Search

Several areas of technology are considered including sanitation, social distancing, barriers, remote reference, electronic resources, wireless Internet access, curbside pickup, bookmobiles, video c...

New technologies are driving change in the retail electricity sector. These technologies are primarily the result of the innovations in electronic monitoring and communications equipment. Advances in software engineering and the widespread availability of high-speed wired and wireless internet access are allowing these new technologies to take hold in both developed and developing jurisdictions around the globe. Here we discuss the technologies that have been, or will be, pivotal in changing the retail electricity sector.

A proliferação do uso das tecnologias móveis como ferramentas didáticas em aulas de graduação em cursos superiores de saúde vem ampliando-se, no entanto, tais recursos precisam ser adotados com responsabilidade, considerando realidades específicas, com vistas a qualificar o ensino e a aprendizagem; temática que merece reflexão crítica. O estudo teve como objetivo discutir a compreensão dos docentes dos cursos de Fisioterapia e Enfermagem de uma instituição de ensino superior particular da cidade de Fortaleza, no Ceará, sobre a importância e a adoção das tecnologias móveis no processo de ensino e aprendizagem em suas aulas. A pesquisa, de abordagem qualitativa, do tipo estudo de caso, utilizou como técnica de coleta de dados um questionário on-line composto de 15 questões – abertas e fechadas – para identificar a importância atribuída à integração da tecnologia móvel nas aulas e a maneira como os docentes a utilizavam didaticamente. Os resultados mostram que os professores acreditam que a utilização de tecnologias móveis pode contribuir significativamente no processo de ensino e aprendizagem na área da Saúde, contudo, consideram fundamental investir na formação docente em serviço, pois inferem que não adianta apenas a Instituição de Ensino Superior possuir estrutura e recursos tecnológicos se não há o conhecimento profissional necessário para uma utilização qualificada. Palavras-chave: Tecnologia móvel. Prática docente. Ensino superior. Educação em saúde.

This case study presents how teachers from an elementary school in Singapore design learning for their students, leveraging on the use of information and communications technology (ICT). The school in this case study is one of the eight future schools in Singapore under the FutureSchools@Singapore programme. The school provides one-to-one computing learning devices and wireless Internet access for its students. Teachers from the school, teaching various grade levels and subject matters, were interviewed on how they use current and prevalent online technologies to enhance and transform teaching practices. In-depth discussion interviews with the teachers about their pedagogical practices were analysed according to the six learning experiences – acquisition, inquiry, practice, production, discussion and collaboration. Structural elements surrounding this case study (e.g. conditions surrounding the school) were also taken into consideration. The rich description and in-depth interviews with the teache...

Background: In recent randomized clinical trials, an unusual reporting pattern of glycemic data and hypoglycemic events potentially related to an internet enabled blood glucose meter (MyGlucoHealth, BGM) was observed. Therefore, this clinical study was conducted to evaluate the system accuracy of the BGM in accordance with the ISO15197:2015 guidelines with additional data collection. Methods: To investigate system accuracy, 10 of 3088 devices and 6 of 23 strip lots, used in the trials, were selected by a randomization procedure and a standard repeatability assessment. YSI 2300 STAT Plus was used as the standard reference method. The samples were distributed as per the ISO15197:2015 recommendations with 20 additional samples in the hypoglycemic range. Each sample was tested with 6 devices and 6 strip lots with double determinations. Results: Overall, 121 subjects with blood glucose values 26-423 mg/dL were analyzed, resulting in 1452 data points. In all, 186/1452 readings (12.8%) did not meet the ISO acceptance criteria. Data evaluated according to the FDA guidelines showed that 336/1452 (23.1%) readings did not meet the acceptance criteria. A clear bias toward elevated values was observed for BG Conclusions: The results show that the BGM, although approved according to standard regulatory guidelines, did not meet the level of analytical accuracy required for clinical treatment decisions according to ISO 15197:2015 and FDA requirements. In general, caution should be exercised before selection of BGMs for patients and in clinical trials.

The commercial WI-FI construction project in Jiugu Mining Area is a project implemented by Jiugu Coal Industry in order to adapt to the development needs of the mobile Internet, grab users’ mobile Internet access, and promote the transformation of the company’s business. The wireless coverage mainly includes public places such as residential quarters, mining canteens, shopping malls, and school dormitories to meet users’ demands for outdoor wireless Internet access. At present, the wireless network has completed the first phase of installation and construction. AP devices have been deployed in some residential community squares, main coal mine canteens, central hospitals and outpatient buildings, school gates, bath centers, and other places to achieve wireless network coverage.

About 20 years ago, I wrote "Adaptation and Mobility in Wireless Information Systems" for the very first issue of the IEEE Personal Communications Magazine [1]. From today's perspective, with our experience of smartphones, pervasive Wi-Fi and LTE wireless Internet access, and "video to your palm," it is difficult to conceive of the primitive state of wireless and mobile systems of that time.

Highly dense and large-scale WiFi networks have been widely deployed in public areas to provide cost-effective high-speed wireless Internet access for mobile end users. This emerging practice has been leading to a severe spectrum usage overlap and channel interference between colocated WiFi networks. To understand the characteristics of highly dense WiFi networks, we conduct a measurement study of campus WiFi networks in this chapter. First, we instrument an Android App to sense WiFi access points (APs) to characterize WiFi networks in campus areas, including WiFi spectrum and channel usage, AP density, network distribution, and so on. Our measurement results demonstrate that a large number of WiFi APs have been widely deployed on campus, and about 80% of the total APs occupy the 2.4 GHz band, whereas the remainder part are the higher frequency 5 GHz APs, commonly used by public WiFi networks. The spectrum overlap and channel interference in the 2.4 GHz band is much more severe than that in the 5 GHz band. Then, extra WiFi connection measurements are conducted at selected areas with well-deployed campus WiFi networks, to understand WiFi connection characteristics while pedestrians are moving around in the coverage of the WiFi networks. By harvesting data from voluntary Android smart phone users, the connection setup time composed of Authentication–Association (AA) time, handshake time, and IP acquisition time is found to be generally affected by various factors, such as AP density, RSSI levels, etc. To achieve load balancing with reduced interference and higher WiFi network performance, this field measurement study may provide guidelines to design the next generation software-defined WiFi networks.

The idea of smart cities is no longer just a vision of urban planners, authorities, and ordinary people – it is being implemented to an ever broader extent. Activities aimed at the accomplishment of the goals set for contemporary cities, oriented at making them “smart”, involve numerous areas, including public and green spaces. In order to increase the attractiveness of these areas and to encourage potential users to make use of them to an increasingly greater extent, it is recommended to make it possible for them to easily use wireless networks in public and green spaces, while at the same time working on the principles of organising the surroundings of the hotspots, increasing the comfort of their use. What is key in this respect is not only to adjust the parameters of the basic features of the WiFi signal, but also to take into consideration the spatial elements, such as the landform features and plant coverage. An analysis of the above-mentioned factors related to the use of Wi-Fi in the open air made it possible to formulate recommendations for shaping the hotspot space in these places. They apply to public spaces, including in particular green spaces in cities, as in these places, there is real demand for outdoor wireless Internet access.

Plants contribute greatly to life on Earth and are an essential resource for human well-being. Recent studies suggest that many exceptionally useful plants, for example rare medicinal plants, are rapidly disappearing through the destruction of their habitats. As a way of protecting such plants and optimising their growth requirements, a sustainable and intelligent indoor plant production management system is presented. The prototype utilises the necessary condition values in a data logger website with wireless internet access for smartphone applications. The innovated design was successfully tested for automatic irrigation control and sensor accuracy for optimum plant growth conditions. Further, it is demonstrated that the implemented watering techniques are well suited to ascertaining the sustainable plant irrigation with reduced water wastage.

Microwave infocommunication multimedia radio systems in frequency band below 10 GHz are allowing to get access to audiovisual information (Digital television, Video on Demand, etc.), other types of information for group and individual users (wireless Internet access, interactive applications). There are many variants of implementation of such systems (that also referred as Microwave Multipoint Distribution infocommunication System (MMDS)), each of which has its own characteristics and performance. In this regard, task on conducting study of different variants of the implementation of the microwave infocommunication system is existing. The results of the studies of the current status of the development of multimedia delivery technologies based on MMDS standards are provided. Performance of different variants of MMDS system is estimated. The directions of further development of these technologies are proposed.

Considering the fact that internet access is almost indispensable today, the challenge in providing the same is also very high. Students and staff in university campuses are no exception in this regard. However, the requirements in such places are different from the requirement of domestic or corporate users. Small-sized university campuses do not have very high funds and hence look for cost-effective solutions. In this paper we attempt to provide such a low cost yet effective solution for small-sized university campuses in developing countries like India. Instead of using large high powered antennae we use domestic-grade Wi-Fi routers/access points. Such devices are much lesser in cost compared to the high-range antenna solutions.

North American seasonal migrants, who are usually retired, typically live in recreational vehicle/mobile home park communities in the southern U. S. during the winter months. This study examines the importance of specific park characteristics in the park selection process and uses the case of winter migrants in south Texas to demonstrate how parks may use a modified approach of importance–performance analysis and the promoter–detractor methodology to assess how well the parks perform on selected attributes. The analysis of survey responses from 1429 winter Texans categorized attributes based on the attributes' impact range and asymmetrical impact on park recommendation likelihood. Overall, seasonal migrants based their choice of location for their winter home largely on physical appearance (e.g., cleanliness) and affect (i.e., friendliness and caring management). Wireless Internet access and low rates were also of high importance. But park recommendation likelihood varies depending on the migrants' satisfaction with important attributes' performance.

Wireless data network has experienced tremendous growth in the past few years. One of the common scenarios of using data wireless data network is while travelling in a train. Providing in-train wireless Internet access to multimedia applications (e.g., youtube) requires 3G/4G networks. While 3G/4G networks provide fast data access when users are static, it has significant latency when being used on the train. This is because 3G/4G networks use Mobile-IP that requires mobile nodes to register to foreign agents when handover occurs. This will introduced latency for the handover process. When registration is done, Mobile-IP suffers from triangular routing, which further decreases its performance. In this paper we argue that railway networking can be more effective through named data networking (NDN). Rather than using IP addresses, NDN provides a name-based paradigm that can achieve seamless handover. We analyze how NDN can support efficient handover and conduct simulation to test its performance. Results show the efficiency of NDN.

Die Post Modern Library (PML) ist die Universitätsbibliothek der Kenyatta University in Nairobi. Die Bibliothek bietet uneingeschränkten drahtlosen Internetzugang sowie weitere Dienstleistungen an, die die üblichen Möglichkeiten kenianischer Bibliotheken bei Weitem übersteigen. Insbesondere die Möglichkeiten des Web 2.0 werden eingehend genutzt. Der Facebook-Auftritt der Bibliothek bietet sich als sehr nützlicher Kommunikationskanal zwischen Nutzern und der Bibliothek an. In Kenia ist Bibliothek 2.0 ein entscheidender Mehrwert. The Post Modern Library (PML) is an academic library at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. The library provides its users with unlimited wireless internet access and various other services which are far beyond the usual possibilities of other libraries in the country. Especially the possibilities of Web 2.0 are emphasized. The library’s facebook page is a very useful platform for communication between the library and the users. In Kenya, library 2.0 can make a big difference.

In Japanese Junior and Senior High schools, books and computers are often tucked away in school libraries or computer rooms, separated from the classroom. Students are left isolated from the tools that stimulate their own learning. I will introduce Seisho-kaichi Junior and Senior High School as a practical example of solving these problems conventional schools have. One of the primary focus of the school is ‘building a school in a library’. Books are not all hidden away in the library; rather bookshelves are arranged throughout the school building. Another primary concept is the use of digital tools: the whole school is equipped with wireless internet access, and each student has his or her own tablet computer. The other primary concept is active learning. Seisho-kaichi strongly believes these focuses better equip students to reach their education goals.

The convergence of wireless applications presents a greater hope for consolidating e-Government (ICT-enabled or online government) applications even in resource-constrained countries such as those in Africa. This chapter presents an exploratory study that aims at discussing the extent as to how convergence of wireless technologies from different vendors promises to contribute to the consolidation of e-Government applications in Sub-Saharan-Africa (SSA). This is done by reviewing the different adoption stages of ICT and e-Government in SSA. It looks at challenges facing adoption of wireless technologies (GSMs, Wireless Internet Access, satellite transmission, etc.) across all the socio-economic value chains in SSA. The chapter looks at Botswana and South Africa as case studies by bringing out the different interventions that have been done in the realm of facilitating a conducive environment for the convergence of different wireless technologies. Out of the analysis of legal, regulatory, market and spectrum policies affecting the adoption of wireless communications in SSAs, the chapter draws out recommendations on how to consolidate wireless communications to be adopted in different socio-economic setups (e.g. e-government, e-Health, e-Banking, etc.).

Patients can often feel isolated from friends and family during their stay in the hospital. This article describes a project that provides laptops with wireless Internet access for patients to use e-mail and search the Web. The Bronson Methodist Hospital Health Sciences Library, IT department, and Pediatric unit collaborated on a project to provide wireless laptop computers to patients and families. The project included a survey to determine if the computer and Internet access made a difference to a patient's hospital stay.

Throughout the world, the demand for employing the wireless Internet using a simple authenticaton method is rapidly increasing due to the development of wireless network and the functional advancement of mobile terminals. In this paper, we review the network roaming technologies which support the seamless extension of wireless Internet access and presents the current deployment status of the global WiFi roaming technology in Korea. Besides, we present the development status of WiFi roaming service among domestic universities in Korea. Last, we present some strategies to activate the global WiFi roaming service throughout the country in the future.

The advancement in wireless Internet access and mobile devices has made online content consumption a spontaneous and habitual activity. Content browsing in mobile devices often starts without a clear purpose and continues for a long time. The browsing history in mobile devices is not merely a record of URL accesses but is becoming a comprehensive reflection of users due to the frequent usage of the phone, which is connected to user's interest and information needs. In this paper, we motivate the use of mobile browsing history as an important source for personal informatics systems and present MobiTop, a novel self-reflection tool for understanding the browsing habits.

Increasing numbers of states, districts, and schools provide every student with a computing device; for example, the middle schools in Maine maintain wireless Internet access and the students receive laptops. Research can provide policymakers with better evidence of the benefits and costs of 1:1 computing and establish which factors make 1:1 computing more or less effective. To think about the research that is most needed, a framework is discussed focusing on critical features of 1:1 initiatives (e.g., the technology used), interactions and intermediate outcomes (e.g., impacts on teaching and instruction), and ultimate outcomes (e.g., impacts on students and their learning). Some especially high priorities for research on 1:1 computing are identified and discussed, including: investigating the impacts on student achievement, especially for low-achieving students; understanding better the costs of 1:1 computing; and documenting the implementation and impacts of large-scale 1:1 initiatives.

People usually use high-speed internet access in wired network. WiMAX technology in this case IEEE 802.16 standard has the ability to provide high-speed wireless internet access. WiMAX technology has standards such as IEEE 802.16d for fixed networks and the IEEE 802.16e WiMAX network for both mobile and fixed networks. There are several service classes that must be provided in WiMAX networks, such as UGS, ertPS, ertPS, nrtPS, and BE. In order to meet the required service classes, packet scheduling algorithm is needed. This article will discuss the analysis and implementation of Aging methods on WFQ algorithm on packet scheduling in WiMAX networks. This method is expected to reduce packet drop to provide quality of service (QoS) from five service classes.

If you do not know what the above image is, then you are either behind the times or well ahead of the time these words were written. Indeed, this image is a bit behind the times. Given how quickly technologies change and society is changed by technology, you should not be surprised or feel bad. Quick Response (or QR) codes were invented in the mid-1990s by a firm working with Toyota to track auto parts through the manufacturing supply chain. By the late 2000s, QR codes became popular with advertisers seeking to exploit the rapid growth of the smartphone market, but due to some challenges, primarily issues with scanning and broken links, QR codes have fallen from grace with the tech community, although they can still be seen and found in many places and remain popular with artists and museums. The rise of QR codes would have been impossible without the advent of smartphones, which would have been impossible without the rise of wireless Internet access, which would have been impossible without the rise of high-capacity processors, and so on and so on, as we have shown. Ultimately, no technology emerges in a vacuum, and all technologies reflect the world in which they emerge, which is to say that they are deeply and intimately entwined with social and political phenomena.

The future of organizational membership may be in question. New technologies such as ecommerce and wireless internet access, globalization, and atomization, are external factors that will inevitably impact the future of organizations and the meaning of affiliation and employment. This paper is a tiny step in beginning to address this quandary from the perspectives of chaos, complexity, and psychoanalytic theories.

Scenes from a laptop: A few weeks ago, I took a bus from the suburbs of Boston to New York. It was a business trip, so I might have flown on the shuttle or taken Amtrak. Although the flight time of the shuttle is about an hour, it turns out that the total travel time---house to destination in Manhattan---ends up being about the same for travel by airplane, train, or car. In this case, the lure of the bus was free wireless Internet access during the trip.

This paper contains measured data and empirical models for 5.85-GHz radio propagation path loss in and around residential areas for the newly allocated U.S. National Information Infrastructure (NII) band. Three homes and two stands of trees were studied for outdoor path loss, tree loss, and house penetration loss in a narrow-band measurement campaign that included 270 local area path loss measurements and over 276000 instantaneous power measurements. Outdoor transmitters at a height of 5.5 m were placed at distances between 30 and 210 m from the homes, to simulate typical neighborhood base stations mounted atop utility poles. All path loss data are presented graphically and coupled with site-specific information. We develop measurement-based path loss models for propagation prediction. The measurements and models may aid the development of futuristic outdoor-to-indoor residential communication systems for wireless Internet access, wireless cable distribution, and wireless local loops.

We present two measurement campaigns reflecting the end-user QoS of a large municipal WiFi (IEEE 802.11 WLAN) network on the end-user QoS of three commercial 3.5G (HSPA) mobile data networks and on the spectrum occupancy of the 2.4 GHz ISM band. Our study shows that municipal provisioning of public wireless Internet access with IEEE 802.11 WLAN technology to achieve end-user QoS comparable to that of 3.5G mobile data networks is feasible and cost-efficient, despite the poor overall spectrum utilization of the ISM band by the IEEE 802.11 WLAN technology.

The smart phone, like a small computer, providing not only the functions of normal phones and wireless Internet access, but also all kinds of application tools, serves as a platform of the sources of real-time information, information sharing and information exchange in our daily lives. As a result, the extract the crucial digital evidence in the smart phone, it has now become a challenge in the technology time. In particular, it is for when the smart phone applications are committed as the illegal contacts. In this paper, we discuss the most five popular mobile social networking applications in iPhone usages. The backup files of social networking applications could offer us the crucial evidence in this paper study. The relative information of social networking applications operated in iPhone is able to be accessed if necessary, even though iPhone has been destructed or encrypted by the suspect. It could help the investigators to exactly reconstruct the crime venue and find the truth.

Femtocell is a small scale base station installed at home, apartment or office connecting core network of mobile company via broadband wired internet of indoors. In this paper, we introduce the femtocell systems considered as ubiquitous access by giving wireless Internet access in home at anytime while on moving with a low access cost and high data rate. An overview of the femtocell system is presented and its additional features are explored followed by migrating from the macrocell systems to the femtocell systems.

How is innovation related to economic development? The question we should really be asking ourselves first is: what does economic development mean for Latin America now?

It is well known that the twenty-first century belongs to the world of ICT. It is a century of knowledge. All over Africa, there is a significant realization that tech is the wave of the future (Katz and Mack 2007). The Internet has even made this knowledge widespread and accessible to anybody who seeks information. Thus, if other technological revolutions such as the industrial revolution had bypassed Africa with impunity, it would be unpardonable for the continent to allow itself to be overtaken by this information revolution.1 This ICT revolution is the only one that has reduced the entire globe to a miniature world, the global village.

The Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a popular portable gaming device with features such as wireless Internet access and image, music and movie playback. As with most systems built around a processor and storage, the PSP can be used for purposes other than it was originally intended – legal as well as illegal. This paper discusses the features of the PSP browser and suggests best practices for extracting digital evidence.

In this research paper a wireless internet access point configuration problem that may be adapted for a small Pakistani town is implemented. It is defined as a genetic programming problem for open ended simultaneous topology synthesis and parameter search through hybrid encoding for automated design applications. The software platform used is Visual Studio 6.0deg for developing/implementing C++ code and GraphWin/LEDAdeg for viewing evolved topological descriptions.

Individuals with mobility impairments such as wheelchair users are often at a disadvantage when traveling to a new place, as their mobility can be easily affected by environmental barriers, and as such, even short trips can be difficult and perhaps impossible. We envision a personalized wheelchair navigation system based on a PDA equipped with wireless Internet access and GPS that can provide adaptive navigation support to wheelchair users in any geographic environment. Requirements, architectures and components of such a system are described in this paper.

Smartphone application programs for stroke rehabilitation are few, if any, in Korea while wireless internet access is getting much easier and general smartphone application programs are rapidly increasing. The purpose of this study was to develop a smartphone application program for upper extremity rehabilitation of individuals with stroke, and to register it in the Google play. This study used the Graded Repetitive Arm Supplementary Program (GRASP) as the basic rehabilitation program and modified it for the Korean culture. GRASP has been proven to be effective on improving the function of upper extremity of the individuals with stroke. The smartphone application program of this study consists of three levels of video segments which were made by the researchers for the study. The application program is expected to provide stroke patients with an useful guide to exercise by themselves at home or in hospitals.

This article describes the various administrative and clinical applications for PDA use in psychiatric care and review the process for implementation in an academic medical center.The authors reviewed the psychiatric literature and tested various hardware and software products.The literature describes various uses of the PDA as a reference tool, in clinical care, and in training documentation.The PDA is capable of numerous vital roles in medical education.

Internet technologies and mobile computing started to converge to enable wireless Internet access through portable devices. This article represents a review of the main technological, architectural and business issues related to the existing wireless web technologies, i.e. WAP, i-mode and J2ME. It includes a critical analysis of the main assets and weaknesses of these technologies as well as their current status and the trends that affect their market share and customer basis in the foreseeable future.

Finding resources in an indoor facility can be a difficult task, especially for patrons who are not familiar with what the facility has to offer. Current methods of indoor navigation involve the use of static maps, directions posted on walls and other traditional systems. However, as we see greater mobility of always-connected computing devices, we believe a better solution can be developed. As campuses and facilities begin to be covered with wireless internet access, we can access the web seamlessly from any location. In this paper, we explore the possibility of using a handheld device that can leverage that technology to search for and locate services and resources within a library. By displaying maps with directions and introducing several other features to aid library exploration, we believe we can reduce search and retrieval times as well as enrich the user experience.

This study reviews recent experience applying ICTs in the fight against rural poverty and identifies ways in which donor interventions can make effective use of ICTs to improve the living conditions of rural communities in Latin America and the Caribbean and help reduce poverty.

International audience; Extending the coverage of cellular networks in an ad hoc fashion appears as a promising solution for the future. This paper considers the economic aspects of such an hybrid network, especially focusing on incentives: what subscription discount should be granted to users who accept to transfer traffic with respect to users who refuse it? Does offering such an option improve the net benefit of a wireless Internet access provider?Based on models for user preferences, we establish that allowing multi-hops in cellular networks can actually be profitable to the provider, especially in densed regions, since it permits to install fewer access points to cover a region, and that economy in terms of installation and maintenance costs exceeds the eventual loss in revenue due to fee discounts.

In many fields of engineering and science, researchers and engineers use computers to simulate natural phenomena rather than conducting experiments involving the real system. With the power of today's computers, simulation provides an easy way of predicting the performance of a prospective system or comparing several alternatives at the system design stage. In this paper, we present a simulation framework specifically designed for wireless Internet access networks. This simulation framework is designed for the three protocol layers, HTTP, TCP/IP and the link-layer protocol, and can be configured independently in each of these layers. The time-driven nature of the framework allows us to observe the diurnal changes of the system in the simulation, which in turn makes it possible to evaluate the statistical properties of the system.

To implement computer-assisted learning workshops into pharmacokinetics courses in a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) program.Workshops were designed for students to utilize computer software programs on laptop computers to build pharmacokinetic models to predict drug concentrations resulting from various dosage regimens. In addition, students were able to visualize through graphing programs how altering different parameters changed drug concentration-time curves. Surveys were conducted to measure students' attitudes toward computer technology before and after implementation. Finally, traditional examinations were used to evaluate student learning.Doctor of pharmacy students responded favorably to the use of wireless laptop computers in problem-based pharmacokinetic workshops. Eighty-eight percent (n = 61/69) and 82% (n = 55/67) of PharmD students completed surveys before and after computer implementation, respectively. Prior to implementation, 95% of students agreed that computers would enhance learning in pharmacokinetics. After implementation, 98% of students strongly agreed (p0.05) that computers enhanced learning. Examination results were significantly higher after computer implementation (89% with computers vs. 84% without computers; p = 0.01).Implementation of wireless laptop computers in a pharmacokinetic course enabled students to construct their own pharmacokinetic models that could respond to changing parameters. Students had greater comprehension and were better able to interpret results and provide appropriate recommendations. Computer-assisted pharmacokinetic techniques can be powerful tools when making decisions about drug therapy.

Persons with severe visual impairments face significant obstacles in achieving independent mobility that is safe and robust in terms of possible emergencies and unfamiliar destinations. Widely used mobility aids such as a guide dog and/or white cane offer only limited solutions to this problem. Proposed retrofits of multistory buildings with fixed-point annunciators (to assist with the wayfinding indoors) are inflexible and costly. The personal navigational aid envisioned below attempts to address many of the problems faced by persons who are blind. This aid will incorporate many of the features of a personal data assistant (PDA), cellular phone, wireless Internet access, and Global Positioning System (GPS) and is currently undergoing initial systems design and review of performance specifications by potential users.

Managing cost of equipment, facilities, and services is a critical and ongoing part of managing communications assets and expenses. Communications cost is and has been a growing expense since the first telephone line was installed in a business. Over a relatively short time, telephones spread from the first desk to every desk occupied by an employee to say nothing of conference rooms, halls, and entrance doors. Now everyone has a multi-button, three-color, telephone with three-way calling, multiple lines, caller identification screening, and voice mail jail. Things became a little more complicated when management information systems (MIS) wanted a telephone line and a modem so computers could talk to each other. And then there was the possibility and perceived need for a website, mobile telephones, and wireless Internet access. Communications methods and alternatives abound on all sides from any direction.

This paper presents the analysis and simulation results for a 1xEV-DO link budget. The traditional fixed rate CDMA link budget calculation has been extended to include link adaptation and multi-user diversity gains. The main conclusion is that 1xEV-DO provides a link budget advantage over IS-95-A of approximately 10 dB on the forward link and 1.5 dB on the reverse link.

In this paper we focus on wireless Internet access with DECT using PPP as convergence protocol between the IP layer and the DECT air interface. We examine the DECT DLC layer services with regard to the requirements of wireless Internet access. Based on this examination we propose three approaches for wireless Internet access with DECT and analyze them with regard to delay and error correction capabilities. Furthermore, we demonstrate some shortcomings of DECT which lead to performance degradation, as well as data and semantic inconsistencies. In our opinion it is necessary to solve these problems, to achieve efficient data communication with DECT.

In this paper we model a wireless Internet access system based on the GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile communications/General Packet Radio Service) technology, with three different Petri net-based paradigms: Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets (GSPNs), Deterministic and Stochastic Petri Nets (DSPNs), and Fluid Stochastic Petri Nets (FSPNs). We show that all three Petri net-based paradigms provide very similar performance predictions for some of the considered realistic configurations of GSM/GPRS systems, and for some of the performance metrics of interest. This proves that FSPNs can be an adequate tool for the performance analysis of wireless Internet access systems, and allow the investigation of large system configurations, thanks to the availability of very efficient solution algorithms for FSPN models. However, we also show that in other cases (which can be clearly characterized), the performance predictions generated by FSPN models may become quite optimistic, and thus not suitable for a careful design and planning of GSM/GPRS systems. In those cases, both DSPNs and GSPNs can provide a viable modeling alternative, at least in the case of medium scale systems.

Pervasivecomputingarenowadaysinwidespreaduse,deeply penetrating into and increasingly demonstratingits significance in our everyday work and leisurelife. In the last decade, cheap and low energyconsuming devices made far-reaching impact onthe pervasive computing paradigm and fueled upa plethora of new applications. For instance,solar-powered sensors are expansively deployed tomonitor fragile environments [1]; smart telephonyand wireless Internet access enabled personalisedinformation provision [2]; and RFID and otheridentificationtechnologiesenhancedfactoryautomationmaking manufacture easier and more cost-effective [3].Invariouscontexts, PervasiveComputinghasbeenusedinterchangeably with other terms such as “ubiquitouscomputing”, “ambient intelligence”, or the mostrecent and hottest “Internet of Things”. A singledefinition, therefore, is hard to achieve. Instead, afamily of both conventional and emerging disciplineshave been considered underpinning or relevant topervasive computing. These include, but not limitedto, contextual-awareness, mobile computing, wirelesscommunication, human-computer interaction, sensornetwork, distributed artificial intelligence, etc. At theheart of the diverse landscape of enabling technologies,pervasive computing follows one single principle. Thatis Mark Weiser’s vision of smart devices blending anddisappearing into our surroundings so as to provideunobtrusive and continuous support to our everydayactivities [4][5].Indeed, there are so many interesting things tocover in pervasive computing. This special issueof the Computer Journal aims at reporting novelresearch, new developments, and directions for futureinvestigation and applications in some chosen sub-fields. In particular, we selected papers from recentinternational conferences and workshops that havetriggered interesting discussion in the audiences. Wetried to select papers that jointly covered multipleaspects of pervasive computing. For instance, onthe network front, the paper “Ant-based Energy-awareDisjoint Multipath Routing Algorithm for MANETs”by Wu and Song discussed a novel routing algorithm formobile

The enhancements in Internet technology and mobile access technology over the last decade, can be leveraged effectively to build Wireless in Local Loop (WiLL) systems, which can enable rapid expansion of telecom and Internet access in developing countries. However, the design of a WiLL system requires one to understand some fundamentals concerning the Access Network and its connectivity to backbone network as well as the traffic requirement for a voice and Internet connection. The requirements of WiLL, in contrast to that of a Mobile cellular system need to be clearly understood. Equally important is the concern for capacity and spectral efficiency, especially as higher bit-rate Internet systems become a must for developing countries to get a fair share of the economic advantages that telecom technologies provide. This paper looks at these fundamental issues in context of GSM, IS-95 and DECT Technologies. This paper further takes a brief look at some recent technological developments, which are likely to impact the Wireless in Local Loop systems. The paper concludes with a discussion on the emerging third generation (3G) wireless standards, and the new technologies which are being introduced into the network, and what will be their impact on internet and Multimedia bit-rates and services.