Global cities: Global parks: Globalizing of digital leisure networks.

This paper proposes to understand the globalizing of online Social Network Sites (SNS) through the spatial metaphor of global parks. It builds upon a commonly accepted ideation of the city as socially-constructed and that which has been harnessed to understand the spatiality of the Internet. Over the decades we have learnt to conceptualize the Internet with the aid of metaphors, including that of the city to grasp its intricate information highways, networks and connectivity, the underlying logic that dictates movement within these spaces and nodes of concentrated social action. By equating the Internet to the city, we are compelled to extend our imagination by applying our understandings of urban planning and geography to current vital conversations on the shaping of Internet spaces. The persistence of this parallel has matured our thinking significantly from the utopic notion of the web as a frontier of limitless and depoliticized space to a more architected and socio-economic phenomenon of a propertied and contextual digital place. Given that the city has been a useful analogy for the Internet to confront its directionality and political intent in design and usage, this paper takes this parallel further, delving into a segment of the Internet that is currently in the midst of tremendous speculation- that of Social Network Sites (SNS) and its seemingly open, democratic, social and inclusive nature. If we narrow our attention to a domain of the city that is imbued with a similar rhetoric of being open, social and leisurely

Activating Values to Enhance e-Participation in Environmental Decision-making

A participatory modeling approach is designed to connect citizens and decision-makers during the selection of the most appropriate alternative solution to an environmental project based on user values systems. First, a novel approach to supporting values-based decision-making is proposed in which values activation is prompted using visual feedback and interactive modules in a software program. Next, the design parameters for a prototype software program called P2P-DSS are presented. P2P-DSS is designed in the style of an online survey, with the added capacity to activate values and provide a shared online space connecting individuals with a survey builder. In this thesis, P2P-DSS is proposed, designed, and then applied to a real-world example in environmental project evaluation. A formal decision-maker with a professional role in the evaluation of an aggregate mining application used P2P-DSS to build a model of the decision from their own perspective. Fifteen volunteers then used P2P-DSS to learn about the issue, provide their individual input in the form of ranked preferences for potential outcomes, and examine the role that values play in their own assessment of the project and the perspective of the model builder. P2P-DSS records every interaction with the software program and participants completed a post-task survey to assess aspects of the system’s performance from their perspective. By analyzing both revealed and stated preferences from the formal decision-maker and public participants, the capacity for the P2P-DSS technique to translate some of the known benefits of values-based thinking into a participatory online platform is indicated. This thesis then addresses the challenge of translating data collected from individuals into collective preference rankings that are useful for decision-makers. With reference to the aggregate mining example, participant input is aggregated using a Modified Borda Count technique. Thus, while values activation is facilitated in this study on an individual basis, the resulting input can be analyzed as group utilities, the possible implications of this information are examined in depth. Finally, a novel data set emerges from this research with implications for decision-making, communications, and conflict management. That is, a model builder calibrates a model by connecting specific values with option choices. Participants can then register a ‘values protest’ by using interactive software tools in P2P-DSS to challenge the values connections calibrated by the model builder. Values protests have implications for the preferences input by the participant and are stored by P2P-DSS as a data point. Next, analysis is conducted to isolate potential points of conflict based on emergent patterns in those protests. This new dataset reveals aspects of the decision context for which different groups do not have a shared understanding of how their decision-making is driven by their underlying values. Gaining insight into the roots of values-based conflicts can be useful for conflict prediction and management, strategic decision-making, and the fine tuning of communications by stakeholder groups. This dissertation examines the boundaries and opportunities for values-based participatory modeling. Specifically, through the design and testing of P2P-DSS this work operationalizes the theory of values activation, thereby expanding the reach of values-based decision-making in online settings. Moreover, by testing protocols to aggregate values-based preferences collected at the individual level into group utility rankings, the P2P-DSS approach is prepared to make contributions for group decision-making. Finally, a new type of data, values protests, is generated and discussed, demonstrating how it can be harnessed to understand and contribute to the management of values conflicts in issues of public interest. Finally, while presenting a novel approach to environmental research, this work also demonstrates that some of the perceived limitations of values research, that are discussed in this thesis, deserve reassessment, as the interactive capacity of software programs opens new avenues to expand the reach of values-based decision-making

Information Foraging Theory as a Unifying Foundation for Software Engineering Research : Connecting the Dots

Empirical studies have shown that programmers spend up to one-third of their time navigating through code during debugging. Although researchers have conducted empirical studies to understand programmers’ navigation difficulties and developed tools to address those difficulties, the resulting findings tend to be loosely connected to each other. To address this gap, we propose using theory to “connect the dots” between software engineering (SE) research findings. Our theory of choice is Information Foraging Theory (IFT) which explains and predicts how people seek information in an environment. Thus, it is well-suited as a unifying foundation because navigating code is a fundamental aspect of software engineering. In this dissertation, we investigated IFT’s suitability as a unifying foundation for SE through a combination of tool building and empirical user studies of programmers debugging. Our contributions show how IFT can help to unify SE research via cross-cutting insights spanning multiple software engineering subdisciplines

Next Generation Internet of Things – Distributed Intelligence at the Edge and Human-Machine Interactions

This book provides an overview of the next generation Internet of Things (IoT), ranging from research, innovation, development priorities, to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone in a series covering the activities of the Internet of Things European Research Cluster (IERC), including research, technological innovation, validation, and deployment.The following chapters build on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT–EPI), the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme and the IoT European Security and Privacy Projects, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the next generation of IoT research, innovation, development, and deployment.The IoT and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are evolving towards the next generation of Tactile IoT/IIoT, bringing together hyperconnectivity (5G and beyond), edge computing, Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), virtual/ andaugmented reality (VR/AR), and artificial intelligence (AI) transformation.Following the wider adoption of consumer IoT, the next generation of IoT/IIoT innovation for business is driven by industries, addressing interoperability issues and providing new end-to-end security solutions to face continuous treats.The advances of AI technology in vision, speech recognition, natural language processing and dialog are enabling the development of end-to-end intelligent systems encapsulating multiple technologies, delivering services in real-time using limited resources. These developments are focusing on designing and delivering embedded and hierarchical AI solutions in IoT/IIoT, edge computing, using distributed architectures, DLTs platforms and distributed end-to-end security, which provide real-time decisions using less data and computational resources, while accessing each type of resource in a way that enhances the accuracy and performance of models in the various IoT/IIoT applications.The convergence and combination of IoT, AI and other related technologies to derive insights, decisions and revenue from sensor data provide new business models and sources of monetization. Meanwhile, scalable, IoT-enabled applications have become part of larger business objectives, enabling digital transformation with a focus on new services and applications.Serving the next generation of Tactile IoT/IIoT real-time use cases over 5G and Network Slicing technology is essential for consumer and industrial applications and support reducing operational costs, increasing efficiency and leveraging additional capabilities for real-time autonomous systems.New IoT distributed architectures, combined with system-level architectures for edge/fog computing, are evolving IoT platforms, including AI and DLTs, with embedded intelligence into the hyperconnectivity infrastructure.The next generation of IoT/IIoT technologies are highly transformational, enabling innovation at scale, and autonomous decision-making in various application domains such as healthcare, smart homes, smart buildings, smart cities, energy, agriculture, transportation and autonomous vehicles, the military, logistics and supply chain, retail and wholesale, manufacturing, mining and oil and gas

The ecology of organizational forms in local and regional food systems: exploring the scaling-up challenge via a species concept

Includes vita.Over the past 30 years, Western nations have developed alternative systems for exchanging agrofood products which incorporate social values into the transactional environment. These systems are comprised of many different exchange relationships, structured to transmit information about social values and attach credence attributes to the products. New organizational forms, institutions, and networks arise to achieve the values demanded by the underlying social movement. One movement centers on the social value of a commitment to place. It seeks to create relocalized and socially embedded means of exchange. Policy initiatives have responded, making investments in local and regional food systems. The primary challenge faced by these initiatives: how to increase the of scale while maintaining the value premiums associated with the movement's objectives. I view these complex networks as ecologies and seek to understand how different organizational forms interact to scale-up LRFSs. I make three crucial developments: (1) a framework to define LRFSs; (2) a model on the metaphysics of social objects and their kinds; and (3) an Organizational Species Concept to consistently identify organizational forms. Together these developments enable an ecological approach by providing a means of identifying distinct organizational populations. I apply my OSC to the case of food hubs – coordinating intermediaries identified as a key for increased scale. This yields six "species". I find that each fills a different functional role and contributes differently to scaling-up LRFSs. I highlight how this is helpful for targeted policymaking.Includes bibliographical references (pages 286-301

Next Generation Internet of Things – Distributed Intelligence at the Edge and Human-Machine Interactions

This book provides an overview of the next generation Internet of Things (IoT), ranging from research, innovation, development priorities, to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone in a series covering the activities of the Internet of Things European Research Cluster (IERC), including research, technological innovation, validation, and deployment.The following chapters build on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT–EPI), the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme and the IoT European Security and Privacy Projects, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the next generation of IoT research, innovation, development, and deployment.The IoT and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are evolving towards the next generation of Tactile IoT/IIoT, bringing together hyperconnectivity (5G and beyond), edge computing, Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), virtual/ andaugmented reality (VR/AR), and artificial intelligence (AI) transformation.Following the wider adoption of consumer IoT, the next generation of IoT/IIoT innovation for business is driven by industries, addressing interoperability issues and providing new end-to-end security solutions to face continuous treats.The advances of AI technology in vision, speech recognition, natural language processing and dialog are enabling the development of end-to-end intelligent systems encapsulating multiple technologies, delivering services in real-time using limited resources. These developments are focusing on designing and delivering embedded and hierarchical AI solutions in IoT/IIoT, edge computing, using distributed architectures, DLTs platforms and distributed end-to-end security, which provide real-time decisions using less data and computational resources, while accessing each type of resource in a way that enhances the accuracy and performance of models in the various IoT/IIoT applications.The convergence and combination of IoT, AI and other related technologies to derive insights, decisions and revenue from sensor data provide new business models and sources of monetization. Meanwhile, scalable, IoT-enabled applications have become part of larger business objectives, enabling digital transformation with a focus on new services and applications.Serving the next generation of Tactile IoT/IIoT real-time use cases over 5G and Network Slicing technology is essential for consumer and industrial applications and support reducing operational costs, increasing efficiency and leveraging additional capabilities for real-time autonomous systems.New IoT distributed architectures, combined with system-level architectures for edge/fog computing, are evolving IoT platforms, including AI and DLTs, with embedded intelligence into the hyperconnectivity infrastructure.The next generation of IoT/IIoT technologies are highly transformational, enabling innovation at scale, and autonomous decision-making in various application domains such as healthcare, smart homes, smart buildings, smart cities, energy, agriculture, transportation and autonomous vehicles, the military, logistics and supply chain, retail and wholesale, manufacturing, mining and oil and gas

Efficiency and Automation in Threat Analysis of Software Systems

Context: Security is a growing concern in many organizations. Industries developing software systems plan for security early-on to minimize expensive code refactorings after deployment. In the design phase, teams of experts routinely analyze the system architecture and design to find potential security threats and flaws. After the system is implemented, the source code is often inspected to determine its compliance with the intended functionalities. Objective: The goal of this thesis is to improve on the performance of security design analysis techniques (in the design and implementation phases) and support practitioners with automation and tool support.Method: We conducted empirical studies for building an in-depth understanding of existing threat analysis techniques (Systematic Literature Review, controlled experiments). We also conducted empirical case studies with industrial participants to validate our attempt at improving the performance of one technique. Further, we validated our proposal for automating the inspection of security design flaws by organizing workshops with participants (under controlled conditions) and subsequent performance analysis. Finally, we relied on a series of experimental evaluations for assessing the quality of the proposed approach for automating security compliance checks. Findings: We found that the eSTRIDE approach can help focus the analysis and produce twice as many high-priority threats in the same time frame. We also found that reasoning about security in an automated fashion requires extending the existing notations with more precise security information. In a formal setting, minimal model extensions for doing so include security contracts for system nodes handling sensitive information. The formally-based analysis can to some extent provide completeness guarantees. For a graph-based detection of flaws, minimal required model extensions include data types and security solutions. In such a setting, the automated analysis can help in reducing the number of overlooked security flaws. Finally, we suggested to define a correspondence mapping between the design model elements and implemented constructs. We found that such a mapping is a key enabler for automatically checking the security compliance of the implemented system with the intended design. The key for achieving this is two-fold. First, a heuristics-based search is paramount to limit the manual effort that is required to define the mapping. Second, it is important to analyze implemented data flows and compare them to the data flows stipulated by the design

30th International Conference on Condition Monitoring and Diagnostic Engineering Management (COMADEM 2017)

Proceedings of COMADEM 201