Agri-food companies, operating in the packaging, storage and distribution of fruit and vegetables, need to be provided with information systems able to meet the requirements imposed by the current European regulations in terms of traceability. This paper evaluates the benefits and drawbacks of a semi-automated information management tracking system for a warehouse specialized in the fruit market. It is targeted to small and medium-sized companies, with limited financial means for investments and without technical support in their premises. These requirements are met by using a PDA equipped with an RFID reader: the information collected throughout the production process are locally stored in the PDA and occasionally sent to a server. In this way the proposed system does not rely neither on a widespread wireless network, nor on fixed RFID readers, which can increase automation, but need more investment and assistance.

Recent graphic processing units (GPUs) have remarkable raw computing power, which can be used for very computationally challenging problems. Like in micromagnetic simulations, where the magnetostatic field computation to analyze the magnetic behavior at very small time and space scale demands a huge computation time. This paper presents a multidimensional FFT-based parallel implementation of a magnetostatic field computation on GPUs. We have developed a specialized 3D FFT library for magnetostatic field calculation on GPUs. This made it possible to fully exploit the symmetries inherent in the field calculation and other optimizations specific to the GPUs architecture. We have compared our results with the widely used CPU-based parallel OOMMF program and with an equivalent serial implementation on CPU. The results have shown a speedup of up to 95x and 8.7x for single and 66x and 4.6x for double precision floating point accuracy against equivalent serial implementation and OOMMF, respectively.

Nowadays, traceability represents a key activity in many sectors. Many modern traceability systems are based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. However, the distributed information stored on RFID tags involves new security problems. This paper presents the traceability multi-entity cryptography, a high-level data protection scheme based on public key cryptography that is able to protect RFID data for traceability and chain activities. This scheme is able to manage entities with different permissions, and it is especially suitable for applications that require complex Information Systems. Traceability multi-entity cryptography avoids industrial espionage, guarantees the information authenticity, protects the customer privacy, and detects malicious alterations of the information. In contrast to the state-of-the-art RFID security schemes, the proposed protocol is applicable to standard RFID tags without any cryptographic capability, and it does not require a central database.

Symmetric encryption is the most widely adopted security solution for wireless sensor networks. The main open issue in this context is represented by the establishment of symmetric keys. Although many key management schemes have been proposed in order to guarantee a high security level, a solution without weaknesses does not yet exist. An important class of key management schemes is based on a transitory master key (MK). In this approach, a global secret is used during the initialization phase to generate pair-wise keys, and it is deleted during the working phase. However, if an adversary compromises a node before the deletion of the MK, the security of the whole network is compromised. In this paper, a new key negotiation routine is proposed. The new routine is integrated with a well-known key computation mechanism based on a transitory master secret. The goal of the proposed approach is to reduce the time required for the initialization phase, thus reducing the probability that the master secret is compromised. This goal is achieved by splitting the initialization phase in hierarchical subphases with an increasing level of security. An experimental analysis demonstrates that the proposed scheme provides a significant reduction in the time required before deleting the transitory secret material, thus increasing the overall security level. Moreover, the proposed scheme allows to add new nodes after the first deployment with a suited routine able to complete the key establishment in the same time as for the initial deployment.

Transient faults in safety-critical computer-based systems represent a major issue for guaranteeing correct system behaviour. Fault injection is a commonly used method to evaluate the sensitivity of such systems. This paper presents a fault injection tool, called KITO, to evaluate the effects of faults in memory containing data structures belonging to a Unix-based Operating System and, in particular, elements linked to resource synchronization management. An experimental analysis was conducted on a large set of memory elements of the Operating System itself, while the system was subject to stress from benchmark programs that use different elements of the Linux kernel. Experimental results show that synchronization aspects of the kernel are susceptible to a significant set of possible errors ranging from performance degradation to failure in successfully completing the benchmark application.

Toner savings in monochromatic printing are an important target for improving green computing performance and more specifically green printing. In order to extend the lifetime of the printer cartridge some options are available for laser printers, usually reducing the number of dots with respect to the normal print quality. However available algorithms and patents do not provide a method for dynamically adapting the percentage of toner savings to the required printing quality. In this paper, we introduce a new quasi-random sequence based algorithm for reducing the number of dots in the printing process, able to achieve optimal discrepancy and low computational complexity, for all print quality levels. In order to reduce patterns in the removed dots, blue noise dithering is applied when the desired percentage of toner savings is moderate. The proposed solution can be easily implemented in the printer firmware, given its low computational complexity. In order to verify the results from a perceptual point of view, an extended test with 135 volunteers and more than 5000 comparisons has been performed, besides checking that toner is effectively saved. Results show that the proposed approach can produce a reduction of the perceived quality almost directly proportional to the number of monochromatic dots skipped, with only a reduced influence from the font used. The perceptual results are better in the proposal than in previous approaches. The proposed algorithm appears to be a promising technique for improving green printing in monochromatic laser printers without using custom fonts

Northern Italy has one of the highest air pollution levels in the European Union. This paper describes a mobile wireless sensor network system intended to complement the already existing official air-quality monitoring systems of the metropolitan town of Torino. The system is characterized by a high portability and low cost, in both acquisition and maintenance. The high portability of the system aims to improve the spatial distribution and resolution of the measurements from the official static monitoring stations. Commercial PM10 and O3 sensors were incorporated into the system, and were subsequently tested in a controlled environment and on the field. Test on the field, performed in collaboration with the local environmental agency, revealed that the sensors can provide accurate data if properly calibrated and maintained. Further tests were carried out by mounting the system on bicycles in order to increase their mobility.

The aim of this work was to evaluate differences in energy flows between normal and immortalized cells when these distinct biological systems are exposed to environmental stimulation. These differences were considered using a constructal thermodynamic approach, and were subsequently verified experimentally. The application of constructal law to cell analysis led to the conclusion that temperature differences between cells with distinct behaviour can be amplified by interaction between cells and external fields. Experimental validation of the principle was carried out on two cellular models exposed to electromagnetic fields. By infrared thermography we were able to assess small changes in heat dissipation measured as a variation in cell internal energy. The experimental data thus obtained are in agreement with the theoretical calculation, because they show a different thermal dispersion pattern when normal and immortalized cells are exposed to electromagnetic fields. By using two methods that support and validate each other, we have demonstrated that the cell/environment interaction can be exploited to enhance cell behavior differences, in particular heat dissipation. We propose infrared thermography as a technique effective in discriminating distinct patterns of thermal dispersion and therefore able to distinguish a normal phenotype from a transformed one

Thresholds of vision under low-light conditions have been studied for determining the human response to light stimuli in different contexts. Blackwell's work on thresholds of vision of the human visual system did not explore some variables whose analysis would help to characterize more deeply the visual system. This paper extends Blackwell's results exploring new dimensions of the human visual system response including chromaticity of the stimuli, mono/binocular vision, and dark adaptation. Tests have been performed on a sample of 45 observers, with a simplified laboratory setup with respect to Blackwell and without specific hardware/software, producing results in terms of visual adaptation, monocular, and binocular vision and aging effects

In RFID systems, wireless communication among readers and tags is subject to electromagnetic interference. In particular, when several readers work closely, forming so-called Dense Reader Environment (DRE), reader-to-reader collisions may occur. Several anti-collision protocols have been proposed in the literature to address this issue. Distributed Color Selection (DCS) and Colorwave are two effective state-of-the-art protocols, based on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). DCS provides great fairness, but it is not adaptable to changes in network topology, penalizing the throughput of the network. Colorwave is an enhanced version of DCS offering more flexibility. Moreover, a general probabilistic approach has been suggested for solving collisions in TDMA protocols and, in particular, it has been applied to DCS. In this work, the probabilistic method is implemented in the collision resolution routine of Colorwave and its effects are analyzed, confirming the validity of this mechanism for TDMA protocols. As proved by simulation results, the probabilistic approach can be adopted to improve throughput or fairness, without adding any other requirement

Wireless sensor networks offer benefits in several applications but are vulnerable to various security threats, such as eavesdropping and hardware tampering. In order to reach secure communications among nodes, many approaches employ symmetric encryption. Several key management schemes have been proposed in order to establish symmetric keys. The paper presents an innovative key management scheme called Random seed distribution with transitory master key (RSDTMK), which adopts the random distribution of secret material and a transitory master key used to generate pairwise keys. The proposed approach addresses the main drawbacks of the previous approaches based on these techniques. Moreover, it overperforms the state-of-the-art protocols by providing always a high security level

Aim The exergy gradients are the sources of physical processes. Entropy quantifies the system's evolution toward increasingly more probable states, while entropy generation describes its irreversibility. The entropy generation approach is used to evaluate cells transport processes. The applied thermodynamic analysis of living systems points out that the geometrical characteristic, the chemical reaction rate and the time of chemical reactions are fundamental in the growth of cancer. Indeed, it has been highlighted that a cancer cell can modify its metabolism, so it is possible to measure the cell temperature variation with respect to peculiar ill states (1-3); indeed, the cellular metabolism can be studied by the analysis of the reactions of oxidation of the energy substrates. Materials and methods Energy transport phenomena occurs across the cell membrane, so this plays a fundamental role in the cell behaviour. Moreover, many processes in biological systems are related to nano-mechanical properties of cellular structures and membranes, therefore it is possible to argue that any external fields, which can act on the membrane electric and thermoelastic properties, could be worth to be investigated in relation to anticancer therapies. Results The cell membrane elastic vibration is one fundamental aspect of the cells elastic behaviour, and both phenomena are closely linked: the membrane elastic vibration originates variation in the membrane electric potentials, energy transport throughout the cell membrane could heavily be affected and, consequently, the internal cell organization could be influenced. Conclusions Magnetic field seems to play a strong influence on cells elastic behaviour and then on the energy transport throughout cell membranes. Metabolism of cancer cells is organized in order to export outside great amount of energy

Thin-walled open section beams are carefully analysed by Vlasov's theory of the sectorial areas. It allows to take into account their peculiar warping deformation which appears in presence of torsional actions. This behaviour determines a further stress state along the axis of the element which is rarely considered in structural analyses. The aim of the present paper is the evaluation of the warping deformation of thin-walled open section beams subjected to torsion. Firstly, the analytical theory proposed by Vlasov is verified through an experimental test on a steel specimen defined by a U profile. Specific analyses are performed with the aim of a sophisticated optical device in order to assess the transverse distortion of the section. Then, the results obtained experimentally and confirmed by a Finite Element (FE) program permit to validate a computer program based on the analytical theory and devised to study the structural behaviour of high-rise buildings stiffened by thin-walled open section shear walls. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, an example which highlights the benefits provided by the present method compared to FE program is carried out.

The reader-to-reader collision problem represents a research topic of great recent interest for the radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. Among the state-of-the-art anticollision protocols, the ones that provide high throughput often have special requirements, such as extra hardware. This study investigates new high throughput solutions for static RFID networks without additional requirements. In this paper, two contributions are presented: a new configuration, called Killer, and a new protocol, called distributed color noncooperative selection (DCNS). The proposed configuration generates selfish behavior, thereby increasing channel utilization and throughput. DCNS fully exploits the Killer configuration and provides new features, such as dynamic priority management, which modifies the performance of the RFID readers when it is requested. Simulations have been conducted in order to analyze the effects of the innovations proposed. The proposed approach is especially suitable for low-cost applications with a priority not uniformly distributed among readers. The experimental analysis has shown that DCNS provides a greater throughput than the state-of-the-art protocols, even those with additional requirements (e.g., 16 percent better than NFRA)

We introduce a mutual demagnetizing tensor for calculating the demagnetizing field in multiple magnetic bodies. Algorithms for magnetic simulations dealing with interactive n-bodies usually treat the simulation domain as a single non-homogeneous body with alternating magnetic and non-magnetic regions. Doing so minimizes the number of variables used in the field calculations, but the extra computation and storage requirements become very large. Our approach not only reduces memory consumption but also shows a gain in performance for cases involving field calculation in patterned films. We have verified our results by performing simulation of periodic dots of similar size arranged in grids of various formats

As the adoption of the radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology is increasing, many applications require a dense reader deployment. In such environments, reader-to-reader interference becomes a critical problem, so the proposal of effective anti-collision algorithms and their analysis are particularly important. Existing reader-to-reader anti-collision algorithms are typically analyzed using single interference models that consider only direct collisions. The additive interference models, which consider the sum of interferences, are more accurate but require more computational effort. The goal of this paper is to find the difference in accuracy between single and additive interference models and how many interference components should be considered in additive models. An in-depth analysis evaluates to which extent the number of the additive components in a possible collision affects the accuracy of collision detection. The results of the investigation shows that an analysis limited to direct collisions cannot reach a satisfactory accuracy, but the collisions generated by the addition of the interferences from a large number of readers do not affect significantly the detection of RFID reader-to-reader collisions.

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the three widely used parallel sorting algorithms: Odd-Even sort, Rank sort and Bitonic sort in terms of sorting rate, sorting time and speed-up on CPU and different GPU architectures. Alongside we have implemented novel parallel algorithm: min-max butterfly network, for finding minimum and maximum in large data sets. All algorithms have been implemented exploiting data parallelism model, for achieving high performance, as available on multi-core GPUs using the OpenCL specification. Our results depicts minimum speed-up19x of bitonic sort against odd-even sorting technique for small queue sizes on CPU and maximum of 2300x speed-up for very large queue sizes on Nvidia Quadro 6000 GPU architecture. Our implementation of full-butterfly network sorting results in relatively better performance than all of the three sorting techniques: bitonic, odd-even and rank sort. For min-max butterfly network, our findings report high speed-up of Nvidia quadro 6000 GPU for high data set size reaching 2^24 with much lower sorting time

Supply chain is a typical scenario of exploiting Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. Its growing use in all the supply chain areas makes the presence of many close RFID readers more common. In such environment, interferences among readers are critical. Many protocols have been proposed to reduce reader-to-reader collisions. Experimental data showed that the Neighbor Friendly Reader Anticollision (NFRA) protocol [1] maximizes the network throughput. However, it does not take into account the delay between the request and the granting of query tags, causing delays for some readers. This paper proposes two approaches to increase the fairness and ensure a high throughput for each reader. A theoretical analysis, supported by experimental simulations, demonstrates the improvements achieved

The wide adoption of radio frequency identification (RFID) for applications requiring a large number of tags and readers makes critical the reader-to-reader collision problem. Various anti-collision protocols have been proposed, but the majority require considerable additional resources and costs. Distributed color system (DCS) is a state-of-the-art protocol based on time division, without noteworthy additional requirements. This paper presents the probabilistic DCS (PDCS) reader-to-reader anti-collision protocol which employs probabilistic collision resolution. Differently from previous time division protocols, PDCS allows multichannel transmissions, according to international RFID regulations. A theoretical analysis is provided in order to clearly identify the behavior of the additional parameter representing the probability. The proposed protocol maintains the features of DCS, achieving more efficiency. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that the number of reader-to-reader collisions after a slot change is decreased by over 30%. The simulation analysis validates the theoretical results, and shows that PDCS reaches better performance than state-of-the-art reader-to-reader anti-collision protocols

RFID is a well-known pervasive technology, which provides promising opportunities for the implementation of new services and for the improvement of traditional ones. However, pervasive environments require strong efforts on all the aspects of information security. Notably, RFID passive tags are exposed to attacks, since strict limitations affect the security techniques for this technology. A critical threat for RFIDbased information systems is represented by data tampering, which corresponds to the malicious alteration of data recorded in the tag memory. The aim of this paper is to describe the characteristics and the effects of data tampering in RFID-based information systems, and to survey the approaches proposed by the research community to protect against it. The most important recent studies on privacy and security for RFID-based systems are examined, and the protection given against tampering is evaluated. This paper provides readers with an exhaustive overview on risks and defenses against data tampering, highlighting RFID weak spots and open issues

Traceability is a key factor for the agri-food sector. RFID technology, widely adopted for supply chain management, can be used effectively for the traceability management. In this paper, a framework for the evaluation of a traceability system for the agri-food industry is presented and the automation level in an RFID-based traceability system is analyzed and compared with respect to traditional ones. Internal and external traceability are both considered and formalized, in order to classify different environments, according to their automation level. Traceability systems used in a sample sector are experimentally analyzed, showing that by using RFID technology, agri-food enterprises increase their automation level and also their efficiency, in a sustainable way

Recently the authors have observed in compounds of the 4,n-alkyloxybenzoic acid series, with the homologous index n ranging from 6 to 9, a texture transition in the nematic range which subdivides the nematic phase in two sub-phases displaying different textures in polarised light analysis. To investigate a persistence of texture transitions in nematic phases, we prepared binary mixtures of 4,6-alkyloxybenzoic acid (6OBAC) with other members (7-, 8-, 9-, 12-, 16OBAC) of its homologous series. Binary mixtures exhibit a broadening in the temperature ranges of both smectic and nematic phases. A nematic temperature range of 75C is observed. In the nematic phase, in spite of the microscopic disorder introduced by mixing two components, the polarised light optics analysis of the liquid crystal cells reveals a texture transition. In the case of the binary mixture of 6OBAC with 12OBAC and with 16OBAC, that is of compounds with monomers of rather different lengths, the texture transition temperature is not homogeneous in the cell, probably due to a local variation in the relative concentrations of compounds.

Global and local histogram equalization (HE) proved to be effective techniques for contrast enhancement. Local HE allows to achieve high contrast enhancement rates but its high computational complexity limits its applicability in many resource constrained scenarios. On the contrary, global HE complexity is relatively low but enhancement rate is often unsatisfactory. Recently, an algorithm exploiting a low-pass filter (LPF) mask to obtain a partially overlapped sub-block HE effect (POSHE) has been presented. POSHE allows to produce the high local HE contrast with the simplicity of global HE. In this paper a generalization of POSHE approach exploiting cascaded multistep binomial filtering HE (CMBFHE) in order to get the same LPF mask is proposed. By relying on the same filter mask, contrast enhancement capability of CMBFHE is exactly the same of POSHE. Additionally, results show that a significant speedup with respect to the previous fastest method is achieved because of the efficient implementation of the filtering approach; moreover hardware implementations can be effectively designed. This makes CMBFHE a suitable solution in all those consumer electronics related environments including camcorders, digital cameras and video surveillance where on-the-fly local-like contrast enhancement is required

The 4,n-alkyloxybenzoic acid 6OBAC has a very rich variety of crystalline structures and two nematic sub-phases, characterised by different textures. It is a material belonging to a family of liquid crystals formed by hydrogen bonded molecules, the 4,n-alkyloxybenzoic acids (n indicates the homologue number). The homologues with 7 <= n <= 13 display both smectic C and N phases. In spite of the absence of a smectic phase, 6OBAC exhibits two sub-phases with different textures, as it happens in other materials of the homologue series which possess the smectic phase. This is the first material that exhibits a texture transition in a nematic phase directly originating from a crystal phase. Here we present the results of an image processing assisted optical investigation to characterise the textures and the transitions between textures. This processing is necessary to discriminate between crystal modifications and nematic sub-phases.

In video encoding, block motion estimation represents a CPU-intensive task. For this reason, many fast algorithms have been developed to improve searching and matching phases. A milestone within the lossless approach is partial distortion elimination (PDE/SpiralPDE) in which distortion is the difference between the block to be coded and the candidate prediction block. In this paper, (i) we analyze distortion behavior from local information using the Taylor series expansion and show that our general analysis includes other previous similar approaches. (ii) Then, we propose two full-search (lossless), fast-matching, block motion estimation algorithms, based on the PDE idea. The proposed algorithms, called fast full search with sorting by distortion (FFSSD) and fast full search with sorting by gradient (FFSSG), sort the contributions to distortion and the gradient values, respectively, in order to quickly discard invalid blocks. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms outperform other existing full search algorithms, reducing by up to 20% the total CPU encoding time (with respect to SpiralPDE), while the computation strictly required by the motion estimation is reduced by about 30%. (iii) Finally, we experimentally find an operational lower bound (based on standard test sequences) for the average number of checked pixels in the PDE approach, which measures the performance of the searching and matching phases. In particular, SpiralPDE achieves performances very close to the searching phase bound, while there is still a remarkable margin on the matching phase. We then show that our algorithms, aimed at improving the performances of the matching phase, achieve interesting results, significantly approaching this margin.

In recent years many experimental investigations have been carried out on vasculogenesis and angiogenesis, the mechanisms of blood vessels formation. Neovascularization is a hallmark of embryogenesis and many other physiological processes, such as wound healing or endometrium vascularization during the mestrual cycle. Angiogenesis also plays a key role in tumor growth, tumor metastasis and other pathological processes including many inflammatory diseases. Understanding biological phenomena regulating angiogenesis is therefore essential for clinical treatment of cancer and other angiogenesis-dependent diseases. This paper describes the development of a fully-automated computerized angiogenesis analysis system, which enables angiogenesis parameters to be quantified in an in-vitro model. The proposed methodology works on phase contrast microscopy snap photographs of cultured endothelial cell plates, and extracts a detailed graph-based representation of the blood vessels network thus supporting accurate angiogenesis parameters measurement

Block motion estimation represents a cpu-intensive task in video encoding and many fast algorithms have been developed to improve the searching and matching phases. A milestone within the lossless approach is partial distortion elimination (PDE/SpiralPDE) in which distortion is the difference between the block to be coded and the candidate prediction block. In this paper we show that contributions to distortion can be reliably estimated using the Taylor series expansion. The approximation method is then used to derive eight new PDE-based algorithms in which the matching order depends on the magnitude of the estimated distortion contributions. Exhaustive comparisons using several, widely different, video sequences show that these algorithms reduce the total encoding time by up to 20% with respect to SpiralPDE, while the computation for motion estimation is reduced by about 30%. The proposed algorithms are also compared with other PDE-based lossless approaches known in literature and there is a significant gain over all of them

The visualization of dense vector fields has important applications for scientific purposes. Beyond the standard methods, such as arrows and particle tracing, texture-based methods are able to show almost all the details of a field. This paper presents the Thick Oriented Stream-Line (TOSL) algorithm, which can show direction, orientation and local flow speed even for dense vector fields by simulating the convolution process. A practical comparison of the performances of TOSL vs. other visualizations algorithms (LIC and fastLIC) shows that the proposed algorithm can provide output textures faster than the other considered techniques.

The generation of 3-D solid objects, and more generally solid geometric modelling, is very important in Computer Aided Design (CAD). An important role is played by the Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) representation scheme. IN CSG, objects are described by trees of Boolean operations on half-spaces or boundaries of primitive solids. The study of techniques to speed up the rendering of scenes modelled with the CSG scheme is an attractive field of research; in this paper we propose a new algorithm which reduces the computational complexity for ray casting approaches. Our strategy identifies a set of areas on the plane of view where the rays starting from the observer have to be traced; for each zone, only a portion of the entire CSG tree has to be considered for intersection tests, instead of the whole database of the primitive objects. A comparison of our algorithm with a ray caster that adopts bounding volume hierarchies and with a freeware ray tracer called POV-Ray shows that, for the examples considered, we may reduce the intersection tests to one third of those performed when standard optimizations are adopted.

The authors present a parallel algorithm for fast rendering. A set of zones which can be concurrently processed is identified; this set is split into a number of subsets equal to the number of available processors. Each processor renders, in parallel with the others, a zone of its set

In a multicore environment, a major focus is represented by synchronization. Since synchronization mechanisms strongly affect the performance of multithread algorithms, the selection of an effective synchronization approach is critical for multicore environments. In this chapter, the cost of the main existing synchronization techniques is estimated. The current investigation covers both hardware and software solutions. A comparative analysis highlights benefits and drawbacks of the considered approaches. The results are intended to represent a useful aid for researchers and practitioners interested in optimization of parallel algorithms.

Unintentional falls are a frequent cause of hospitalization that mostly increases health service costs due to injuries. Fall prediction systems strive to reduce injuries and provide fast help to the users. Typically, such systems collect data continuously at a high speed through a device directly attached to the user. Whereas such systems are implemented in devices with limited resources, data volume is significantly important. In this chapter, a real-time data analyzer and reducer is proposed in order to manage the data volume of fall prediction systems.

[101103.EG ISBN 9781420077773 altra opera \"RFID and sensor networks : architectures, protocols, security, and integrations\". 9781420068399 altro ISBN valido]

Ongoing emphasis on the fourth industrial revolution requires further focus on the Internet of Things (IoT) as a means to integrate all relevant entities within a single technological system. In the integration process, a gateway to relay the raw data to an IoT endpoint is essential so that a joint interface among the heterogeneous domains can be provided. This work describes the development of a distributed industrial IoT gateway, called DIIG, able to relay industrial network data to a centralized data-store. DIIG exploits a real-time client server programming model based on S7 communication and Modbus TCP protocols. The subsequent analysis carried out on the testbed mainly focuses on the performance evaluation of the gateway. In order to achieve high performance data transmission in a fair environment, a parallel real-time communication mechanism has been proposed.

Human gait is a dynamic biometrical feature that describes the kinematics of human walking. Gait modeling is studied in order to find a pattern of walking that can be used for diagnosis of walking disorder or abnormal walk detection. Difficulty in walking progressively increases with aging and causes unintentional falls, which is a common incident among elderly people. Fall prediction systems can help to prevent unintentional falls that could cause serious injuries, therefore they can reduce the health service costs. This paper presents an algorithm with polynomial classification model of human gait for real-time fall prediction. This approach enables the user to detect the transition from a normal to an abnormal walking pattern. A dataset based on the state-of-the-art techniques in simulating abnormal walks was created by using an accelerometer embedded in a smartphone, which is recognized to be precise enough for fall avoidance systems. The proposed approach improves state-of-the-art fall prediction approaches, by achieving 99.2% of accuracy in abnormal walk detection.

Guaranteeing the correct system behaviour in safety-critical computer-based systems is a challenging issue due to transient faults. This has been demonstrated considering the effects of faults in memory elements containing data structures belonging to a Unix-based Operating System. Elements linked to resource and process synchronization management are particularly critical, thus the need for hardening also the kernel data structures. In order to overcome this vulnerability, a solution is proposed by implementing a triplication technique in the source code of the Linux kernel, aiming at incrementing the robustness of the system. An experimental fault injection analysis has been conducted on the Mutex semaphores to evaluate its effectiveness. The proposed approach successfully detected and corrected the noxious effects generated by single faults in the system with a limited performance overhead.

Urban air quality strongly affects the health of citizens. In recent years, much effort has been spent in improving air quality monitoring systems in order to provide detailed data that consider the variability over the whole urban area. In order to improve the spatial accuracy of the monitoring systems, wireless sensor networks and pervasive technologies have been exploited. However, these systems normally do not consider vertical variability. Nonetheless, in buildings, people at a high floor may breath air with different characteristics with respect to those at ground floor. The goal of this paper is to investigate the variability of the dust level according to the height. An experimental analysis has been conducted and the achieved results confirm the importance of height for air quality and people health and highlight the importance of further studies.

The authors are currently doing fatigue tests, by using sonotrodes working at 20 kHz, and compression tests on solid samples of rock materials. The specimens are monitored by laser sources focused on spots of the external surface. The main purpose is to identify in the crystal lattice mechanical oscillations in a frequency range higher than the Acoustic Emission (kHz) and comprised between MHz and THz. Such vibrational modes in the THz regime will be the signature of developing anomalies in piezoelectric or piezomagnetic materials, such as neutron and/or alpha particle emissions, and compositional changes. Moreover, it is also known that laser current pulses should be effective in exciting vibrational modes in the high-frequency range in conductive samples. A photodetector connected to an usual oscilloscope, measuring the intensity of reflected light, detects vibrations in the range from MHz up to few GHz. To reduce the limitations in the ability to acquire high frequency signals, additional experiments are planned exploiting the Raman effect. Through the scattered light spectrum analysis, capable of detecting radiation in the visible light field, it should be obtained information on the intermolecular interactions that during solicitations induce resonant vibrations in the field of THz

Fall datasets usually record normal activities and transitions from one posture to another one with falls. Many fall detection datasets based on different sensors are adopted by researchers to improve their systems. Although fall avoidance are dramatically increasing, a public fall prediction and prevention dataset based on an accelerometer and gyroscope is absent. So, this study creates a dataset based on the state-of-the-art techniques in simulating a fall. Different techniques are evaluated to find the best fall simulation. Since accelerometer and gyroscope sensors embedded in a smartphone are recognized to be suited for fall avoidance systems, in this study, they are used to obtain data from users. At the end, some statistical analysis of the observed data are presented and a nonlinear regression model is proposed.

Predicting a fall is one of the most promising approaches to avoid it. Different studies strive to classify abnormal and normal walks in order to predict a fall before its occurrence. This study introduces eigenwalk, a novel feature based on the principal components of the accelerometer and gyroscope signals. This feature, in conjunction with a random forest classifier, is able to distinguish walk patterns and to estimate a fall risk. As the accelerometer and the gyroscope embedded in a smartphone are recognized to be precise enough for fall avoidance systems, they have been exploited in an experimental analysis in order to compare the proposed approach with the most recent ones. The results have shown that the new feature in combination with the random forest classification outperforms state-of-the-art approaches, by improving the accuracy up to 98.6%

This paper discusses the phenomenon of energy emissions from brittle specimens subjected to resonant ultrasound vibration. The aim is to describe and demonstrate the neutron emissions from piezonuclear reactions that have been recently observed for the first time and published in [1-3], providing new experimental evidences. In addition to some natural brittle rocks, as considered in the previous studies, sintered ceramic samples are studied. The energy release during ultrasound vibration is assessed by continuously monitoring the electric power input, the temperature of the specimen, as well as the neutron emission by means of He3 devices and bubble detectors. As a result, the energy balance can be estimated, suggesting that an extra energy amount is generated due to the piezonuclear phenomena involved

Although the acceleration is physically related to the displacement of an object, i.e., to its change of position, it is demonstrated that the double integration of the acceleration does not provide accurate information about the displacement, due to the noise and measurement errors. This paper evaluates a correction technique based on the Kalman filter in order to increase the accuracy of the estimation of the displacement. Experiments were performed by acquiring the acceleration with an off-the-shelf accelerometer: the percentage error made by simply integrating the acceleration measurements may arrive to 68% in the general case of a movement in the space, but it can be dramatically reduced to 9% with the proposed approach. An even better behavior is obtained when the movement is constrained to a plane or along an axis

Traditional database systems either sacrifice availability or partitionability at the cost of offering strict consistency guarantee of data. However, the significant growth of Web-scale applications and the wider array of emerging workloads demand revisiting the need for full transactional consistency. One new dominant class of workload is the ability to efficiently support single statement transaction consisting of either Get or Put operation; thus, simplifying the consistency model. These simple workloads have given rise to decade-long efforts for building efficient key-value stores that often rely on disk-resident and log-structured storage model that is distributed across many machines. To further expand the scope of key-value stores, in this paper, we introduce Kanzi, a distributed, in-memory key-value stored over shared-memory architecture enabled by remote direct memory access (RDMA) technology. The simple data and transaction model of our proposed Kanzi additionally may serve as a generic (embedded) caching layer to speed up any disk-resident data-intensive workloads.

Terahertz vibrations at the nanoscale could provide a common basis to study mechanical instabilities both in crystalline solids and biological materials. As a matter of fact, dynamic instabilities induced in the crystal lattices of solids during brittle fracture, as well as protein folding and unfolding might produce THz resonant vibrations. By using the scattered light spectrum analysis, the authors are performing experimental studies to obtain information about the molecular interactions in crystalline solids and protein structures. These analyses can be useful to understand which kind of excitation should be applied to produce resonant vibrations in the field of THz. Simplified numerical models are also being implemented to interpret the variations in the crystal lattices natural frequencies of compressed solids, and to simulate buckling/snap-through nano-instabilities of specific proteins

Fall avoidance systems reduce injuries due to unintentional falls, but most of them are fall detections that activate an alarm after the fall occurrence. Since predicting a fall is the most promising approach to avoid a fall injury, this study proposes a method based on new features and multilayer perception that outperforms state-of-the-art approaches. Since accelerometer and gyroscope embedded in a smartphone are recognized to be precise enough to be used in fall avoidance systems, they have been exploited in an experimental analysis in order to compare the proposal with state-of-the-art approaches. The results have shown that the proposed approach improves the accuracy from 83% to 90%.

The analysis of thin-walled open section beams can be performed by means of Vlasov's theory of the sectorial areas. It is well-known that this type of profiles, when subjected to torsional actions, are characterised by the warping deformation and, consequently, by a further stress state whose intensity is comparable with that produced by mere flexural deformations. In the literature many papers are focused on the structural behaviour of these elements, but, to the Author's best knowledge, none proposed an experimental technique to evaluate first-hand this particular behaviour. In order to verify the classical theory of the sectorial areas, in the present paper an experiment regarding a thin-walled open section profile subjected to flexural and torsional loads is performed. With the help of a specific optical device, suitable for precision measurements, the warping displacements of a U-shaped section are easily acquired. These are compared to those derived, first, from an analytical formulation, originally devised to deal with vertical thin-walled bracings belonging to the structural core of a tall building, and, secondly, from a FE program, in which the steel profile is modelled by means of thin-shell elements. The numerical comparison confirms the reliability of the analytical formulation.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a widely employed technology for automatic identification. However, it is affected by some interference issues. This paper is focused on the interference between Ultra high frequency (UHF) RFID systems and devices that communicate according to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard. Since the GSM and the UHF RFID frequency bands are close, the mobile phones communication can affect the efficiency of RFID systems. In this paper, an experimental analysis on the interference between GSM and UHF RFID is presented. The results of the experimentation highlight the negative effects of the use of GSM devices in the proximity of operating UHF RFID systems. Moreover, the main elements that should be taken into account during the design of an RFID system that works in the same area with GSM devices are identified

The elastic energy released by micro-cracking yields to macroscopic fracture whose mechanical vibrations are converted into electromagnetic (EM) oscillations over a wide range of frequencies, from few Hz to MHz, and even up to microwaves. As regards Acoustic Emission (AE), the classical monitoring techniques allow an observation over a range of frequencies up to hundreds of kHz. In this paper the authors investigate if, during compression tests on brittle materials, which involve catastrophic fractures, it is possible to identify in the stressed materials mechanical oscillations in a frequency range higher than that characteristic of the AE and comprised between MHz and THz. This excited state of matter could be a precursor of subsequent resonance phenomena of nuclei able to produce neutron bursts, especially in the presence of sudden catastrophic fractures. This phenomenon has been also very recently argued from a theoretical physical point of view by Widom et al. In this investigation experimental evidences emerge by means of a confocal sensor able to measure the resonance frequency of the specimen. The basic idea is to use a laser light focused onto a spot of the specimens surface subjected to mechanical compression. A photo-detector measures the intensity of the reflected light and then gives the frequency variation that is proportional to the vibration frequency of the spot particles.

Besides revealing useful information, like gender, age, existing impairments, the gait of every person is acknowledged to be so distinctive to allow the personal identification and it is regarded as a valid biometric authentication, similarly to fingerprinting and face recognition. Although the first analyses on the gait were conducted in laboratories with dedicated equipment, portable sensors have been exploited as they become available thanks to the technology miniaturization. Aiming at an even more unobtrusive analysis, recent proposals rely on the data acquired from the 3-axis accelerometer embedded in most of the smartphones commercially available on the market. Nevertheless the analysis must be tailored to the lower-grade accelerometer and the limited computational capability of the smartphone. This paper identifies the guidelines that the state-of-the-art research proposes for the gait recognition through a smartphone and discusses the procedures that are found as more appropriate.

Nowadays, the air quality is considered a key point, and its monitoring is not only suggested but it is even required in many countries. Since traditional standard monitors for air quality are very expensive, the use of a low-cost distributed network of sensors represents a valid complementary approach. This paper discusses the benefits of a distributed approach and analyzes the main elements that should be taken into account during the design of a distributed system for the air quality monitoring. This paper aims at representing a valuable aid for researchers and practitioners interested in the topic

Reader-to-reader interference affects the simultaneous activity of the readers in an RFID system: the collisions among the readers penalize the throughput and the reliability of the application. Many reader-to-reader anti-collision protocols have been proposed to address this issue. Their performance is generally evaluated by means of simulations. For this purpose, a generic simulator of wireless networks is exploited in most of the cases. This paper proposes a novel simulator, which is customized to the characteristics of the RFID technology in order to speed up the evaluation of anti-collision protocols. The simulator is based on OMNeT++ and it adds new ad-hoc facilities, such as the implementation of the existing reader-to-reader anti-collision protocols and a modular architecture for rapidly developing and testing new ones

Transient faults in computer-based systems for which high availability is a strict requirement, originated from several sources, like high energy particles, are a major issue. Fault injection is a commonly used method to evaluate the sensitivity of such systems. The paper presents an evaluation of the effects of faults in the memory containing the process descriptor of a Unix-based Operating System. In particular the state field has been taken into consideration as the main target, changing the current state value into another one that could be valid or invalid. An experimental analysis has been conducted on a large set of different tasks, belonging to the operating system itself. Results of tests show that the state field in the process descriptor represents a critical variable as far as dependability is considered.

Embedded and Computer-based systems are subject to transient errors originated from several sources, including the impact of high energy particles on sensitive areas of integrated circuits. The evaluation of the sensitivity of the applications to transient faults is a major issue. The paper presents a new approach for testing the effects of transient faults on the Operating System kernel, specifically focusing on kernel mutex data structure, a key component of the kernel. A Software-implemented Fault Injection tool able to inject faults guaranteeing the non-intrusiveness and repeatability of the fault injection campaign is proposed. An analysis of the results has been performed on a large set of mutexes, in order to evaluate their criticality, in particular during input/output operations. Experimental results, executed on a set of benchmarks programs, show the relevance of the effects of the transient faults on this set of variables. Moreover, a significant percentage of faults can lead to a damage of the system also producing an application failure

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have a huge number of cores to speed up graphical computations and they are being used in a wide area of general-purpose applications that require high performances. In this paper, GPU computing is exploited to model the signal propagation and the interference in large RFID systems, which are a promising solution for achieving pervasive computing since they offer the automatic object identification. The speedup of the parallel algorithm is evaluated with respect to a sequential version. Two popular frameworks for general-purpose computing on GPU are considered in the comparison, i.e. CUDA and OpenCL, and distinct implementations are provided for them, highlighting their differences in code optimization and performance

Our target was to improve mobility services within a large hospital center. We considered a modern hospital as case study. Our work had the valuable support of the San Raffaele Hospital (hSR). About patients and visitors' mobility we found vast room for improvement in terms of userorientation and support to disabled people. We analyzed people flows and service accessibility, to design an integrated mobility support service and generate the final solution. As smartphones provide a countless variety of communication channels, the challenge was the definition of an effective solution for people mobility exploiting these devices. After choosing a locationaware WLAN for tracking Wi-Fi devices, we defined the characteristics of the application for smartphones, and implemented a prototype. Many indexes, such as smartphone adoption growing rates, promising profitability studies, and massive portability of the mobile device indicate a smartphone application as an innovative and valuable support to improve mobility in hospital centers. © 2013 Springer-Verlag

Efficient sorting is vital for overall performance of the underlying application. This paper presents Butterfly Network Sort (BNS) for sorting large data sets. A minimal version of the algorithm Min-Max Butterfly is also shown for searching minimum and maximum values in data. Both algorithms are implemented on GPUs using OpenCL exploiting data parallelism model. Results obtained on different GPU architectures show better performance of butterfly sorting in terms of sorting time and rate. The comparison of butterfly sorting with other algorithms:bitonic, odd-even and rank sort show significant speedup improvements against all on Nvidia Quadro-6000 GPU with relatively better sorting time and rate

Color image acquisition in digital cameras is often performed by using CCD or CMOS sensor chips with a color filter array on the top of a single monochromatic sensor. In this paper, a perceptual comparison is per- formed among three well known demosaicing algorithms plus in-camera demosaicing with lossy compression JPEG, by means of subjective tests, that is with the help of human beings. The novelty of the approach is that chosen algorithms have been selected as representative of those used in commercial raw image converters used by professionals in graphics and that the test has been performed on a large number of people, achieving results only partially similar to the results got by means of computed metrics. The results show that in the greatest part of conditions and for non particularly expert users, the capability of the most advanced demosaic- ing algorithms of producing an almost perfect reconstruction on the full-color image is not strictly required. Only for selected categories of images it is possible to find a clear winner among the algorithms

Reader-to-reader interference significantly affects the performance of RFID applications. The design of an RFID system should carefully consider this phenomenon. Simulation can dramatically speed up the design and testing phase, by deferring the implementation of a prototype to the last phase of the development. Unfortunately, no specific simulators of interference in RFID networks are currently available. Previous works exploited either general purpose network simulators, which often do not provide the required features for simulating an RFID network, or self deployed tools, which are not publicly available and therefore do not allow the validation and reproducibility of the results. This paper identifies the requirements that a simulator of reader-to-reader interference should satisfy and presents the R2RIS simulator, which has been specifically designed to evaluate the performance of reader-to reader anti-collision protocols

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are used in an increasing number of applications in different fields, from agricultural monitoring to energy-saving systems for buildings. The development of WSNs has been always constrained by the power consumption of nodes that constitute the network since they should be as much autonomous as possible and human intervention must be reduced to the minimum. Several algorithms and protocols have been designed with the goal of reducing power consumption. Related works take into consideration Media Access Control (MAC) protocols that keep sensors' power consumption low at that layer. Nevertheless, these protocols require some parameters, e.g. duty cycle, to be configured according to network characteristics in order to achieve an acceptable level of efficiency. In this work, we propose a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) which adapts the MAC protocol parameters by employing local node inputs such as battery power and average packet traffic. We present the FLC design and perform simulations that show its feasibility. We evaluate the FLC in terms of its power savings capabilities and show that for high-traffic and low-energy nodes power consumption may be reduced up to 50%

Sorting algorithms have been studied extensively since past three decades. Their uses are found in many applications including real-time systems, operating systems, and discrete event simulations. In most cases, the efficiency of an application itself depends on usage of a sorting algorithm. Lately, the usage of graphic cards for general purpose computing has again revisited sorting algorithms. In this paper we extended our previous work regarding parallel sorting algorithms on GPU, and are presenting an analysis of parallel and sequential bitonic, odd-even and rank-sort algorithms on different GPU and CPU architectures. Their performance for various queue sizes is measured with respect to sorting time and rate and also the speed up of bitonic sort over odd-even sorting algorithms is shown on different GPUs and CPU. The algorithms have been written to exploit task parallelism model as available on multi-core GPUs using the OpenCL specification. Our findings report minimum of 19x speed-up of bitonic sort against odd-even sorting technique for small queue sizes on CPU and maximum of 2300x speed-up for very large queue sizes on Nvidia Quadro 6000 GPU architecture

The energy and computational constraints of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have motivated the exploration of efficient routing algorithms. In this paper, a new routing approach is presented which attains the best trade-off between energy expenditure and hop-distance to the sink. The routing algorithm exploits a low-computation metric based on the node's remaining battery. Routing is performed by means of a modified Dijkstra's algorithm which calculates the node's position in the routing tree while computes the least-cost path of all nodes towards the sink. Simulations were performed for different network densities demonstrating that the proposed algorithm enhances the overall energy conservation of the network while efficiently routing data traffic

IEEE, 6th International Conference on Emerging Technologies, Oct, 2010

Variable preamble sampling is a technique used for accessing the medium in low-power constrained networks such as wireless sensor networks. We provide an optimal bound for power consumption in preamble sampling techniques, and we present a model of this technique as a function of power consumption and time of radio utilization. We compare our model by means of experimental experiences performed with commercially-available hardware. Our model shows the tendency of the network for constant and variable preamble sampling approaches and may be used to analyze large networks without actually deploying them

In this paper an agri-food traceability system based on public key cryptography and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is proposed. In order to guarantee safety in food, an efficient tracking and tracing system is required. RFID devices allow recording all useful information for traceability directly on the commodity. The security issues are discussed and two different methods based on public cryptography are proposed and evaluated. The first algorithm uses a nested RSA based structure to improve security, while the second also provides authenticity of data. An experimental analysis demonstrated that the proposed system is well suitable on PDAs too

RFID technology increases rapidly its applicability in new areas of interest without guaranteeing security and privacy issues. This paper presents a new architecture of an RFID transponder with cryptographic capabilities. Other than being compatible with the EPC Class-1 Gen-2 communication protocol, our tag implements an asymmetric ciphering module that proved useful in authentication and anti-counterfeit schemes, particularly critical in many application fields. Experimental results concerning area requirements and power consumption indicate its feasibility

In this paper we analyzed classical forward error correction (FEC) algorithms implemented in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). We adopted FEC algorithms in sensor network nodes and evaluated performance and cost related to their covered area. Experimental results show how FEC adoption increases bit error tolerance in additive white Gaussian noise channels while rising computational costs in an acceptable fashion; coding gains reach values higher than 1 dB with a time latency that is negligible when compared with WSN data rates

This paper investigates the problem of tracking individual circular cell nuclei of endothelial cells during their migration. The purpose is to extract statistical information to support research activities devoted to reaching a better understanding of the underlying biological phenomena. This goal is achieved by exploiting a general tracking framework based on a multiframe point correspondence approach and capable of translating the matching problem into a maximum path cover problem over a graph based representation of moving objects. The application to phase contrast microscopy images containing hundreds of cells aggregating to form capillary tubes required to design an ad-hoc weight function capable of properly handling cells occlusion and aggregation.

Vascularization is defined as the sprouting of new blood vessels by expansion of the endothelium by proliferation, migration and remodeling. Vascularization is fundamental to healing, reproduction as well as embryonic development. It also plays a key role in tumor growth, tumor metastasis and other pathological processes. Understanding biological phenomena driving the creation of vascular structures is therefore essential for clinical treatment of cancer and other vascularization-related diseases. Recently, an analytical model capable of mimicking the process of in-vitro vascular network creation from randomly seeded endothelial cells has also been proposed. This paper presents the development of a novel neural network based segmentation technique working on phase contrast microscopy snap photographs of cultured endothelial cells which allows for cell structures geometry quantitative analysis thus constituting a key instrument in the development of computerized tools for vascularization parameters measurement as well as supporting also analytical model deployment and validation.

This paper presents a comprehensive framework for quantitative analysis of vascular processes from in-vitro videomicroscopy data. By following an active contours based approach, we designed a quasi-automatic technique enabling highly interacting motile endothelial cells (ECs) tracking in large field of view phase contrast microscopy video sequences. Our work was motivated by the necessity of validating through statistical analysis an analytical model mimicking ECs behavior. However, the proposed framework could also constitute an invaluable tool supporting general experimental studies on vascularization. Our tracking technique has been extensively validated on realistic data-sets by comparison with a manually defined ground-truth.

Vasculogenesis is defined as the sprouting of new blood vessels by expansion of the endothelium by proliferation, migration and remodeling. Vasculogenesis is fundamental to wound healing, reproduction as well as embryonic development. Moreover, it is involved in tumor growth, tumor metastasis and other pathological processes. The availability of dedicated image-based analysis systems would constitute an invaluable support in understanding biological phenomena regulating vasculogenesis processes. In this paper we present an unsupervised segmentation technique which allows for accurate classification of blood vessel networks in in-vitro microscopy images. Results achieved through the proposed technique are validated and compared with experimental observations.

The presence of different kinds of artifacts has long been a problem in the analysis and interpretation of electroencephalographic recordings. Recently blind source separation by Independent Component Analysis (ICA) has been successfully employed for the detection and removal of artifactual components and new methods for the automatic identification of the artifactual components are being proposed. In this paper we focus on the automatic removal of eyeblink components from EEG data. First a model of the topographic maps associated to the ICA eyeblink component and a distance quantifying the resemblance to the model are defined. To further improve the reliability of the system, an eyeblink detector was designed which locates the individual eyeblinks within the component, thus confirming the nature of the activation.

This paper presents the preliminary results in the development of a framework for ubiquitous monitoring in a Intensive Care Unit environment, which aims at enabling mobile access to real-time bedside monitoring data and to a comprehensive electronic patient's clinical record at any moment in time and from any location, by means of a PDA device capable of secure wireless communications. The main goal of the proposed architecture is to optimise the employment of human resources involved in monitoring activities, while at the same time enhancing the quality of delivered services and improving the level of attention to patients.

Several algorithms can effectively represent vector fields by texture-based representations, visualizing at most all information on the field: direction, orientation, and local magnitude. An open problem still remains the mapping on textures of adjunctive information such as temperature, pressure, and so on, without using colors. This article addresses this issue by proposing a technique to add a scalar value denoting streamlines by means of different levels of contrast. Both streamline starting tones and the range of tones depend on the scalar value to be mapped; in this way, areas visualized by different contrast levels are represented. Two examples show the effectiveness of the proposed technique

This paper presents an advanced telemedicine architecture enabling mobile teleconsulting and telediagnosis applications in the medical imaging domain. The feasibility of a portable teleradiology unit based on a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and providing medical experts with wireless connectivity over the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) of the GSM telecommunication network has been experienced by extending to mobile users the interactive services currently provided by an existing regional network for radiological teleconsulting devoted to mild head injury case management. Moreover, the effectiveness of synchronous cooperative work applications including voice conferencing and medical data sharing in a mobile environment has been evaluated. By ensuring skilled medical staff availability wherever and wherever needed still providing the same capabilities of traditional telemedicine systems over broadband networks, the proposed architecture will contribute to increase the quality of remote health care delivery

In this paper, a mobile teleconsultation system based on the use of a PDA is presented. The proposed architecture has been evaluated both over a low bandwidth GPRS public network well-suited for remote emergency diagnosis and in a broad-band WLAN IEEE 802.11 environment suitable for in-hospital care management. The simulation studies with radiological images and ECG signals shows the effectiveness of such a solution in both an interactive and an off-line scenario

In this paper, a mobile teleconsultation system based on the use of a PDA is presented. The proposed architecture has been evaluated both over a low bandwidth GPRS public network well-suited for remote emergency diagnosis and in a broad-band WLAN IEEE 802.11 environment suitable for in-hospital care management. The simulation studies with radiological images and ECG signals shows the effectiveness of such a solution in both an interactive and an off-line scenario.

In recent years, virtual reality has shown all its potential in a large spectrum of applications: training, simulation, CAD, and so on. Although existing technologies allow the creation of immersive virtual reality browsing experiences, little has been devoted to applying this new tool to electronic commerce (e-commerce) since almost all e-commerce web sites present products in a 2D on-line catalog. In this paper we present 3D-dvshop, a dynamic 3D virtual shop: a user can build his or her own shop, choosing a set of products that will be dynamically placed in a collection of specially created \"rooms\". The use of technologies such as VRML and Java allows full 3D interaction with products. In this way, the browsing experience can be more natural, attractive, realistic, and fun

Visualization of vector data produced from application areas such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), environmental sciences, and material engineering is a challenging task. Texture-based methods reveal to be e ective, versatile, and suitable for a large spectrum of applications since they allow to obtain high resolution output textures where direction, orientation, and magnitude of the ow can be displayed. In this paper we present a new method called B 2 LIC, which allows both to characterize and visualize interesting structures in the ow and to map two additional scalar values in output textures by bumps, depressions, and shadows, leaving colors for further information mapping. B 2 LIC is the natural and direct evolution and the improvement of the BLIC (Bumped LIC) algorithm, which is able to map just one scalar value by the bump mapping technique. Some examples show how the proposed method can e ectively allow to map two additional scalar values such as: temperature, vorticity, pressure, and so on, adding new and additional representation capabilities to dense texture-based visualization methodologies.

Technical Report

Technical Report