Question: Converting 3Ds MAX to FEM for analyzing building thermal distribution: A case study example.

This paper explores the synergy between Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), focusing on the development of a CityGML extension known as GeoBIM. The primary goal is to facilitate the seamless integration of semantic data from Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) into a GIS framework. This integration leverages the strengths of both BIM and GIS, aiming to create a unified environment where each technology complements the other. The process of converting IFC data to CityGML, including the GeoBIM extension, has been implemented within the open-source Building Information Modelserver. This work was selected for publication in the Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography series by Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, following a rigorous double-blind review process. The paper is featured in the 2011 edition of Advances in 3D Geo-Information Sciences, edited by Thomas H. Kolbe, Gerhard König, and Claus Nagel, with an ISBN of 978-3-642-12669-7. The book is part of the series edited by W. Cartwright, G. Gartner, L. Meng, and M.P. Peterson, and was published on January 5, 2011. The research was presented at the 5th International 3D GeoInfo Conference held in Berlin, Germany, on November 3-4, 2010, as part of the International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XXXVIII-4/W15.

This paper describes the use of genetic algorithms (GA) for solving the facility layout problem (FLP) within manufacturing systems’ design. The paper considers a specific heuristic layout planning method, known as the modified triangle method. This method seeks for an optimal layout solution based on the degrees of flows between workstations. The search for an optimal solution is extremely time-consuming and not suitable for larger systems; therefore we have developed a system based on evolutionary computation. Our paper presents a system, based on GA, and the results obtained regarding several numerical cases from the literature. We propose the usage of this system by presenting numerous advantages over other methods of solving FLP for problem representation and evolutionary computation for solution search. (Received in September 2012, accepted in June 2013. This paper was with the authors 2 months for 2 revisions.)

The paper presents the analysis of a 3-D numerical model developed for a claw pole alternator. The complex structure of the claw-pole magnetic circuit required a 3D FEM model and a double scalar potential magnetic φ-φred formulation, in order to reduce computing time and memory. The no-load and magnetization characteristics and the e.m.f. time dependence have been calculated. Working characteristics and the induced voltage in the static winding can be calculated by knowing the 3D distribution of the field in stationary magnetic regime for successive positions of the rotor considering the stator.

Classical methods to control heating systems are often marred by suboptimal performance, inability to adapt to dynamic conditions and unreasonable assumptions e.g. existence of building models. This paper presents a novel deep reinforcement learning algorithm which can control space heating in buildings in a computationally efficient manner, and benchmarks it against other known techniques. The proposed algorithm outperforms rule based control by between 5-10% in a simulation environment for a number of price signals. We conclude that, while not optimal, the proposed algorithm offers additional practical advantages such as faster computation times and increased robustness to non-stationarities in building dynamics.

Nonparametric techniques for estimation of wave dispersion in buildings by seismic interferometry are applied to a simple model of a soil-structure interaction (SSI) system with coupled horizontal and rocking response. The system consists of a viscously damped shearbeam, representing a building, on a rigid foundation embedded in a half-space. The analysis shows that (1) wave propagation through the system is dispersive. The dispersion is characterized by lower phase velocity (softening) in the band containing the fundamental system mode of vibration, and little change in the higher frequency bands, relative to the building shear wave velocity. This mirrors its well known effect on the frequencies of vibration, i.e. reduction for the fundamental mode (softening) and no significant change for the higher modes of vibration, in agreement with the duality of the wave and vibrational nature of structural response. Nevertheless, the phase velocity identified from broader band IRFs is very close to the superstructure shear wave velocity, as found by the earlier study. The analysis reveals that (2) the reason for this apparent paradox is that the latter estimates are biased towards the higher values, representative of the higher frequencies in the band, where the response is less affected by SSI. It is also discussed that (3) bending flexibility and soil flexibility produce similar effects on the phase velocities and frequencies of vibration of a building. 1 Ph.D. Candidate, University of Southern California, Dept. of Civil Eng., Los Angeles, CA 90089-2531, Email: mrahmani@usc.edu 2 Ph.D. Candidate, University of Southern California, Dept. of Civil Eng., Los Angeles, CA 90089-2531, Email: mebrahim@usc.edu 3 Research Professor, University of Southern California, Dept. of Civil Eng., Los Angeles, CA 90089-2531, Email: mtodorov@usc.edu Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics. DOI: 10.1002/eqe.2454, Final Draft. First published online on June 23, 2014, in press Article available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eqe.2454/abstract.

We present a method for producing 3D tree models from input photographs with only limited user intervention. An approximate voxel-based tree volume is estimated using image information. The density values of the voxels are used to produce initial positions for a set of particles. Performing a 3D flow simulation, the particles are traced downwards to the tree basis and are combined to form twigs and branches. If possible, the trunk and the first-order branches are determined in the input photographs and are used as attractors for particle simulation. The geometry of the tree skeleton is produced using botanical rules for branch thicknesses and branching angles. Finally, leaves are added. Different initial seeds for particle simulation lead to a variety, yet similar-looking branching structures for a single set of photographs.

The performance-based earthquake engineering framework utilizes probabilistic seismic demand models to obtain accurate estimates of building engineering demand parameters. These parameters are utilized to estimate earthquake-induced losses in terms of probabilistic repair costs, life-safety impact, and loss of function due to damage to a wide variety of building structural and non-structural components and content. Although nonlinear response history analysis is a reliable tool to develop probabilistic seismic demand models, it typically requires a considerable time investment in developing detailed building numerical model representations. In that respect, the challenge of city-scale damage assessment still remains. This paper proposes a simplified methodology that rapidly assesses the story-based engineering demand parameters (e.g., peak story drift ratios, residual story drift ratios, peak absolute floor accelerations) along the height of a steel frame building in the aftermath of an earthquake. The proposed methodology can be employed at a city-scale in order to facilitate rapid earthquake-induced loss assessment of steel frame buildings in terms of structural damage and monetary losses within a region. Therefore, buildings within an urban area that are potentially damaged after an earthquake event or scenario can be easily identified without a detailed engineering inspection. To illustrate the methodology for rapid earthquake-induced loss assessment at the city-scale we employ data from instrumented steel frame buildings in urban California that experienced the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Maps that highlight the expected structural and nonstructural damage as well as the expected earthquake-induced monetary losses are developed. The maps are developed with the geographical information system for steel frame buildings located in Los Angeles. Seong-Hoon Hwang and Dimitrios G. Lignos

Automotive manufacturers have been taking advantage of simulation tools for modeling and analyzing various types of vehicles, such as conventional, electric, and hybrid electric vehicles. These simulation tools are of great assistance to engineers and researchers to reduce product-development cycle time, improve the quality of the design, and simplify the analysis without costly and time-consuming experiments. In this paper, a modeling tool that has been developed to study automotive systems using the power electronics simulator (PSIM) software is presented. PSIM was originally made for simulating power electronic converters and motor drives. This user-friendly simulation package is able to simulate electric/electronic circuits; however, it has no capability for simulating the entire system of an automobile. This paper discusses the PSIM validity as an automotive simulation tool by creating module boxes for not only the electrical systems, but also the mechanical, energy-storage, and thermal systems of the vehicles. These modules include internal combustion engines, fuel converters, transmissions, torque couplers, and batteries. Once these modules are made and stored in the library, the user can make the car model either a conventional, an electric, or a hybrid vehicle at will, just by dragging and dropping onto a schematic blank page.

Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging visualization technology that promises to change the way people see the world. The main goal of AR is to “enhance” a person’s vision of the real world with useful information about the surrounding environment. Primarily this can be done through the use of a portable computer such as a laptop and a head-mounted display (HMD) unit. When such technology is made available to scientists and engineers, Augmented Reality can provide them with the freedom to do scientific analysis at the actual location of an experiment. With this idea in mind, the goal of this paper is to investigate the development of an AR system as a visualization tool for structural engineers. This particular application will focus on monitoring the “health” of the Kings Stormwater Bridge structure. Unfortunately, since AR is still in its infancy, much of the research devoted to it has focused mainly on technical issues rather than on the development of how this technology would be used by scientists. This has led to the development of “functional” AR systems that primarily can only be operated by the developer of the system ([1], [2], [3], [12], [14]). This paper avoids this trend by focusing on the design of the visualization system so that it is useful for structural engineers. As a result, this should produce a more robust Augmented Reality system that can be used by many different users. Thus, it is the goal of this paper to show how scientists would benefit by designing a visualization system with their needs in mind.

We propose an interactive, optimization-in-the-loop tool for designing inflatable structures. Given a target shape, the user draws a network of seams defining desired segment boundaries in 3D. Our method computes optimally-shaped flat panels for the segments, such that the inflated structure is as close as possible to the target while satisfying the desired seam positions. Our approach is underpinned by physics-based pattern optimization, accurate coarse-scale simulation using tension field theory, and a specialized constraint-optimization method. Our system is fast enough to warrant interactive exploration of different seam layouts, including internal connections, and their effects on the inflated shape. We demonstrate the resulting design process on a varied set of simulation examples, some of which we have fabricated, demonstrating excellent agreement with the design intent.


Question: Converting 3Ds MAX to FEM for building thermal distribution: A practical case analysis

This paper introduces an innovative 3D semantic building model designed specifically for urban development applications. This model incorporates unique semantic attributes, including floors, corridors, apertures, and architectural alternatives, which enable the depiction of various detail levels and design iterations over time. A notable feature is its parametric component, which facilitates the swift creation of buildings and their variants during the urban planning phase. To bridge the gap between advanced Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) tools and city modeling, the authors are developing a comprehensive toolbox for the conversion of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data. These enhancements and supplementary functionalities not only broaden the applicability of urban models but also contribute to their sustainability by promoting reusability in diverse modeling contexts.

Buildings are responsible for 40% of global energy use and contribute towards 30% of the total CO2 emissions. The drive to reduce energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions from buildings has acted as a catalyst in the development of advanced computational methods for energy efficient design, management and control of buildings and systems. Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are the major source of energy consumption in buildings and ideal candidates for substantial reductions in energy demand. Significant advances have been made in the past decades on the application of computational intelligence (CI) techniques for HVAC design, control, management, optimization, and fault detection and diagnosis. This article presents a comprehensive and critical review on the theory and applications of CI techniques for prediction, optimization, control and diagnosis of HVAC systems. The analysis of trends reveals that the minimisation of energy consumption was the key optimization objective in the reviewed research, closely followed by the optimization of thermal comfort, indoor air quality and occupant preferences. Hardcoded Matlab program was the most widely used simulation tool, followed by TRNSYS, EnergyPlus, DOE-2, HVACSim+ and ESP-r. Metaheuristic algorithms were the preferred CI method for solving HVAC related problems and in particular genetic algorithms were applied in most of the studies. Despite the low number of studies focussing on multi-agent systems (MAS), as compared to the other CI techniques, interest in the technique is increasing due to their ability of dividing and conquering an HVAC optimization problem with enhanced overall performance. The paper also identifies prospective future advancements and research directions.

3D printing is the process of being able to print any object layer by layer. But if we question this proposition, can we find any three dimensional objects that can't be printed layer by layer? To banish any disbeliefs we walked together through the mathematics that prove 3d printing is feasible for any real life object. 3d printers create three dimensional objects by building them up layer by layer. The current generation of 3d printers typically requires input from a CAD program in the form of an STL file, which defines a shape by a list of triangle vertices. The vast majority of 3d printers use two techniques, FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) and PBP (Powder Binder Printing). One advanced form of 3d printing that has been an area of increasing scientific interest the recent years is bioprinting. Cell printers utilizing techniques similar to FDM were developed for bioprinting. These printers give us the ability to place cells in positions that mimic their respective positions in organs. Finally through series of case studies we show that 3d printers in medicine have made a massive breakthrough lately.

We introduce the concept of a Pixel Stream Editor. This forms the basis for an interactive synthesizer for designing highly realistic Computer Generated Imagery. The designer works in an interactive Very High Level programming environment which provides a very fast concept/implement/view iteration cycle.Naturalistic visual complexity is built up by composition of non-linear functions, as opposed to the more conventional texture mapping or growth model algorithms. Powerful primitives are included for creating controlled stochastic effects. We introduce the concept of "solid texture" to the field of CGI.We have used this system to create very convincing representations of clouds, fire, water, stars, marble, wood, rock, soap films and crystal. The algorithms created with this paradigm are generally extremely fast, highly realistic, and asynchronously parallelizable at the pixel level.

classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author. SIGGRAPH 2014, August 10 – 14, 2014, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 2014 Copyright held by the Owner/Author. ACM 978-1-4503-2960-6/14/08 Shaping Particle Simulations with Interaction Forces

There are many tools that enable the development of the augmented reality (AR) activities, some of them can even create and generate an AR experience where the incorporation of 3D objects is simple. However AR tools used in education are different from the general tools limited to the reproduction of virtual content. The purpose of this paper is to present a learning environment based on augmented reality, which can be used both by teachers to develop quality AR educational resources and by students to acquire knowledge in an area. Common problems teachers have in applying AR have been taken into account by producing an authoring tool for education which includes the following characteristics: (1) the ability to incorporate diverse multimedia resources such as video, sound, images and 3D objects in an easy manner, 2) the ability to incorporate tutored descriptions into elements which are being displayed (thus, the student is provided with an additional information, description or narrative about the resource, while the content gets adapted and personalized), (3) the possibility for the teacher to incorporate multiple choice questions (MCQ) into the virtual resource (useful for instant feedback to students on their understanding, it can be useful for the student to know what are the most important points of that issue and for the teacher to assess whether the student distinguishes different concepts) and (4) a library of virtual content where all resources are available in a simple and transparent way for any user. In this study ARLE is used to add AR technologies into notes or books created by the teacher, thereby supplementing both the theoretical and practical content without any programming skills needed on the designers' behalf. In addition to presenting system architecture and the examples of its educational use, a survey concerning use of AR amongst teachers in Spain has been conducted.

We report a simulation program for indoor visible light communication environment based on MATLAB and Simulink. The program considers the positions of the transmitters and the reflections at each wall. For visible light communication environment, the illumination light-emitting diode is used not only as a lighting device, but also as a communication device. Using the simulation program, the distributions of illuminance and root-mean-square delay spread are analyzed at bottom surface.

This chapter covers the fundamentals of spatial database analysis and design, It begins by defining the most important concepts: ‘spatial database’, ‘analysis’, ‘design’, and ‘model’; and continues with a presentation of the rationale supporting the use of formal methods for analysis and design. The basic elements and approaches of such methods are described, in addition to the processes used. Emphasis is placed on the particularities of spatial databases and the improvements needed for non-spatial methods and tools in order to enhance their efficiency. Finally, the chapter presents a set of tools, called CASE (computer-assisted software engineering), which are built to support the formal analysis and design methods.

This paper extends the Function-Behaviour-Structure (FBS) framework, which proposed eight fundamental processes involved in designing. This framework did not explicitly account for the dynamic character of the context in which designing takes place, described by the notion of situatedness. This paper describes this concept as a recursive interrelationship between different environments, which, together with a model of constructive memory, provides the foundation of a situated FBS framework. The eight fundamental processes are then reconstructed within this new framework to represent designing in a dynamic world.


Question: A case study on utilizing 3Ds MAX for FEM in analyzing building thermal distribution.

This document explores the critical requirements for the automated generation of Building Information Models (BIM) from uninterpreted 3D models, addressing a pressing need in the field of architectural and construction data management. As BIM models, which encompass not only spatial but also semantic and thematic attributes, are typically handcrafted during the planning and construction stages, their availability is limited to recently planned or newly constructed edifices. For the application of innovative BIM-driven technologies to pre-existing structures, methodologies for acquiring BIM models for these sites are indispensable. The primary data source for such models is derived from 3D geometry models, which can be obtained through surveying techniques, CAD systems, or computer graphics. The automation of this data conversion process is highly sought after, yet it confronts a myriad of challenges that significantly raise the threshold for successful reconstruction. This paper delves into these challenges and outlines the essential criteria that must be met by reconstruction methods. Moreover, it proposes a two-step strategy for the creation of BIM models, utilizing CityGML as an intermediary layer between 3D graphical models and the more comprehensive IFC/BIM models. This approach aims to streamline the process of converting existing 3D models into BIM-compatible formats, thereby expanding the applicability of BIM technologies to a broader range of architectural contexts.

This chapter covers the fundamentals of spatial database analysis and design, It begins by defining the most important concepts: ‘spatial database’, ‘analysis’, ‘design’, and ‘model’; and continues with a presentation of the rationale supporting the use of formal methods for analysis and design. The basic elements and approaches of such methods are described, in addition to the processes used. Emphasis is placed on the particularities of spatial databases and the improvements needed for non-spatial methods and tools in order to enhance their efficiency. Finally, the chapter presents a set of tools, called CASE (computer-assisted software engineering), which are built to support the formal analysis and design methods.

The aim of this study was to develop a reliable threedimensional (3D) analysis of facial soft tissues. We determined the mean sagittal 3D values and relationships between sagittal skeletal parameters, and digitally recorded 3D soft tissue parameters. A total of 100 adult patients (nª = 53, nº = 47) of Caucasian ethnic origin were included in this study. Patients with syndromes, cleft lip and palate, noticeable asymmetry or anomalies in the number of teeth were excluded. Arithmetic means for seven sagittal 3D soft tissue parameters were calculated. The parameters were analyzed biometrically in terms of their reliability and gender-specific differences. The 3D soft tissue values were further analyzed for any correlations with sagittal cephalometric values. Reproducible 3D mean values were defined for 3D soft tissue parameters. We detected gender-specific differences among the parameters. Correlations between the sagittal 3D soft tissue and cephalometric measurements were statistically significant. 3D soft tissue analysis provides additional information on the sagittal position of the jaw bases and on intermaxillary sagittal relations. Further studies are needed to integrate 3D soft tissue analysis in future treatment planning and assessment as a supportive diagnostic tool. Ziel dieser Untersuchung war die Entwicklung einer reliablen dreidimensionalen (3D) Analyse der Gesichtsweichteile. Es sollten sagittale 3D-Durchschnittswerte bestimmt werden und Beziehungen zwischen sagittalen skelettalen Parametern und digital erfassten 3D-Weichteilparametern dargestellt werden. In die Studie eingeschlossen wurden 100 erwachsene Patienten (nª = 53, nº = 47) kaukasischer Herkunft. Ausgeschlossen wurden Patienten mit Syndromen, LKGSSpalten, auffälligen Asymmetrien oder Anomalien der Zahnzahl. Es wurden arithmetische Mittelwerte für sieben sagittale 3DWeichteilparameter ermittelt. Die Parameter wurden biometrisch hinsichtlich ihrer Reliabilität und geschlechtsspezifischer Unterschiede analysiert. Des Weiteren wurden die 3D-Weichteilwerte bezüglich bestehender Korrelationen zu sagittalen kephalometrischen Werten untersucht. Für die 3D-Weichteilparameter konnten reproduzierbare 3D-Durchschnittswerte definiert werden. Innerhalb der Parameter ließen sich geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede feststellen. Die Korrelationen zwischen den sagittalen 3D-Weichteilmessungen und den kephalometrischen Messungen waren statistisch signifikant. Die 3D-Weichteilanalyse lässt Aussagen sowohl über den sagittalen Einbau der Kieferbasen als auch über die sagittalen intermaxillären Beziehungen zu. Weitere Untersuchungen sind wünschenswert, um die 3D-Weichteildiagnostik zukünftig als unterstützendes diagnostisches Instrument in die Behandlungsplanung und -bewertung integrieren zu können.

Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Global Journal of Researches in Engineering Electrical and Electronics Engineering Volume 13 Issue 13 Version 1.0 Year 2013 Type: Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal Publisher: Global Journals Inc. (USA) Online ISSN: 2249-4596 & Print ISSN: 0975-5861

Generative 3D face models are a powerful tool in computer vision. They provide pose and illumination invariance by modeling the space of 3D faces and the imaging process. The power of these models comes at the cost of an expensive and tedious construction process, which has led the community to focus on more easily constructed but less powerful models. With this paper we publish a generative 3D shape and texture model, the Basel Face Model (BFM), and demonstrate its application to several face recognition task. We improve on previous models by offering higher shape and texture accuracy due to a better scanning device and less correspondence artifacts due to an improved registration algorithm. The same 3D face model can be fit to 2D or 3D images acquired under different situations and with different sensors using an analysis by synthesis method. The resulting model parameters separate pose, lighting, imaging and identity parameters, which facilitates invariant face recognition across sensors and data sets by comparing only the identity parameters. We hope that the availability of this registered face model will spur research in generative models. Together with the model we publish a set of detailed recognition and reconstruction results on standard databases to allow complete algorithm comparisons.

temperature into consideration, the output current and power characteristics of PV model are simulated and optimized using the proposed model. This enables the dynamics of PV power system to be easily simulated, analyzed, and optimized.

With power density and hence cooling costs rising exponentially, processor packaging can no longer be designed for the worst case, and there is an urgent need for runtime processor-level techniques that can regulate operating temperature when the package's capacity is exceeded. Evaluating such techniques, however, requires a thermal model that is practical for architectural studies.This paper describes HotSpot, an accurate yet fast model based on an equivalent circuit of thermal resistances and capacitances that correspond to microarchitecture blocks and essential aspects of the thermal package. Validation was performed using finite-element simulation. The paper also introduces several effective methods for dynamic thermal management (DTM): "temperature-tracking" frequency scaling, localized toggling, and migrating computation to spare hardware units. Modeling temperature at the microarchitecture level also shows that power metrics are poor predictors of temperature, and that sensor imprecision has a substantial impact on the performance of DTM.

Origami is a paper art used to create three-dimensional (3D) objects by cutting and folding a single sheet of paper. Origami is labor-intensive and requires a high skill level to generate two-dimensional (2D) objects that pop-up into realistic 3D objects. However, this special feature makes designing an origami architecture procedure challenging. This paper provides a novel algorithm to create an origami paper card from a 3D model with a user-specified folding line. The algorithm segments the 2D shape from a 3D model and creates layers of the pop-up paper card using a directed acyclic graph. After applying layers to the layout, the algorithm creates connections between layers, and then outputs the origami layout. Based on a directed acyclic graph, the algorithm computes a class of paper architectures containing two sets of layers and connections that approximate the input geometry while guaranteeing that a pop up card is physically realizable. The proposed method is demonstrated with a number of paper pop-ups, and physical experimental results are presented.

There are many tools that enable the development of the augmented reality (AR) activities, some of them can even create and generate an AR experience where the incorporation of 3D objects is simple. However AR tools used in education are different from the general tools limited to the reproduction of virtual content. The purpose of this paper is to present a learning environment based on augmented reality, which can be used both by teachers to develop quality AR educational resources and by students to acquire knowledge in an area. Common problems teachers have in applying AR have been taken into account by producing an authoring tool for education which includes the following characteristics: (1) the ability to incorporate diverse multimedia resources such as video, sound, images and 3D objects in an easy manner, 2) the ability to incorporate tutored descriptions into elements which are being displayed (thus, the student is provided with an additional information, description or narrative about the resource, while the content gets adapted and personalized), (3) the possibility for the teacher to incorporate multiple choice questions (MCQ) into the virtual resource (useful for instant feedback to students on their understanding, it can be useful for the student to know what are the most important points of that issue and for the teacher to assess whether the student distinguishes different concepts) and (4) a library of virtual content where all resources are available in a simple and transparent way for any user. In this study ARLE is used to add AR technologies into notes or books created by the teacher, thereby supplementing both the theoretical and practical content without any programming skills needed on the designers' behalf. In addition to presenting system architecture and the examples of its educational use, a survey concerning use of AR amongst teachers in Spain has been conducted.

Modern day crime scene investigation methods are continually being enhanced by the application of new technologies to improve the analysis and presentation of crime scene information, helping to solve and prosecute crimes. This paper describes a new system called IC-CRIME that integrates several new technologies to meet both of these needs. IC-CRIME employs laser scanning to produce realistic 3D models of a crime scene which it then incorporates into a 3D virtual environment. ICCRIME creates an integrated platform that encourages investigators and forensic experts to view, explore, and annotate these models at any time from any web browser. A key goal of the system is to expand opportunities for collaboration between professionals whose geographic locations and time commitments would otherwise limit their ability to contribute to the analysis of the actual crime scene.

The purpose of this study is to develop a new space syntax technique by adding third dimension in analysis of urban structure that is important to understand the formation of the cities. The theoretical framework of the study is put forward by integrating space syntax with the theory of the image of city. This entails the essential elucidation of spatial cognition pattern and image and the integration of space syntax and the image of city. The paper analyzes and demonstrates the prerequisite and feasibility of the mutual complementarily between space syntax and the image of city. The threedimensional space syntax integrated with the image of city is different from the traditional syntax that is only limited to non-figurative two-dimensional spatial cognition. It also emphasizes the important influences of the three-dimensional image points on people's behaviour in space and it is quite close to the accurate description of “natural movement”. Based on the three-dimensional theory, a concept model of the threedimensional syntax is constructed, and its content includes how to describe forming process of the three-dimensional spatial image pots during the cognition activity, how to construct the objective evaluation model for the three-dimensional image pots and how to put forward the concept of weighted-integration to calculate the concept mathematical model. In the end, the paper carries through three experimental analyses. The paper argues that the extended three-dimensional syntactical model is much closer to people's spatial illation and cognition. It should be more accurate to use the model to describe and grasp the urban configuration.


Question: Converting 3Ds MAX to FEM for analyzing building thermal distribution: A practical case study.

This study explores the feasibility of integrating Building Information Models (BIMs) into geospatial environments, focusing on the specific domains of site selection and fire response management. Traditionally, such tasks in the construction and urban management sectors are handled using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), given the need for comprehensive integration of geospatial data. The advent of detailed geometric and semantic information about buildings has become a crucial component of this integrated geospatial data. Simultaneously, modern BIMs have evolved to store and represent this level of detailed information. The research objective was to assess the potential of BIMs within geospatial contexts, particularly for site selection and fire response management. The initial phase involved developing use case scenarios to gain a deeper understanding of these domains and to outline the scope for software development aimed at transferring information from BIMs to geospatial environments. Subsequently, two data models were created: a Schema-Level Model View for simplifying information extracted from BIMs, and a geospatial data model serving as a blueprint for creating files and databases in the geospatial environment. Three software components were then designed, developed, and tested to facilitate the transfer of building information into the geospatial environment. The first component was responsible for retrieving building information from the BIM, while the latter two components transformed this information into a geospatial format. The study confirmed that high-level geometric and semantic information from BIMs can indeed be transferred into geospatial environments. Moreover, it was established that BIMs offer a sufficient quantity and quality of geometric and semantic information about buildings to enable the automated data management in site selection and fire response management processes, ensuring a seamless integration.

3D meshes are commonly used to represent virtual surface and volumes. However, their raw data representations take a large amount of space. Hence, 3D mesh compression has been an active research topic since the mid 1990s. In 2005, two very good review articles describing the pioneering works were published. Yet, new technologies have emerged since then. In this article, we summarize the early works and put the focus on these novel approaches. We classify and describe the algorithms, evaluate their performance, and provide synthetic comparisons. We also outline the emerging trends for future research.

With cooling costs rising exponentially, designing cooling solutions for worst-case power dissipation is prohibitively expensive. Chips that can autonomously modify their execution and power-dissipation characteristics permit the use of lower-cost cooling solutions while still guaranteeing safe temperature regulation. Evaluating techniques for this dynamic thermal management (DTM), however, requires a thermal model that is practical for architectural studies.This paper describes HotSpot, an accurate yet fast and practical model based on an equivalent circuit of thermal resistances and capacitances that correspond to microarchitecture blocks and essential aspects of the thermal package. Validation was performed using finite-element simulation. The paper also introduces several effective methods for DTM: "temperature-tracking" frequency scaling, "migrating computation" to spare hardware units, and a "hybrid" policy that combines fetch gating with dynamic voltage scaling. The latter two achieve their performance advantage by exploiting instruction-level parallelism, showing the importance of microarchitecture research in helping control the growth of cooling costs.Modeling temperature at the microarchitecture level also shows that power metrics are poor predictors of temperature, that sensor imprecision has a substantial impact on the performance of DTM, and that the inclusion of lateral resistances for thermal diffusion is important for accuracy.

The use of 3D information in the field of cultural heritage is increasing year by year. From this field comes a large demand for cheaper and more flexible ways of 3D reconstruction. This paper describes a web-based 3D reconstruction service, developed to relieve those needs of the cultural heritage field. This service consists of a pipeline that starts with the user uploading images of an object or scene(s) he wants to reconstruct in 3D. The automatic reconstruction process, running on a server connected to a cluster of computers, computes the camera calibration, as well as dense depth (or range-) maps for the images. This result can be downloaded from an ftp server and visualized with a specific tool running on the user’s PC.

Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM) is a soft computing modelling methodology for complex systems. Beyond the mathematical formulation of the FCM theory, there was a need of developing a software tool to facilitate the implementation of FCMs. This paper describes the use of a software tool that was developed to construct FCM models. Some theoretical elements of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps are presented. Then, it is discussed how the software tool is used to develop a model and simulate the use of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps. The user interface of the software tool is described and how the FCM-Analyst is used to facilitate the implementation and simulation of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps.

Automotive manufacturers have been taking advantage of simulation tools for modeling and analyzing various types of vehicles, such as conventional, electric, and hybrid electric vehicles. These simulation tools are of great assistance to engineers and researchers to reduce product-development cycle time, improve the quality of the design, and simplify the analysis without costly and time-consuming experiments. In this paper, a modeling tool that has been developed to study automotive systems using the power electronics simulator (PSIM) software is presented. PSIM was originally made for simulating power electronic converters and motor drives. This user-friendly simulation package is able to simulate electric/electronic circuits; however, it has no capability for simulating the entire system of an automobile. This paper discusses the PSIM validity as an automotive simulation tool by creating module boxes for not only the electrical systems, but also the mechanical, energy-storage, and thermal systems of the vehicles. These modules include internal combustion engines, fuel converters, transmissions, torque couplers, and batteries. Once these modules are made and stored in the library, the user can make the car model either a conventional, an electric, or a hybrid vehicle at will, just by dragging and dropping onto a schematic blank page.

temperature into consideration, the output current and power characteristics of PV model are simulated and optimized using the proposed model. This enables the dynamics of PV power system to be easily simulated, analyzed, and optimized.

We present and compare two evolutionary algorithm based methods for rectangular architectural layout generation: dense packing and subdivision algorithms. We analyze the characteristics of the two methods on the basis of three floor plan scenarios. Our analyses include the speed with which solutions are generated, the reliability with which optimal solutions can be found, and the number of different solutions that can be found overall. In a following step, we discuss the methods with respect to their different user interaction capabilities. In addition, we show that each method has the capability to generate more complex L-shaped layouts. Finally, we conclude that neither of the methods is superior but that each of them is suitable for use in distinct application scenarios because of its different properties.

In this paper, a methodology is proposed to integrate safety analysis within a systems engineering approach. This methodology is based on SysML models and aims at generating (semi-) automatically safety analysis artifacts, mainly FMEA and FTA, from system models. Preliminary functional and component FMEA are automatically generated from the functional and structural models respectively, then completed by safety experts. By representing SysML structural diagram as a directed multi-graph, through a graph traversal algorithm and some identified patterns, generic fault trees are automatically derived with corresponding logic gates and events. The proposed methodology provides the safety expert with assistance during safety analysis. It helps reducing time and error proneness of the safety analysis process. It also helps ensuring consistency since the safety analysis artifacts are automatically generated from the latest system model version. The methodology is applied to a real case study, the electromechanical actuator EMA.

This paper presents an overview of the possibility offered by 3D plastic printers for a quick, simple and affordable manufacturing of working filters and other passive devices such as antennas. This paper thus goes through numerous examples of passive devices made with the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and material jetting (Polyjet©) technologies and will highlight how they can now be considered as a solid companion to RF designers during an optimization process up to Ku and higher bands.

For several commonly-used solution techniques for partial differential equations, the first step is to divide the problem region into simply-shaped elements, creating a mesh. We present a technique for creating high-quality triangular meshes for regions on curved surfaces. This technique is an extension of previous methods we developed for regions in the plane. For both flat and curved surfaces, the resulting meshes are guaranteed to exhibit the following properties: (1) internal and external boundaries are respected, (2) element shapes are guaranteed—all elements are triangles with angles between 30 and 120 degrees (with the exception of badly shaped elements that may be required by the specified boundary), and (3) element density can be controlled, producing small elements in “interesting” areas and large elements elsewhere. An additional contribution of this paper is the development of a practical generalization of Delaunay triangulation to curved surfaces.


Question: Creating a smart museum: Integrating cultural heritage with the Internet of Things.

In the realm of mobile application development, the concept of usability has emerged as a critical factor in determining the success and adoption of these applications. Recognizing the unique challenges posed by mobile devices, owing to their inherent mobility and distinct user contexts, this study seeks to address the scarcity of comprehensive usability guidelines tailored specifically for mobile applications. While usability guidelines abound for desktop and web-based applications, the mobile landscape presents unique requirements that necessitate a tailored approach. This research endeavors to fill this gap by proposing a unified framework of usability dimensions designed to inform the design and evaluation of mobile applications. The proposed model integrates four key contextual factors: user characteristics, environmental conditions, technological constraints, and task or activity demands. Drawing upon an extensive review of relevant literature, the model consolidates and prioritizes the most pertinent usability dimensions. Through content analysis, twenty-five dimensions were identified, which were subsequently synthesized and ranked based on their relevance to the creation of user-friendly mobile applications. The final model highlights the top ten dimensions, offering a practical guideline for practitioners and researchers alike. This framework not only supports the design of more usable mobile applications but also lays the groundwork for future research in the field.

Question: Investigating the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Enhancing Cybersecurity

Documents: A Deep Learning Approach to Intrusion Detection Systems
Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) play a crucial role in safeguarding computer networks from various cyber-attacks. The traditional IDS techniques, however, are facing challenges due to the increasing sophistication and complexity of modern cyber-attacks. In this paper, we propose a deep learning-based approach to IDS that can effectively detect and respond to new and evolving cyber threats. The proposed method utilizes a deep neural network to analyze network traffic data and identify patterns indicative of malicious activities. The deep learning model is trained on a large dataset of network traffic, including both normal and anomalous activities, to learn the distinguishing features of cyber-attacks. The model is capable of detecting unknown attacks, as it does not rely on predefined signatures or rules. Instead, it learns to recognize attack patterns through unsupervised learning, making it more adaptive and resilient to zero-day attacks. We evaluate the performance of our deep learning-based IDS using standard benchmark datasets and compare it with traditional IDS methods. The results show that the proposed approach significantly outperforms the traditional techniques in terms of detection accuracy and false positive rate. The proposed method is also shown to be more efficient in terms of processing time, making it suitable for real-time intrusion detection in large-scale networks. This research highlights the potential of deep

Intelligent buildings are quickly becoming cohesive and integral inhabitants of cyberphysical ecosystems. Modern buildings adapt to internal and external elements and thrive on ever-increasing data sources, such as ubiquitous smart devices and sensors, while mimicking various approaches previously known in software, hardware, and bioinspired systems. This article provides an overview of intelligent buildings of the future from a range of perspectives. It discusses everything from the prospects of U.S. and world energy consumption to insights into the future of intelligent buildings based on the latest technological advancements in U.S. industry and government.

This article discusses the challenges for Database Management in the Internet of Things. We provide scenarios to illustrate the new world that will be produced by the Internet of Things, where physical objects are fully integrated into the information highway. We discuss the different types of data that will be part of the Internet of Things. These include identification, positional, environmental, historical, and descriptive data. We consider the challenges brought by the need to manage vast quantities of data across heterogeneous systems. In particular, we consider the areas of querying, indexing, process modeling, transaction handling, and integration of heterogeneous systems. We refer to the earlier work that might provide solutions for these challenges. Finally we discuss a road map for the Internet of Things and respective technical priorities.

With current digital technologies, people have large archives of digital media, such as images and audio files, but there are only limited means to include these media in creative practices of crafting and making. Nevertheless, studies have shown that crafting with digital media often makes these media more cherished and that people enjoy being creative with their digital media. This paper aims to open up the way for novel means for crafting, which include digital media in integrations with physical construction, here called ‘hybrid crafting’. Notions of hybrid crafting were explored to inform the design of products or systems that may support these new crafting practices. We designed ‘Materialise’—a building set that allows for the inclusion of digital images and audio files in physical constructions by using tangible building blocks that can display images or play audio files, alongside a variety of other physical components—and used this set in four hands-on creative workshops to gain insight into how people go about doing hybrid crafting; whether hybrid crafting is desirable; what the characteristics of hybrid crafting are; and how we may design to support these practices. By reflecting on the findings from these workshops, we provide concrete guidelines for the design of novel hybrid crafting products or systems that address craft context, process and result. We aim to open up the design space to designing for hybrid crafting because these new practices provide interesting new challenges and opportunities for future crafting that can lead to novel forms of creative expression.

Developments in (wireless) sensor and actuator networks and the capabilities to manufacture low cost and energy efficient networked embedded devices have lead to considerable interest in adding real world sense to the Internet and the Web. Recent work has raised the idea towards combining the Internet of Things (i.e. real world resources) with semantic Web technologies to design future service and applications for the Web. In this paper we focus on the current developments and discussions on designing Semantic Sensor Web, particularly, we advocate the idea of semantic annotation with the existing authoritative data published on the semantic Web. Through illustrative examples, we demonstrate how rule-based reasoning can be performed over the sensor observation and measurement data and linked data to derive additional or approximate knowledge. Furthermore, we discuss the association between sensor data, the semantic Web, and the social Web which enable construction of context-aware applications and services, and contribute to construction of a networked knowledge framework.

IoT is a revolutionary technology that represents the future of computing and communications. Most of the people over all worlds depend on agriculture. Because of this reason smart IT technologies are needed to migrate with traditional agriculture methods. Using modern technologies can control the cost, maintenance and monitoring performance. Satellite and aerial imagery play a vital role in modern agriculture. Precision agriculture sensor monitoring network is used greatly to measure agri-related information like temperature, humidity, soil PH, soil nutrition levels, water level etc. so, with IoT farmers can remotely monitor their crop and equipment by phones and computers. In this paper, we surveyed some typical applications of Agriculture IoT Sensor Monitoring Network technologies using Cloud computing as the backbone. This survey is used to understand the different technologies and to build sustainable smart agriculture. Simple IoT agriculture model is addressed with a wireless network.

Crafters today blend age-old techniques such as weaving and pottery with new information and communication technologies such as podcasts, online instructions, and blogs. This intersection of tradition and modernity provides an interesting site for understanding the adoption of new technology. We present a qualitative study of seven knitters introduced to Spyn - a system that enables the association of digitally recorded messages with physical locations on knit fabric. We gave knitters Spyn in order to elicit their reflections on their craft practices and learn from their interactions with material, people, and technology. While creating artifacts for friends and loved ones, knitters expanded the creative and communicative potential of their craftwork: knitters envisioned travel journals in knitted potholders and sung lullabies in knitted hats. We describe how these unusual craft activities provide a useful lens onto contemporary technological appropriation.

Internet of Things (IoT) are being adopted for industrial and manufacturing applications such as manufacturing automation, remote machine diagnostics, prognostic health management of industrial machines and supply chain management. CloudBased Manufacturing is a recent on-demand model of manufacturing that is leveraging IoT technologies. While Cloud-Based Manufacturing enables on-demand access to manufacturing resources, a trusted intermediary is required for transactions between the users who wish to avail manufacturing services. We present a decentralized, peer-to-peer platform called BPIIoT for Industrial Internet of Things based on the Block chain technology. With the use of Blockchain technology, the BPIIoT platform enables peers in a decentralized, trustless, peer-to-peer network to interact with each other without the need for a trusted intermediary.

In the last few years the Internet of Things (IoT) has seen widespread application and can be found in each field. Authentication and access control are important and critical functionalities in the context of IoT to enable secure communication between devices. Mobility, dynamic network topology and weak physical security of low power devices in IoT networks are possible sources for security vulnerabilities. It is promising to make an authentication and access control attack resistant and lightweight in a resource constrained and distributed IoT environment. This paper presents the Identity Authentication and Capability based Access Control (IACAC) model with protocol evaluation and performance analysis. To protect IoT from man-in-the-middle, replay and denial of service (Dos) attacks, the concept of capability for access control is introduced. The novelty of this model is that, it presents an integrated approach of authentication and access control for IoT devices. The results of other related study have also been analyzed to validate and support our findings. Finally, the proposed protocol is evaluated by using security protocol verification tool and verification results shows that IACAC is secure against aforementioned attacks. This paper also discusses performance analysis of the protocol in terms of computational time compared to other Journal of Cyber Security and Mobility, Vol. 1, 309–348. c © 2013 River Publishers. All rights reserved. 310 P.N. Mahalle et al. existing solutions. Furthermore, this paper addresses challenges in IoT and security attacks are modelled with the use cases to give an actual view of IoT networks.

Internet of things is a promising research due to its importance in many commerce, industry, and education applications. Recently, new applications and research challenges in numerous areas of Internet of things are fired. In this paper, we discuss the history of Internet of things, different proposed architectures of Internet of things, research challenges and open problems related to the Internet of things. We also introduce the concept of Internet of things database and discuss about the future vision of Internet of things. These are the manuscript preparation guidelines used as a standard template for all journal submissions. Author must follow these instructions while preparing/modifying these guidelines.

In a nearby future 5G technologies will connect the world from the largest megacities to the smallest internet of things in an always online fashion. Such a connected hierarchy must combine the smart cities, the smart homes, and the internet of things into one large coherent infrastructure. This paper suggest a four layer model which join and interfaces these elements by deploying technologies such as 5G, internet of things, cloud of things, and distributed artificial intelligence. Many advantages and service possibilities are offered by this new infrastructure such as interconnected internet of things, smart homes with artificial intelligence, and a platform for new combined smart home and smart city services based on big-data.


Question: Creating a smart museum: integrating cultural heritage with the Internet of Things.

Introducing SMARTMUSEUM: A Context-Aware Recommender System for the Internet of Things in Cultural Heritage Sites

In the realm of cultural heritage, the convergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and semantic web technologies presents a promising avenue for enhancing the visitor experience at museums and historical sites. SMARTMUSEUM, a cutting-edge mobile recommender system, is designed to address the challenges of content heterogeneity and information overload in the IoT environment. This system is tailored to provide personalized and context-aware recommendations for tourists seeking to engage with cultural heritage in a meaningful way.

The SMARTMUSEUM framework leverages Semantic Web languages for data representation, enabling it to bridge the semantic gap between diverse content descriptions, sensor inputs, and user profiles. By employing ontologies, the system ensures that information objects are accurately linked to their physical counterparts, facilitating a seamless interaction between the digital and physical realms. This is particularly crucial in mobile scenarios where retrieval needs to be context-aware and tailored to individual user preferences.

At the heart of SMARTMUSEUM is an information retrieval framework that utilizes context data and search result clustering to recommend suitable content to mobile users. The system's performance is significantly enhanced by ontology-based reasoning, query expansion, and the integration of context knowledge, which collectively contribute to more accurate and relevant recommendations.

Laboratory experiments have validated the efficacy of SMARTMUSEUM's approach, demonstrating that the use of semantic content representation and retrieval can markedly improve the performance of mobile recommender systems, especially in knowledge-intensive domains such as cultural heritage. Field trials have further reinforced these findings, confirming that the system's usability meets or exceeds user expectations in real-world settings.

The success of SMARTMUSEUM underscores the potential of combining IoT and semantic web technologies to enrich the cultural heritage experience. By offering personalized recommendations in a context-aware manner, SMARTMUSEUM not only enhances visitor engagement but also fosters a deeper appreciation of historical and cultural sites.

The aim of this research survey note is to provide a comprehensive overview of Smart Home Environments with a focus on their architectures and application areas, as well as utilized technologies, infrastructures, and standards. The main source of information was provided by past and existing research and development projects carried out in this area, while the main result of our survey is a classification of Smart Home Environments, as revealed by this projects’ survey.

Smart Home System (SHS) is a dwelling incorporating a communications network that connects the electrical appliances and services allowing them to be remotely controlled, monitored or accessed. SHS includes different approaches to achieve multiple objectives range from enhancing comfort in daily life to enabling a more independent life for elderly and handicapped people. In this paper, the main four fields for SHS which are, home automation and remote monitoring, environmental monitoring, including humidity, temperature, fault tracking and management and finally the health monitoring have been considered. The system design is based on the Microcontroller MIKRO C software; multiple passive and active sensors and also a wireless internet services which is used in different monitoring and control processes .This paper presents the hardware implementation of a multiplatform control system for house automation and combines both hardware and software technologies. The system results shows that it can be classified as a comfortable, secure, private, economic and safe system in addition to its great flexibility and reliability.

Internet of Things (IOT) visualizes a future of anything anywhere by anyone at any time. The Information and communication technologies help in creating a revolution in digital technology. IOT are known for interconnecting various physical devices with the networks. In IOT, various physical devices are embedded with different types of sensors and other devices to exchange data between them. An embedded system is a combination of software and hardware where they are programmed for functioning specific functions. These data can be accessed from any parts of the world by making use of cloud. This can be used for creating a digital world, smart homes, healthcare systems and real life data exchange like smart banking. Though Internet of things has emerged long back, it is now becoming popular and gaining attention lately. In healthcare industry, some of the hospitals started using sensors implemented in the bed to get the status of patient's movement and other activities. This paper contains various IOT applications and the role of IOT in the healthcare system, challenges in the healthcare system using IOT. Also, introduced a secured surveillance monitoring system for reading and storing patient's details using low power for transmitting the data.

Many Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have been used in applications for money flow, logistics flow, people flow, interactive art design, and so on. To manage these increasing disparate devices and connectivity options, ETSI has specified end-to-end machine-to-machine (M2M) system architecture for IoT applications. Based on this architecture, we develop an IoT EasyConnect system to manage IoT devices. In our approach, an IoT device is characterized by its “features” (e.g., temperature, vibration, and display) that are manipulated by the network applications. If a network application handles the individual device features independently, then we can write a software module for each device feature, and the network application can be simply constructed by including these brick-like device feature modules. Based on the concept of device feature, brick-like software modules can provide simple and efficient mechanism to develop IoT device applications and interactions.

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) represents one of the most promising Internet of Things (IoT) applications due to its influence on the quality of life and health of the elderly people. However, the interoperability is one of the major issues that needs to be addressed to promote the adoption of AAL solutions in real environments. In this paper, an IoT prototype system for AAL called AAL-IoTSys is proposed, which includes a Smart IoT Gateway as a key component to enable the interoperability from several heterogeneous devices over different communication protocols and technologies (e.g., WiFi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.15.4, 6LowPAN). This system aims to monitor environmental (temperature, humidity, C02), health (heart rate) and location (GPS) parameters in the elderly people's houses in order to facilitate events early detection and automatic sending notifications to elderly care stakeholders in active and healthy aging scenarios (included health professionals, caregivers, family members and emergency services).

In today's world, many people feel stressed out from school, work, or other life events. Therefore, it is important to detect stress and manage it to reduce the risk of damage to an individual's well being. With the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), devices can be made to detect stress and manage it effectively by using cloudbased services and smartphone apps to aggregate and compute large data sets that track stress behavior over long periods of time. Additionally, there is added convenience via the connectivity and portability of these IoT devices. They allow individuals to seek intervention prior to elevated health risks and achieve a less stressful life.

Both distributed healthcare systems and the Internet of Things (IoT) are currently hot topics. The latter is a new computing paradigm to enable advanced capabilities in engineering various applications, including those for healthcare. For such systems, the core social requirement is the privacy/security of the patient information along with the technical requirements (e.g., energy consumption) and capabilities for adaptability and personalization. Typically, the functionality of the systems is predefined by the patient’s data collected using sensor networks along with medical instrumentation; then, the data is transferred through the Internet for treatment and decision-making. Therefore, systems creation is indeed challenging. In this paper, we propose a model-driven framework to develop the IoT-based prototype and its reference architecture for personalized health monitoring (PHM) applications. The framework contains a multi-layered structure with feature-based modeling and feature model transformations at the top and the application software generation at the bottom. We have validated the framework using available tools and developed an experimental PHM to test some aspects of the functionality of the reference architecture in real time. The main contribution of the paper is the development of the model-driven computational framework with emphasis on the synergistic effect of security and energy issues.

Network devices for the home such as remotely controllable locks, lights, thermostats, cameras, and motion sensors are now readily available and inexpensive. In theory, this enables scenarios like remotely monitoring cameras from a smartphone or customizing climate control based on occupancy patterns. However, in practice today, such smarthome scenarios are limited to expert hobbyists and the rich because of the high overhead of managing and extending current technology. We present HomeOS, a platform that bridges this gap by presenting users and developers with a PC-like abstraction for technology in the home. It presents network devices as peripherals with abstract interfaces, enables cross-device tasks via applications written against these interfaces, and gives users a management interface designed for the home environment. HomeOS already has tens of applications and supports a wide range of devices. It has been running in 12 real homes for 4–8 months, and 42 students have built new applications and added support for additional devices independent of our efforts.

Smart city is a label internationally used by cities, researchers and technology providers with different meanings. As a popular concept it is widely used by city administrators and politicians to promote their efforts. It is hard enough to find a good definition for smart cities, but even harder to find a trustworthy description of what it takes to become a smart city and how a city administration is impacted. This paper sets out to investigate how a city, aspiring to become a 'smart city', can manage the organization to realize that ambition. Specifically, the paper describes the case of the City of Ghent, Belgium, and the key challenges it has been facing in its ongoing efforts to be a smart city. Based on in depth interviews with city representatives six key challenges for smart city realization were identified and tested with a panel of representatives from five European cities that are in the process of becoming a smart city. This way, the study contributes to a more professional pursuit of the smart city concept.

The current evolution of the traditional medical model toward the participatory medicine can be boosted by the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm involving sensors (environmental, wearable, and implanted) spread inside domestic environments with the purpose to monitor the user's health and activate remote assistance. RF identification (RFID) technology is now mature to provide part of the IoT physical layer for the personal healthcare in smart environments through low-cost, energy-autonomous, and disposable sensors. It is here presented a survey on the state-of-the-art of RFID for application to body centric systems and for gathering information (temperature, humidity, and other gases) about the user's living environment. Many available options are described up to the application level with some examples of RFID systems able to collect and process multichannel data about the human behavior in compliance with the power exposure and sanitary regulations. Open challenges and possible new research trends are finally discussed.


Question: Creating a smart museum: integrating cultural heritage with the Internet of Things.

Crafting an Interactive Experience: Integrating IoT in Museum Settings

In the realm of cultural heritage, the integration of technology, particularly the Internet of Things (IoT), can significantly enrich museum visitor experiences. The objective is not to inundate visitors with excessive information but to provide them with pertinent details, facilitating a learning process that is both engaging and enjoyable. To achieve this, a system that is user-friendly and adaptable is essential, which presents several design challenges that must be tackled simultaneously. The user interface should be designed in such a way that it does not detract from the exhibits but rather enhances the visitors' focus on them. The content and its delivery should offer relevant information while also allowing visitors to delve into the level of detail and perspectives that interest them most. Personalization is a critical component in this process, ensuring that each visitor receives information that is pertinent to their individual interests. However, since museum visits often involve small groups, technology should also facilitate communication and interaction both during and after the visit. The PIL project, an extension of the PEACH project's research findings, implemented at the Hecht Museum, aimed to address these multifaceted considerations. User evaluations confirmed the effectiveness of various design elements, highlighting the project's success in integrating IoT to enhance the museum experience.

The Internet of Things (IoT) holds big promises for Health Care, especially in Proactive Personal eHealth. To fulfil the promises major challenges must be overcome, particularly regarding privacy and security. This paper explores these issues, discusses use case scenarios, and advances a secure architecture framework. We close the paper with a discussion of the state of various standard organizations, in the conviction of the critical role they will play in making eHealth bloom.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been a hot topic for the future of computing and communication. It will not only have a broad impact on our everyday life in the near future, but also create a new ecosystem involving a wide array of players such as device developers, service providers, software developers, network operators, and service users. In this paper, we present an open service framework for the Internet of Things, facilitating entrance into the IoT-related mass market, and establishing a global IoT ecosystem with the worldwide use of IoT devices and softwares. We expect that the open IoT service framework we proposed will play an important role in the widespread adoption of the Internet of Things in our everyday life, enhancing our quality of life with a large number of innovative applications and services, but also offering endless opportunities to all of the stakeholders in the world of information and communication technologies.

The Internet of Things has increased the number of connected devices by an order of magnitude. This increase comes with a corresponding increase in complexity, which has led to centralized architectures that do not respect the privacy of the users and incur high development and deployment costs. We propose the Open Thing Platform as a new distributed architecture which is built around ThingTalk, a new high level declarative programming language that can express the interaction between multiple physical devices and online services. The architecture abstracts away the details of the communication without sacrificing privacy. We experiment with ThingTalk in multiple domains and we show that several applications can be written in a few lines of code and with no need for any server infrastructure.

Devices with integrated Wi-Fi chips broadcast beacons for network connection management purposes. Such information can be captured with inexpensive monitors and used to extract user behavior. To understand the behavior of visitors, we deployed our passive monitoring system---CrowdProbe, in a multi-floor museum for six months. We used a Hidden Markov Models (HMM) based trajectory inference algorithm to infer crowd movement using more than 1.7 million opportunistically obtained probe request frames.
 However, as more devices adopt schemes to randomize their MAC addresses in the passive probe session to protect user privacy, it becomes more difficult to track crowd and understand their behavior. In this paper, we try to make use of historical transition probability to reason about the movement of those randomized devices with spatial and temporal constraints. With CrowdProbe, we are able to achieve sufficient accuracy to understand the movement of visitors carrying devices with randomized MAC addresses.

Excellence in IT is both a driver and a key enabler of the digital transformation. The digital transformation changes the way we live, work, learn, communicate, and collaborate. The Internet of Things (IoT) fundamentally influences today's digital strategies with disruptive business operating models and fast changing markets. New business information systems are integrating emerging Internet of Things infrastructures and components. With the huge diversity of Internet of Things technologies and products organizations have to leverage and extend previous Enterprise Architecture efforts to enable business value by integrating Internet of Things architectures. Both architecture engineering and management of current information systems and business models are complex and currently integrating beside the Internet of Things synergistic subjects, like Enterprise Architecture in context with services & cloud computing, semantic-based decision support through ontologies and knowledge-based systems, big data management, as well as mobility and collaboration networks. To provide adequate decision support for complex business/IT environments, we have to make transparent the impact of business and IT changes over the integral landscape of affected architectural capabilities, like directly and transitively impacted IoT-objects, business categories, processes, applications, services, platforms and infrastructures. The paper describes a new metamodel-based approach for integrating Internet of Things architectural objects, which are semi-automatically federated into a holistic Digital Enterprise Architecture environment.

To realize the vision of Internet of Things, there must be mechanisms to discover resources and their capabilities. Thus resource discovery becomes a fundamental requirement of any IoT platform. This paper provides a comprehensive categorization of the current technology landscape for discovery while pointing out their advantages and limitations. Then, a novel search engine based resource discovery framework is proposed. The framework comprises of a proxy layer which includes drivers for various communication technologies and protocols. There is a central registry to store the configurations of the resources and index them based on the configuration parameters. A “lifetime” attribute is introduced which denotes the period through which a resource is discoverable. The search engine ranks the resulting resources of a discovery request and returns an URI to directly access each resource. The functionalities of the proposed framework are exposed using RESTful web services. The framework allows discovery of both smart and legacy devices. We have performed gap analysis of current IoT standards for discovery mechanisms and provide suggestions to improve them to maintain interoperability. The outcomes are communicated to Standard Development Organizations like W3C (in Web of Things Interest Group) and oneM2M.

We live in the age of After Google (AG), where information is just one click away and talking just one touch away. The near future of the AG age is the Internet of Things (IoT), where physical things connected over a network will take part in Internet activities to exchange information about themselves and their surroundings. In other words, the IoT is nothing but a computing concept in which everyday objects with embedded hardware/devices are connected to a network or are simply online.

Intelligent appliances with multimedia capability have been emerging into our daily life, thanks to the fast advance of computing technology and the wide use of the Interne. Smart home is one of the most prominent areas of intelligent appliances. Kitchen is one of the places where such intelligent appliances have been used. Since modern life style is driving people spending less time on cooking healthy food at home, an enjoyable and healthy life style can be assisted with an intelligent kitchenware such as a smart fridge. In this paper we introduce a novel idea of the smart fridge which can enable better nutrition and enhance health. It is designed for managing items stored in it and advising its users with cooking methods depending on what kind of food is stored. More importantly, it can perform other actions such as dietary control, nutrition monitoring, eating habit analysis, etc. The characteristics, functions and design details of the smart fridge are presented in details. We are confident that such a smart fridge will be an important component in future smart home.

Crafters today blend age-old techniques such as weaving and pottery with new information and communication technologies such as podcasts, online instructions, and blogs. This intersection of tradition and modernity provides an interesting site for understanding the adoption of new technology. We present a qualitative study of seven knitters introduced to Spyn - a system that enables the association of digitally recorded messages with physical locations on knit fabric. We gave knitters Spyn in order to elicit their reflections on their craft practices and learn from their interactions with material, people, and technology. While creating artifacts for friends and loved ones, knitters expanded the creative and communicative potential of their craftwork: knitters envisioned travel journals in knitted potholders and sung lullabies in knitted hats. We describe how these unusual craft activities provide a useful lens onto contemporary technological appropriation.

In the current manufacturing world, the role of maintenance has been receiving increasingly more attention while companies understand that maintenance, when well performed, can be a strategic factor to achieve the corporate goals. The latest trends of maintenance leans towards the predictive approach, exemplified by the Prognosis and Health Management (PHM) and the Condition-based Maintenance (CBM) techniques. The implementation of such approaches demands a well structured architecture and can be boosted through the use of emergent ICT technologies, namely Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, advanced data analytics and augmented reality. Therefore, this paper describes the architecture of an intelligent and predictive maintenance system, aligned with Industry 4.0 principles, that considers advanced and online analysis of the collected data for the earlier detection of the occurrence of possible machine failures, and supports technicians during the maintenance interventions by providing a guided intelligent decision support.


Question: Designing a smart museum: Integrating cultural heritage with the Internet of Things.

The Evolution of Smart Cities in Europe: A Focus on Cultural Heritage and IoT Integration

In contemporary urban environments, a city's success is no longer solely determined by its physical infrastructure but also by its investment in knowledge, communication, and social infrastructure. This shift in priorities has led to the rise of the smart city concept, which emphasizes the strategic role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in enhancing urban competitiveness. Over the past two decades, the incorporation of ICTs has become a cornerstone in the development of smart cities across Europe.

The smart city framework integrates various dimensions of urban life, including cultural heritage, to create a more sustainable and connected environment. By harnessing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities are able to preserve and promote their cultural assets while also enhancing the visitor experience. This approach not only boosts the city's cultural appeal but also contributes to its economic growth by attracting more tourists and fostering a vibrant creative sector.

In Europe, several cities have embarked on smart museum projects that leverage IoT technologies to offer immersive and interactive experiences. These museums utilize smart devices, sensors, and data analytics to provide personalized tours, real-time information, and augmented reality exhibits. The integration of cultural heritage into the smart city ecosystem not only enriches the visitor experience but also facilitates the preservation and management of historical sites.

The implementation of IoT in smart museums represents a significant step towards the realization of smart cities that value their cultural heritage as much as their technological advancements. By combining the traditional with the modern, these museums serve as a testament to the potential of smart cities in Europe to harmoniously blend history and innovation, creating a future that is both sustainable and culturally vibrant.

The development of industrialization and information communication technology (ICT) has deeply changed our way of life. In particular, with the emerging theory of ‘‘Industry 4.0”, the integration of cloud technologies and industrial cyber-physical systems (ICPS) becomes increasingly important, as this will greatly improve the manufacturing chain and business services. In this paper, we first describe the development and character of ICPS. ICPS will inevitably play an important role in manufacturing, sales, and logistics. With the support of the cloud, ICPS development will impact value creation, business models, downstream services, and work organization. Then, we present a service-oriented ICPS model. With the support of the cloud, infrastructure platform and service application, ICPS will promote the manufacturing efficiency, increase quality of production, enable a sustainable industrial system and more environmentally friendly businesses. Thirdly, we focus on some key enabling technologies, which are critical in supporting smart factories. These key enabling technologies will also help companies to realize high quality, high output, and low cost. Finally, we talk about some challenges of ICPS implementation and the future work. 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we propose a solution to delegate the control and the management of the network connecting the many devices of a smart environment to a software entity, while keeping end-users in control of what is happening in their networks. For this, we rely on the logical manipulation of all connected devices through device abstraction and network programmability. Applying Software Defined Networking (SDN) principles, we propose a software-based solution that we call Software-Defined LANs in order to interconnect devices of smart environments according to the services the users are requesting or expecting.We define the adequate virtualization framework based on Virtual Objects and Communities of Virtual Objects. Using these virtual entities, we apply the SDN architectural principles to define a generic architecture that can be applied to any smart environment. Then we describe a prototype implementing these concepts in the home networking context, through a scenario in which users of two different homes can easily interconnect two private but shareable DLNA devices in a dedicated video-delivery SD-LAN. Finally we provide a discussion of the benefits and challenges of our approach regarding the generalization of SDN principles, autonomic features, Internet of Things scalability, security and privacy aspects enabled by SD-LANs intrinsic properties.

In the Web of Things, standard web technologies and protocols are used to represent and communicate with physical and virtual things. One challenge toward this vision is integrating things with different characteristics, protocols, interfaces and constraints while maintaining the simplicity and flexibility required for a variety of applications. In this paper we present the Thing Broker, a core platform for Web of Things that provides RESTFul interfaces to things using a Twitter-based set of abstractions and communication model. We present the key abstractions, a reference implementation and explain how a typical WoT application can be created using Thing Broker. We finish with a preliminary evaluation and draw some lessons from our experiences.

This article describes the software architecture of an auto nomous, interactive tour-guide robot. It presents a modular and distributed software archi te ture, which integrates localization, mapping, collision avoidance, planning, and vari ous modules concerned with user interaction and Web-based telepresence. At its heart, the s oftware approach relies on probabilistic computation, on-line learning, and any-time alg orithms. It enables robots to operate safely, reliably, and at high speeds in highly dynamic environments, and does not require any modifications of the environment to aid the robot ’s peration. Special emphasis is placed on the design of interactive capabilities that appeal to people’s intuition. The interface provides new means for human-robot interaction w ith crowds of people in public places, and it also provides people all around the world with the ability to establish a “virtual telepresence” using the Web. To illustrate our approac h, results are reported obtained in mid-1997, when our robot “RHINO” was deployed for a period of six days in a densely populated museum. The empirical results demonstrate relia bl operation in public environments. The robot successfully raised the museum’s atten dance by more than 50%. In addition, thousands of people all over the world controlled the robot through the Web. We conjecture that these innovations transcend to a much large r range of application domains for service robots.

The rapid development of technology nowadays led people to a new and revolutionary concept, named the Internet of Things. This model imposes that all "objects", such as personal objects (smartphones, notebooks, smart watches, tablets etc), electronic equipment embed with sensors and other environmental elements are always connected to a common network. Therefore, one can access any resource at any time, by using a device recognized in the network. While the IoT may be economically and socially beneficial, the implementation of such a system poses many difficulties, risks and security issues that must be taken into consideration. Nowadays, the architecture of the Internet must be updated and rethought in order to interconnect trillions of devices and to ensure interoperability between them. Nevertheless, the most important problem is the security requirements of the IoT, which is probably one of the main reasons of the relatively slow development of this field. This paper presents the most important application layer protocols that are currently used in the IoT context: CoAP, MQTT, XMPP. We discuss them both separately and by comparison, with focus on the security provided by these protocols. Finally, we provide some future research opportunities and conclusions.

With current digital technologies, people have large archives of digital media, such as images and audio files, but there are only limited means to include these media in creative practices of crafting and making. Nevertheless, studies have shown that crafting with digital media often makes these media more cherished and that people enjoy being creative with their digital media. This paper aims to open up the way for novel means for crafting, which include digital media in integrations with physical construction, here called ‘hybrid crafting’. Notions of hybrid crafting were explored to inform the design of products or systems that may support these new crafting practices. We designed ‘Materialise’—a building set that allows for the inclusion of digital images and audio files in physical constructions by using tangible building blocks that can display images or play audio files, alongside a variety of other physical components—and used this set in four hands-on creative workshops to gain insight into how people go about doing hybrid crafting; whether hybrid crafting is desirable; what the characteristics of hybrid crafting are; and how we may design to support these practices. By reflecting on the findings from these workshops, we provide concrete guidelines for the design of novel hybrid crafting products or systems that address craft context, process and result. We aim to open up the design space to designing for hybrid crafting because these new practices provide interesting new challenges and opportunities for future crafting that can lead to novel forms of creative expression.

The Internet of Things (IoT) introduced the possibility to connect electronic things from everyday life to the Internet, while making them ubiquitously available. With advanced IoT services, based on a trusted federation among heterogeneous IoT platforms, new security problems (including authentication and authorization) emerge. This contribution aims at describing the main facets of the preliminary security architecture envisaged in the context of the symbIoTe project, recently launched by European Commission under the Horizon 2020 EU program. Our approach features distributed and decoupled mechanisms for authentication and authorization services in complex scenarios embracing heterogeneous and federated IoT platforms, by leveraging Attribute Based Access Control and token-based authorization techniques.

Smart spaces research focuses on technology for multiple displays and devices for collocated participants. In most approaches, however, users have to cope with heterogeneous interfaces and information organization, as well as a lack of support for collaboration with mobile and remote users outside the smart space. In this paper, we present ReticularSpaces; a multi-display smart space system built on the principles of activity-based computing. The focus of ReticularSpaces is to support: (i) unified interaction with applications and documents through ReticularUI, a novel distributed user interfaces design; (ii) management of the complexity of tasks between users and displays; (iii) mobile users in a local, remote or 'nomadic' settings; and (iv) collaboration among local and remote users. We describe the motivation, design, and architecture of ReticularSpaces, and report from a preliminary feasibility study. The study shows that participants found ReticularSpaces useful and effective, but at the same time reveals new areas for research on smart environments.

The research and development of attractive smart clothing, with truly embedded technologies, demands the merging of science and technology with art and design. This paper looks at a comparatively new and unique design discipline that has been given little prior consideration. The concept of 'wearables' crosses the boundaries between many disciplines. A gap exists for a common 'language' that facilitates creativity and a systematic design process. Designers of smart clothing require guidance in their enquiry, as gaining an understanding of issues such as; usability, manufacture, fashion, consumer culture, recycling and end user needs can seem forbidding and difficult to prioritise. This paper presents a design tool in a format that can be understood by practitioners who come from a range of backgrounds. The representation of the 'critical path' is intended as a tool to guide the design research and development process in the application of smart technologies.

Connectivity is probably the most basic building block of the IoT paradigm. Up to now, the two main approaches to provide data access to things have been based on either multihop mesh networks using short-range communication technologies in the unlicensed spectrum, or long-range legacy cellular technologies, mainly 2G/GSM/GPRS, operating in the corresponding licensed frequency bands. Recently, these reference models have been challenged by a new type of wireless connectivity, characterized by low-rate, long-range transmission technologies in the unlicensed sub-gigahertz frequency bands, used to realize access networks with star topology referred to as low-power WANs (LPWANs). In this article, we introduce this new approach to provide connectivity in the IoT scenario, discussing its advantages over the established paradigms in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and architectural design, particularly for typical smart city applications.