The Internet of Things (IoT) has become an important research topic in the last decade, where things refer to interconnected machines and objects with embedded computing capabilities employed to extend the Internet to many application domains. While research and development continue for general IoT devices, there are many application domains where very tiny, concealable, and non-intrusive Things are needed. The properties of recently studied nanomaterials, such as graphene, have inspired the concept of Internet of NanoThings (IoNT), based on the interconnection of nanoscale devices. Despite being an enabler for many applications, the artificial nature of IoNT devices can be detrimental where the deployment of NanoThings could result in unwanted effects on health or pollution. The novel paradigm of the Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT) is introduced in this paper by stemming from synthetic biology and nanotechnology tools that allow the engineering of biological embedded computing devices. Based on biological cells, and their functionalities in the biochemical domain, Bio-NanoThings promise to enable applications such as intra-body sensing and actuation networks, and environmental control of toxic agents and pollution. The IoBNT stands as a paradigm-shifting concept for communication and network engineering, where novel challenges are faced to develop efficient and safe techniques for the exchange of information, interaction, and networking within the biochemical domain, while enabling an interface to the electrical domain of the Internet.

Fifth-generation (5G) telecommunication systems are expected to meet the world market demands of accessing and delivering services anywhere and anytime. The Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) systems are able to satisfy the requests of anywhere and anytime connections by offering wide-area coverage and ensuring service availability, continuity, and scalability. In this work, we review the 3GPP NTN features and their potential for satisfying the user expectations in 5G & beyond networks. The state of the art, current 3GPP research activities, and open issues are summarized to highlight the importance of NTN over the wireless communication landscape. Future research directions are also identified to assess the role of NTN in 5G and beyond systems.

Today, digitalization decisively penetrates all the sides of the modern society. One of the key enablers to maintain this process secure is authentication. It covers many different areas of a hyper-connected world, including online payments, communications, access right management, etc. This work sheds light on the evolution of authentication systems towards Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) starting from Single-Factor Authentication (SFA) and through Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). Particularly, MFA is expected to be utilized for human-to-everything interactions by enabling fast, user-friendly, and reliable authentication when accessing a service. This paper surveys the already available and emerging sensors (factor providers) that allow for authenticating a user with the system directly or by involving the cloud. The corresponding challenges from the user as well as the service provider perspective are also reviewed. The MFA system based on reversed Lagrange polynomial within Shamir’s Secret Sharing (SSS) scheme is further proposed to enable more flexible authentication. This solution covers the cases of authenticating the user even if some of the factors are mismatched or absent. Our framework allows for qualifying the missing factors by authenticating the user without disclosing sensitive biometric data to the verification entity. Finally, a vision of the future trends in MFA is discussed.

The fifth generation wireless systems are expected to rely on a large number of small cells to massively offload traffic from the cellular and even from the wireless local area networks. To enable this functionality, mm-wave (EHF) and Terahertz (THF) bands are being actively explored. These bands are characterized by unique propagation properties compared with microwave systems. As a result, the interference structure in these systems could be principally different to what we observed so far at lower frequencies. In this paper, using the tools of stochastic geometry, we study the systems operating in the EHF/THF bands by explicitly capturing three phenomena inherent for these frequencies: (1) high directivity of the transmit and receive antennas;( 2) molecular absorption; and (3) blocking of high-frequency radiation. We also define and compare two different antenna radiation pattern models. The metrics of interest are the mean interference and the signal-to-interference-plus-noise (SINR) ratio at the receiver. Our results reveal that: (1) for the same total emitted energy by a Poisson field of interferers, both the interference and SINR significantly increase when simultaneously both transmit and receive antennas are directive and (2) blocking has a profound impact on the interference and SINR creating much more favorable conditions for communications compared with no blocking case.

This paper provides a multi-disciplinary overview of the research issues and achievements in the field of Big Data and its visualization techniques and tools. The main aim is to summarize challenges in visualization methods for existing Big Data, as well as to offer novel solutions for issues related to the current state of Big Data Visualization. This paper provides a classification of existing data types, analytical methods, visualization techniques and tools, with a particular emphasis placed on surveying the evolution of visualization methodology over the past years. Based on the results, we reveal disadvantages of existing visualization methods. Despite the technological development of the modern world, human involvement (interaction), judgment and logical thinking are necessary while working with Big Data. Therefore, the role of human perceptional limitations involving large amounts of information is evaluated. Based on the results, a non-traditional approach is proposed: we discuss how the capabilities of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality could be applied to the field of Big Data Visualization. We discuss the promising utility of Mixed Reality technology integration with applications in Big Data Visualization. Placing the most essential data in the central area of the human visual field in Mixed Reality would allow one to obtain the presented information in a short period of time without significant data losses due to human perceptual issues. Furthermore, we discuss the impacts of new technologies, such as Virtual Reality displays and Augmented Reality helmets on the Big Data visualization as well as to the classification of the main challenges of integrating the technology.

This article addresses the market-changing phenomenon of the Internet of Things (IoT), which relies on the underlying paradigm of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications to integrate a plethora of various sensors, actuators, and smart meters across a wide spectrum of businesses. Today the M2M landscape features an extreme diversity of available connectivity solutions which, due to the enormous economic promise of the IoT, need to be harmonized across multiple industries. To this end, we comprehensively review the most prominent existing and novel M2M radio technologies, as well as share our first-hand real-world deployment experiences, with the goal to provide a unified insight into enabling M2M architectures, unique technology features, expected performance, and related standardization developments. We pay particular attention to the cellular M2M sector employing 3GPP LTE technology. This work is a systematic recollection of our many recent research, industrial, entrepreneurial, and standardization efforts within the contemporary M2M ecosystem.