IN 1974, the International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA) formed a working group on non-ionizing radiation (NIR), which examined the problems arising in the field of protection against the various types of NIR. At the IRPA Congress in Paris in 1977, this working group became the International Non-Ionizing Radiation Committee (INIRC). In cooperation with the Environmental Health Division of the World Health Organization (WHO), the IRPA/INIRC developed a number of health criteria documents on NIR as part of WHO’s Environmental Health Criteria Programme, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Each document includes an overview of the physical characteristics, measurement and instrumentation, sources, and applications of NIR, a thorough review of the literature on biological effects, and an evaluation of the health risks of exposure to NIR. These health criteria have provided the scientific database for the subsequent development of exposure limits and codes of practice relating to NIR. At the Eighth International Congress of the IRPA (Montreal, 18–22 May 1992), a new, independent scientific organization—the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP)—was established as a successor to the IRPA/INIRC. The functions of the Commission are to investigate the hazards that may be associated with the different forms of NIR, develop international guidelines on NIR exposure limits, and deal with all aspects of NIR protection. Biological effects reported as resulting from exposure to static and extremely-low-frequency (ELF) electric and magnetic fields have been reviewed by UNEP/ WHO/IRPA (1984, 1987). Those publications and a number of others, including UNEP/WHO/IRPA (1993) and Allen et al. (1991), provided the scientific rationale for these guidelines. A glossary of terms appears in the Appendix.

Guidelines for limiting exposure to time-varying electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields (up to 300 GHz)

Essentially a software system's utility is determined by both its functionality and its non-functional characteristics, such as usability, flexibility, performance, interoperability and security. Nonetheless, there has been a lop-sided emphasis in the functionality of the software, even though the functionality is not useful or usable without the necessary non-functional characteristics. In this chapter, we review the state of the art on the treatment of non-functional requirements (hereafter, NFRs), while providing some prospects for future directions.

/pdf/on-non-functional-requirements-in-software-engineering-3a6a23qlo6.pdf

On Non-Functional Requirements in Software Engineering

We present a WLAN location determination technique, the Joint Clustering technique, that uses: (1) signal strength probability distributions to address the noisy wireless channel, and (2) clustering of locations to reduce the computational cost of searching the radio map. The Joint Clustering technique reduces computational cost by more than an order of magnitude, compared to the current state of the art techniques, allowing non-centralized implementation on mobile clients. Results from 802.11-equipped iPAQ implementations show that the new technique gives user location to within 7 feet with over 90% accuracy.

/pdf/wlan-location-determination-via-clustering-and-probability-2h6idmtc1a.pdf

WLAN location determination via clustering and probability distributions

http://www.rmorais.utad.pt/RMPDFFiles/PDFPapers/WANG06.pdf

Review: Wireless sensors in agriculture and food industry-Recent development and future perspective

This study is a comparison of three routing protocols proposed for wireless mobile ad-hoc networks. The protocols are: Destination Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), Ad-hoc On demand Distance Vector (AODV) and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR). Extensive simulations are made on a scenario where nodes moves randomly. Results are presented as a function of a novel mobility metric designed to reflect the relative speeds of the nodes in a scenario. Furthermore, three realistic scenarios are introduced to test the protocols in more specialized contexts. In most simulations the reactive protocols (AODV and DSR) performed significantly better than DSDV. At moderate traffic load DSR performed better than AODV for all tested mobility values, while AODV performed better than DSR at higher traffic loads. The latter is caused by the source routes in DSR data packets, which increase the load on the network. routers and hosts, thus a node may forward packets between other nodes as well as run user applications. Mobile ad-hoc networks have been the focus of many recent research and development efforts. Ad-hoc packet radio networks have so far mainly concerned military applications, where a decentralized network configuration is an operative advantage or even a necessity. Networks using ad-hoc configuration concepts can be used in many military applications, ranging from interconnected wireless access points to networks of wireless devices carried by individuals, e.g., digital maps, sensors attached to the body, voice communication, etc. Combinations of wide range and short range ad-hoc networks seek to provide robust, global coverage, even during adverse operating conditions.

Scenario-based performance analysis of routing protocols for mobile ad-hoc networks

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Papers

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