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Multipath routing holds a great potential to provide sufficient bandwidth to a plethora of applications in wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we consider the problem of interference that can significantly affect the expected performances. We focus on the performance evaluation of the iterative paths discovery approach as opposed to the traditional concurrent multipath routing. Five different variants of multipath protocols are simulated and evaluated using different performance metrics. We mainly show that the iterative approach allows better performances when used jointly with an interference-aware metric or when an interference-zone marking strategy is employed. This latter appears to exhibit the best performances in terms of success ratio, achieved throughput, control messages overhead as well as energy consumption.

Strategies for teaching engineering in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been evolving over the past decades due to innovations in technology, as well as the development of educational methodologies. In the recent past, the focus for engineering faculty has been not only on promoting the skills needed to raise the level of employability of Emirati graduates, but increasingly on new educational methodologies, e-learning and wireless networked laptop technology. Students in the UAE exhibit certain characteristics emerging from a variety of cultural and historical traditions, as well as from methodologies of education used at the pre-tertiary levels. These characteristics include expecting to be passive recipients of taught information, and lack of independence in their approach to problem solving. In this paper I discuss the development of strategies to facilitate the transition of students from passive to active learning; examine the role of technology-driven educational methodologies in promoting independent and group-centered learning skills; and use a case study to explore the instruction of Engineering Design and Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and to examine how classroom management techniques have changed as a result of the growing use of technology.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the legal issues of simultaneous Internet transmission of broadcasting programs of the Open University of Japan (OUJ) and to take legal measures to promote the mutual utilization of open university courses in Japan, the UK, China and Korea.

The author examines the legal relationship regarding Internet simultaneous distribution of broadcast courses at the OUJ. The author then considers the legal relationship between the UK, China and South Korea regarding the simultaneous transmission of broadcast courses over the internet. Based on that consideration, this paper clarifies legal measures to promote its utilization.

Internet transmission of broadcasting courses will be webcasting. Arguably, it can be assumed to be streaming and on-demand, albeit controversial. Webcasting will be publicly transmitted, but there is only an on-demand provision for Internet transmission. As webcasting is streaming and on-demand, it involves reproduction of broadcasting courses. Therefore, webcasting needs to provide streaming provision for public transmission rights and associate them with reproduction right.

The originality of this paper lies in clarifying the legal response of the object, subject and rights of webcasting from the perspective of the OUJ, in order to dispel legal problems that may arise in the future against this unexplored phenomenon. Additionally, this paper is valuable in that it presents legal consistency from the point of view of the comparative laws of Japan, the UK, China and South Korea, based on an examination of the legal response in Japan.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a highly miniaturized wireless inertial sensor system based on a novel 3D packaging technique using a flexible printed circuit (FPC). The device is very suitable for wearable applications in which small size and lightweight are required such as body area network, medical, sports and entertainment applications.

Modern wireless inertial measurement units are typically implemented on a rigid 2D printed circuit board (PCB). The design concept presented here is based around the use of a novel planar, six‐faceted, crucifix or cross‐shaped FPC instead of a rigid PCB. A number of specific functional blocks (such as microelectromechanical systems gyroscope and accelerometer sensors, microcontroller (MCU), radio transceiver, antenna, etc.) are first assigned to each of the six faces which are each 1 cm² in area. The FPC cross is then developed into a 1 cm³, 3D configuration by folding the cross at each of five bend planes. The result is a low‐volume and lightweight, 1 cm³ wireless inertial sensor that can sense and send motion sensed data wirelessly to a base station. The wireless sensor device has been designed for low power operation both at the hardware and software levels. At the base station side, a radio receiver is connected to another MCU unit, which sends received data to a personal computer (PC) and graphical user interface. The industrial, scientific and medical band (2.45 GHz) is used to achieve half duplex communication between the two sides.

A complete wireless sensor system has been realized in a 3D cube form factor using an FPC. The packaging technique employed during the work is shown to be efficient in fabricating the final cubic system and resulted in a significant saving in the final size and weight of the system. A number of design issues are identified regarding the use of FPC for implementing the 3D structure and the chosen solutions are shown to be successful in dealing with these issues.

Currently, a limitation of the system is the need for an external battery to power the sensor system. A second phase of development would be required to investigate the possibility of the integration of a battery and charging system within the cube structure. In addition, the use of flexible substrate imposes a number of restrictions in terms of the ease of manufacturability of the final system due to the requirement of the required folding step.

The small size and weight of the developed system is found to be extremely useful in different deployments. It would be useful to further explore the system performance in different application scenarios such as wearable motion tracking applications. In terms of manufacturability, component placement needs to be carefully considered, ensuring that there is sufficient distance between the components, bend planes and board edges and this leads to a slightly reduced usable area on the printed circuit.

This paper provides a novel and useful method for realizing a wireless inertial sensor system in a 3D package. The value of the chosen approach is that a significant reduction in the required system volume is achieved. In particular, a 78.5 per cent saving in volume is obtained in decreasing the module size from a 25 to a 15 mm³ size.