliente móvil gvSIG Mobile, se ha utilizado la misma filosofía que para el cliente de escritorio, siendo cada “offering” una nueva capa. Las observaciones de los sensores pueden ser visualizadas en la pantalla del dispositivo móvil y se pueden obtener mapas temáticos,con el objetivo de facilitar la interpretación de los datos

Probabilistic uncertainty in an interoperable framework

This thesis provides an interoperable language for quantifying uncertainty using probability theory. A general introduction to interoperability and uncertainty is given, with particular emphasis on the geospatial domain. Existing interoperable standards used within the geospatial sciences are reviewed, including Geography Markup Language (GML), Observations and Measurements (O&M) and the Web Processing Service (WPS) specifications. The importance of uncertainty in geospatial data is identified and probability theory is examined as a mechanism for quantifying these uncertainties. The Uncertainty Markup Language (UncertML) is presented as a solution to the lack of an interoperable standard for quantifying uncertainty. UncertML is capable of describing uncertainty using statistics, probability distributions or a series of realisations. The capabilities of UncertML are demonstrated through a series of XML examples. This thesis then provides a series of example use cases where UncertML is integrated with existing standards in a variety of applications. The Sensor Observation Service - a service for querying and retrieving sensor-observed data - is extended to provide a standardised method for quantifying the inherent uncertainties in sensor observations. The INTAMAP project demonstrates how UncertML can be used to aid uncertainty propagation using a WPS by allowing UncertML as input and output data. The flexibility of UncertML is demonstrated with an extension to the GML geometry schemas to allow positional uncertainty to be quantified. Further applications and developments of UncertML are discussed.

A service-oriented user interaction analysis framework supporting adaptive applications

A comprehensive user model, built by monitoring a user's current use of applications, can be an excellent starting point for building adaptive user-centred applications. The BaranC framework monitors all user interaction with a digital device (e.g. smartphone), and also collects all available context data (such as from sensors in the digital device itself, in a smart watch, or in smart appliances) in order to build a full model of user application behaviour. The model built from the collected data, called the UDI (User Digital Imprint), is further augmented by analysis services, for example, a service to produce activity profiles from smartphone sensor data. The enhanced UDI model can then be the basis for building an appropriate adaptive application that is user-centred as it is based on an individual user model. As BaranC supports continuous user monitoring, an application can be dynamically adaptive in real-time to the current context (e.g. time, location or activity). Furthermore, since BaranC is continuously augmenting the user model with more monitored data, over time the user model changes, and the adaptive application can adapt gradually over time to changing user behaviour patterns. BaranC has been implemented as a service-oriented framework where the collection of data for the UDI and all sharing of the UDI data are kept strictly under the user's control. In addition, being service-oriented allows (with the user's permission) its monitoring and analysis services to be easily used by 3rd parties in order to provide 3rd party adaptive assistant services. An example 3rd party service demonstrator, built on top of BaranC, proactively assists a user by dynamic predication, based on the current context, what apps and contacts the user is likely to need. BaranC introduces an innovative user-controlled unified service model of monitoring and use of personal digital activity data in order to provide adaptive user-centred applications. This aims to improve on the current situation where the diversity of adaptive applications results in a proliferation of applications monitoring and using personal data, resulting in a lack of clarity, a dispersal of data, and a diminution of user control.

GVSOS: A New Client for OGC SOS Interface Standard

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Improving the performance of a dismounted Future Force Warrior by means of C4I2SR

This thesis comprises seven peer-reviewed articles and examines systems and applications suitable for increasing Future Force Warrior performance, minimizing collateral damage, improving situational awareness and Common Operational Picture. Based on a literature study, missing functionalities of Future Force Warrior were identified and new ideas, concepts and solutions were created as part of early stages of Systems of Systems creation. These introduced ideas have not yet been implemented or tested in combat and for this reason benefit analyses are excluded. The main results of this thesis include the following: A new networking concept, Wireless Polling Sensor Network, which is a swarm of a few Unmanned Aerial Vehicles forming an ad-hoc network and polling a large number of fixed sensor nodes. The system is more robust in a military environment than traditional Wireless Sensor Networks. A Business Process approach to Service Oriented Architecture in a tactical setting is a concept for scheduling and sharing limited resources. New components to military Service Oriented Architecture have been introduced in the thesis. Other results of the thesis include an investigation of the use of Free Space Optics in tactical communications, a proposal for tracking neutral forces, a system for upgrading simple collaboration tools for command, control and collaboration purposes, a three-level hierarchy of Future Force Warrior, and methods for reducing incidents of fratricide.

Na especificidade, a evidência do impacto das intervenções do enfermeiro especialista em enfermagem de reabilitação no doente com patologia respiratória crónica, no serviço de urgência

O presente estudo decorreu no serviço de urgência do Hospital do Espírito Santo de Évora – EPE, de Setembro de 2015 a Janeiro de 2016 e enquadra-se na área da prestação de cuidados especializados em enfermagem de reabilitação. É um estudo de caso, em que objeto de estudo é “A Intervenção do Enfermeiro Especialista em Enfermagem de Reabilitação no doente com Patologia Respiratória Crónica”. A abordagem metodológica é mista pois trata-se de um caso de estudo que não é puramente qualitativo. A utilização de metodologia quantitativa com indicadores quantitativos permitirá uma melhor compreensão e visão global do caso apresentado. Trata-se de um estudo de natureza descritiva, transversal e não experimental pois tem como objetivo a recolha de dados observáveis e quantificáveis, num determinado período de tempo e não o controlo de fenómenos. População alvo: todos os utentes com Patologia Respiratória Crónica internados no Serviço de Observação no período de tempo referido anteriormente. Amostra: 4 utentes com média de idades de 78,0 anos dos quais 75% eram do sexo masculino e 25% do sexo feminino. Foram implementadas intervenções de enfermagem de reabilitação, nomeadamente, reabilitação funcional respiratória e motora, que demonstraram ser eficazes tendo-se obtido saturações periféricas de O2 de 96%, em média. Estes resultados traduzem-se em ganhos ao nível da capacidade respiratória permitindo o desenvolvimento de atividades de vida diária normais. Também foi possível a manutenção e potenciação das capacidades de mobilidade nestes utentes com uma média etária elevada e com algumas limitações físicas e/ou cognitivas o que, só por si, também traduz ganhos em saúde no que concerne à sua independência e melhoria da qualidade de vida. O Enfermeiro Especialista em Enfermagem de Reabilitação é claramente uma mais-valia no serviço de urgência pois ao colocar em prática uma dinâmica de desempenho voltado para os conhecimentos especializados adquiridos, criando ferramentas que permitam um desempenho estruturado dos cuidados, a promoção da sua continuidade, a sua avaliação e a produção de conhecimento científico baseado na evidência contribui para a redução do tempo de internamento o que se repercute na maior eficácia na Gestão de Unidades de Saúde.

Improving quality-of-service in wireless sensor networks by mitigating “Hidden-Node Collisions”

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) emerge as underlying infrastructures for new classes of large-scale networked embedded systems. However, WSNs system designers must fulfill the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements imposed by the applications (and users). Very harsh and dynamic physical environments and extremely limited energy/computing/memory/communication node resources are major obstacles for satisfying QoS metrics such as reliability, timeliness, and system lifetime. The limited communication range of WSN nodes, link asymmetry, and the characteristics of the physical environment lead to a major source of QoS degradation in WSNs-the ldquohidden node problem.rdquo In wireless contention-based medium access control (MAC) protocols, when two nodes that are not visible to each other transmit to a third node that is visible to the former, there will be a collision-called hidden-node or blind collision. This problem greatly impacts network throughput, energy-efficiency and message transfer delays, and the problem dramatically increases with the number of nodes. This paper proposes H-NAMe, a very simple yet extremely efficient hidden-node avoidance mechanism for WSNs. H-NAMe relies on a grouping strategy that splits each cluster of a WSN into disjoint groups of non-hidden nodes that scales to multiple clusters via a cluster grouping strategy that guarantees no interference between overlapping clusters. Importantly, H-NAMe is instantiated in IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee, which currently are the most widespread communication technologies for WSNs, with only minor add-ons and ensuring backward compatibility with their protocols standards. H-NAMe was implemented and exhaustively tested using an experimental test-bed based on ldquooff-the-shelfrdquo technology, showing that it increases network throughput and transmission success probability up to twice the values obtained without H-NAMe. H-NAMe effectiveness was also demonstrated in a target tracking application with mobile robots - over a WSN deployment.

Quality-of-service in wireless sensor networks: state-of-the-art and future directions

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are one of today’s most prominent instantiations of the ubiquituous computing paradigm. In order to achieve high levels of integration, WSNs need to be conceived considering requirements beyond the mere system’s functionality. While Quality-of-Service (QoS) is traditionally associated with bit/data rate, network throughput, message delay and bit/packet error rate, we believe that this concept is too strict, in the sense that these properties alone do not reflect the overall quality-ofservice provided to the user/application. Other non-functional properties such as scalability, security or energy sustainability must also be considered in the system design. This paper identifies the most important non-functional properties that affect the overall quality of the service provided to the users, outlining their relevance, state-of-the-art and future research directions.

Quality-of-service aware routing for static and mobile IPv6-based low-power and lossy sensor networks using RPL

The Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged as a paradigm over the last few years as a result of the tight integration of the computing and the physical world. The requirement of remote sensing makes low-power wireless sensor networks one of the key enabling technologies of IoT. These networks encompass several challenges, especially in communication and networking, due to their inherent constraints of low-power features, deployment in harsh and lossy environments, and limited computing and storage resources. The IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) [1] was proposed by the IETF ROLL (Routing Over Low-power Lossy links) working group and is currently adopted as an IETF standard in the RFC 6550 since March 2012. Although RPL greatly satisfied the requirements of low-power and lossy sensor networks, several issues remain open for improvement and specification, in particular with respect to Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees and support for mobility. In this paper, we focus mainly on the RPL routing protocol. We propose some enhancements to the standard specification in order to provide QoS guarantees for static as well as mobile LLNs. For this purpose, we propose OF-FL (Objective Function based on Fuzzy Logic), a new objective function that overcomes the limitations of the standardized objective functions that were designed for RPL by considering important link and node metrics, namely end-to-end delay, number of hops, ETX (Expected transmission count) and LQL (Link Quality Level). In addition, we present the design of Co-RPL, an extension to RPL based on the corona mechanism that supports mobility in order to overcome the problem of slow reactivity to frequent topology changes and thus providing a better quality of service mainly in dynamic networks application. Performance evaluation results show that both OF-FL and Co-RPL allow a great improvement when compared to the standard specification, mainly in terms of packet loss ratio and average network latency. 2015 Elsevier B.V. Al

Implementing gateway monitoring service for infrastructure sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks and its applications have been widely researched and implemented in both commercial and non commercial areas. The usage of wireless sensor network has developed its market from military usage to daily use of human livings. Wireless sensor network applications from monitoring prospect are used in home monitoring, farm fields and habitant monitoring to buildings structural monitoring. As the usage boundaries of wireless sensor networks and its applications are emerging there are definite ongoing research, such as lifetime for wireless sensor network, security of sensor nodes and expanding the applications with modern day scenarios of applications as web services. The main focus in this thesis work is to study and implement monitoring application for infrastructure based sensor network and expand its usability as web service to facilitate mobile clients. The developed application is implemented for wireless sensor nodes information collection and monitoring purpose enabling home or office environment remote monitoring for a user.