Interoperable Protection for Digital Multimedia Content

Interoperability between systems for secure delivery of content (audio and video) over the Internet or via digital television broadcasting is still hampered by the lack of interoperability among proprietary content protection systems. The OPIMA (Open Platform Initiative for Multimedia Access) specification offers a generic solution for multimedia terminals, in which the end-user's terminal is adapted to a content protection system by downloading a corresponding plug-in. This paper describes the OPIMA solution and shows how it can be applied.     

Broadcasting System Compliant with MPEG‐2/4 IPMPX

In this paper, we present an intellectual property management and protection (IPMP) system in a broadcasting environment to provide mechanisms for copyright and contents protection that are compliant with the MPEG‐2 and MPEG‐4 IPMP Extension (IPMPX) specifications. The technology for processing IPMP related information was exploited, and a terminal model has been successfully designed and implemented. In addition, interoperability, which is the main objective of MPEG‐2/4 IPMPX, has been addressed in detail. The experimental results show that the implemented system performs the IPMP process well, meeting the requirements of a broadcasting environment.     

Ultra Wide Band WLANs: A Self-Configuring Resource Control Scheme for Accessing UWB Hot-Spots with QoS Guarantees

In the framework of wireless access networks the Hot-Spot concept is attracting several operators. In a Hot-Spot near stationary terminals may reach one or more Radio Access Points (RAP) offering wireless access to the fixed network. Mobile terminals should be able to register to the network, associate to a RAP and activate a wireless communication supporting given bit rates and Quality of Service (QoS) features. Several mobile users, requiring different services, enter and exit the Hot-Spot. In this scenario network operators should have the opportunity to configure quickly radio resources to serve the mobile terminals and to handle efficiently the network resources in order to maximize the income. Among the different technologies emerging in this field, we investigate the feasibility of a wireless access based on Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio, combined with a flexible admission control scheme based on transmission power selection. We employ UWB in unlicensed mode, i.e., we operate in accordance to the limits imposed by the regulatory bodies (e.g., US Federal Communications Commission). The flexibility of the admission control depends mainly on the capability of a mobile terminal of “measuring” the environment it is entering and thus supporting the RAP in the selection of the appropriate transmission parameters. The proposed approach provides an admission policy based on the Maximum Extra Interference (MEI) and selects the power level through a simple interaction among the involved mobile terminals. The information for basing the decision on is collected through measurements and signaling. In order to increase the system efficiency, transmission parameters are selected in accordance to a “balancing” criterion (thus Balanced-MEI, B-MEI). The B-MEI approach keeps quite simple the admission of new mobile terminals in a RAP’s area but contemporarily satisfies the trade-off between fair resource assignment and system efficiency. This is a key trade-off in wireless access systems where interference effects determine the upper limit of the number of users that can be admitted in the network.Francesca Cuomo received her “Laurea” degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 1993, magna cum laude, from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy. She earned the Ph.D. degree in Information and Communications Engineering in 1998, also from the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” Since 1996 she is an Assistant Professor at the INFOCOM Department of this University. Her main research interests focus on broadband integrated networks, Intelligent Networks, architectures and protocol for wireless networks, mobile and personal communications, Quality of Service guarantees and real time service support in the wired and wireless Internet.She participated in: (I) the European ACTS INSIGNIA project dedicated to the definition of an Integrated IN and B-ISDN network; (III) IST WHYLESS.COM project focusing on adoption of the Ultra Wide Band radio technology for the definition of an Open Mobile Access Network; (III) RAMON project, funded by the Italian Public Education Ministry, focused on the definition of a reconfigurable access module for mobile computing applications. She is now participating to the European IST ePerSpace Project focusing on the support of personalized audio/video services at home and everywhere. She is also involved in FIRB project VIRTUAL IMMERSIVE COMMUNICATIONS (VICOM) where she is responsible of the research activities on the BAN and PAN networks.Dr. Cuomo is in the editorial board of the Elsevier Computer Networks journal and she has served on technical program committees and reviewer in several international conferences and journals including ACM Wireless Mobile Internet Workshop, IEEE ICC and GLOBECOM, IEEE Trans. on Wireless Communications and IEEE Journal on Selected Areas on Communications.Cristina Martello received her Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering (magna cum laude) in July 2000 from Università di Roma “La Sapienza”. She earned the PhD degree in Information and Communications Engineering in February 2004 (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”).Since January 2001 she has been working in the IST European HYPERLINK “/” “_blank” Whyless.com project on an open mobile access network based on the Ultra Wide Band radio technology. She collaborated with HYPERLINK “http://www.coritel.it/” “_blank” Co.Ri.Tel. (a research consortium on Telecommunications) as a fellowship holder in 2000/2001 for the project SWAP on the feasibility of a re-configurable software module for the dynamic Radio Resource Control in the 3G of mobile wireless systems, and in 2002 for the project PRESTO.Her main research interests regard the developing of flexible and distributed Radio Resource Control techniques for “ad-hoc like” networking paradigms.     

(UWB)<Superscript>2</Superscript>: Uncoordinated,Wireless, Baseborn Medium Access for UWB Communication Networks

A MAC protocol for Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio networks named (UWB)² is proposed. The algorithm exploits typical features of impulse radio such as large processing gain, and is conceived in conjunction with a synchronization strategy which foresees the presence of a synchronization sequence in each transmitted packet. (UWB)² adopts a pure Aloha approach; Performance analysis of the synchronization tracking mechanism showed in fact that under the preliminary simplistic hypothesis of an AWGN channel, and for a sufficient number of pulses in the synchronization sequence, a fairly high probability of successful synchronization can be achieved, even in the presence of several users and Multi User Interference (MUI). The multiple access scheme is based on the combination of a common control channel provided by a common Time Hopping (TH) code with dedicated data channels associated to transmitter specific TH codes.Results obtained by simulation indicate that (UWB)² can be successfully applied when the number of users spans from a few tens to about one hundred, for data rates ranging from a few thousands to a few hundreds of bits per second. Network throughput was above 99.8% in all considered simulation settings. Such achievement confirms that (UWB)² is a suitable and straightforward solution for large networks of terminals using impulse radio for transmission at low bit rates.On leave from the Institut für Elektro- und Informationstechnik, College of Engineering, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany.Maria-Gabriella Di Benedetto obtained her Ph.D. in Telecommunications in 1987 from the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy. In 1991, she joined the Faculty of Engineering of University of Rome La Sapienza, where currently she is a Full Professor of Telecommunications at the Infocom Department. She has held visiting positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Paris XI, France. In 1994, she received the Mac Kay Professorship award from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include speech analysis and synthesis, and digital communication systems. From 1995 to 2000, she directed four European projects for the design of UMTS. Since 2000 she has been active in fostering the development of Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio communications in Europe. Within the 5th framework, she directs for the Infocom Dept. two European projects (whyless.com and UCAN) aimed at the design and implementation of UWB ad-hoc networks. Within the 6th EU Framework her “Networking with UWB” research group participates in the PULSERS Integrated Project which will integrate UWB research and development in Europe for the next years, and in the LIAISON Integrated Project as regards the application of UWB to location-based services. She currently also participates in the HYCON network of excellence. Dr. Di Benedetto is co-editor for the IEEE JSAC Special Issue on UWB Radio in Multi-Access Wireless Communications (December 2002)and for the Journal of Communications and Networks Special Issue on Ultra-Wideband Communications (December 2003). Dr. Di Benedetto recently co-authored with Guerino Giancola a book on Ultra Wide Band from radio to the network, titled “Understanding Ultra Wide Band Radio Fundamentals” and published by Prentice Hall in May 2004.Luca De Nardis received his “Laurea” degree in telecommunications engineering from the University of Rome La Sapienza in 2001 with a thesis on wireless network topologies in the framework of the European project whyless.com. He is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Information and Communication Theory in the INFOCOM Department of the University of Rome. Since 2002, he has been participating in the European IST project UCAN, dealing with application of UWB radio to ad-hoc networking. Currently, he is involved in the 6th Framework European projects PULSERS and LIAISON. His research focuses on UWB technology, ad-hoc communication networks organization, Medium Access Control and routing protocols for wireless networks.Matthias Junk was born in Oberhausen, Germany, in 1978. From 1997 to 2004 he studied electrical engineering with main subject communications at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. In 2004 he received his diploma. During his diploma thesis at the University “La Sapienza” in Rome, Italy, he focused on synchronization problems in Ultrawideband Communication Networks.Guerino Giancola received the Laurea degree (magna cum laude) in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy, 2001, with a thesis on the analysis and the modelling of electromagnetic propagation in outdoor urban scenarios for mobile radio communications systems. Currently, he is working toward the Ph.D. degree in Information and Communication Theory in the INFOCOM Department of the University of Rome La Sapienza. His research interests include Ultra Wide Band radio technology, multi-carrier transmission techniques, and Medium Access Control protocols. From 2001 to 2002, he participated in a national research project financed by the Italian Ministry for University and Scientific-Technological Research (MURST), project PRIN2000: “OFDM Systems for Applications in the Wireless LANs.” Since 2002, he participates in two European Union research projects within the International Society Technologies program (IST): project No. IST-2001-32710: “Ultra-wideband Concepts for Ad-hoc Networks (UCAN)”, and project No. IST-2000-25197: “Whyless.com-The Open Mobile Access Networks.” From 2003, he also participates in the national research project financed by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MIUR), project FIRB: VICOM-Virtual Immersive COMmunications.     

Optimum path planning using convex hull and local search heuristic algorithms

Whether in improving quality or productivity the impact of mechatronic systems such as robots in industry is unquestionable. One aspect of interest in robotics is planning the optimum path for a mobile robot or the optimum trajectory for link movements of a stationary robot in order to increase their efficiency. However, for a given set of points complete enumeration of all the possible paths to establish an optimal one is not feasible as the search space increases exponentially (explodes combinatorially) as the number of points increases. This problem, traditionally known as the “Traveling Salesman Problem” (TSP) has attracted a great deal of attention for a long time. Proven enumerative techniques such as “nearest neighbour algorithm”, “branch and bound”, “cutting planes”, and “dynamic programming” as well as approximation methods such as “tabu search”, “greedy algorithm”, “simulated annealing” and “genetic algorithm”, have had only a limited success in solving this problem. Recently “convex hull”, a minimum area and perimeter shape, has been used as an initial sub-tour along with enumerative techniques such as minimising insertion costs to solve the TSP problem. We present a system which uses heuristic rules to augment the convex hull initial sub-tour created by the Graham scan algorithm. The system is able to provide a solution in a polynomial time.     

Can digital rights management be standardized?

With increasing use of the Internet as a content-distribution platform, mere interoperability of the codec is no longer sufficient if content owners are not prepared to distribute their content online for fear of piracy. Therefore, one also needs interoperability in the area of managing and protecting related intellectual property rights. To provide interoperability of digital rights management (DRM) systems to protect the content rather than the distribution channel, MPEG has embarked on developing intellectual property management and protection (IPMP) specifications targeted at the content itself that are natively built into its standards. It is the hope that such standards will allow for interoperability of content commerce systems, giving consumers more choice, while providing rights holders with the tools to effectively protect their assets and to develop complex and attractive business offering to tempt consumers. While it remains uncertain whether standardization is in fact the right vehicle to provide the e-content market with an impetus to grow, it appears that MPEG is working on a set of specifications with relatively good chances of helping to achieve this goal.     

Mobile phone ownership and usage among pre-adolescents

Research has revealed that the mobile phone is, for adolescents, a medium which permits communication without the surveillance of parents, families and teachers. Indeed, the current study found this to be the case with younger pupils, too. However, communicating with family members appeared just as important, if not more, for these primary aged children. This study focused on the ownership and usage of mobile phones in a sample (N=351) of 10- to 11-year-old children in Gloucestershire primary schools (N=7). Some 45% of the sample possessed mobile phones. Nearly half of their calls (47%) were used for chatting with family or friends; 26% were to let their parents know their whereabouts; and others (20%) were “convenience” calls, i.e. to ask to be picked up etc. Other uses of the mobile in addition to chatting and making arrangements, although not always positive, were also made apparent. Thus, some two fifths of the children reported that they had made an “emergency” call (examples were given), about 17% had received “frightening” calls. A sizeable minority (20%) reported that their mobile had been damaged or stolen. This research also considers the amount of money that the pupils claimed to spend on their mobile calls every month as well as their means of purchasing the mobile and its up-keep.     

TIRAMISU: A novel approach to content representation and key management for seamless super-distribution of protected media

Media delivery over heterogeneous networks requires both flexible representation and robust protection of content. This paper provides details on the framework for audiovisual content creation, delivery, consumption and protection as conceived within the IST project The Innovative Rights and Access Management Interplatform SolUtion. The proposed framework is based on the emerging MPEG-21 standard for multimedia content delivery and consumption and at the same time it complements it in several aspects, most notably by fully specifying a digital rights management (DRM) scheme. Central to the described framework is a novel key management system, relying on smartcards, which addresses many issues that previously blocked wider adoption of DRM: obtrusiveness of the DRM technology perceived by the end-user, flexibility in licence formulation and adequate level of trust as requested by content owners.     

Expert Operator's Associate: A knowledge-based system for spacecraft control

This paper presents the Expert Operator's Associate (EOA) project, which studies the applicability of Expert Systems to day-to-day space operations. A prototype Expert System is developed, which operates on-line with an existing spacecraft control system at the European Space Operations Centre, and functions as an “operator's assistant” in controlling satellites. The prototype is demonstrated using an existing real-time simulation model of the MARECS-B2 telecommunication satellite. By developing a prototype system, it is examined to what extent the reliability and effectiveness of operations can be enhanced by AI based support. In addition, the study examines the questions of acquisition and representation of the “knowledge” for such systems, and the feasibility of “migration” of some (currently) ground-based functions into future space-borne autonomous systems.     

Evaluation of D.U.V positive resist Shipley XP9493 for E-BEAM lithography

The purpose of this investigation is to demonstrate the capability of using D.U.V resist XP9493 from Shipley for E-BEAM applications. The mains parameters which have been checked are, a high resist sensitivity to get a lower exposure time coupled with a sub micron resolution and a sufficient process window. The softbake value which optimizes the dose (best throughput) to stability (process window) ratio is 100°C/60s. The Post Exposure Bake variation shows the Dose to clear (D0) to decrease when increasing the temperature, however “resist loss” becomes a problem over 125°C. The contrast is adequate for a E-beam application (γ9). The linearity measured on contacts is good in the range of 0.8μm to 2.0μm. The profile is adequate (i.e vertical) in a 1.4μm thick resist for a dose of 6μC/cm²; a higher dose would generate “uncontrolled size of contact”, a lower dose could generate “closed contacts”. The throughput earning should be 30% for the referenced implantation levels.

The resist XP9493 from SHIPLEY seems to be a good candidate for Implantation and Contact levels production application. This is the second Deep-UV positive resist tested from Shipley, on the AEBLE 150s (column 20kV), the first was the XP9402. The to-date results are the most promising ever obtained at ES2 with a positive tone resist for E-Beam applications.     

A hierarchical distributed control model for coordinating intelligent systems

This paper describes a hierarchical distributed control (HDC) model for coordinating cooperative problem-solving among intelligent systems. The model was implemented using SOCIAL^TM, an innovative object-oriented tool for integrating heterogeneous, distributed software systems. SOCIAL embeds applications in “wrapper” objects called Agents, which supply predefined capabilities for distributed communication, control, data specification and translation. The HDC model is realized in SOCIAL as a “Manager” Agent that coordinates interactions among application Agents. The HDC-Manager indexes the capabilities of application Agents; routes request messages to suitable server Agents; and stores results in a commonly accessible “bulletin board.” This centralized control model is illustrated in a fault-diagnosis application for launch operations support of the Space Shuttle fleet at the NASA Kennedy Space Center.     

Globalization and heterogenization: Cultural and civilizational clustering in telecommunicative space (1989–1999)

The globalization of telecommunicative ties between nations is studied from a heterogenization perspective. A theoretical model inspired by Appadurai’s “disjuncture hypothesis,” which stipulates that global flows of communication are multidimensional and reinforce regional/local identities, is tested empirically on an international voice traffic dataset. Spatial-statistical measures (global and local versions of Moran’s I) indicate that countries that share the same linguistic (English, Spanish, or French) or civilizational (Catholic, Protestant, and Buddhist–Hindu) background are more likely to be each other’s “telecommunicative neighbors” and that this tendency has increased over time (1989–1999).     

基于DRM的多媒体课件点播

数字版权保护是网络远程教育中多媒体课件点播必须解决的问题。通过对数字版权管理技术进行研究。设计实现的课件点播数字权限管理系统功能包括：多媒体课件加密、打包、用户权限设定、许可证产生和分发。     

Silicon stencil masks for masked ion beam lithography proximity printing

Silicon membranes with 2 μm to 6 μm thickness and ≈ 10×10 mm² mask field have been fabricated with the help of electrochemical etch stop techniques. The Si foil was coated with 0.3 μm thick PECVD Si₃N₄. Shaped electron beam lithography was done in ARCH (OCG) positive resist. RIE etching into the nitride layer was done with CHF₃/Ar/SF₆. Silicon trench etching was based on Cl₂/Ar/BCl₃ plasma chemistry implementing gas chopping. Ion beam proximity printing of the Silicon stencil mask structures was done with 55 keV Helium ions into 0.4 μm thick AZ PN114 negative resist using the Alpha ion projector of the Society for the Advancements of Microelectronics in Austria in the MIBL (Masked Ion Beam Lithography) mode. Pattern transfer of a mask feature of less than 100 nm diameter (25:1 aspect ratio in the stencil mask) could be demonstrated even for a mask to wafer gap of 1 mm. The prospects of fabricating large area (> 100×100 mm²) Silicon stencil masks for MIBL printing of gate levels for

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ystems (MEMS) is discussed.     

A fast pipelined multi-mode DES architecture operating in IP representation

The Data Encryption Standard (DES) is a cipher that is still used in a broad range of applications, from smartcards, where it is often implemented as a tamper-resistant embedded co-processor, to PCs, where it is implemented in software (for instance, to compute crypt(3) on UNIX platforms). To the authors’ knowledge, implementations of DES published so far are based on the straightforward application of the NIST standard. This article describes an innovative architecture that features a speed increase for both hardware and software implementations, compared to the state of the art. For example, the proposed architecture, at constant size, is about twice as fast as the state of the art for 3DES-CBC. The first contribution of this article is an hardware architecture that minimizes the computation time overhead caused by key and message loading. The second contribution is an optimal chaining of computations, typically required when “operation modes” are used. The optimization is made possible by a novel computation paradigm, called “IP representation”.     

Advanced plasma X-ray source using multi-reflecting optics: Recent results

In this paper, we described an x-ray lithography system composed with an advance high brightness metal plasma source (Z-pinch) producing about 10 J radiation per pulse and 10 mJ/cm² average x-ray power at 20 cm working distance, and an improved multi-reflecting x-ray lens with 79 mm focus distance and up to 30% transmittance having a modified construction by means of “whole body stretch” techniques. 0.3 μm resist patterns was successfully replicated in x-ray lithography.     

Implantable stimulator and recording device for artificial prosthesis control

This paper presents an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) consisting of both, a four-channel neural stimulator and a single-channel recording amplifier, along with their digital control and regulated voltage supplies. The ASIC has been designed to be compatible with different types of electrodes although the use of sieve electrodes was considered a priority. The main performances of this ASIC as stimulator are: fully programmability for several stimuli shapes (monophasic, biphasic, arbitrary amplitude/duration pairs for stimulation and recovery phases), wide frequency range (7 Hz to more than 350 Hz with 1 Hz resolution) and high-current range ( in two scales, with 6 bits resolution). Furthermore, any anode can be associated with any cathode, thus improving the spatial selectivity of some electrode types. From the recording viewpoint, the ASIC exhibits very low noise , high CMRR (94 dB) and digitally programmable gain and bandwidth. The overall digital control is designed to control up to 16 stimulation channels and four recording amplifiers using a regular and modular implementation for the analog parts which gives rise to higher ASIC performances with a small increase in area. The system has been integrated using high voltage CMOS technology. “In vitro” experimental results are also presented.     

Inelastic scattering effects on carrier relaxation in quantum well-based hot electron structures

We calculate the inelastic scattering rate of “hot” electrons injected into doped quantum well structures by including on an equal footing, both the electron-electron (Coulomb) and the electron-polar optical phonon (Fröhlich) interaction effects in the theory within the dynamical random-phase-approximation. Our theory includes in a consistent diagrammatic approximation effects of quantum statistics, dynamical screening and phonon renormalization (i.e. the so-called “plasmon-phonon coupling” effect). Our results, obtained for the two-dimensional, the quasi-two-dimensional and the three-dimensional models, are appropriate for a number of transport and optical experiments including ballistic hot-electron transport, resonant tunneling, femtosecond carrier relaxation, and, planar parallel transport.     

1994 America on display… American LCDs playing catch-up

With each sensational new development, the real life race for American dominance over Japan in next-generation flat panel displays is looking progressively more like a rough draft of a techno-thriller (with the likelihood of getting even rougher). The real life drama that is unfolding is not only exciting, it often seems less believable than fiction. In this episode of “America On Display,” we'll try to sort through what some of the leading characters have been up to lately, who they're working with (or against), and what the U.S. government and various “cooperative” catalysts are contributing to the chain of chaotic events.     

A Framework for MPEG‐4 Contents Delivery over DMB

Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) is an upcoming standard in Korea used to provide mobile multimedia broadcasting service based on the Eureka‐147 Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) system. The current dominant multimedia coding standard, MPEG‐4, is foreseen to play an important role in forthcoming DMB services. However, the current approaches for transporting MPEG‐4 content over DMB networks are not optimized. To address this issue we propose a novel MPEG‐4 stream multiplexer, called M4SMux, which provides better stream multiplexing and delivery over DMB networks. M4SMux features an MPEG‐4 elementary‐stream interleaving mechanism that reduces the multiplexing overhead and a multiplex configuration mechanism that utilizes M4SLinkTable for easy content access. In addition, we propose an error correction method which enhances transport efficiency.