Semi-Automated Creation of Converged iTV Services: From Macromedia Director Simulations to Services Ready for Broadcast

While sound and video may capture viewers' attention, interaction can captivate them. This has not been available prior to the advent of Digital Television. In fact, what lies at the heart of the Digital Television revolution is this new type of interactive content, offered in the form of interactive Television (iTV) services. On top of that, the new world of converged networks has created a demand for a new type of converged services on a range of mobile terminals (Tablet PCs, PDAs and mobile phones). This paper aims at presenting a new approach to service creation that allows for the semi-automatic translation of simulations and rapid prototypes created in the accessible desktop multimedia authoring package Macromedia Director into services ready for broadcast. This is achieved by a series of tools that de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces (UI) and applications for mobile terminals. The benefits of rapid prototyping are essential for the production of these new types of services, and are therefore discussed in the first section of this paper. In the following sections, an overview of the operation of content, service, creation and management sub-systems is presented, which illustrates why these tools compose an important and integral part of a system responsible of creating, delivering and managing converged broadcast and telecommunications services. The next section examines a number of metadata languages candidates for describing the iTV services user interface and the schema language adopted in this project. A detailed description of the operation of the two tools is provided to offer an insight of how they can be used to de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces and applications for mobile terminals. Finally, representative broadcast oriented and telecommunication oriented converged service components are also introduced, demonstrating how these tools have been used to generate different types of services.

Identifying Distinct Quitting Trajectories after an Unassisted Smoking Cessation Attempt: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

Objectives: This study aimed at identifying distinct quitting trajectories over 29 days after an unassisted smoking ces- sation attempt by ecological momentary assessment (EMA). In order to validate these trajectories we tested if they predict smoking frequency up to six months later. Methods: EMA via mobile phones was used to collect real time data on smoking (yes/no) after an unassisted quit attempt over 29 days. Smoking frequency one, three and six months after the quit attempt was assessed with online questionnaires. Latent class growth modeling was used to analyze the data of 230 self-quitters. Results: Four different quitting trajectories emerged: quitter (43.9%), late quitter (11.3%), returner (17%) and persistent smoker (27.8%). The quitting trajectories predicted smoking frequency one, three and six months after the quit attempt (all p < 0.001). Conclusions: Outcome after a smoking cessation attempt is better described by four distinct trajectories instead of a binary variable for abstinence or relapse. In line with the relapse model by Marlatt and Gordon, late quitter may have learned how to cope with lapses during one month after the quitting attempt. This group would have been allocated to the relapse group in traditional outcome studies.

Volitional processes and daily smoking: Examining inter- and intraindividual associations around a quit attempt

The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) assumes that volitional processes are important for effective behavioral change. However, intraindividual associations have not yet been tested in the context of smoking cessation. This study examined the inter- and intraindividual associations between volitional HAPA variables and daily smoking before and after a quit attempt. Overall, 100 smokers completed daily surveys on mobile phones from 10 days before until 21 days after a self-set quit date, including self-efficacy, action planning, action control, and numbers of cigarettes smoked. Negative associations between volitional variables and daily numbers of cigarettes smoked emerged at the inter- and intraindividual level. Except for interindividual action planning, associations were stronger after the quit date than before the quit date. Self-efficacy, planning and action control were identified as critical inter- and intraindividual processes in smoking cessation, particularly after a self-set quit attempt when actual behavior change is performed.

Energy Efficient Multimedia Communications in IEEE 802.11 Networks

During the last decade wireless mobile communications have progressively become part of the people’s daily lives, leading users to expect to be “alwaysbest-connected” to the Internet, regardless of their location or time of day. This is indeed motivated by the fact that wireless access networks are increasingly ubiquitous, through different types of service providers, together with an outburst of thoroughly portable devices, namely laptops, tablets, mobile phones, among others. The “anytime and anywhere” connectivity criterion raises new challenges regarding the devices’ battery lifetime management, as energy becomes the most noteworthy restriction of the end-users’ satisfaction. This wireless access context has also stimulated the development of novel multimedia applications with high network demands, although lacking in energy-aware design. Therefore, the relationship between energy consumption and the quality of the multimedia applications perceived by end-users should be carefully investigated. This dissertation addresses energy-efficient multimedia communications in the IEEE 802.11 standard, which is the most widely used wireless access technology. It advances the literature by proposing a unique empirical assessment methodology and new power-saving algorithms, always bearing in mind the end-users’ feedback and evaluating quality perception. The new EViTEQ framework proposed in this thesis, for measuring video transmission quality and energy consumption simultaneously, in an integrated way, reveals the importance of having an empirical and high-accuracy methodology to assess the trade-off between quality and energy consumption, raised by the new end-users’ requirements. Extensive evaluations conducted with the EViTEQ framework revealed its flexibility and capability to accurately report both video transmission quality and energy consumption, as well as to be employed in rigorous investigations of network interface energy consumption patterns, regardless of the wireless access technology. Following the need to enhance the trade-off between energy consumption and application quality, this thesis proposes the Optimized Power save Algorithm for continuous Media Applications (OPAMA). By using the end-users’ feedback to establish a proper trade-off between energy consumption and application performance, OPAMA aims at enhancing the energy efficiency of end-users’ devices accessing the network through IEEE 802.11. OPAMA performance has been thoroughly analyzed within different scenarios and application types, including a simulation study and a real deployment in an Android testbed. When compared with the most popular standard power-saving mechanisms defined in the IEEE 802.11 standard, the obtained results revealed OPAMA’s capability to enhance energy efficiency, while keeping end-users’ Quality of Experience within the defined bounds. Furthermore, OPAMA was optimized to enable superior energy savings in multiple station environments, resulting in a new proposal called Enhanced Power Saving Mechanism for Multiple station Environments (OPAMA-EPS4ME). The results of this thesis highlight the relevance of having a highly accurate methodology to assess energy consumption and application quality when aiming to optimize the trade-off between energy and quality. Additionally, the obtained results based both on simulation and testbed evaluations, show clear benefits from employing userdriven power-saving techniques, such as OPAMA, instead of IEEE 802.11 standard power-saving approaches.

Perspectivas sobre el turismo en la Comunidad Andina de Naciones : Análisis comparativo con el Mercosur

El proyecto de integración al que aspiran los países miembros de la Comunidad Andina de Naciones (can) tiene un carácter exhaustivo, que excede el ámbito de los acuerdos comerciales. En este contexto, la integración en materia de turismo ha despertado un interés creciente entre los gobiernos de América Latina y el Caribe, por su capacidad de generar divisas y favorecer la inversión privada, la creación de empleo, la inclusión y el encadenamiento de empresas pequeñas y comunidades locales. Asimismo, la actividad turística puede contribuir a reforzar la identidad regional y subregional de los esquemas de integración. El turismo es uno de los rubros económicos más importantes para los países en desarrollo y, a su vez, se lo reconoce como un factor que contribuye a la reducción de la pobreza y al crecimiento económico. Por ello, se lo debe considerar como una oportunidad para el desarrollo de los países de la can, sobre todo porque los miembros del bloque andino cuentan con una oferta turística diversificada compuesta por recursos naturales y culturales de gran atractivo. En el presente trabajo se analiza la evolución del flujo de turistas en los países de la Comunidad Andina de Naciones y se esboza un estudio comparativo con el bloque del mercosur. Luego, se elabora una matriz que permite observar, a primera vista, la magnitud del turismo emisivo intrarregional en ambos casos, así como determinar ciertas conclusiones a partir de los datos observados y comparados. Finalmente, se presentan algunas propuestas que los cuatro países de la CAN podrían desarrollar en el ámbito de la cooperación horizontal, en relación con la promoción conjunta y con la participación de las ciudades de la región en la red de Mercociudades

Perspectivas sobre el turismo en la Comunidad Andina de Naciones : Análisis comparativo con el Mercosur

El proyecto de integración al que aspiran los países miembros de la Comunidad Andina de Naciones (can) tiene un carácter exhaustivo, que excede el ámbito de los acuerdos comerciales. En este contexto, la integración en materia de turismo ha despertado un interés creciente entre los gobiernos de América Latina y el Caribe, por su capacidad de generar divisas y favorecer la inversión privada, la creación de empleo, la inclusión y el encadenamiento de empresas pequeñas y comunidades locales. Asimismo, la actividad turística puede contribuir a reforzar la identidad regional y subregional de los esquemas de integración. El turismo es uno de los rubros económicos más importantes para los países en desarrollo y, a su vez, se lo reconoce como un factor que contribuye a la reducción de la pobreza y al crecimiento económico. Por ello, se lo debe considerar como una oportunidad para el desarrollo de los países de la can, sobre todo porque los miembros del bloque andino cuentan con una oferta turística diversificada compuesta por recursos naturales y culturales de gran atractivo. En el presente trabajo se analiza la evolución del flujo de turistas en los países de la Comunidad Andina de Naciones y se esboza un estudio comparativo con el bloque del mercosur. Luego, se elabora una matriz que permite observar, a primera vista, la magnitud del turismo emisivo intrarregional en ambos casos, así como determinar ciertas conclusiones a partir de los datos observados y comparados. Finalmente, se presentan algunas propuestas que los cuatro países de la CAN podrían desarrollar en el ámbito de la cooperación horizontal, en relación con la promoción conjunta y con la participación de las ciudades de la región en la red de Mercociudades

Perspectivas sobre el turismo en la Comunidad Andina de Naciones : Análisis comparativo con el Mercosur

El proyecto de integración al que aspiran los países miembros de la Comunidad Andina de Naciones (can) tiene un carácter exhaustivo, que excede el ámbito de los acuerdos comerciales. En este contexto, la integración en materia de turismo ha despertado un interés creciente entre los gobiernos de América Latina y el Caribe, por su capacidad de generar divisas y favorecer la inversión privada, la creación de empleo, la inclusión y el encadenamiento de empresas pequeñas y comunidades locales. Asimismo, la actividad turística puede contribuir a reforzar la identidad regional y subregional de los esquemas de integración. El turismo es uno de los rubros económicos más importantes para los países en desarrollo y, a su vez, se lo reconoce como un factor que contribuye a la reducción de la pobreza y al crecimiento económico. Por ello, se lo debe considerar como una oportunidad para el desarrollo de los países de la can, sobre todo porque los miembros del bloque andino cuentan con una oferta turística diversificada compuesta por recursos naturales y culturales de gran atractivo. En el presente trabajo se analiza la evolución del flujo de turistas en los países de la Comunidad Andina de Naciones y se esboza un estudio comparativo con el bloque del mercosur. Luego, se elabora una matriz que permite observar, a primera vista, la magnitud del turismo emisivo intrarregional en ambos casos, así como determinar ciertas conclusiones a partir de los datos observados y comparados. Finalmente, se presentan algunas propuestas que los cuatro países de la CAN podrían desarrollar en el ámbito de la cooperación horizontal, en relación con la promoción conjunta y con la participación de las ciudades de la región en la red de Mercociudades

Environmental consciousness, economic gain and consumer choice of energy efficient appliances in Thailand, China and India

In developing economies, consumption of electricity in residential and commercial sectors increased with economic development. In order to identify the factors for effective facilitation of standard and labeling programs, this article explores factors that affect consumer choice to energy-efficient products. Main findings are as follows: (1)Consumers in Thailand shows the highest awareness to environmental friendly concepts, followed by India and China.(2) Chosen labeled products include air-conditioners, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines, but not some popular products such as ceiling fans, electric fans or mobile phones. (3) Consumer who has higher energy conservation perception will buy energy efficient products.(4) Consumers in China, India and Thailand are sensitive to energy efficiency of products, primarily because they lead to less expenditure on electricity. (5) Labeling works to make levels of the energy efficiency of products more visible and thus helped consumers to choose the products.

Desing and Validation of a Light Inference System to Support Embedded Context Reasoning

Embedded context management in resource-constrained devices (e.g. mobile phones, autonomous sensors or smart objects) imposes special requirements in terms of lightness for data modelling and reasoning. In this paper, we explore the state-of-the-art on data representation and reasoning tools for embedded mobile reasoning and propose a light inference system (LIS) aiming at simplifying embedded inference processes offering a set of functionalities to avoid redundancy in context management operations. The system is part of a service-oriented mobile software framework, conceived to facilitate the creation of context-aware applications—it decouples sensor data acquisition and context processing from the application logic. LIS, composed of several modules, encapsulates existing lightweight tools for ontology data management and rule-based reasoning, and it is ready to run on Java-enabled handheld devices. Data management and reasoning processes are designed to handle a general ontology that enables communication among framework components. Both the applications running on top of the framework and the framework components themselves can configure the rule and query sets in order to retrieve the information they need from LIS. In order to test LIS features in a real application scenario, an ‘Activity Monitor’ has been designed and implemented: a personal health-persuasive application that provides feedback on the user’s lifestyle, combining data from physical and virtual sensors. In this case of use, LIS is used to timely evaluate the user’s activity level, to decide on the convenience of triggering notifications and to determine the best interface or channel to deliver these context-aware alerts.d

PEPSI: Privacy-Enhanced Participatory Sensing Infrastructure.

Participatory Sensing combines the ubiquity of mobile phones with sensing capabilities of Wireless Sensor Networks. It targets pervasive collection of information, e.g., temperature, traffic conditions, or health-related data. As users produce measurements from their mobile devices, voluntary participation becomes essential. However, a number of privacy concerns -- due to the personal information conveyed by data reports -- hinder large-scale deployment of participatory sensing applications. Prior work on privacy protection, for participatory sensing, has often relayed on unrealistic assumptions and with no provably-secure guarantees. The goal of this project is to introduce PEPSI: a Privacy-Enhanced Participatory Sensing Infrastructure. We explore realistic architectural assumptions and a minimal set of (formal) privacy requirements, aiming at protecting privacy of both data producers and consumers. We design a solution that attains privacy guarantees with provable security at very low additional computational cost and almost no extra communication overhead.

Hand Image Segmentation by means of Gaussian Multiscale Aggregation for biometric applications

Applying biometrics to daily scenarios involves demanding requirements in terms of software and hardware. On the contrary, current biometric techniques are also being adapted to present-day devices, like mobile phones, laptops and the like, which are far from meeting the previous stated requirements. In fact, achieving a combination of both necessities is one of the most difficult problems at present in biometrics. Therefore, this paper presents a segmentation algorithm able to provide suitable solutions in terms of precision for hand biometric recognition, considering a wide range of backgrounds like carpets, glass, grass, mud, pavement, plastic, tiles or wood. Results highlight that segmentation accuracy is carried out with high rates of precision (F-measure 88%)), presenting competitive time results when compared to state-of-the-art segmentation algorithms time performance

La telefonía móvil : el impacto social

El objetivo de este proyecto ha sido el de realizar un análisis del importante desarrollo que han sufrido las telecomunicaciones, haciendo un especial hincapié en la telefonía móvil y el impacto y repercusión que ha causado actualmente en nuestra sociedad. Para ello se hará un repaso evolutivo de las tecnologías de la información y las telecomunicaciones, y se establecerá una relación entre la gran difusión de éstas y su efecto sobre los usos, y cambios percibidos por los consumidores del nuevo siglo. Ciertamente la historia de la tecnología, nos enseña que la gente y las organizaciones acaban utilizándola para unos propósitos muy diferentes de aquellos que inicialmente fueron concebidas. Además cuanto más interactiva sea una tecnología, tanto más probable será que los usuarios se conviertan en productores o modificadores de la misma. Por tanto, la sociedad necesita resolver las incógnitas que pueda suscitar el rápido y continúo cambio de las comunicaciones. Este proyecto trata de ayudar a responder alguna de las cuestiones que actualmente se están planteando. ¿Son los teléfonos móviles una expresión de identidad, artilugios de moda, herramientas de la vida cotidiana, o todo lo anterior? ¿Existen nuevos modelos de comportamiento y conducta social? ¿La comunicación móvil está favoreciendo la aparición de una nueva cultura joven con un lenguaje propio basado en la comunicación textual y multimodal? ¿Tienen los teléfonos móviles efectos nocivos en la salud? La respuesta a estas preguntas afecta a nuestras vidas y también condiciona las políticas públicas y las estrategias de negocio, por eso requiere adquirir un conocimiento cimentado en la información, y la recopilación de datos de diversas fuentes, tanto de estadísticas provenientes de diferentes estudios e investigaciones, como de empresas consultoras, siempre basada en una perspectiva global. En conjunto, se espera dentro de los límites del conocimiento actual, contribuir a establecer las bases para el análisis y valoración de la relación existente entre comunicación, tecnología y sociedad en todo el mundo. Abstract The purpose of this project has been to analyse the significant development undergone by telecommunications, putting a special emphasis on mobile phones and the impact it has caused in society. We will go over the evolution of IT technologies and telecommunications as well as establish a relationship between its spread and effect of its uses and changes understood by the new century consumers. Technology history shows us that people and organizations use it for very different purposes from those originally thought. Furthermore, the more interactive technologies are, the more users will modify or produce it. Therefore, society needs to solve the mysteries of the quick and continuous change of communications. This project tries to help and answer some of the questions considered these days. Are mobile phones an expression of identity, fashionable devices, tools for everyday life or all at once? Are there any new models of performance and social behaviour? Is mobile communication favouring the existence of a new young culture with a typical language based on textual and multimodal communication? Are mobile phones bad for our health? The answer to these questions affects us all and conditions public politics and business strategies so it is required to get firm knowledge based on information. It is also important to compile data from various sources, from statistics of research and studies, based on a global perspective. As a whole, we hope to contribute to establish the bases for the future analysis and assessment of a fundamental trend that is redefining the relationship between communication, technology and society worldwide by transforming the wireless networks that make our lives.

A knowledge-based method for generating summaries of spatial movement in geographic areas

In this article we describe a method for automatically generating text summaries of data corresponding to traces of spatial movement in geographical areas. The method can help humans to understand large data streams, such as the amounts of GPS data recorded by a variety of sensors in mobile phones, cars, etc. We describe the knowledge representations we designed for our method and the main components of our method for generating the summaries: a discourse planner, an abstraction module and a text generator. We also present evaluation results that show the ability of our method to generate certain types of geospatial and temporal descriptions.

Supporting eradication of maternal child malnutrition in developing countries: a case from Nicaragua scenario.

World Health Organization actively stresses the importance of health, nutrition and well-being of the mother to foster children development. This issue is critical in the rural areas of developing countries where monitoring of health status of children is hardly performed since population suffers from a lack of access to health care. The aim of this research is to design, implement and deploy an e-health information and communication system to support health care in 26 rural communities of Cusmapa, Nicaragua. The final solution consists of an hybrid WiMAX/WiFi architecture that provides good quality communications through VoIP taking advantage of low cost WiFi mobile devices. Thus, a WiMAX base station was installed in the health center to provide a radio link with the rural health post "El Carrizo" sited 7,4 km. in line of sight. This service makes possible personal broadband voice and data communication facilities with the health center based on WiFi enabled devices such as laptops and cellular phones without communications cost. A free software PBX was installed at "San José de Cusmapa" health care site to enable communications for physicians, nurses and a technician through mobile telephones with IEEE 802.11 b/g protocol and SIP provided by the project. Additionally, the rural health post staff (midwives, brigade) received two mobile phones with these same features. In a complementary way, the deployed health information system is ready to analyze the distribution of maternal-child population at risk and the distribution of diseases on a geographical baseline. The system works with four information layers: fertile women, children, people with disabilities and diseases. Thus, authorized staff can obtain reports about prenatal monitoring tasks, status of the communities, malnutrition, and immunization control. Data need to be updated by health care staff in order to timely detect the source of problem to implement measures addressed to alleviate and improve health status population permanently. Ongoing research is focused on a mobile platform that collects and automatically updates in the information system, the height and weight of the children locally gathered in the remote communities. This research is being granted by the program Millennium Rural Communities of the Technical University of Madrid.

Design and Validation of a Light Inference System to Support Embedded Context Reasoning

Embedded context management in resource-constrained devices (e.g. mobile phones, autonomous sensors or smart objects) imposes special requirements in terms of lightness for data modelling and reasoning. In this paper, we explore the state-of-the-art on data representation and reasoning tools for embedded mobile reasoning and propose a light inference system (LIS) aiming at simplifying embedded inference processes offering a set of functionalities to avoid redundancy in context management operations. The system is part of a service-oriented mobile software framework, conceived to facilitate the creation of context-aware applications?it decouples sensor data acquisition and context processing from the application logic. LIS, composed of several modules, encapsulates existing lightweight tools for ontology data management and rule-based reasoning, and it is ready to run on Java-enabled handheld devices. Data management and reasoning processes are designed to handle a general ontology that enables communication among framework components. Both the applications running on top of the framework and the framework components themselves can configure the rule and query sets in order to retrieve the information they need from LIS. In order to test LIS features in a real application scenario, an ?Activity Monitor? has been designed and implemented: a personal health-persuasive application that provides feedback on the user?s lifestyle, combining data from physical and virtual sensors. In this case of use, LIS is used to timely evaluate the user?s activity level, to decide on the convenience of triggering notifications and to determine the best interface or channel to deliver these context-aware alerts.