An IoT-based solution for monitoring a fleet of educational buildings focusing on energy efficiency

Raising awareness among young people and changing their behaviour and habits concerning energy usage iskey to achieving sustained energy saving. Additionally, young people are very sensitive to environmental protection so raising awareness among children is much easier than with any other group of citizens. This work examinesways to create an innovative Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) ecosystem (including web-based, mobile, social and sensing elements) tailored specifically for school environments, taking into account both theusers (faculty, staff, students, parents) and school buildings, thus motivating and supporting young citizenś behavioural change to achieve greater energy efficiency. A mixture of open-source IoT hardware and proprietary platforms on the infrastructure level, are currently being utilized for monitoring a fleet of 18 educational buildings across 3 countries, comprising over 700 IoT monitoring points. Hereon presented is the system's high-level architecture, as well as several aspects of its implementation, related to the application domain of educational building monitoring and energy efficiency. The system is developed based on open-source technologies andservices in order to make it capable of providing open IT-infrastructure and support from different commercial hardware/sensor vendors as well as open-source solutions. The system presented can be used to develop and offer newapp-based solutions that can be used either for educational purposes or for managing the energy efficiency ofthebuilding. The system is replicable and adaptable to settings that may be different than the scenarios envisionedhere (e.g., targeting different climate zones), different IT infrastructures and can be easily extended to accommodate integration with other systems. The overall performance of the system is evaluated in real-world environment in terms of scalability, responsiveness and simplicity

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Internet of Things Meets Robotics: A Survey of Cloud-based Robots

This work presents a survey of existing literature on the fusion of the Internet of Things (IoT) with robotics and explores the integration of these technologies for the development of the Internet of Robotics Things (IoRT). The survey focuses on the applications of IoRT in healthcare and agriculture, while also addressing key concerns regarding the adoption of IoT and robotics. Additionally, an online survey was conducted to examine how companies utilize IoT technology in their organizations. The findings highlight the benefits of IoT in improving customer experience, reducing costs, and accelerating product development. However, concerns regarding unauthorized access, data breaches, and privacy need to be addressed for successful IoT deployment

The Digital Economy: Social Interaction Technologies – an Overview

Social interaction technologies (SIT) is a very broad field that encompasses a large list of topics: interactive and networked computing, mobile social services and the Social Web, social software and social media, marketing and advertising, various aspects and uses of blogs and podcasting, corporate value and web-based collaboration, e-government and online democracy, virtual volunteering, different aspects and uses of folksonomies, tagging and the social semantic cloud of tags, blog-based knowledge management systems, systems of online learning, with their ePortfolios, blogs and wikis in education and journalism, legal issues and social interaction technology, dataveillance and online fraud, neogeography, social software usability, social software in libraries and nonprofit organizations, and broadband visual communication technology for enhancing social interaction. The fact is that the daily activities of many businesses are being socialized, as is the case with Yammer (https://www.yammer.com/), the social enterprise social network. The leitmotivs of social software are: create, connect, contribute, and collaborate

Safety-centric and Smart Outdoor Workplace: A New Research Direction and Its Technical Challenges

Despite the fact that outside is becoming the frontier of indoor workplaces, a large amount of real-world work like road construction has to be done by outdoor human activities in open areas. Given the promise of the smart workplace in various aspects including productivity and safety, we decided to employ smart workplace technologies for a collaborative outdoor project both to improve the work efficiency and to reduce the worker injuries. Nevertheless, our trials on smart workplace implementation have encountered a few problems ranging from the theoretical confusion among different stakeholders, to the technical difficulties in extending underground devices' lifespan. This triggers our rethinking of and discussions about "smart workplace". Eventually, considering the unique characteristics of outdoor work (e.g., more sophisticated workflows and more safety-related situations than office work), we argue that "safety-centric and smart outdoor workplace" deserves dedicated research attentions and efforts under the umbrella discipline of smart environment. In addition, the identified technical challenges can in turn drive different research dimensions of such a distinguishing topic.Comment: 14 page

TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS AND THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON THE SUPPLY CHAIN

The supply chain has undergone a significant and innovative transformation in recent years with the introduction of new intelligent and digital technologies aimed at streamlining various supply chain activities from demand forecasting, manufacturing of goods, inventory management, and transport planning to delivery to customers. The digitisation of the transport and shipping industry incorporates advanced technologies such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and big data. These digital innovations are streamlining routes, forecasting demand, tracking shipments, and above all reacting quickly to changes, resulting in overall supply chain efficiency. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the issues that highlight the birth and construction of this transformation, as well as identifying the technological tools impacting the supply chain, in order to analyse the real impact of digitalisation on the development of relative supply chain strategies JEL: L91, O33, L23, C88, M11, L81  Article visualizations

Proporcionar experiencias de aprendizaje ubicuo mediante la combinación de Internet de las Cosas y los estándares de e-Learning

[ES]Actualmente, el aprendizaje está teniendo lugar con mayor frecuencia en cualquier lugar y en cualquier momento. Esto implica que los ambientes del aprendizaje electrónico se expandan desde los entornos de aprendizaje solo virtuales a entornos que implican espacios físicos. Gracias a la evolución de Internet, las TIC (Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación) y a la Internet de las Cosas, se pueden experimentar nuevos escenarios de aprendizaje por parte de los estudiantes, ya sea individualmente o en colaboración. Estos escenarios de aprendizaje ubicuos, permiten compaginar tanto ambientes virtuales como ambientes físicos. Por tanto, estas experiencias se caracterizan por las interacciones posibles del estudiante con el entorno físico, la detección de los datos contextuales, y también la adaptación de las estrategias pedagógicas y de los servicios según el contexto. Este artículo pretende aprovechar esta tendencia y sustentarla en las normas existentes de aprendizaje electrónico como IMS LD y LOM. La solución propuesta es extender los modelos de normas de aprendizaje electrónico como IMS LD y LOM para soportar Internet de las Cosas y para aportar un enfoque de adaptación de las actividades de aprendizaje según el contexto del estudiante y su huella digital utilizando la API eXperience. En este contexto y con el fin de permitir las capacidades de razonamiento y la interoperabilidad entre los modelos propuestos se proponen representaciones ontológicas y una implementación de la solución. Además, se plantea una arquitectura técnica que resalta los componentes de software necesarios y sus interacciones. Y, por último, se implementa y se evalúa un escenario de aprendizaje ubicuo

An Overview of the Potential for Blockchain Technology to Improve Cybersecurity

The purpose of this short research commentary is to provide a focused, semi-deep dive into the effort the industry places on cybersecurity defense and operations and the potential to integrate blockchain technology. As cybersecurity threats and incidents continue to rise, better procedures and strategies to protect our organizations’ data and systems are crucial to sustaining viable operations. Given that blockchain technology can potentially disrupt other industries (Moore, 2020), it is imperative to examine how it may improve our cybersecurity

IoT-enabled Building Automation Systems: Challenges, Opportunities, and Case Studies in Energy Efficiency and user comfort

The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology into building automation systems (BAS) has ushered in a new era of smart buildings, revolutionizing the way we design, manage, and inhabit built environments. This abstract provides a comprehensive exploration of IoT-enabled BAS, focusing on the challenges, opportunities, and case studies that shape their role in driving energy efficiency and enhancing user comfort. IoT-enabled BAS face numerous challenges that must be addressed to realize their full potential. These challenges include interoperability issues stemming from the diversity of IoT devices and protocols, concerns regarding data security and privacy, the scalability of IoT deployments to encompass large buildings or portfolios, the inherent complexity of IoT ecosystems, and the upfront costs associated with deployment and maintenance. Despite challenges, IoT-enabled BAS present significant opportunities for improving building performance and occupant well-being. By leveraging real-time data analytics, predictive algorithms, and automated controls, these systems can optimize energy use, personalize occupant comfort preferences, enable remote monitoring and management, facilitate predictive maintenance strategies, and contribute to sustainability goals through efficient resource utilization