CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research

Business in the World of Water

The book aims to: 1) clarify and enhance understanding by business of the key issues and drivers of change related to water; 2) promote mutual understanding between the business community and non-business stakeholders on water management issues; and 3) support effective business action as part of the solution to sustainable water management. The report poses three scenarios about the possible future of water in 2025 which serve as catalysts for exploration into how businesses can contribute to sustainable water management

Integrated stakeholder analysis for effective urban flood management in a medium-sized city in China: a case study of Zhuji, Zhejiang province

Over recent decades, the stakeholder arena for urban flood management has become well recognised as being complex and dynamic. Various stakeholders are involved before, during and after a flooding event, all of which have different interests and demands. Therefore, an initial stakeholder identification and analysis stage is required before detailed stakeholder engagement strategies can be developed and employed. Drawing on urban flood management in Zhuji, a typical medium-sized city that has suffered urban flooding in China, this research project used a mixed-method research methodology within a single case-study approach to explore the current stakeholder arena for urban flood management in a medium-sized Chinese city. By combining stakeholder salience analysis with social network analysis, this study tries to create a more nuanced insight into the stakeholder arena, so that stakeholder participation in urban flood management can be improved. This thesis produces several findings. First, it provides empirical evidence to show that traditional one-dimensional stakeholder analysis methods such as the level of interest and influence; cooperation and competition; cooperation and threat; and stakeholder interest and power cannot provide an in-depth understanding of a complex and dynamic stakeholder arena, as exists for urban flood management. By way of contrast, the proposed stakeholder analysis approach, which combines both stakeholder salience and network analyses, can create a multi-dimensional understanding of urban flood management stakeholders and allows the initial problem space to be recast into a more detailed or nuanced understanding of the problems presented. This improved understanding of the stakeholder arena and the related problem space provides a more solid information foundation upon which new stakeholder and community engagement practices can be developed. Second, this thesis argues that the Mitchell et al. (1997) salience model experiences limitations in practice. Only five of the seven salience groups were identified in the present research project, with both the Dangerous and Demanding stakeholder groups missing. This indicates that the identification of urban flood management stakeholders in a medium-sized Chinese city is highly dependent on their legitimate claims. Third, the social network analysis used in this project not only explores the relationships between stakeholders, but also provides an opportunity to present other one-dimensional stakeholder attitudes. This enhancement of the data beyond one-dimensional visual representations to dynamic and interactive processes not only better assists policy-makers in developing new and improved engagement practices, it also allows engagement practitioners to educate stakeholders and interactively improve understanding of the situation among those stakeholders. This understanding, in turn, is assumed to facilitate collaborative problem solving

Disconnected: Poverty, Water Supply and Development in Jakarta, Indonesia

human development, water, sanitation

The future of Cybersecurity in Italy: Strategic focus area

This volume has been created as a continuation of the previous one, with the aim of outlining a set of focus areas and actions that the Italian Nation research community considers essential. The book touches many aspects of cyber security, ranging from the definition of the infrastructure and controls needed to organize cyberdefence to the actions and technologies to be developed to be better protected, from the identification of the main technologies to be defended to the proposal of a set of horizontal actions for training, awareness raising, and risk management

Understanding city expansion into larger city-regions: the case of the Yangtze River delta

Global economic integration and urbanisation are two of the main processes which characterise contemporary globalisation. Urbanisation is so pervasive that urban landscapes now stretch far beyond the traditional city limits such that the city may no longer be the most appropriate unit to reflect how contemporary urban life is organised. Today, city-regions even mega city-regions are considered by some to be the primary spatial scale at which competing political and economic agendas are convened. Moreover, proponents of the new regionalism believe that decentralisation of state power is producing new forms of political economic regulation at supranational and subnational levels which are more appropriate for effective governance. However, it is argued that the geoeconomic logic for city-regionalism is focused too narrowly on the functional economic side of regional development, thereby overlooking how city-regions represent geopolitical constructions both of, and inside, the state. This thesis therefore aims to explore the constitutive role of politics in the construction of mega city-regions. The starting point is to complement North Atlantic accounts of city-regionalism by focusing on the geopolitics of city-regionalism in China. Using the Yangtze River Delta mega city-region as its case study, this thesis stresses that theories of new city-regionalism must increasingly be derived from, rather than applied to, the Chinese case. It is revealed how the unprecedented rate of city expansion, scale of urbanisation, and context of a highly centralised, one-party state, produces a distinctly Chinese city-regionalism that requires a combination of new conceptualisation, alongside refinement and modification of existing theories on mega city-regions

Contextual impacts on industrial processes brought by the digital transformation of manufacturing: a systematic review

The digital transformation of manufacturing (a phenomenon also known as "Industry 4.0" or "Smart Manufacturing") is finding a growing interest both at practitioner and academic levels, but is still in its infancy and needs deeper investigation. Even though current and potential advantages of digital manufacturing are remarkable, in terms of improved efficiency, sustainability, customization, and flexibility, only a limited number of companies has already developed ad hoc strategies necessary to achieve a superior performance. Through a systematic review, this study aims at assessing the current state of the art of the academic literature regarding the paradigm shift occurring in the manufacturing settings, in order to provide definitions as well as point out recurring patterns and gaps to be addressed by future research. For the literature search, the most representative keywords, strict criteria, and classification schemes based on authoritative reference studies were used. The final sample of 156 primary publications was analyzed through a systematic coding process to identify theoretical and methodological approaches, together with other significant elements. This analysis allowed a mapping of the literature based on clusters of critical themes to synthesize the developments of different research streams and provide the most representative picture of its current state. Research areas, insights, and gaps resulting from this analysis contributed to create a schematic research agenda, which clearly indicates the space for future evolutions of the state of knowledge in this field

Urban Policies and the Right to the City: Rights, responsibilities and citizenship

The purpose of the joint research project Urban Policies and the Right to the City: Rights, Responsibilities and Citizenship, launched by UNESCO with UN-HABITAT in March 2005, is to contribute to meeting the MDGs and reducing poverty by identifying good practices and initiatives in law and urban planning that strengthen rights and responsibilities, interfaith tolerance, and the participation of women, young people and migrants in urban management