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With the increasing concern about product quality, attention has shifted to the monitoring of production processes to be assured of good quality. Achieving good quality is a challenging task in the garment industry due to the great complexity of garment products. This paper presents an intelligent system, using fuzzy association rule mining with a recursive process mining algorithm, to find the relationships between production process parameters and product quality. The goal is to derive a set of decision rules for fuzzy logic that will determine the quantitative values of the process parameters. Learnt process parameters used in production form new inputs of the initial step of the mining algorithm so that new sets of rules can be obtained recursively. Radio frequency identification technology is deployed to increase the efficiency of the system. With the recursive characteristics of the system, process parameters can be continually refined for the purpose of achieving quality assurance. A case study is described in which the system is applied in a garment manufacturing company. After a six-month pilot run of the system, the numbers of critical defects, major defects and minor defects were reduced by 7, 20 and 24%, respectively while production time and rework cost improved by 26 and 30%, respectively. Results demonstrate the practical viability of the system to provide decision support for garment manufacturers who may not be able to determine the appropriate process settings for achieving the desired product quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology represents an exciting innovation that has a great potential upside and some significant downsides as well. With its ability to track signals and store data, RFID is helping manufacturers to revolutionize supply chain management, retailers to reduce long lines in stores, and hospitals to track patients and patient files. But consumer privacy advocates are increasingly concerned by what they see as the encroachment of "big brother." This concern, we believe, has the potential to slow or even derail future RFID applications. In order to avoid this outcome, we suggest that RFID technology has the dual responsibility to both effect efficiency and to protect privacy. In this paper we review the current trends in RFID technology, look at how manufacturers and governments are addressing consumer privacy concerns, and end with a recommendation that an alliance be created that includes manufacturers, retailers, government representatives (both as users and as protectors), ethicists, academicians, and industry leaders/executives to develop acceptable and implementable guidelines for the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology by libraries promises a solution that could make it possible to inventory hundreds of thousands of items in their collections in days instead of months. In addition, it would allow patrons to check out and return library property automatically at any time of the day. Besides speeding up checkouts, keeping collections in better order, and alleviating repetitive strain injuries among librarians, RFID promises to provide a better control on theft, nonreturns, and misfiling of a library's assets. With an estimated 35 million library items tagged worldwide in more than three hundred libraries, this technology is generating ever-increasing interest. In October and November 2004, the industrial technology department and the Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, surveyed participating libraries, RFID electronic discussion groups, and Library and Information Technology Association (LITA-L) electronic discussion group subscribers to collect information with regards to the implementation of RFID systems in libraries. Opinions were gathered regarding such topics, actual or estimated, as RFID implementation costs and time; the impact of the technology on operations such as handling of volumes and security; and RFID system eatures adopted such as conversion stations, self-checkout units, and security systems. Information on the various RFID library components and the results from the survey are presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video‐based person re‐identification aims to match pedestrians from video sequences across non‐overlapping cameras. A major challenge of the person re‐identification is the serious intra‐class distance caused by cropped frames variation in video sequences. To address this issue, a novel sequences consistency feature learning (SCFL) framework for video‐based person re‐identification is proposed. Specifically, SCFL utilizes a deep neural network and the proposed sequences consistency loss to learn sequences‐invariant features for each pedestrian, which decreases the intra‐class distance across the partial occlusions, inaccurate detection and viewpoint variation. During the training process, SCFL slices the video‐level features and computes the cosine similarity between disjoint sequences features pairs of the same pedestrian as the sequences consistency loss to minimize the intra‐class distance. The experiments demonstrate that our approach improves the performance of the existing deep networks and achieves competitive performance on the large‐scale benchmark datasets including MARS and DukeMTMC‐VideoReID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Whistler-Blackcomb (WB) Mega Day challenge requires a skier to ride all 24 lifts at the resort in a single day. Among over two million people who ski annually at WB, only 313 completed the challenge in the 14 months following the introduction of a system that tracks lift use by skier. Apart from the physical challenge of skiing, a key difficulty is finding a route that matches one's skill level while accounting for variable lift opening and closing times. We use data from WB's radio-frequency identification (RFID) ticketing system to estimate ski times between lifts for skiers of various skill levels. We then formulate and solve the problem by a combined, iterative integer programming and heuristic approach, up to the highest feasible skier skill level. The problem's distinctive features preclude the use of known solution methods for similar problems; therefore, we use a practical, staged-solution approach. Our results include a recommended route that enables the greatest number of skiers, roughly the fastest quartile, to achieve the challenge. We also provide a benchmark that skiers who can ski a particular common run in 12 minutes or less should be able to complete the challenge. In the three months following communication of our recommended solution, the rate at which skiers completed the Mega Day challenge increased by two-thirds over the previous seven skiing months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An RFID network is a network in which a reader inquire about the identities of tags and tags respond with their identities to a reader. The diversity of RFID networks has brought about many applications including an inexpensive system where a single reader supports a small number of tags. Such a system needs a tag cognizance scheme that is able to arbitrate among contending tags as well as is simple enough. In this paper, confining our attention to a clan of simple schemes, we propose a randomized scheme with aiming at enhancing the tag cognizance rate than a conventional scheme. Then, we derive an exact expression for the cognizance rate attained by the randomized scheme. Unfortunately, the exact expression is not so tractable as to optimize the randomized scheme. As an alternative way, we develop an upper bound on the tag cognizance rate. In a closed form, we then obtain a nearly optimal value for a key design parameter, which maximizes the upper bound. Numerical examples confirm that the randomized scheme is able to dominate the conventional scheme in cognizance rate by employing a nearly optimal value. Furthermore, they reveal that the randomized scheme is robust to the fallacy that the reader believes or guesses a wrong number of neighboring tags. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a fine-grained positioning method for radio frequency identification (RFID). The proposed method applies hyperbolic positioning to locate ultrahigh frequency passive RFID tags. In our design, finding the tagged object’s location is formulated as an optimization problem. Phase values, collected by the moving antenna, are exploited to achieve the optimal solution. The intuition of hyperbolic positioning lies in that the difference of distances from a target tag to two antennas can be inferred from phases. When integrating hyperbola curves together, optimization method can be performed to achieve the object’s location. Particle swarm optimization is then applied to enhance computational ability. For random phases, polynomial regression is employed to model the relationship between phase values and distances. We implement a prototype of hyperbolic positioning optimization to pinpoint the RFID tag’s location and evaluate its performance in our laboratory environment. Compared with other RFID localization methods, i.e., received signal strength indicator based and phase-based approaches, our design shows greater tolerance to tag diversity and tag orientation.

Note to Practitioners—Radio frequency identification (RFID), as a crucial component of the Internet of things, has been widely deployed in many industrial applications ranging from logistics to retail. There are increasing needs for RFID to not only detect whether the tagged object is within the radio range, but also locate the object with high accuracy. Current RFID systems addressing these problems are either expensive or complex to implement. The RFID-based localization method presented in this paper is cost-efficient and computationally inexpensive. We consider using commercial off-the-shelf RFID devices without deployment of the reference tags to locate the target object. The antenna is mounted on a mobile vehicle to emulate the antenna array. Due to the fact that the target tag lies on the hyperbolic curve with two antennas’ positions as the foci, this paper suggests constructing multiple hyperbolas to determine the target position based on the virtual antenna array. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is feasible and achieves a median accuracy of 12 cm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By combining radio-frequency identification (RFID) and paper-microfluidics technologies, a low-cost first-of-its-kind platform for comprehensive liquid sensing, i.e., the “smart test strip,” is presented, which enables portable wireless real-time liquid sensing with handhold devices (e.g., cell phones), and integration of various multifunctional electrical and chemical sensors, for numerous Lab-on-Chip applications, including manufacturing control, environmental monitoring, and point-of-care medical diagnostics. The fabrication of RFID tags and two types of microfluidics are accomplished by a single inkjet-printing process in a cost-effective environmental-friendly additive manufacturing approach, which makes possible the production of disposable, lightweight, and flexible sensing platforms. Taking advantage of the proposed smart test strips platforms, we demonstrate two proof-of-concept high-performance electrical sensors based on interdigitated electrode topologies: a resistivity-based sensor with a 1782 $\Omega$/( $\Omega$*m) sensitivity; nevertheless, the proposed permittivity-based sensor with a 15%/$\epsilon _r$ sensitivity, but the proposed integrated wireless platform, can facilitate the integration of even more chemical and electrical sensors. In addition, two on-strip antenna prototypes have been designed, optimized, and tested to work at 2.4 GHz and 13.56 MHz, respectively. Furthermore, the wireless interrogation of a complete proof-of-concept smart test strip is presented, which shows an excellent sensing resolution of 1.33 $\Omega$ over the range of 0–1371 $\Omega$. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a real-time RFID system capable of tracking laboratory animals is designed and implemented. Four passive RFID tags based on low frequency are designed and implemented. The tags can be read by any RFID reader that operates on the low frequency range 125-134 kHz. The tags are designed through the investigation of various antenna, encoding, modulation, and energy harvesting techniques. The tag receives the electromagnetic signal via the antenna, and converts it to a DC signal that the microcontroller can use to manipulate the electromagnetic signal with the data such that the reader can decode the unique tag identifier. RFID sensors are designed and implemented to collect data from various monitored areas of a semi natural environment. The data is sent to a central data coordinator for pre-processing and middleware for data error checking, display and storage. The RFID system can successfully detect and store movement data in real time. A read range of 14.5 cm is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Near Field Communication systems are found in various user-friendly services that all of us deal with in our daily lives. As these systems are ubiquitously deployed in different authentication and identification applications, inferring information about our behavior will be possible by monitoring our use of them. In order to provide privacy and security requirements of RFID users in novel authentication applications, lots of security schemes have been proposed which have tried to provide secure and untraceable communication for end-users. In this paper, we investigate the privacy of three RFID security schemes which have been proposed recently. For privacy analysis, we use the well-known RFID formal privacy model proposed by Ouafi and Phan. We show that all the studied protocols have some privacy drawbacks, making them vulnerable to various traceability attacks. Moreover, in order to overcome all the reported weaknesses and prevent the presented attacks, we apply some modifications in the structures of the studied protocols and propose an improved version of each one. Our analyses show that the modified protocols are more efficient than their previous versions and new modifications can omit all the existing weaknesses on the analyzed protocols. Finally, we compare the modified protocols with some new-found RFID authentication protocols in the terms of security and privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is one of the key technologies of the Internet of Things (IoT) and is used in many areas, such as mobile payments, public transportation, smart lock, and environment protection. However, the performance of RFID equipment can be easily affected by the surrounding environment, such as electronic productions and metal appliances. These can impose an impact on the RF signal, which makes the collection of RFID data unreliable. Usually, the unreliability of RFID source data includes three aspects: false negatives, false positives, and dirty data. False negatives are the key problem, as the probability of false positives and dirty data occurrence is relatively small. This paper proposes a novel sliding window cleaning algorithm called VSMURF, which is based on the traditional SMURF algorithm which combines the dynamic change of tags and the value analysis of confidence. Experimental results show that VSMURF algorithm performs better in most conditions and when the tag’s speed is low or high. In particular, if the velocity parameter is set to 2 m/epoch, our proposed VSMURF algorithm performs better than SMURF. The results also show that VSMURF algorithm has better performance than other algorithms in solving the problem of false negatives for RFID networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is one of the most promising identification schemes in the field of pervasive systems. Unique identification and non-line of sight capabilities make RFID systems more protuberant than its contending systems. As RFID systems incorporate wireless channel, there are some allied security threats and apprehensions to the systems from malicious adversaries. In order to make the system reliable and secure, numerous Ultralightweight Mutual Authentication Protocols (UMAPs) have been proposed which involve only simple bitwise logical operations (AND, XOR & OR etc.) in their designs. However, almost all of the previously proposed UMAPs are reported to be vulnerable against various security attacks (Desynchronization and Full disclosure attacks etc.). In this paper, we propose a new pseudo-Kasami code based Mutual Authentication Protocol (KMAP). The proposed protocol, KMAP, avoids unbalanced logical operations (OR, AND) and introduces a new Ultralightweight primitive: pseudo-Kasami code ( K ). The newly proposed primitive (pseudo-Kasami code) enhances the diffusion properties of the protocol messages and makes hamming weight of the secrets unpredictable and irreversible. The security analysis illustrates that the KMAP provides excellent protocol functionalities and is also highly resistive against all possible attacks. The performance evaluation shows that the KMAP requires fewer resources on the tag in terms of on-chip memory, communication cost and computational operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yoking proof is a very useful security primitive that can be used to prove the co-existence of two or multiple entities in an identification protocol. It can be incorporated into radio frequency identification (RFID) protocols and used in many practical applications such as pharmaceutical distribution and manufacturing. However, the existing yoking proofs do not support secure key establishment, which is required in order to allow secure communication between the reader and the RFID tags after the identification process. In this paper, we propose a novel yoking proof with key exchange that allows the reader to establish a secure communication channel with the tags. We define the formal security models for yoking proof with key exchange and prove that the proposed protocol can achieve yoking proof soundness, session key security and tag identity privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RFID systems have been adopted by several sectors in societies for a wide set of applications, ranging from item level tagging to supply chain management. One of the most important RFID applications is tag identification, which is a process executed in an RFID network in order to distinguish the corresponding associated objects. Most of the research in this direction is aimed to the design of efficient communication protocols, which identify the whole set of tags in the covering region of an RFID reader. The common scenario comprises one reader and a set of tags, where the reader is generally located at the center of the interrogation zone; this scenario has been studied in several different ways with a centralized paradigm. However, there is a recent interest on analyzing an alternative scheme that consists in splitting the interrogation zone and executing a distributed mechanism to identify the whole set of tags. To date, some of the few contributions considering distributed approaches do not take into account a practical communication model. Thus, in this work we evaluate and compare the performance of both RFID tag identification paradigms using the EPC Class-1 Generation-2 standard and propose a practical communication model for such proposals distributing the identification process. Our results show that, indeed, the performance of the EPC Class-1 Generation-2 standard may be highly improved with the adoption of a distributed mechanism if all its features are fully exploited. Hence, the improvements obtained with our distributed proposal reach a gain of up to 65 % on the total identification delay compared with its centralized counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is being used widely in the last few years. Its applications classifies into auto identification and data capturing issues. The purpose of this paper is to design and implement RFID active tags and reader using microcontroller ATmega328 and 433 MHz RF links. The paper also includes a proposed mutual authentication protocol between RFID reader and active tags with ownership transfer stage. Our protocol is a mutual authentication protocol with tag's identifier updating mechanism. The updating mechanism has the purpose of providing forward security which is important in any authentication protocol to prevent the attackers from tracking the past transactions of the compromised tags. The proposed protocol gives the privacy and security against all famous attacks that RFID system subjected for due to the transfer of data through unsecure wireless channel, such as replay, denial of service, tracking and cloning attacks. It also ensures ownership privacy when the ownership of the tag moves to a new owner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been inserted in construction to make easier, and even automatic, a large variety of processes during the lifecycle of a building. However, RFID has some limitations and restrictions which can be highly reduced if it is combined with other sensors and technologies. This paper makes a review of the most popular technologies and applications which have been recently integrated with RFID in construction. The paper demonstrates that the integration makes the whole control system more accurate and efficient as well as increases the possibilities and applications of RFID in construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Srivastava et al., recently proposed a hash based mutual RFID authentication protocol. They claimed that the protocol can provide several attractive security features, i.e., the mutual authentication and the resistance against the eavesdropping and tracing attack, the replay attack, the man-in-the-middle attack, and the desynchronization. However, we find that the protocol is vulnerable to a novel forgery attack presented in the paper. The forgery attack undermines the protocol in the mutual authentication and the resistance against both the man-in-the-middle attack and the desynchronization as claimed. In addition to the security vulnerability, the protocol is also inefficient in implementation, because it makes use of the timestamp and random number simultaneously. Therefore, the protocol is not suitable for the wireless security systems. We hope that our cryptanalysis results are useful to design more robust RFID authentication protocols for the wireless security systems in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic development and the changes of social demographic structure have resulted in the problems of population aging sharply and elders' chronic diseases getting serious. Population aging has become a critical problem in modern societies, and senior houses have become a primary option for the life care of elders. However, the regulations related to long-term care are not keeping up with the speed of population aging; also, the lack of caregivers cause the elders not receiving enough care on either outdoor or indoor activities from senior houses. Besides the lack of manpower, an effective healthcare management system is needed to solve the major problem. RFID used to apply on the identification in logistics industry and this technology has become more mature. RFID is now gradually applied to medical business and healthcare for elders. This study intends to replace traditional manual operation with the establishment of RFID positioning monitor and management system in order to reduce manpower as well as continuously transmitting data to the back-end server for real-time monitoring and post enquiry; the data in the database could also become the reference for risk evaluation and healthcare security. Moreover, the system provides not only personal tracker but alerts to secure healthcare so as to reduce chance of accidents happening in nursing homes. The integration of RFID with healthcare operation and information flow is proposed in this study, and the efficient management is also proposed to enhance the management benefits of nursing homes; therefore, this study is focusing on installing the equipment regarding to environment of senior house. The RFID auto positioning monitor system could real-time and continuously monitor and transmit seniors' physiological signals wirelessly through active RFID Reader and active RFID Tag to promote the quality of healthcare. Besides, the active RFID Tag could be embedded in a wristband with RFID electronic label, tied with elders to receive real-time elders' body temperature, location, and conditions for the information system. Caregivers in nursing homes therefore could understand the current situation of elders and monitor the seniors' situations to prevent accidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem that the fixed radio frequency identification (RFID) system with lightweight cryptography may be easily illegally controlled, a communication authentication protocol based on quantum key distribution using decoy-state method is proposed and developed in this study. A new RFID-system model using quantum key distribution is introduced, which indicates that the quantum keys are distributed to the RFID tags and reader and EPC information server via weakly coherent photons transmitted through optical fiber. This work mainly presents the protocol description with detailed theoretical analyses, including RFID system's initialization, the transmission, reception, and acquisition of the random quantum key, and the authentication process between the EPC information server and the RFID tag and reader. The security analysis of the protocol is finally carried out, which proves that the proposed protocol can prevent various eavesdropper's attacks with solid security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activity clustering and recognition is an important research trend with smart home. Result clusters obtained from training processes are applied in recognizing, controlling as well as forecasting activities inside a sensor smart home. Activities differ from each other at typical characteristics such as sensor sets triggered or temporal ones. In this work, we present a smart home infrastructure and propose an unsupervised approach of clustering in-home activities based on temporal characteristics. Experimental results show that the new approach creates more flexible and accurate clustering results when compared to the smart home system named AALO reported in the literature e.g. Enamul Hoque et al. Moreover, in our work we prove that clustering results affect significantly the outcome of next-activity forecasting process via experimental comparison of results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes an original architecture aimed at tracking assets within construction sites. The main components are Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) tags and smartphones. The core functions are performed by two Android applications, which implement asset tracking and searching. The main merits of the architecture are its ability to maximize smartphone battery lifetime, that can reach an entire working shift, very satisfactory accuracy of BLE tag-smartphone distance estimation (with a mean error around 2 [m]), high probability of detecting all the tags present in the construction site, as well as a suitably short Aging time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A modified bow-tie antenna, which finds potential use in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) / Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) applications, is proposed. Triple band operation is facilitated by applying trapezoidal truncations on both arms of the bow-tie antenna. The major attractive feature of the proposed antenna is its improved bandwidth for triple band operation particularly in different RFID bands. A considerable size reduction of the patch area is also achieved for the proposed structure. The simulated results for the return loss characteristics are in good agreement with the measured results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An RFID tag based on a series loaded split ring resonator (SRR) to operate in the European UHF RFID band of 865-867 MHz is reported. A chip of impedance 27-j212Ω is connected at the terminals of the antenna and the read range measurements of the RFID tag are performed in the UHF RFID band. The proposed UHF tag exhibits appreciably good read range over a wide azimuth and elevation angular ranges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a two-step approach based on modal strain energy and response sensitivity analysis to identify the local damages in isotropic plates with moderate thickness. The first step focuses on detection of damage location. The local damage is simulated by a reduction in the elemental Young’s modulus of the plate. It is determined from the modal strain energy change ratio approach. A method to weaken the “vicinity effect” is proposed to reduce the false alarms in the localization of damage. In the second step, an approach based on response sensitivity-based finite element model updating is used to further identify the locations and extents of the local damages in time domain. The identified results are obtained iteratively with Tikhonov regularization using the measured structural dynamic responses. Two numerical examples are investigated to illustrate the correctness and efficiency of the proposed method. Both single and multiple damages can be identified successfully and the effect of measurement noise on the identification results is investigated. Good identified results can be obtained from the short time histories of a few number of measurement points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of RedXDefense’s XCAT (capillary analysis test) device in the detection of gunshot residue (GSR) on an individual’s hands in the field. During this study, various time frames were introduced between the deposit of the GSR and the collection of the sample, as well as the amount of GSR deposited. Several outside agencies were contacted to create a sufficient background of the current use of the XCAT; however, it was found that little research currently exists outside of the manufacturer’s laboratory tests. Field tests were conducted to verify the use of the device, which raised concern regarding the use of the XCAT as a tool to assist in eliminating or possibly identifying a suspect. In conclusion, on the basis of the performance of this device, the XCAT is not recommended for use in the field at this time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the methods and algorithms of automatic marking detection employed in the development of automatic marking identification system (AMIS) for billets movement tracking between warehouse and production facilities of JSC Vyksa Steel Works. The system enables automatic monitoring of metal-rolling products; its featured property is the capability of remote recognition over a 3-16 m distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a systematic literature review of papers that were published in academic journals on the applications of radio frequency identification (RFID) in supply chain management between the years 2000 and 2015. As the literature on RFID is not confined to specific disciplines or repositories, this paper proposes a discipline-based framework for classifying RFID literature. Five main classification categories are used in this paper: technology, supply chain management, research methodology, application industries, and social aspects. The paper then focuses on the category of supply chain management and reviews 1187 articles that were published between 2000 and 2015 in rated journals. All the papers reviewed are further classified into eight subclasses under this category of supply chain management. The review yields useful insights into the anatomy of RFID literature in supply chain management, enhances evidence-based knowledge, and contributes to informing practice, policymaking and future research. The review reveals that even presently, despite technical and cost challenges, enormous potential exists for the application of RFID in several areas of supply chain management and the prospects are likely to grow into the future. Since RFID solutions have emerged primarily over only the past 20 years, significant research opportunities exist and would need to be addressed to continue to support the technology's maturation, evaluation, adoption, implementation, and diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gelidioid specimens from Singapore were analyzed using sequences of cox 1 and rbcL to identify the species. Both datasets revealed the presence of four species: Gelidiella acerosa, Pterocladiella bartlettii, Pterocladieila caerulescens and Gelidium sentosaense sp. nov., described here. Gelidium sentosaense formed small tufts up to 1 cm high and occurred in monospecific patches on cement beds at the outlet of drainpipes at intertidal areas. A morphological investigation of fresh specimens collected from Singapore revealed that G. sentosaense was similar to Gelidium pusillum, which is limited to North Atlantic coasts. However, it was distinguished by longitudinal striations present on the surface of branches and rhizines scattered in the inner cortex and medulla. Phylogenetic analyses of rbcL and cox 1 sequences revealed that G. sentosaense consistently formed a clade with Gelidium sp. from Oman and Gelidiumpluma from Hawaii but it was distinct from previously described Gelidium species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to study different possibilities for implementing easy-to-use and cost-effective micro-systems to detect and trace expelled gases from rotten food. The paper covers various radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies and gas sensors as the two promoting feasibilities for the tracing of packaged food. Monitoring and maintaining quality and safety of food in transport and storage from producer to consumer are the most important concerns in food industry. Many toxin gases, even in parts per billion ranges, are produced from corrupted and rotten food and can endanger the consumers’ health. To overcome the issues, intelligent traceability of food products, specifically the packaged ones, in terms of temperature, humidity, atmospheric conditions, etc., has been paid attention to by many researchers. Design/methodology/approach – Food poisoning is a serious problem that affects thousands of people every year. Poisoning food must be recognized early to prevent a serious health problem.Contaminated food is usually detectable by odor. A small gas sensors and low-cost tailored to the type of food packaging and a communication device for transmitting alarm output to the consumer are key factors in achieving intelligent packaging. Findings – Conducting polymer composite, intrinsically conducting polymer and metal oxide conductivity gas sensors, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) gas sensors offer excellent discrimination and lead the way for a new generation of “smart sensors” which will mould the future commercial markets for gas sensors. Originality/value – Small size, low power consumption, short response time, wide operating temperature, high efficiency and small area are most important features of introduced system for using in package food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical-layer identification utilizes unique features of wireless devices as their fingerprints, providing authenticity and security guarantee. Prior physical-layer identification techniques on radio frequency identification (RFID) tags require nongeneric equipments and are not fully compatible with existing standards. In this paper, we propose a novel physical-layer identification system, GenePrint, for UHF passive tags. The GenePrint prototype system is implemented by a commercial reader, a USRP-based monitor, and off-the-shelf UHF passive tags. Our solution is generic and completely compatible with the existing standard, EPCglobal C1G2 specification. GenePrint leverages the internal similarity among pulses of tags' RN16 preamble signals to extract a hardware feature as the fingerprint. We conduct extensive experiments on over 10\,000 RN16 preamble signals from 150 off-the-shelf RFID tags. The results show that GenePrint achieves a high identification accuracy of 99.68%+. The feature extraction of GenePrint is resilient to various malicious attacks, such as the feature replay attack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reader-to-reader collision in an RFID system is a challenging problem for communications technology. In order to model the interference between RFID readers, different interference models have been proposed, mainly based on two approaches: single and additive interference. The former only considers the interference from one reader within a certain range, whereas the latter takes into account the sum of all of the simultaneous interferences in order to emulate a more realistic behavior. Although the difference between the two approaches has been theoretically analyzed in previous research, their effects on the estimated performance of the reader-to-reader anti-collision protocols have not yet been investigated. In this paper, the influence of the interference model on the anti-collision protocols is studied by simulating a representative state-of-the-art protocol. The results presented in this paper highlight that the use of additive models, although more computationally intensive, is mandatory to improve the performance of anti-collision protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant advantages that biometric recognition technologies offer are in danger of being left aside in everyday life due to concerns over the misuse of such data. The biometric data employed so far focuses on the permanence of the characteristics involved. A concept known as 'the right to be forgotten' is gaining momentum in international law and this should further hamper the adoption of permanent biometric recognition technologies. However, a multitude of common applications are short-term and, therefore, non-permanent biometric characteristics would suffice for them. In this paper we discuss 'transient biometrics,' i.e. recognition via biometric characteristics that will change in the short term and show that images of the fingernail plate can be used as a transient biometric with a useful life-span of less than 6 months. A direct approach is proposed that requires no training and a relevant evaluation dataset is made publicly available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new concept as a special type of virtualization of particular event based communication components in RFID ecosystems. The new approach is containers based virtualization, and it is applied and tested on the container of Object name service. The results of the experiment allowed us to do the preliminary analysis of security consequences on the isolated containerized DNS-based RFID subservice. We confirmed feasibility with this sandboxing technology represented by the special container. They bring the benefits in terms of efficient software component life-cycle management and integrity improvements. Experiments results of the containerization are discussed to show the possible isolation ways of other components like EPCis and middleware. There is present evaluation towards external threats and vulnerabilities. The result is a higher level of integrity, availability of whole ecosystem and resiliency against external threats. This gives a new opportunity to build robust RFID as Platform as a service, and it proves the ability to achieve a positive impact on the end to end service Quality of service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes a design of global navigation satellite system (GNSS)/Radio frequency identification (RFID) active transponder which is primarily designed for localization of objects as a part of localization system designated for efficient handling of situations with mass casualties. The precise localization is improved by differential GNSS. The block diagram of such GNSS/RFID active transponder is described including main operation procedures of the firmware. Measurement of the localization by algorithms of RTKLIB library and by algorithms of GNSS module is compared. Dynamic tests, i.e. GNSS/RFID active transponder placed in the moving car (50 kmph), and static tests, i.e. GNSS/RFID active transponder placed in the position for 15 min, are performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the issue of unequal missing protection (UMP) for the design of grouping of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. While relying on group generation matrices, grouping of RFID tags allows verifying the integrity of a collection of tags without the requirement for accessing external systems, and can be extended to identify missing tags. Motivated by application needs that call for UMP among the tags, we first introduce the concepts of UMP for grouping of RFID tags and its extended counterpart, with which missing tags with high missing protection levels are more easily counted or identified than those with low missing protection levels. We then present simple yet effective schemes to realize grouping of RFID tags with UMP and its extended counterpart. The proposed schemes not only can easily fulfill the requirement of UMP among the tags, but also offer flexibility in constructing UMP group generation matrices. We also characterize key objects in order to further study grouping of RFID tags with UMP and its extended counterpart, called consistent and unidentifiable sets, respectively. This characterization in turn enables theoretical analysis of the error rate from the perspective of a tag. Theoretical and simulation results are presented to demonstrate the efficiencies of the proposed schemes for the design of grouping of RFID tags with UMP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RFID can be used to obtain information about objects present in a physical space, including their approximate location. Handheld RFID readers, smart shelves, zenithal antennas, and autonomous robots can obtain additional information with varying time and space resolutions. The authors present a system that projects this information on a panoramic view of a retail store, allowing users to virtually navigate the space and obtain quasi-real-time information about the products as they actually are in the store. For example, when a user clicks on the image of a shelf in the panorama, product information appears at or near that position from the last RFID-based inventory, which could be as recent as a few seconds ago. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an extremely efficient method for antenna design and optimization. Traditionally, antenna optimization relies on nature-inspired heuristic algorithms, which are time-consuming due to their blind-search nature. In contrast, design of experiments (DOE) uses a completely different framework from heuristic algorithms, reducing the design cycle by formulating the surrogates of a design problem. However, the number of required simulations grows exponentially if a full factorial design is used. In this paper, a much more efficient technique is presented to achieve substantial time savings. By using orthogonal fractional experiments, only a small subset of the full factorial design is required, yet the resultant response surface models are still effective. The capability of orthogonal fractional experiments is demonstrated through three examples, including two tag antennas for radio-frequency identification (RFID) applications and one internal antenna for long-term-evolution (LTE) handheld devices. In these examples, orthogonal fractional experiments greatly improve the efficiency of DOE, thereby facilitating the antenna design with less simulation runs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biometric user identification is highly topical these days. The most well-represented method is fingerprint identification, to which this study is also dedicated. However, we cannot forget other methods such as scanning the bloodstream, retina and iris, facial recognition, etc. Four reading devices were tested in this study. Tests were carried out both under standard and adverse conditions. Adverse conditions included situations such as cold finger, cooled damp finger, heated finger, soaked finger, finger with a layer of instant glue, and dirty finger (soil). All tests performed under adverse conditions simulated realistic industrial plant environments. The results of the measurements showed that the measured reliability values do not correspond to those claimed by the manufacturers. It is necessary to adapt and perfect these biometric identification systems for use in industrial areas, as they are often used in these areas as access or attendance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the achievements in DNA forensic science practice, the latest developments as well as future trends. The article concerns also other than forensic DNA applications as well as expectations, concerns and obstacles. DNA identification technology unlike other biometric techniques requires the collection of biological material and the identification is not performed in real time. DNA utilized in most of forensic identification, is present almost in every living cell in the body. What is more, each cell of the same body has the same DNA molecule which means that it is possible to compare the DNA sampled from different sources, for example saliva with blood or semen from the same person. Rapid development and reliability of DNA technology contribute to the fact that the analysis of polymorphic DNA sequences constitutes a very important evidence used in the court. The unique properties of DNA and rapid development of DNA analytical devices allow to claim that DNA may assume a more important position amongst biometric data in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing intensity of hazardous material transport increases the risk of endangering participants in the road traffic and a harming the environment. The transport unit with dangerous goods is equipped with an active or passive RFID chip in generally. The largest disadvantage of the current dangerous cargo monitoring system is the fact that there is no information about the immediate location of the shipment available. This article presents an idea of connecting the system for monitoring dangerous goods with the system of electronic toll collection. This technology together with information technologies (IT, mobile data transmission systems GSM, navigation systems GPS and others) offers almost unlimited possibilities of monitoring and record-keeping of hazardous materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authentication of products and humans is one of the major future applications of Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology. None of the recent RFID technology related authentication approaches has been fully convincing. Either these schemes offer a low-level of security or they are vulnerable to Denial-of-Service attacks that keep the authentication system from proper functioning. Some schemes raise privacy and security concerns as they reveal confidential information about the RFID tag bearer and allow their world-wide tracking. In this paper, we present a novel cryptographic authentication protocol that fills the security holes imposed by RFID technology. Moreover, it provides significantly lower cost in terms of computational effort and communication than currently proposed protocols such as Mutual Authentication Protocol (MAP) and Yet Another Trivial Authentication Protocol $$^{*}\, (\hbox {YA-TRAP}^{*})$$ . We also present the implementation of our cryptographic authentication protocol on a real passive computation capable RFID tag known as Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform. The experimental results show that our protocol has double the rate of successful authentication as comapred to $$\hbox {YA-TRAP}^{*}$$ and MAP. It also takes 33 % less time to authenticate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The induced currents and consequently the scattered fields from chipless RFID tags can be analyzed in different ways. In singularity expansion method (SEM), the currents on the tag are expanded by a series of the complex natural resonances (CNRs) and frequency-independent natural currents and an entire-domain function including the early-time response. On the other hand, in eigen-mode expansion method (EEM), the currents are expanded versus the frequency-dependent eigen-modes of the structure, which can be obtained by solving the homogeneous differential equation governing the structure under consideration. In this paper, the theory of characteristic modes as a generalized eigen-mode expansion approach is efficiently employed for the analysis and design of the chipless RFID tags. Three important parameters usually considered in the design of multibit tags are the quality factors, resonant frequencies of the resonators (as a signature of the tag) and the radar cross–section (RCS) of the tag. A slotted-wavelength resonator is considered as a tag prototype in this paper. After a short theoretical description of SEM and CMT, the resonant and radiation modes of the tag are accurately investigated versus some design parameters. By studying the effects of various structural parameters of the tag on the aforementioned factors, some design rules are extracted which can be useful in the design and implementation of the tag and additionally the identification process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ChiloKey is a matrix-based, interactive key to all 179 species of Geophilomorpha (Chilopoda) recorded from Europe, including species of uncertain identity and those whose morphology is known partially only. The key is intended to assist in identification of subadult and adult specimens, by means of microscopy and simple dissection techniques whenever necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has already been applied in a number of areas to facilitate the tracking process. However, the insufficient tracking accuracy of RFID is one of the problems that impedes its wider application. Previous studies focus on examining the accuracy of discrete points RFID, thereby leaving the tracking accuracy of the areas between the observed points unpredictable. In this study, spatial and temporal analysis is applied to interpolate the continuous distribution of RFID tracking accuracy based on the Kriging method. An implementation trial has been conducted in the loading and docking area in front of a warehouse to validate this approach. The results show that the weak signal area can be easily identified by the approach developed in the study. The optimum distance between two RFID readers and the effect of the sudden removal of readers are also presented by analysing the spatial and temporal variation of RFID tracking accuracy. This study reveals the correlation between the testing time and the stability of RFID tracking accuracy. Experimental results show that the proposed approach can be used to assist the RFID system setup process to increase tracking accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) is a powerful automatic contactless identification technique that has numerous applications. The performance of passive UHF RFID system is affected seriously by the application environments. In this paper, we propose a metrical method of application environment impact for passive UHF RFID system based on fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. The metric of application environment impact is graded by the degradation of reading distance, reading rate, and reading speed of passive UHF RFID system. Analytic hierarchy process is used to calculate the weight of factors, which reduces the subjectivity of evaluation results. For avoiding the loss of valid information, weighted average operator is employed to replace traditional max min operator. The end user can know the real performance of product selected by the grade of application environment impact visually and easily use the method proposed. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is simple, valid, fast, accurate, and practical. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The means of distributing dense passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags has been widely utilized for accurate indoor localization. However, they suffer a disadvantage on low localization precision due to the increasing interference of RFID tag collisions and the variation of behavior of tags. Current localization algorithms used in passive RFID location systems are mostly deterministic and have a limited capability on improving localization precision in a dynamic environment with uncertain sensor measurement. This paper investigates the feasibility of using particle filter technique as an efficient localization approach to deliver both relatively good accuracy and precision in dense passive RFID tag distribution applications. A position feature-based system model is first built to apply the typical particle filter technique in passive RFID location applications. Then, a new particle filter algorithm by using a moving direction estimation-based feature improvement scheme is proposed to enhance localization precision in a dense passive RFID tag environment. Experimental results show that the proposed method can provide relatively good accuracy and precision for passive RFID location applications, with an improved performance over the typical particle filter algorithm and a state-of-the-art deterministic method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, an aperture-coupled dual-band antenna array for ultra-high-frequency (UHF) and microwave band radio-frequency identification (RFID) handheld reader application is presented. The proposed two-element antenna array is composed of a feeding network, a ground plane with coupling apertures, patch radiators, and parasitic elements serving as directors. The spacing between the radiators is optimized to achieve the desired radiation patterns. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed antenna features good impedance bandwidth, moderate gain, and good radiation efficiency from 840 to 960 MHz (covering a universal UHF band) and 2.38–2.48 GHz (microwave band). The antenna is well suited for applications in RFID handheld readers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a complete radio frequency identification (RFID) test platform to characterize the nonlinear effects produced by passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID chips. In full operation mode, automated measurements of activation power, harmonic response level, and impedances are performed in a wide frequency range up to the fourth harmonic. The characterization method, platform composition, and operation are explained through real measurements on UHF Class-1 Generation-2 chips. A harmonic treatment is presented thanks to the joint use of an RFID tester and impedance tuners, and the effect of the antenna-chip impedance matching on the harmonic responses is compared before and after treatment. To the best of our knowledge, no similar platform has been presented in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the application of an innovative system for increasing visibility along an Engineer-To-Order supply chain. The system has been applied in a leading Italian company that manufactures vessels and tube heat exchangers. By means of this method, the company shares information about its shop floor activities with other actors in the supply chain, i.e. clients and suppliers. The system elements are as follows: Radio-frequency identification transponders (to identify either components, operators, tooling machines (e.g. welding machines) or production phases), a Wi-Fi network (to communicate data) and a web-based application that is accessible by the company’s clients. This paper shows the methodology that is used to define the system’s architecture and the technical solutions adopted. Benefits in terms of reduction in costs for monitoring and control have been observed. Moreover, customers perceived the increased visibility of the production process to be a valuable service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]