Charalampos Z. Patrikakis

Security and Privacy in Pervasive Computing

In this issues Works in Progress department, we have six projects. The first two projects address an individuals privacy concerns and preferences. The next entry discusses a project on data protection for electronic passports. The remaining three projects are investigating various types of privacy protection mechanisms for data collected in pervasive computing environments, by attestation services, and by voice recording systems.

Using Personalized Mashups for Mobile Location Based Services

In this paper, a framework that allows users to build, deploy and distribute personalized mobile services is described. The framework allows the integration of static and dynamic content that stems from various web sources, system data and from the personal user preferences, and is combined to form mashups for supporting the provision of mobile services in a time dependent, location aware, context driven and, finally, personalized manner. The framework has been implemented based on Pocket PC user devices, and can be deployed over any IP supporting network architecture.

Personalized Coverage of Large Athletic Events

This article presents a platform that lets users direct their own coverage of large athletic events, letting them set up their own virtual director and orchestrate event viewing according to their preferences.

Forecasting systems for e-government

The term e-government refers to the use by government agencies of information technologies that have the ability to upgrade relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. So far, most e-government activity has focused on publishing information via the internet rather than actively interacting with citizens (G2C) or business enterprises (G2B). Forecasting is undoubtedly one of the key processes in operations management and is based on sufficient historic data. Government is the key holder of the majority of crucial databases in the market and projections of those data are pretty important. Thus, forecasting systems are more than necessary for an effective government. Sectors such as healthcare management, real estate market, and financial markets are in great need of adequate forecasts. In the 21st century, e-forecasting replaces traditional forecasting and evangelises an indispensable part of e-government in a rapidly changing cyber world. This study presents a survey on the available bibliography and applications of forecasting systems within the e-government framework and proposes the basic architectural elements of a forecasting system for e-government.

A Proactive, Terminal Based Best Access Point Selection Mechanism for Wireless LANs

In IEEE802.11 WLAN networks, Radio Resource Management (RRM) is necessary for the efficient use of scarce radio resources and to balance the telecommunication traffic load, among all the Access Points (APs) of the infrastructure network. In these networks, the mobile station MS has the functionality to select an AP, based on specific criteria. A key challenge is how to achieve overall load balancing in the network, during the AP reselection procedure in a way that will achieve the optimum utilization of network resources. The conventional approaches typically use the strongest received signal from the side of MS (RX Level) as the criterion, without considering the traffic load of each AP. In this work, we present two easy to implement WLAN resource management mechanisms that are fully compatible with the existing standards and mechanisms already supported by IEEE802.11 networks.

Directing your own live and interactive sports channel

The ability to mark-up live sports event content, viewed from multiple camera angles, such that athletes and other objects of interest can be tracked, facilitates an exciting new personalised and interactive viewing experience for spectators, enabling spectators to act as directors of their own customised live sports videos. In this paper, such an approach is described as part of the My-e-Director 2012 project. The design of this platform is described here and a discussion of a prototype system is given.

Real-time video analysis and personalized media streaming environments for large scale athletic events

This paper presents the architecture of the My-e-Director 2012, an FP7 call-1 European funded project in the objective area of Networked Media. My-e-Director 2012 is a unique interactive broadcasting platform, which enables end-users to have access on innovative services, like selection of focal actors/scenes and points of interest within real-time broadcasted streams. Emphasis is placed on the ambient camera selection module, which is the heart of the My-e-Director project. The ambient camera selection is responsible for detecting athletes in large-scale Olympic events. Then, this information is fed back to the system in order to allow for personalized video steaming and delivery services. Since detection of human in athletic event is a very demanding task, our method is based on a retrainable neural network architecture, which non-linearly models the color and texture properties of the object of interest. The retraining algorithm adapts the neural network model to fit the current environmental conditions, while simultaneously trusts as much as possible the previous information. The neural network classifier is combined with a conventional motion-based tracking scheme, which provides accurate contour detection. Aspects of multiple camera configurations are discussed.

Establishing Trust Through Anonymous and Private Information Exchange Over Personal Networks

Security and privacy in Personal Networks constitute a major challenge for designers and implementers. The deployment of novel services over a collaborative environment where users share their resources and profiles create higher demands on security and privacy requirements. In this paper, the authors address the issue of privacy-enabled, secure personal information exchange among participants of a Personal Networks federation, in order to establish trust. The paper proposes a novel model based on the separation of user ID information from personal preferences and user status information. The proposed model is able to ensure privacy through anonymity over personal data exchange, while it incorporates mechanisms for the detection and confronting of malicious behavior, and resilience against attacks. A proof of concept based on an actual implementation is provided. Further, discussion is presented on the issues that need to be tackled in order to incorporate the proposed model in a standard PN architecture.

Collective domotic intelligence through dynamic injection of semantic rules

Recent advances in IoT and pervasive computing have led to the introduction of a plethora of devices, featuring enhanced intelligence in sensing, understanding context and reacting to situations. In the case of smart home environment, the result is the introduction of smart, connected domotic devices, featuring enhanced intelligence. In combination with enhanced capabilities for sensing, controlling and automatic, the power of these devices can be further exploited by the use of a semantic connection layer that can facilitate a goal-oriented collaboration between devices and a meaningful interaction with humans. This paper proposes an integrated platform, enabling dynamic injection of automation rules based on semantic web technologies, in a collective intelligence environment. The role of the human - end user in this environment is supported through a user friendly IDE enabling the easy discovery, access and operation, through the introduction of automation rules.

Personalized location based services with respect to privacy: a user oriented approach

In this paper, a platform for the creation and deployment of personalized Location Based Services with respect to users privacy is presented. The platform is based on the creation of mobile services built from service components that are located on a central server. The process of service creation and personalization (including privacy level) is performed by the mobile users, through the selection of the necessary components (tables, attributes, rules).