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Build-ERS project (2019-2022) has developed knowledge and insights to improve resili-ence in society. This has been done, in particular, focusing on the ability and capacity of the most vulnerable to be prepared and respond to disasters. Improving and supporting their capacity to act will develop society as a whole to be prepared and respond to natural and man-made disasters. Thus, the societal resilience of European communities will increase.In the BuildERS project, it has become clear that the concept of vulnerability is not straightforward; it changes depending on the situation and is dynamic in its nature. Anyone can be vulnerable at a certain point of time and place. However, there are people who have a higher or very high risk of being vulnerable in certain situations. A range of practical solutions have been developed to support disaster management actors in assessing vulnerabilities and supporting vulnerable people, and improving the resilience of society against crises. These tools and guidelines help to assess different aspects of vulnerability, build new knowledge, or establish various forms of collaboration.A wide range of policy recommendations have been made to reduce vulnerability, build social capital, and raise risk awareness of the European population. Based on the research results and findings, the policy recommendations include key actions and new ways of working towards a more resilient society. BuildERS Policy recommendations include several key actions for both authorities and practitioners on different levels: EU, national and local. These together with the tools and guidelines developed provide guidance on what to do and how to act to help preparedness and respond to disasters.

The motivation for this research arises from the challenges in the trustworthy communications related operation of cyber-physical systems (CPS), especially in the energy and mobility domains. The increasing amount of distributed energy resources (DERs) of prosumers and electric vehicles requires new ways for CPS communications to enable information exchanges for smart operation in peak consumption hours and balancing power levels in the energy grids in order to lower the energy cost. The huge number of mobile appliances and the related service providers do not serve properly the privacy of the owners, owing to the vertical silo type of operating model in industries. As the results of this research, we provide a trustworthy communication hub for CPS (CPS hub) for solving the challenges related to trustworthy communications between physical resources owned by different stakeholders. The CPS hub realizes the communication spaces concept, and enables combined trust and communications processes when dynamic resources owned by different stakeholders are exchanging information. The evaluations showed that the provided CPS hub enable information exchanges between distributed energy resources of different stakeholders, so that they can join the aggregation process for more flexible and efficient resource usage in energy markets. The CPS hub enable interaction between heterogeneous physical devices of multiple stakeholders to exchange information so that, for example, authorities can see the situation in the emergency area and, simultaneously, the policies of the owners can be taken into concern. Despite limited evaluation scenarios, it is shown that consideration of the ownership issues in the trustworthy communication for information exchanges between heterogeneous physical resources (devices) is possible and feasible. Several future research items, such as, for example, scalability, real-time and streams based operation, as well as consideration of the security, privacy, trust, and safety challenges, were detected. However, the evaluations showed that the constructed CPS hub contribute a set of very essential technical enablers for future smart CPS systems and create strong a basis for such future research towards a future smart society.

Today, industries and consumer markets are increasingly using services exposed from wireless sensor and actuator networks. Such systems are here referred to as cyber-physical machine-to-machine systems. These systems rely on the capability to communicate, compute, monitor and control by using information. The motivation for the present research arises from problems detected in the remote interaction with embedded devices over dynamic wireless networks in such systems. The problems are caused by the heterogeneity of devices, networks and operating environments, mobility, dynamic presence, security demands of the owners and of use, multiple radios, unreliability, dynamic topologies, and changes happening in the system. The approach selected in this research to address these problems is based on the application of the small-world paradigm to cyber-physical systems. The small-world paradigm is based on the observation that people are often linked in a successful social communication chain by, on average, six intermediate steps. In the present study, it is assumed that the concept of small world can be expanded to also cover communication with wireless embedded devices in cyber-physical systems context. In addition, it is expected that creation of wireless short-cuts can, in accordance with the small-world paradigm, improve the scalability and efficiency of dynamic wireless networking. The main contributions of this research are the technical enablers referred to as dynamic communication spaces, dynamic M2M service spaces, configuration and remote use of services, communication overlay, access systems selection, integrated mobility, secure ad hoc networking, situated opportunistic communication, hierarchical networking for small-world networks, and short-cuts for network optimization. Each of the provided technical enablers contributes towards making remote interaction with embedded devices over dynamic wireless networks possible. The enablers have been evaluated as separate technical methods and means by means of experiments and/or simulations. On the basis of the analysis and synthesis, it was established that they work well as separate building blocks and that they can be combined to expand the concept of small world to also cover communication with embedded devices. Furthermore, it was established that creation of wireless short-cuts can, in accordance with the small-world concept, improve the scalability and efficiency of dynamic wireless networking. In addition, weak links were observed to be essential in the small-world neighbour discovery process. In sum, the evaluation results indicate that the provided enablers help the remote interaction with embedded devices and promote the application of the smallworld concept to dynamic wireless cyber-physical systems.

The number of embedded systems capable for wireless machine-to-machine service communication has continuously been increasing in recent years. In these kinds of dynamic ecosystems, the problems related to complexity and heterogeneity seriously challenges interoperability. As a contribution to this research, the small world paradigm from social sciences is being applied in a wireless networks context. A novel hierarchical networking concept, related routing algorithm and network optimization solutions are created to enable solving these problems. Logical short cuts are established between neighboring overlay nodes in order to avoid global flooding in distant route searches. In addition, physical short cuts may be created to remove the bottlenecks from the communication paths. The concept has been evaluated by graph theoretical analysis of the Hi-Search algorithm, simulation of the network optimization step and service discovery procedure. The evaluation results indicate that the algorithm with network optimization functions is able to lower the search delays, make the physical routes shorter and also improve throughput. In addition, solving the complexity and heterogeneity problems is made possible by localizing route search and abstracting communication to two hierarchical routing layers.

In the near future, there will be many more embedded devices than there are mobile phones. When these devices are connected to the Internet, many novel kinds of ubiquitous service will be enabled.

Apparatus, computer program and a method for wireless network configuration are disclosed. In the method, a self-certifying identifier of the apparatus is inputted (802) into the apparatus. Next, the apparatus performs (804) an authentication process utilizing the self-certifying identifier of the apparatus with other apparatuses within wireless communication range of the apparatus. Finally, routes to such other apparatuses that passed the authentication process are added (806) to a routing table.Patent family as of 6.9.2021AT468696 E 20100615 AT20070106581T 20070420 DE602007006630D1 20100701 DE200760006630T 20070420 EP1983715 A1 20081022 EP20070106581 20070420 EP1983715 B1 20100519 EP20070106581 20070420 ES2346251 T3 20101013 ES20070106581T 20070420Link to current patent family on right

Ubiquitous computing enhances computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, while making them effectively invisible to the user. Ubiquitous computing can be seen as a prerequisite for pervasive computing that emphasizes mobile data access, and the mechanisms needed to support a community of nomadic users. Ambient intelligence focuses on a smart way to use communication technology for making life simpler, more enjoyable and interesting. Ubiquitous software is software required for ubiquitous computing environments and in this report it includes pervasive software. Ambience intelligence is out of the scope of this report. The aim of this report is to offer Finnish companies and preparators of the Tekes-programs (ELMO, NETS, FENIX) a total view of the maturity, development needs and business opportunities of software engineering in the ubiquitous computing area. This report illustrates the state-of-the-art and requirements of ubiquitous software based on recent surveys. This report also provides a view on the state-of-the-practice of ubiquitous software in Finnish companies based on interviews made in some Finnish companies and replies received to a questionnaire sent to bigger sample of companies. State-of-the-art visions set about global ubiquitous systems, products' short-time-to-market and quality requirements that are tightening up, set ubiquitous software a huge set of requirements that include interoperability, hetereogeneity, mobility, security, adaptability, ability of self-organization, augmented reality and scalable content. Enabling technologies of ubiquitous software are standards, reference architectures and generic software technologies. Ubiquitous software development requires applying suitable software architectures and development methods that are presented in this research. Based on the stat-of-the-practise this report presents that the main challenges of ubiquitous software are achieving adaptable middleware and interoperability between services and networks, developing the required enabling technologies, defining value chain for providing the services and guaranteeing secure transactions between different stakeholders. Ubiquitous computing is seen to combine hardware and software, so new kind of development methods and architectural models are required for ubiquitous service development. Companies will have business opportunities in ubiquitous business in middleware components, for example, concerning security, enabling technologies, ubiquitous components and sensors implemented locally to various conditions such as to the surface of paper, small-sized applications, and personalized services. In principal, we suggest as important research topics in ubiquitous software arena security, management of changing requirements, middleware standards and services, cost efficient architecture solutions and ubiquitous business value chains.