Telecommunication Options Research Articles

Interstellar probe – Destination: Universe!

The idea of an “Outer solar system probe: to be aimed away from the Sun in the plane of the ecliptic” dates from a report of the “Simpson Committee” of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences in March of 1960. After many studies and name changes, what is now known as “Interstellar Probe” has matured as a concept for making new discoveries that can be made in no other way, by going places yet to be explored. The central technical question has always been propulsion with “near-future” capabilities taken as the backdrop for defining the mission requirements. However, the real issue has always been to unite compelling science with engineering and technical reality. With that perspective in mind the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has been tasked by the NASA Heliophysics Division to (re-)study the mission and provide a Technical Report to be delivered late 2021 for input to next Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey. This “pragmatic Interstellar Probe” of the study is a mission through the outer heliosphere and to the nearby “Very Local” interstellar medium (VLISM), uses today's technology to take the first explicit step on the path of interstellar exploration, and can pave the way, scientifically, technically, and programmatically for more ambitious future journeys (and more ambitious science goals). To enforce these goals broadly-based engineering requirements include (1) readiness to launch no later than January 1, 2030; (2) capability to transmit useful scientific data from 1000 au; (3) powered by no more than 600 W (electric) at the beginning of the mission and no more than half of that at mission's end; and, (4) lifetime of no less than 50 years. To travel as far and as fast as possible with available technology, the use of the Space Launch System Block 2 (SLS B2) cargo version is enabling: carrying the spacecraft as well as a 3rd and 4th stage, solar system escape speeds of at least twice that of Voyager 1 (i.e., up to 7.2 au/yr) should be possible. We provide a top-level summary of work accomplished to date, focusing on how the science goals drive and are affected by telecommunication options, guidance and control requirements, trajectory options, and the baseline system architecture and approach.“It isn't about where we are going. It's about the journey out there."

Control Networks and Smart Grid Teleprotection: Key Aspects, Technologies, Protocols, and Case-Studies

The appeal for more reliable, efficient and resilient power grids has become indispensable with the recent technological development and ever-increasing demand for electrical energy. These goals might be achieved by introducing sensors and actuators in the power grid, with the purpose of enabling a smart control of the power network. All power devices must be connected using a reliable communication network, which should be able to operate even when the power grid fails. Currently, several communication technologies have been applied for supporting this new application scenario. This article aims for reviewing both academic and market use cases for technologies applied to the mission-critical, control networks and Smart Grid applications, such as teleprotection, self-healing, communication with control centers and field devices, among others. More specifically, the key aspects, potential technologies, main protocols and use cases of operating data networks in energy transmission, power distribution and smart grid environments, including circuit and packet switching technologies, are discussed into details. Furthermore, resilience and the main telecommunications technologies used in power grids, as well, the correlation among them, are exploited in practical point of view. The article provides a broad discussion on the best telecommunication options to build the emerging intelligent energy distribution systems, covering control networks, teleprotection, and smart grid applications.

Telesonography in emergency medicine: A systematic review

Ultrasound is an efficacious, versatile and affordable imaging technique in emergencies, but has limited utility without expert interpretation. Telesonography, in which experts may remotely support the use of ultrasound through a telecommunications link, may broaden access to ultrasound and improve patient outcomes, particularly in remote settings. This review assesses the literature regarding telesonography in emergency medicine, focussing on evidence of feasibility, diagnostic accuracy and clinical utility. A systematic search was performed for articles published from 1946 to February 2017 using the Cochrane, Medline, EMBASE, and CINAHL databases. Further searches utilising Scopus, Google Scholar, and citation lists were conducted. 4388 titles were identified and screened against inclusion criteria which resulted in the inclusion of 28 papers. These included feasibility, diagnostic accuracy and clinical pilot studies. Study design, methodology and quality were heterogeneous. There was good evidence of feasibility from multiple studies. Where sufficient bandwidth and high quality components were used, diagnostic accuracy was slightly reduced by image transmission. There was evidence of clinical utility in remote hospitals and low-resource settings, although reliability was infrequently reported. Further exploratory research is required to determine minimum requirements for image quality, bandwidth, frame rate and to assess diagnostic accuracy. Clinical trials in remote settings are justifiable. Telecommunication options will depend on local requirements; no one system conveys universal advantages. The methodological quality of research in this field must improve: studies should be designed to minimise bias, and must include details of their methods to allow replication. Analysis of cost effectiveness and sustainability should be provided.

On Prospects of Development of Telecommunication Systems and Services based on Virtual Reality Technology

Virtual reality technologies are considered to be a basis and a promising development trend of telecommunication systems’ and services. New opportunities and sci-tech problems that need to be solved are currently undergoing analysis. In the nearest future, the possibility of creating a new segment in the international telecommunication services market that is oriented towards providing communication services to the mass consumer and the entertainment industry, new tools for goods promotion and education content delivery, as well as toward solving experimental problems in managing state structures and social economical systems, is being justified. Within the context of studying the necessary prerequisites to implementing this opportunity the following is being done: an approach to creating and charging for according telecommunication services is being given, opportunities for using the existing national and international cellular connection infrastructure is researched; the prospects of shifting towards new cellular network standards of the fifth generation are being analyzed, employing new ways of connecting to the Internet, as well as new formats of transmitting and processing multimedia, including the provision of immersion in the virtual reality environment; safety aspects of end-user equipment and VR-based telecommunication service exploitation are being updated. As a result of consolidating the given material, the authors are working on building grounds for the rapid development in this direction of telecommunication services and options provided by the Russian national and transnational cellular network operators. The paper was created as part of the project 2.7178.2017/БЧ “Researching Cognitive Semiotics in the Multimedia Virtual Reality Environment”.

Adherence to an online exercise program for COPD patients in the home environment- a pilot study

The objective of this study was to determine the adherence to an online exercise program for patients with moderate to very severe COPD in their home environment. The intervention consisted of three modules: module 1 online exercising; module 2 telemonitoring and module 3 telecommunication. Patients were instructed to use the service for 12 weeks after the normal rehabilitation period ended (aftercare). The study had a single-center exploratory study design. Adherence to module 1 was assessed by adherence to exercise sessions and log in time (duration in minutes) and frequency of training (amount of time a week) was measured for each patient. In addition, adherence to the exercises was measured as the percentage of performed exercises versus prescribed exercises. The adherence to module 2 was measured by logging the day and time the diary has been filled in. The adherence to module 3 was measured by logging the types of telecommunication options used. Satisfaction with the service was measured with a questionnaire, a number from 0 to 10 and whether patients would recommend the service to others. Twenty patients used the online exercise module. The adherence to the three weekly exercise protocol was 61 %. Patients logged in on average 20.3 min (±15) for 3.6 times a week (±2.3). The mean adherence to these exercises was 58 %. The adherence to the monitoring module was 82 %. Seventeen patients (77 %) used module 3 and send on average 9 messages (± 9.8) during the 12 weeks. Patient satisfaction with the service was high. The adherence to the home-based telemedicine service for patients with moderate to very severe COPD was similar to hospital-based maintenance exercise interventions. However, strategies to improve exercise adherence should be investigated.

Research into Telecommunications Options for People with Physical Disabilities

People with a disability do not have equitable access to the modern telecommunication medium. Many experience difficulty typing, handling the phone, dialing, or answering calls. For those who are unable to speak, the only option is to type messages using whatever functional control site exists on their body. The provision of accessible mobile phones for people with disabilities can significantly improve their quality of life through an increased range of accessible activities, and mobile phones can improve their independence, safety, security and self-esteem. This research was aimed at providing practical ways for people with a disability to participate in the extensive community of home and mobile phone users. The outcomes of 10 participants taking part in the evaluation and trial of off-the-shelf telecommunication options are presented. Nine out of 10 participants showed high to very high results in terms of their overall performance and satisfaction with the use of the telecommunication equipment provided. With the processes and support covering equipment matching, education, training, and delivery, current off-the-shelf solutions can help people with disabilities to effectively communicate with other members of our society and to access the same range of information systems and services enjoyed by able-bodied members of the community.

Considerations in the Use of Telecommunications as a Primary Treatment Medium: The Application of Behavioral Telehealth to Marriage and Family Therapy

Interest is continuing to grow in using telecommunications technologies as a primary treatment medium for the delivery of mental health care. This article identifies six issues that should be considered when deciding to use behavioral telehealth. These issues are convenience, financial cost, quality of the transmission, client anonymity, the degree to which the therapist has access to the full range of information needed to conduct therapy, and the ethical and legal issues that should be considered. Seven common telecommunications options are reviewed with a discussion of their advantages and disadvantages.

TRANSPORTATION, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, AND THE CHANGING GEOGRAPHY OF OPPORTUNITY

This paper presents a new analytical framework that incorporates location, transportation, and telecommunications into a unified representation of spatial relationships. This analytical framework characterizes the spatial and social effects of telecommunications in terms of changes in accessibility. It enables clearer thinking and more-rigorous analysis of how information and communication technologies interact with location, transportation, and socioeconomic variables in the modification of spatial configurations of American metropolitan areas. It facilitates structured explorations of the ways in which different socioeconomic groups will be positioned in the emerging geography of opportunity. Results of a case study of employment accessibility, which applies the new analytical framework, are discussed. They indicate that geographic location per se is of reduced importance in determining accessibility, whereas transportation and, increasingly, telecommunications options are becoming more and more important. On the other hand, the results suggest that the distribution of accessibility benefits generated by advanced technologies is not independent of preexisting geographic configurations.

Telecommunications Options Connect OCLC and Libraries to the Future

OCLC's access options have generally kept pace with the evolving trends in the telecommunications industry and te library computing environment. In the absence of any esiting technical infrastructure in libraries, OCLC initilally delivered a complete access solution. As libraries deployed microcomputers and developed networks, OCLC has offered access methods consistent with such an environment. The overwhelming trend in the current era involves the Internet and Intranets. it seems that the whole computing world is rapidly converging on TCP/IP networks and Web-based information systems. OCLC has worked quickly to re-orient its networking paradigm towards these technologies

Prospects for daily urban mobility

This research was supported by a DATAR (the French organization for regional development) research grant, with the aim of defining a basis for the prospect of mobility in large conurbations. The first part of the research is devoted to cross‐section comparisons between countries as regards land use and related mobility schemes. As a result of the comparisons, we suggest considering mobility and land use as co‐produced by political, economical and cultural determinants. This comparative exercise is used, in the second part, to build very different images of three possible futures for French conurbations, respectively labelled, ‘Saint Simonian or modernist’, ‘Rhenan or conservative’, ‘Californian or post‐modernist’. Each of them is supported by three different dynamics as regards the economic context, the land use and transport planning. They are characterized by a set of discriminant options related to urban planning, road and public transport issues, telecommunications options. The concluding part analyse...

A Video-Codec Chip Set for Multimedia Applications

The multimedia, video-codec chip set described in this paper represents the first generation in a family of devices that will make possible reliable, cost-effective storage and transmission of multimedia data, including video. AT&T's multimedia video-codec complies with international video standards. It supports still-image and audio compression over a wide range of quality and bit rates; multiplexing of audio, video, and data; and protocol control for a variety of telecommunications options. The codec consists of three chips — a video encoder, a video decoder, and a systems controller — plus one or two digital-signal processors and a modest amount of industry-standard, dynamic random-access memory. In this paper, we examine the potential market for such a device and the performance and capability requirements. We also describe the overall multimedia-codec architecture and review the video-signal-processing operations for standards-compliant video compression. Finally, we describe the architecture of the encoder, decoder, and systems controller.

Trends in telecommunication management and configurations

A survey which investigated organizational management of telecommunications and the current and future configurations of telecommunications equipment showed some expected results and some surprises. The survey showed that public academic institutions are in advance of private institutions in the acquisition of different types of telecommunication equipment and connections. Also surprisingly widespread is the use in academic institutions of connections usually identified with business. Fully 8% of the academic institutions report being connected to customers, 14% indicate use of EDI, and 16% indicate connection to suppliers. Another surprising result is that previous investment in telecommunications is a better predictor than revenue (for business firms) or size of student body (for academic institutions) of the presence of rare telecommunications options, if they have acquired experience by a steady progression of telecommunications acquisitions. A final, perhaps more predictable, result concerns the evolution of telecommunication configurations in organizations of all types toward more interconnectability and in the directions of organization wide networks. Over 70% of the organizations are working toward organization wide networks but only 24% to 25% of the organizations consider that they have attained this goal. This trend is evident in both the academic and business environments. While it is not clear how this will impact the availability of data, it is apparent that a need for more interconnectability and ease of communication is being felt by organizations at this time.

Customer service operations: the complete guide

A guide to developing and running a profitable service-oriented department, with tips on making a contribution to the company bottom line, focusing on customer needs, cutting costs while increasing efficiency, and choosing between telecommunications options.

The Electronic Bookmobile

Bookmobiles have been an important part of public library service for over a century. Traditionally they have delivered recreational reading material, but new technologies now make it possible for high‐tech bookmobiles to provide a full range of information services. Telecommunications options such as mobile data radio, cellular telephone, and the use of satellites make online circulation, database searching, and facsimile service feasible for library mobile units. Optical disc and other compact storage technologies as well as state‐of‐the‐art navigation systems also have bookmobile applications. Unfortunately, the high cost of technology, particularly for mobile telecommunications, is among the problems delaying the development and commonplace use of ‘electronic bookmobiles’.

Automating the Region: A Report on the Seminar

The steps requisite to automating a region are outlined by Richard Boss. The initial step is a needs accessment, the components of which are listed. Typical cost elements and telecommunication options are reviewed. The importance of timetables and the scope of decision making are stressed. The IRVING Library Network Project is briefly described.

Multi‐site library networking: experience of the Polytechnic of Central London

The Polytechnic of Central London has developed and installed a wide area network connecting libraries on six sites. The network is linked to SWALCAP for circulation control, and cataloguing services will be added in 1984. Two local area network (LAN) projects are planned. An analysis of the telecommunications options considered is presented, with costs for the system adopted for the wide area network.