Powered knee prosthesis commonly improves locomotion of above-knee amputees by generating net positive mechanical work at the knee joint which is especially required for movements with active knee extension and flexion such as sit-to-stand maneuvers, level-ground walking with various walking speed, stair/slope ascent ambulation and so forth. These studies tend to refer and trace normal human locomotion, and have amputees move “normally”, which is quite difficult for patients with severe disability such as four-limb deficiency. In this study, a powered knee prosthesis with small-scale, light-weight and affordable series elastic actuator (PKP-SEA) is developed and adopted to a walking rehabilitation of a patient with four-limb deficiency. A subject is 45 years old and has no experience to walk on prosthetic devices in his life. During the experiment, walking performance is investigated by turning PKP-SEA control parameters. As a result, the PKP-SEA shows capability of improving his walking performance in terms of walking speed and consistency not by replicating normal human walking, but suggesting an original walking gait based on his body condition and remaining functionality.

Networking and software design principles converge currently under the notions of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). This means that network services are not anymore static and manually configured, but they become flexible and in the end virtualized components. This convergence enables to dynamically orchestrate the network, to move network functions to the cloud and to direct and prioritize traffic intelligently. Applying cloud principles to network services, configuration and management requires mechanisms for automation, virtualization and elasticity. Ultimately, network services may improve the customer experience for the end users requiring on-demand network resources. The Cross-Layer Orchestrator (CLO) presented in this paper, establishes a tie between the Application and the Network Layers. Through the proposed Cross Layer API, the CLO provides an interface for client and server side applications to reserve, alter and release network resources. Our solution makes the network more dynamic by extending the orchestration functionalities not only to provide on-demand provisioning of network services, but also network flows. In this way the network should be able to adapt accordingly to the requirements of the applications.

In a multi-network environment, users can receive services via several networks, protocols, and connected devices. These services are usually bound to their specific technology and often limited to a dedicated service provider domain. We are developing a platform overcoming these limitations by enabling information sharing beyond the boundaries of network technologies and services. In this paper, we propose a service architecture for the interaction of users/personas and services in a converged Internet and Telecom service space on top of multiple access networks. This is achieved by convergence of multiple separated communication channels on service layer in an IP Multimedia Subsystem based Telecom environment. We design a service platform enabling and controlling information flow across networks and services.