Privacy preserving and cost optimal mobile crowdsensing using smart contracts on blockchain

The popularity and applicability of mobile crowdsensing applications are continuously increasing due to the widespread of mobile devices and their sensing and processing capabilities. However, we need to offer appropriate incentives to the mobile users who contribute their resources and preserve their privacy. Blockchain technologies enable semi-anonymous multi-party interactions and can be utilized in crowdsensing applications to maintain the privacy of the mobile users while ensuring first-rate crowdsensed data. In this work, we propose to use blockchain technologies and smart contracts to orchestrate the interactions between mobile crowdsensing providers and mobile users for the case of spatial crowdsensing, where mobile users need to be at specific locations to perform the tasks. Smart contracts, by operating as processes that are executed on the blockchain, are used to preserve users’ privacy and make payments. Furthermore, for the assignment of the crowdsensing tasks to the mobile users, we design a truthful, cost-optimal auction that minimizes the payments from the crowdsensing providers to the mobile users. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed privacy preserving auction outperforms state-of-the-art proposals regarding cost by ten times for high numbers of mobile users and tasks. © 2018 IEEE.Peer reviewe

Sustainable product development strategies: Business planning and performance implications

Copyright © 2012 by Institution of Mechanical Engineers. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Manufacturing firms are under many financial and competitive pressures which focus attention on the performance of their manufacturing processes. In this paper the opportunities for improving the environmental impact of products within the constraints of existing manufacturing infrastructure are examined. Approaches which support sustainability in two aspects are proposed, firstly, the provision of products to the users in ways which extend the product life and secondly, manufacturing approaches which reduce resource usage. This paper outlines three different sustainable development strategies for different product types and describes the cost implications for manufacturers across the life-cycle. The performance measures affected by these strategies are examined drawing on product development case studies from a number of high technology sectors to highlight the different approaches taken. The results are intended to aid manufacturers during the earliest stages of business planning to consider alternative product development approaches which are more sustainable

New Forms of Employment

Societal and economic developments, such as the need for increased flexibility by both employers and workers, have resulted in the emergence of new forms of employment across Europe. These have transformed the traditional one-to-one relationship between employer and employee. They are also characterised by unconventional work patterns and places of work, or by the irregular provision of work. However, little is known about these ‘new forms of employment’, their distinctive features and the implications they have for working conditions and the labour market. To fill this knowledge gap, Eurofound conducted a Europe-wide mapping exercise to identify the emerging trends. This resulted in the categorisation of nine broad types of new employment forms. On the basis of this, the available literature and data were analysed; 66 case studies were also conducted and analysed to illustrate how these new employment forms operate in Member States and their effects on working conditions and the labour market

Primitives for Contract-based Synchronization

We investigate how contracts can be used to regulate the interaction between processes. To do that, we study a variant of the concurrent constraints calculus presented in [1], featuring primitives for multi-party synchronization via contracts. We proceed in two directions. First, we exploit our primitives to model some contract-based interactions. Then, we discuss how several models for concurrency can be expressed through our primitives. In particular, we encode the pi-calculus and graph rewriting.Comment: In Proceedings ICE 2010, arXiv:1010.530

An Analysis Tool for Models of Virtualized Systems

This paper gives an example-driven introduction to modelling and analyzing virtualized systems in, e.g., cloud computing, using virtually timed ambients, a process algebra developed to study timing aspects of resource management for (nested) virtual machines. The calculus supports nested virtualization and virtual machines compete with other processes for the resources of their host environment. Resource provisioning in virtually timed ambients extends the capabilities of mobile ambients to model the dynamic creation, migration, and destruction of virtual machines. Quality of service properties for virtually timed ambients can be formally expressed using modal contracts describing aspects of resource provisioning and verified using a model checker for virtually timed ambients, implemented in the rewriting system Maude

Collective bargaining centralisation against all odds? The Italian telecommunications industry after market liberalization

The widespread trends towards markets liberalisation, decline in trade union power, and flexible work organization were expected to push collective bargaining institutions to converge to a decentralised bargaining structure. This crude version of the neoliberal convergence thesis, however, was not borne out. Instead, change in employment relations has been more nuanced than initially thought. This paper explores the conditions under which centralisation of bargaining is possible, even in a more competitive environment with pressures for greater flexibility. It draws on case study evidence from the Italian telecommunications industry, tracing back the process of liberalisation since the early 1990s. It is shown how the strategies and the coalitions between organised labour, business and the state explain in large part this path of institutional change