A P2P middleware design for digital access nodes in marginalised rural areas

This thesis addresses software design within the field of Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICTD). Specifically, it makes a case for the design and development of software which is custom-made for the context of marginalised rural areas (MRAs). One of the main aims of any ICTD project is sustainability and such sustainability is particularly difficult in MRAs because of the high costs of projects located there. Most literature on ICTD projects focuses on other factors, such as management, regulations, social and community issues when discussing this issue. Technical matters are often down-played or ignored entirely. This thesis argues that MRAs exhibit unique technical characteristics and that by understanding these characteristics, one can possibly design more cost-effective software. One specific characteristic is described and addressed in this thesis – a characteristic we describe here for the first time and call a network island. Further analysis of the literature generates a picture of a distributed network of access nodes (DANs) within such network islands, which are connected by high speed networks and are able to share resources and stimulate usage of technology by offering a wide range of services. This thesis attempts to design a fitting middleware platform for such a context, which would achieve the following aims: i) allow software developers to create solutions for the context more efficiently (correctly, rapidly); ii) stimulate product managers and business owners to create innovative software products more easily (cost-effectively). A given in the context of this thesis is that the software should use free/libre open source software (FLOSS) – good arguments do also exist for the use of FLOSS. A review of useful FLOSS frameworks is undertaken and several of these are examined in an applied part of the thesis, to see how useful they may be. They form the basis for a walking skeleton implementation of the proposed middleware. The Spring framework is the basis for experiments, along with Spring-Webservices, JMX and PHP 5’s web service capabilities. This thesis builds on three years of work at the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), an experimental testbed in a MRA in the Mbashe district of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Several existing products are deployed at the SLL in the fields of eCommerce, eGovernment and eLearning. Requirements specifications are engineered from a variety of sources, including interviews, mailing lists, the author’s experience as a supervisor at the SLL, and a review of the existing SLL products. Future products are also investigated, as the thesis considers current trends in ICTD. Use cases are also derived and listed. Most of the use cases are concerned with management functions of DANs that can be automated, so that operators of DANs can focus on their core business and not on technology. Using the UML Components methodology, the thesis then proceeds to design a middleware component architecture that is derived from the requirements specification. The process proceeds step-by-step, so that the reader can follow how business rules, operations and interfaces are derived from the use cases. Ultimately, the business rules, interfaces and operations are related to business logic, system interfaces and operations that are situated in specific components. The components in turn are derived from the business information model, that is derived from the business concepts that were initially used to describe the context for the requirements engineering. In this way, a logical method for software design is applied to the problem domain to methodically derive a software design for a middleware solution. The thesis tests the design by considering possible weaknesses in the design. The network aspect is tested by interpolating from formal assumptions about the nature of the context. The data access layer is also identified as a possible bottleneck. We suggest the use of fast indexing methods instead of relational databases to maintain flexibility and efficiency of the data layer. Lessons learned from the exercise are discussed, within the context of the author’s experience in software development teams, as well as in ICTD projects. This synthesis of information leads to warnings about the psychology of middleware development. We note that the ICTD domain is a particularly difficult one with regards to software development as business requirements are not usually clearly formulated and developers do not have the requisite domain knowledge. In conclusion, the core arguments of the thesis are recounted in a bullet form, to lay bare the reasoning behind this work. Novel aspects of the work are also highlighted. They include the description of a network island, and aspects of the DAN middleware requirements engineering and design. Future steps for work based on this thesis are mapped out and open problems relating to this research are touched upon

Mapping the evolution of e-commerce research through co-word analysis : 2001–2020

This current study examines how research themes and trends have developed in the e-commerce field, aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding of e-commerce research based on prior literature. To answer this question, the current study applied a bibliometric method, word co-occurrence (co-word) analysis, to identify core research themes and trends in the e-commerce field, based on 17,416 author-provided keywords collected from 3,284 academic articles published between 2001 and 2020 in seven major journals in e-commerce field. Specifically, the data were analyzed based on two periods: 2001–2010 and 2011–2020. We found that the research themes in the e-commerce field have evolved alongside technology's development and diffusion. Some research themes, such as recommended system and eGovernment, have persisted as important research themes and studied continuously over the 20 years studied. Some research themes studied in 2001–2010, such as B2C and XML, disappeared in 2011–2020, whereas some new research topics, such as cloud computing, mobile technologies, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, emerged in recent years. This study provides a good understanding of e-commerce research's evolution, as well as useful suggestions to direct future research by scholars in the e-commerce field.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Blockchain in Education

This report introduces the fundamental principles of the Blockchain focusing on its potential for the education sector. It explains how this technology may both disrupt institutional norms and empower learners. It proposes eight scenarios for the application of the Blockchain in an education context, based on the current state of technology development and deployment.JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employmen

Advancing IoT Platforms Interoperability

The IoT European Platforms Initiative (IoT-EPI) projects are addressing the topic of Internet of Things and Platforms for Connected Smart Objects and aim to deliver an IoT extended into a web of platforms for connected devices and objects that supports smart environments, businesses, services and persons with dynamic and adaptive configuration capabilities. The specific areas of focus of the research activities are architectures and semantic interoperability, which reliably cover multiple use cases. The goal is to deliver dynamically-configured infrastructure and integration platforms for connected smart objects covering multiple technologies and multiple intelligent artefacts. The IoT-EPI ecosystem has been created with the objective of increasing the impact of the IoT-related European research and innovation, including seven European promising projects on IoT platforms: AGILE, BIG IoT, INTER-IoT, VICINITY, SymbIoTe, bIoTope, and TagItSmart.This white paper provides an insight regarding interoperability in the IoT platforms and ecosystems created and used by IoT-EPI. The scope of this document covers the interoperability aspects, challenges and approaches that cope with interoperability in the current existing IoT platforms and presents some insights regarding the future of interoperability in this context. It presents possible solutions, and a possible IoT interoperability platform architecture

ESIIG2

331 p. , Il, Tablas, Gráficos.Libro ElectrónicoESIIG2 - The Second European Summit on Interoperability in the iGovernment, represents an unprecedented occasion to develop new synergies and create contacts with representatives of the European Commission, of the national and regional governments of Europe, of the research field, the Academia and experts of the ICT sector. Mrs Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission for Information Society and Media gave her official patronage to the Second European Summit of Interoperability in the iGovernment, ESIIG2. Event with the patronage CISIS (Italian Interregional Centre of Information and Statistic Systems) The European Commission initiative i2010, through the DG Information and Media Society offered its support to ESIIG2.ForewordXI ESIIG 3 What is ESIIG2? 3 Commissioner Reding message 4 ESIIG 2 Co - hosted events5 The Programme 6 ESIIG2 Supporters8 The Regional Ministry for consumer protection and administrative simplification13 The Technical and Scientific Committee15 Structure of the Technical and Scientific Committee15 What does the Committee do?15 Important and innovative initiatives of ESIIG 219 Publication of the Call for Papers Results23 T-Seniority: E-inclusion and Interoperability25 Alejandro Echeverria Security and Privacy Preserving Data in E-Government Integration31 Claudio Biancalana, Francesco Saverio Profiti Proposal for Interoperability Between Public Universities39 Correcher E, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain A Cross-Application Reference Model to Support Interoperability 53 Elena Baralis, Tania Cerquitelli, Silvana Raffa Table of Contents VII Applying Soa to Mobile Secure eGovernment Services The Sweb Approach65 Silke Cuno, Yuri Glickman, Petra Hoepner, Linda Strick An Identity Metasystem Approach to Improve Eid Interoperability and Assure Privacy Compliance 74 Andrea Valboni Towards Interoperable Infrastructures of Geospatial Data 86 Sergio Farruggia, Emanuele Roccatagliata Modernization and Administrative Simplification Master Plan for the Local Councils of the Region of Murcia 101 Leandro Marín Muñoz, Pedro Olivares Sánchez, Isabel Belmonte Martínez Organizational Interoperability and Organizing for Interoperability in eGovernment109 Ralf Cimander, Herbert Kubicek The National Interoperability Framework: a New Regulatory Tool to Guarantee Interoperability Among Spanish Public Administrations 123 Agustí Cerrillo The Realization of the Greek E-Gif 131 Andreas Papadakis, Kostas Rantos, Antonis Stasis Build Government Interoperability Through Open Standard Technology 141 Goodwin Ting, Anne Rasanen, Marco Pappalardo Towards an Intercultural Representation of Mediterranean Intangible Cultural Heritage (Ich) An Xml Interoperability Framework for Regional Ich Databases 154 Jesse Marsh, Francesco Passantino Castile and Leon, a Model of Interoperability 168 Isabel Alonso Sánchez, José Ignacio de Uribe Ladrón de Cegama, Antonio Francisco Pérez Fernández, Jorge Ordás Alonso The Catalan Interoperability Model182 Ignasi Albors Identity and Residence Verification Data System189 Nimia Rodríguez Escolar, Jose A Eusamio Mazagatos From Extended Enterprise to Extended Government: Regione Lazio Interoperability and Egovernment Point of View 199 Claudio Biancalana, Dante Chiroli, Claudio Pisu, Francesco Saverio Profiti, Fabio Raimondi Contribution by the Members of the Technical and Scientific Committee 215 Interoperability and Egovernment Through Adoption of Standards 215 Flavia Marzano A Brief Compendium on Interoperability in Egovernment 224 Michele M Missikoff Table of Contents VIII Spc – The Italian Interoperabilty Framework with Services241 Francesco Tortorelli, Roberto Baldoni Exploitation of Digital Contents for the Public Administration 254 Giulio De Petra, Fabrizio Gianneschi, Giaime Ginesu Deploying the full transformational power of egovernment – collaboration and interoperability –270 Sylvia Archmann, Just Castillo Iglesias ICAR Report: Interoperability and Cooperation between applications among Italian Regions (English summary)278 CISIS - Central Staff of ICAR Project List of the finalists of the iG20 Award 297 IG20 AWARDS: Eucaris, the European car and driving licence information system297 INNOVATIVNESS: Interopcyl299 TRANSFERABILITY: Semic, Semantic Interoperability Center Europe301 IMPACT: Employment/unemployment status management: actual interoperability through the CO eService303 PRACTICAL RESULTS: Emilia Romagna Labour Information System 305 The ESIIG2 Summit results: the creation of ERNI and the Interoperability Declaration of Rome 309 The Interoperability Declaration of Rome 311 Follow the new and interesting developments of Esiig2 31

Public services provided with ICT in the smart city environment: the case of spanish cities

Social, technological and economic changes, citizen demand of services modernization, new ICT developments related to the Internet of Things and an economic situation that urges more efficient public administrations, have allowed the adoption of ICT by municipalities in order to provide public services. All the foregoing constitutes a boost of the smart city concept, which is considered in the scientific literature mainly from a technical point of view, overlooking deeper analysis on the specific services being provided by means of smart technologies. The current research identifies services provided using smart technologies at 26 Spanish smart cities and the degree of smart development of those cities based on which services provide. The results highlight that the services most widely implemented are those that allow direct reductions in local administration expenditure. On the other hand, the remaining services enjoy greater perspectives of future development. Additionally, three groups of smart city development have been identified, which allows benchmarking analysis and enhances the exchange of information between the cities

Advancing IoT Platforms Interoperability

The IoT European Platforms Initiative (IoT-EPI) projects are addressing the topic of Internet of Things and Platforms for Connected Smart Objects and aim to deliver an IoT extended into a web of platforms for connected devices and objects that supports smart environments, businesses, services and persons with dynamic and adaptive configuration capabilities. The specific areas of focus of the research activities are architectures and semantic interoperability, which reliably cover multiple use cases. The goal is to deliver dynamically-configured infrastructure and integration platforms for connected smart objects covering multiple technologies and multiple intelligent artefacts. The IoT-EPI ecosystem has been created with the objective of increasing the impact of the IoT-related European research and innovation, including seven European promising projects on IoT platforms: AGILE, BIG IoT, INTER-IoT, VICINITY, SymbIoTe, bIoTope, and TagItSmart.This white paper provides an insight regarding interoperability in the IoT platforms and ecosystems created and used by IoT-EPI. The scope of this document covers the interoperability aspects, challenges and approaches that cope with interoperability in the current existing IoT platforms and presents some insights regarding the future of interoperability in this context. It presents possible solutions, and a possible IoT interoperability platform architecture

Methodology for enterprise interoperability assessment

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresWith the evolution of modern enterprises and the increasing market competitiveness, the creation of ecosystems with large amounts of data and knowledge generally needing to be exchanged electronically, is arising. However, this enterprise inter and intra-connectivity is suffering from interoperability issues. Not visible when it is effective, the lack of interoperability poses a series of challenging problems to the industrial community, which can reduce the envisaged efficiency and increase costs. Those problems are mostly caused by misinterpretations of data at the systems level, but problems at the organizational and human levels may pose equivalent difficulties. Existing research and technology provides several frameworks to assist the development of collaborative environments and enterprise networks with well-defined methods to facilitate interoperability. Nonetheless, the interoperability process is not guaranteed and is not easily sustainable, changing upon frequent market and requirement variations. For these reasons, there is a need for a testing methodology to assess the capability of enterprises to cooperate at a certain point in time. This dissertation proposes a methodology to assess that capability, with a corresponding framework to evaluate the interoperability process, applying eliminatory tests to assess the structure of the organizations, the conceptual models and their implementation. This work contributes to increase the chances enterprises have of interoperating effectively, and enables the adoption of extraordinary measures to improve their current interoperability situation