0000000000008099
AUTHOR
Frank Reichert
A SOA-based health service platform in smart home environment
The increasing demand for a good healthcare quality has brought Information and Communication Technology to an important role in healthcare domain. The trend in decreasing number of formal healthcare workers gives further pressure to move non-urgent treatments to the patients' homes. However, delivering healthcare services to meet the changing needs of inhabitants in a smart home requires an open and flexible service creation and integration environment so that the modification of existing services as well as creation of new services can be achieved in a timely manner. This paper presents a vision of a logical integration platform in a smart home environment, integrating various devices and…
Using assessment for learning mathematics with mobile tablet based solutions
Published version of an article in the journal: International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET). Also available from the publisher: http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v9i2.3219 This article discusses assessment for learning in mathematics subjects. Teachers of large classes face the challenge of regularly assessing students’ ongoing mathematical learning achievements. Taking the complexity of assessment and feedback for learning as a background, we have developed a new approach to the assessment for learning mathematics at university level. We devised mobile tablet technology supported assessment processes, and we carried out user studies in both Rwanda and Norway. Results of …
UPnP control point for mobile phones in residential networks
Together, Ericsson and HiA are studying the role of WiFi-enabled mobile phones in residential networks. This article describes a first step to allow mobile phones to discover and control networked residential media servers and renderers following the standards developed by the UPnP Forum.
Developing a formative assessment system for mathematics using mobile technology: A student centred approach
The success of mobile technology for learning tools depends not only on the technical design aspects but also on pedagogical issues. Students' involvement in designing the tools is one of the key factors for their engagement in technology supported learning. Students should be actively involved in developing innovative solutions which are likely to improve their skills as well as their performance. In this study work, the students participated in iterative design processes of a mobile tablet based peer-to-peer assessment system (P2PASS) for mathematics, and in real life deployment on a mathematics course. The paper reports on two major concepts: the user centred design in practice and the p…
A User-Centric Approach for Personalized Service Provisioning in Pervasive Environments
Published version of an article published in Wireless Personal Communications (2011). Also available from the publisher at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11277-011-0387-3 The vision of pervasive environments is being realized more than ever with the proliferation of services and computing resources located in our surrounding environments. Identifying those services that deserve the attention of the user is becoming an increasingly-challenging task. In this paper, we present an adaptive multi-criteria decision making mechanism for recommending relevant services to the mobile user. In this context, "Relevance" is determined based on a user-centric approach that combines both the reputation of the…
A REST-based publish/subscribe platform to support things-to-services communications
The term “Internet of Things” has been used widely in recent years, bringing up a grand idea of connecting physical objects with one another through both wired and wireless networks. Maturity of the Internet Protocol has pushed 21st century communications between devices to go all-IP, which includes everyday objects. Many new services are deployed in the “cloud”, utilising the Internet infrastructure and the Web, and information from everyday objects can play an important role. This paper presents an information integration platform which enables everyday objects to communicate with Internet services based on event-driven service-oriented architecture paradigm. A proof-of-concept prototype …
Towards integrated operations for ships
Maritime customers will benefit greatly from integrated operations between ship and shore. It requires integrating diverse information services within a variety of communication environments, which is a complex task. The common approach to dealing with complex tasks is to use a divide-and-conquer policy and solve problems independently. Since there are mainly two challenges involved - interoperability among heterogeneous applications and connectivity through difficult maritime networks, to handle them separately has become useful. While interoperability and connectivity solutions work well individually, if we put them together in the maritime context, problems arise. We b services based int…
An intelligent architecture for service provisioning in pervasive environments
Accepted version of an article from the conference: 2011 International Symposium on Innovations in Intelligent Systems and Applications (INISTA). Definitive published version available from IEEE: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/INISTA.2011.5946134 The vision of pervasive environments is being realized more than ever with the proliferation of services and computing resources located in our surrounding environments. Identifying those services that deserve the attention of the user is becoming an increasingly-challenging task. In this paper, we present an adaptive multi-criteria decision making mechanism for recommending relevant services to the mobile user. In this context Relevance is determined b…
Energy Efficiency Evaluation of Cellular Networks Based on Spatial Distributions of Traffic Load and Power Consumption
Energy efficiency has gained its significance when service providers' operational costs burden with the rapidly growing data traffic demand in cellular networks. In this paper, we propose an energy efficiency model for Poisson-Voronoi tessellation (PVT) cellular networks considering spatial distributions of traffic load and power consumption. The spatial distributions of traffic load and power consumption are derived for a typical PVT cell, and can be directly extended to the whole PVT cellular network based on the Palm theory. Furthermore, the energy efficiency of PVT cellular networks is evaluated by taking into account traffic load characteristics, wireless channel effects and interferen…
Investigating teachers motivation to use ICT tools in higher education
There are a lot of information and communication technology (ICT) tools for education, but the motivation to use those varies from teacher to teacher. In this paper we present results of an international survey on teachers' use of ICT tools in education. The purpose of the survey was to find out what motivates teachers to use ICT tools in the context of teaching. The survey also intended to reveal which tools are used as well as the needs and requirements that are not covered by the existing tools. Most of the 45 respondents suggested that the integration of tools depends on how well they fit into the learning and teaching process and how easy it is to integrate them. The first category of …
Media Delivery to Remote Renderers Controlled by the Mobile Phone
In today's content delivery solutions, service delivery and control are still tightly coupled, a service typically being delivered to the same device that controls the session. We present a solution that was designed with the goal to decouple service control and delivery. Using our approach, multimedia streaming services can be delivered to off-the-shelf DLNA devices in visited networks. The service provider receives information about the remote media player and access environment via a mobile phone. Proximity technologies (e.g. barcodes, NFC) of the control device are used for the exchange of required credentials. This paper describes a typical scenario and our prototype implementation.
Learning Automaton Based On-Line Discovery and Tracking of Spatio-temporal Event Patterns
Published version of an article from the book: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2010, Volume 6230/2010, 327-338. The original publication is available at Springerlink. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15246-7_31 Discovering and tracking of spatio-temporal patterns in noisy sequences of events is a difficult task that has become increasingly pertinent due to recent advances in ubiquitous computing, such as community-based social networking applications. The core activities for applications of this class include the sharing and notification of events, and the importance and usefulness of these functionalites increases as event-sharing expands into larger areas of one’s life. Ironically, …
Using Multi-touch Multi-user Interactive Walls for Collaborative Active Learning
Active learning has been advocated for enhancing students’ higher order cognition in social constructivist learning settings. However, with the increasing use of student-owned computing devices in face-to-face classrooms, there are risks of limited student-student interactions. Students are likely to be distracted by non-academic activities, hence becoming inactive with regards to the learning tasks. This article presents a technology enhanced learning approach, in which students perform group learning tasks using shared digital workspace while in a physical classroom. The workspace comprises of a 9-m wide screen wall with multi-touch, multi-user interfaces supporting multimodal interaction…
Editorial: Special Issue on "5G Workshop on Networks, Services and Applications" : topics from the 1st Joint Workshop between Center for TeleInFrastruktur (CTIF), Denmark and Center for Wireless Innovation (CWI), Norway, October 8, 2009, Aalborg, Denmark
Published version of an article in Wireless Personal Communications, 57(3), 313-316. Also available from the publisher at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11277-010-0068-7 The first joint workshop between Center for TeleInFrastruktur (CTIF), Denmark and Center for Wireless Innovation (CWI), Norway, was held in Aalborg, Denmark on October 8, 2009, focusing on yet undefined term, "5G mobile networks". This Special Issue features eleven selected papers based on networks, services and applications aspects of 5G.
Delivering Services to Residential Appliances by Utilizing Remote Resource Awareness
Service providers are nowadays offering a variety of services, and in particular multimedia content delivery. Besides, consumer appliances are increasingly becoming digitalized including support for communication networks. However, it is difficult, and in many cases impossible, to use these services with standard consumer appliances, such as TV and media player devices. Rather, usage is often restricted so that they can only be accessed through web browsers from PCs, mobile phones and similar terminals. This is unfortunate, because dedicated consumer appliances are often better suited to handle the content and thereby give consumers a better experience. Within this paper, three design appro…
Towards a relation oriented service architecture
Over the past three decades, the Internet has evolved from a point to point, open, academic network to an applications and services oriented critical infrastructure. The Internet has become a vital component of society today, from its simple origin as an academic research project. During this transition, numerous applications and usages of the network emerged that cannot be efficiently implemented by adhering to the original design tenets of the Internet. Some of the tenets have been broken, others diluted and new ones are emerging to accommodate new paradigms. Moreover, applications and services have been moving slowly but consistently towards a uniform model based on Service Oriented Appr…
Reference Design for Smart Collaborative Telehealth and Telecare Services Based on IoT Technologies
The demographic development shows aging societies through-out the globe, leading to higher demands on the health and care systems due to age-related disabilities, chronic diseases, etc. Telehealth and telecare services for more efficient support of health and care providers are needed, which can be significantly improved by the continuous technological developments in areas such as sensor devices, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud services, and data analysis. This paper addresses the potential of selected emerging technologies to make eHealth systems smarter, more collaborative and more efficient. As a result of the analysis of the most promising technological trends, characteristics of futur…
Using SIP Presence for Remote Service Awareness
Residential networks usually protect its devices and services behind firewalls and use private IP addresses. Therefore, appliances within a residential network cannot be discovered and utilized from external networks by standardized technologies as UPnP. In this paper, we present our concept of “Service Presence”, based on the 3GPP Presence Service that makes the service presence information remotely discoverable.
Remote service usage through SIP with multimedia access as a use case
The IP Multimedia Subsystem is under deployment, as an IP-based service control and access infrastructure, but how it interconnects with residential appliances is currently unclear. With IMS access for the residential appliances they can be used as both service consumers and service providers. In this paper we present a protocol which allows residential services to be remotely invoked, through the IMS, and consumed in a different network, along with a prototype implementation and early results. With our protocol services of two distinct service protocol systems can cooperate.
Ethical issues of gamified ICT tools for higher education
A recent trend in e-learning is the development of ICT tools with game elements to increase the motivation of using new technology in teaching and learning. In most cases, games possess different ethical constraints than regular e-learning systems. For this reason, additional implications and issues deriving from the combined development of games and e-learning technology have to be considered. During the development process of gamified e-learning systems as well as during the use of gamified ICT tools in education special attention must be paid to ethical constraints. This paper presents ethical considerations as to how to properly motivate teachers to adopt new technology in their teachin…
“Sven and the Media Portal” : A Nomadic Use Case for the Extended Home
The Networked and Electronic Media Technology Platform (NEM) [5] states that users will consume an “innovative mix of various media forms, delivered seamlessly over technologically transparent networks, to improve the quality, enjoyment and value of life. [6] visualizes a future use case and some of the challenges that need to be addressed before the NEM vision becomes reality.
Towards a layer-less network architecture — A case from Wireless Sensor Networks
Ad hoc and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) form a challenging domain for existing network protocols and paradigms to fit into. The traditional models conceived for wired networking and adapted for wireless and mobile environments provide an inefficient and ungraceful outcome when exercised against highly dynamic and highly mobile nature of ad hoc wireless sensor networks. Efforts are being made to tweak existing (and sometimes create from scratch) principles and models that can provide a concrete framework for such newer paradigms. The momentum of the traditional layered architecture carried over from the wired networks to infrastructure based wireless networks pushes the same approaches as…
Investigating the User Experience of Virtual Reality Rehabilitation Solution for Biomechatronics Laboratory and Home Environment
Virtual reality (VR) technology is a promising tool in physical rehabilitation. Research indicates that VR-supported rehabilitation is beneficial for task-specific training, multi-sensory feedback, diversified rehabilitation tasks, and patient motivation. Our first goal was to create a biomechatronics laboratory with a VR setup for increasing immersion and a motion platform to provide realistic feedback to patients. The second goal was to investigate possibilities to replicate features of the biomechatronics laboratory in a home-based training system using commercially available components. The laboratory comprises of a motion platform with 6-degrees-of-freedom (Rexroth eMotion), fitted wit…
Virtualization of Remote Devices and Services in Residential Networks
Lately solutions for remote access for residential services have been proposed. However, these solutions require modifications to the service controllers. In addition, remote access adds complexity to the client application. We propose here a solution for decoupling remote access from the client itself with an entity that creates virtual instances of remote services in a local network. Thereby, clients will be able to discover the virtual instance and use it. Moreover, client applications do not need to distinguish between local and remote services hence reducing complexity.
Phone-Controlled Delivery of NGN Services into Residential Environments
The horizontally layered architecture of the IMS/NGN standards family enables the delivery of services independent of access network and requesting device. In this article, the authors propose a further separation of service control and delivery, allowing the requesting device - in particular a user's mobile phone - to invite other devices (we will focus on DLNA appliances) into the service delivery, enhancing both user experience and service design flexibility. The proposed solution builds on exploiting proximity technologies (e.g. barcodes, NFC) for pairing the control device with a remote environment. Motivated by scenarios, the architecture concepts are explained and a prototype that wa…
Rethinking practices of assessment for learning: Tablet technology supported assessment for learning mathematics
This article discusses assessment for learning in mathematics subjects. It is challenging for teachers of large classes to regularly assess students' mathematics in order to help them improve their learning achievement. Given the complexity of assessing and providing feedback for learning, a new approach to assessment for learning was suggested. Media tablet technology supported assessment processes were devised and user studies were conducted in Norway and Rwanda. There are indications that students like to be involved in assessing each other's mathematics work. Students expect to get learning gains by providing and obtaining feedback to/from their peers using technology supported tools.
An enhanced TCP congestion avoidance scheme and its performance evaluation in high speed satellite networks
©2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE." Article also available from publisher: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICICS.2009.5397691 High speed satellite communication networks are emerging as part of the future global wireless communication systems. However, existing transmission control protocols for satellite networks do not provide satisfactory performance over high speed satellite links due to their ine…
Supporting teachers' needs within and through E-learning systems
These days more and more digital learning and teaching opportunities emerge into the world of higher education. In this upcoming project which is described in this paper, the teachers' needs, especially their teaching motivation will be regarded. This project is part of a bigger project, where several different faculties will work together. This combination of faculties is beneficial for topics like these, because the approach combines pedagogical and technical knowledge. This topic regarding teachers' needs deals with the initial and ongoing motivation as well as behavior and attitudes toward current or upcoming ICT systems for education. The main aspect of the project is to specify issues…