A Smartphone-Based System for Outdoor Data Gathering Using a Wireless Beacon Network and GPS Data: From Cyber Spaces to Senseable Spaces

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and mobile devices are deeply influencing all facets of life, directly affecting the way people experience space and time. ICTs are also tools for supporting urban development, and they have also been adopted as equipment for furnishing public spaces. Hence, ICTs have created a new paradigm of hybrid space that can be defined as Senseable Spaces. Even if there are relevant cases where the adoption of ICT has made the use of public open spaces more “smart”, the interrelation and the recognition of added value need to be further developed. This is one of the motivations for the research presented in this paper. The main goal of the work reported here is the deployment of a system composed of three different connected elements (a real-world infrastructure, a data gathering system, and a data processing and analysis platform) for analysis of human behavior in the open space of Cardeto Park, in Ancona, Italy. For this purpose, and because of the complexity of this task, several actions have been carried out: the deployment of a complete real-world infrastructure in Cardeto Park, the implementation of an ad-hoc smartphone application for the gathering of participants’ data, and the development of a data pre-processing and analysis system for dealing with all the gathered data. A detailed description of these three aspects and the way in which they are connected to create a unique system is the main focus of this paper.This work has been supported by the Cost Action TU1306, called CYBERPARKS: Fostering knowledge about the relationship between Information and Communication Technologies and Public Spaces supported by strategies to improve their use and attractiveness, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the ESPHIA project (ref. TIN2014-56042-JIN) and the TARSIUS project (ref. TIN2015-71564-C4-4-R), and the Basque Country Department of Education under the BLUE project (ref. PI-2016-0010). The authors would also like to thank the staff of UbiSive s.r.l. for the support in developing the application

How Design Plays Strategic Roles in Internet Service Innovation: Lessons from Korean Companies

In order to survive in the highly competitive internet business, companies have to provide differentiated services that can satisfy the rapidly changing users’ tastes and needs. Designers have been increasingly committed to achieving user satisfaction by generating and visualizing innovative solutions in new internet service development. The roles of internet service design have expanded from a narrow focus on aesthetics into a more strategic aspect. This paper investigates the methods of managing design in order to enhance companies’ competitiveness in internet business. The main research processes are to: (1) explore the current state of internet service design in Korea through in-depth interviews with professional designers and survey questionnaires to 30 digital design agencies and 60 clients; (2) compare how design is managed between in-house design groups and digital design agencies though the case studies of five Korean companies; and (3) develop a taxonomy characterizing four roles of designers in conjunction with the levels of their strategic contributions to internet service innovation: visualist, solution provider, concept generator, and service initiator. In addition, we demonstrate the growing contributions of the strategic use of design for innovating internet services, building robust brand equity, and increasing business performance. Keywords: Design Management; Internet Business; Internet Service Design; Digital Design; Digital Design Agency; In-House Design Group, Case Study</p

Distributed workload control for federated service discovery

The diffusion of the internet paradigm in each aspect of human life continuously fosters the widespread of new technologies and related services. In the Future Internet scenario, where 5G telecommunication facilities will interact with the internet of things world, analyzing in real time big amounts of data to feed a potential infinite set of services belonging to different administrative domains, the role of a federated service discovery will become crucial. In this paper the authors propose a distributed workload control algorithm to handle efficiently the service discovery requests, with the aim of minimizing the overall latencies experienced by the requesting user agents. The authors propose an algorithm based on the Wardrop equilibrium, which is a gametheoretical concept, applied to the federated service discovery domain. The proposed solution has been implemented and its performance has been assessed adopting different network topologies and metrics. An open source simulation environment has been created allowing other researchers to test the proposed solution

Teenpower: an integrated architecture for an mHealth platform designed for e-Empowering teenagers to prevent obesity: a showcase of the TeenPower platform

2018 IEEE 20th International Conference on e-Health Networking, Applications and Services (Healthcom)Adolescents, reportedly, easily adopt a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy behaviors. Furthermore, the use of smartphones, especially in this age group, is made on a daily basis. In this context, the TeenPower Project includes an mHealth platform integrated in an intervention programme to engage teenagers to embrace more healthier lifestyle behaviors. This paper describes the technical aspects of the development and implementation of the software applications that compose the TeenPower Platform. The platform consists of two applications: a mobile app (Android) to be used by adolescents, mainly for self-monitoring and educational purposes; and the backoffice (web) application to be used by teachers and health professionals. Both applications are integrated and work through a web service (REST-based) API, which allows them to exchange data seamlessly, keep all related contents updated and enhance communication between adolescents and health professionals.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mobile Platform of SRF Production and Electricity and Heat Generation

Abstract The technological frontier is ripe for action on the cycle of municipal waste at local level through the optimization of existing treatment processes, adapting to European Union directives. The study concerns the analysis of the waste cycle in order to rationalize the current paths of the waste by adapting to EU directives, with a view of the entire supply chain - from the delivery to the energy production (WtE, Waste to Energy) – with a intermediate stage of SRF (Solid Recovered Fuel) production. The DIMA has developed an innovative platform for MSW treatment (unsorted and not), based on newly developed technologies that enables its weight and volume reduction and the transformation in SRF high quality, by achieving consistent chemical-physical and particle size parameters through the innovative technology of mechanochemical micronization. This standardized fuel product is therefore suitable for energy recovery within the platform using the most advanced gasification process. The study aims at developing a mobile demonstration plant of 100-200 kWe for energy recovery from waste in cogeneration by conversion of MSW into SRF through a system of characterization, treatment and recycling based on a highly innovative mechanochemical refining system. The SRF is enhanced through more advanced gasification process and it can used for the production of electricity and thermal energy. The production, the gasification and the syngas combustion take place in modular units arranged in appropriate mobile units (containers) appropriately configured, to fully meet the objectives of a sustainable policy management and security of waste. b Unit 1 (waste treater - SRF producer) is developed to operate the transformation of industrial waste in SRF for subsequent gasification inside unit 2 (Boiler Gasifier). It carries out a pre-treatment and mechanochemical micronization waste treatment. The SRF is reduced into pellets to be introduced into the 2 (boiler gasifier) to its gasification (syngas production). The pellet (auxiliary unit 4, pellettizer) is gasified in the unit 2 and enriched in order to obtain synmethan gas for producing electricity in the cogeneration unit 3 (energies production)

CoMMA Corporate Memory Management through Agents Corporate Memory Management through Agents: The CoMMA project final report

This document is the final report of the CoMMA project. It gives an overview of the different search activities that have been achieved through the project. First, a description of the general requirements is proposed through the definition of two scenarios. Then it shows the different technical aspects of the projects and the solution that has been proposed and implemented

An application to enrich the study of auditory emotion recognition

The ability to recognize emotions in spoken words is central in human communication and social relationships. When studying one's ability to perceive emotions, the standard paradigm is to have listeners choose which one of several emotion words best characterizes linguistically neutral utterances made by actors attempting to portray various emotional states. Usually, generic experiment control software are used, which may present several limitations. In this paper we present a novel approach to the problem, based on a mobile application that can be easily configured by the researcher to set up the desired protocol. This approach not only facilitates and improves study design and data collection, but also provides a plethora of new variables about the participants that, to the best of our knowledge, have never been considered before in this domain, including behavioural research.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia under projects UID/CEC/00319/2013 and PTDC/MHN-PCN/3606/2012.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Volume 34, Number 1, March 2014 OLAC Newsletter

Digitized March 2014 issue of the OLAC Newsletter