Assessing Malaysian crowdsourcing platforms using web of system performance (WOSP) model

Crowdsourcing allows organizations and individuals to tap into a large pool of people to accomplish tasks. Recent growth in crowdsourcing has triggered Malaysia to venture into crowdsourcing initiatives. This study intends to assess the performance of crowdsourcing platforms in Malaysia using the Web of System Performance (WOSP) model.The results give insights on the current state of crowdsourcing platforms in Malaysia and highlight the gaps that exist in these platforms. This eventually help to enhance the design of current platforms and promote higher uptake of crowdsourcing among Malaysians

PERSPECTIVES ON THE PROSUMER ROLE IN THE SUSTAINABLE ENERGY SYSTEM

Climate change and the ever-growing demand for energy are pushing us to find new ways to manage energy production, distribution, and consumption. This energy transition is enabled, for example, by the digitalization, decentralization, and democratization of the energy system. The energy system is already transitioning from fossil-fuel and large power-plant–based generation toward a flexible system based on renewable energy sources. Traditional transmission grids are being replaced by smart grids enabled by digitalization that facilitate bi-directional flows of information and energy. At the consumption end, smart energy meters, energy monitoring devices and applications, and renewable energy technologies such as solar photovoltaic and battery storages empower energy consumers to evolve into prosumers: the producers and consumers of energy. These prosumers, also referred to as active consumers and energy citizens, are envisioned to play an important role in the sustainable energy system in the future. While the energy prosumer role has gained more research attention during the past few years, plenty of gaps in completely understanding energy prosumerism still remain. This research focuses on studying the prosumer role in the sustainable energy system. I study the enablers and activities of energy prosumers and explore how the growing number of prosumers may influence the socio-technical energy transition. The research presents two main perspectives on prosumerism; it explores both the micro and macro-level influences on the energy prosumers. The main research fields of this study are sustainability transitions, innovation studies, and policy. Based on theory and literature review, a novel research framework synthesizing the theoretical concepts and earlier research related to prosumers is introduced. From the methodology viewpoint, a pragmatic research approach and mixed methods are used to explore the enablers for prosumerism as well as prosumer activities and their impact on the ongoing energy transition. The research results are displayed in the form of six articles published in international peer-reviewed journals and conferences. The first two articles make propositions about the prosumer role as part of the changing socio-technical energy and innovation system. The next two articles focus on understanding the micro-level impact on the energy prosumers and examine the producer–consumer, in particular, as a co-developer of energy-related innovations. The remaining two articles address the impact of macro-level policies on prosumers. Overall, this research contributes to the understanding of the energy prosumer role in the future sustainable energy system. Theoretical contributions are related to the novel research framework that combines the concepts from the socio-technical multi-level perspective, innovation studies, and policy research as well as offers a more pragmatic framework for inquiry in the context of the changing energy system to observe the prosumer role therein. A specific theoretical contribution is made to the technology acceptance model that is tested in the context of external policy influence. Furthermore, the research contributes to innovation studies and especially to the field of user-centric innovations by bringing new results for understanding the factors behind end users’ collaboration interests. Practical contributions of the study are related to the understanding of the micro-foundations of prosumer interests toward innovation co-creation activities. Practitioners benefit from evidence concerning the differences between consumers and prosumers, which may help them in designing products and services for these different categories. This improved understanding is necessary, for example, to accelerate the diffusion of renewable energy technologies that is crucial for the sustainability transition. Policy- makers may benefit from the findings related to the policy analysis that combines and compares different prosumer activities with policy mixes and calls for a more holistic and systemic approach for the development of the prosumer related policies. While prosumer research has increased during the past decade, many future research avenues for the topic exist. For example, more research on prosumer role as part of the sustainability transition can help in designing better policies as well as products and services for consumers and prosumers. Moreover, systemic activities, such as those related to the integration of electric vehicle smart charging into the power system combined with other prosumer activities, offer opportunities for researchers. Furthermore, research concerning novel prosumer-centric business models, for instance related to energy communities, is needed to accelerate the diffusion of sustainable technology solutions. -- Ilmastomuutos ja kasvava energian kysyntä ajavat meidät etsimään uusia tapoja hallita energian tuotantoa, jakelua ja kulutusta. Energiajärjestelmä onkin jo siirtymässä fossiilisten polttoaineiden ja suurten voimalaitosten tuotannosta uusiutuviin energialähteisiin perustuvaan joustavaan järjestelmään. Sähköverkot on transformoitu digitalisoinnin mahdollistamana älykkäiksi Smart Grid -verkoiksi, jotka pystyvät siirtämään sekä energiaa että dataa molempiin suuntiin tuotannon ja kulutuksen välillä. Kulutuspäässä älykkäät energiamittarit, seurantalaitteet ja - sovellukset sekä uusiutuvien energialähteiden teknologiat, kuten aurinkosähkö ja akkuvarasto, antavat energiankuluttajille mahdollisuuden kehittyä prosumereiksi eli energian tuottaja-kuluttajiksi (engl. prosumer = producer-consumer). Prosumereilla, joihin viitataan myös nimillä ”aktiivinen kuluttaja” ja “energiakansalainen”, on tulevaisuudessa tärkeä rooli kestävässä energiajärjestelmässä. Vaikka prosumerit ovat saaneet lisää huomiota tutkimuksessa viime vuosina, energia prosumerismin ymmärtämisessä on vielä paljon aukkoja. Tämä tutkimus keskittyy selvittämään prosumerien roolia osana kestävää energiajärjestelmää ja sen murrosta. Tutkin prosumereihin liittyviä mahdollistajia, prosumerien toimintaa osana energiajärjestelmää sekä vaikutuksia kestävän kehityksen energiamurrokseen. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan monialainen, yhdistäen innovaatiotutkimusta, transitiotutkimusta ja myös jossain määrin politiikantutkimusta. Tässä pragmaattisessa tutkimuksessa käytetään sekä kvantitatiivisia että laadullisia tutkimusmetodeja. Tutkimuksen tulokset esitetään liitteenä olevien kuuden vertaisarvioidun konferenssi ja -journaaliartikkelin avulla. Ensimmäiset kaksi artikkelia esittävät propositioita prosumerin roolista osana muuttuvaa sosio-teknistä energia- ja innovaatiopelikenttää. Seuraavat kaksi artikkelia keskittyvät ymmärtämään mikrotason vaikutusta näihin toimijoihin ja tutkivat erityisesti energiaan liittyvien innovaatioiden yhteiskehittämistä. Lopuksi kaksi artikkelia käsittelevät makrotason politiikkatoimien vaikutusta prosumereihin. Tutkimuksen pääkontribuutio on ymmärryksen lisääminen kuluttajan muuttuvasta roolista osana energiajärjestelmää. Teoriakontribuutiot kytkeytyvät uusiin tapoihin yhdistää keskeisiä teorioita kestävän kehityksen transitiotutkimuksesta, innovaatiotutkimuksesta sekä politiikan tutkimuksesta. Käytännön elämään vaikuttavat kontribuutiot liittyvät empiirisiin tutkimustuloksiin esimerkiksi tavallisten kuluttajien ja prosumereiden eroista. Tietämyksen lisääminen auttaa teknologia- ja palveluyrityksiä suunnittelemaan tuotteita ja palveluita, jotka sopivat erilaisiin tarpeisiin, joka voi edelleen auttaa nopeuttamaan uusiutuvaan energiaan liittyvien innovaatioiden leviämistä ja siten edistää kestävää kehitystä. Prosumer -tutkimuksessa on edelleen paljon tilaa uudelle tieteenharjoitukselle. Esimerkiksi energiayhteisöt ovat yleistymässä ja tutkimus niiden roolista osana energiajärjestelmää on vasta käynnistynyt. Tutkimalla energiayhteisöjä pystytään lisäämään ymmärrystä niiden vaikutuksesta esimerkiksi sähköverkkoon ja lainsäädäntöön. Toisaalta myös yksittäisten aktiviteettien ja ajureiden tutkimuksessa on vielä paljon mahdollisuuksia. Esimerkiksi systeemiset ja integroidut ratkaisut, kuten sähköautojen käyttäminen osana kysyntäjoustoa, tarjoavat hyviä tutkimusaiheita. Lisäksi erityisesti uudet liiketoimintamallit liittyen prosumereihin ja energiayhteisöihin kaipaavat selkeyttämistä ja kokeiluja sekä regulaation muunnoksia

Selected Papers from the 5th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications

This Special Issue comprises selected papers from the proceedings of the 5th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications, held on 15–30 November 2018, on sciforum.net, an online platform for hosting scholarly e-conferences and discussion groups. In this 5th edition of the electronic conference, contributors were invited to provide papers and presentations from the field of sensors and applications at large, resulting in a wide variety of excellent submissions and topic areas. Papers which attracted the most interest on the web or that provided a particularly innovative contribution were selected for publication in this collection. These peer-reviewed papers are published with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications. We hope this conference series will grow rapidly in the future and become recognized as a new way and venue by which to (electronically) present new developments related to the field of sensors and their applications

A real time urban sustainability assessment framework for the smart city paradigm

Cities have proven to be a great source of concerns on their impact on the world environment and ecosystem. The objective, in a context where environmental concerns are growing rapidly, is no longer to develop liveable cities but to develop sustainable and responsive cities. This study investigates the currently available urban sustainability assessment (USA) schemes and outlines the main issues that the field is facing. After an extensive literature review, the author advocates for a scheme that would dynamically capture urban areas sustainability insights during their operation, a more user-centred and transparent scheme. The methodological approach has enabled the construction of a solid expertise on urban sustainability indicators, the essential role of the smart city and the Internet of Thing for a real-time key performance indicators determination and assessment, and technical and organisational challenges that such solution would encounter. Key domains such as sensing networks, remote sensing and GIS technologies, BIM technologies, Statistical databases and Open Governmental data platform, crowdsourcing and data mining that could support a real-time urban sustainability assessment have been studied. Additionally, the use of semantic web technologies has been investigated as a mean to deal with sources heterogeneity from diverse data structures and their interoperability. An USA ontology has been designed, integrating existing ontologies such as SSN, ifcOWL, cityGML and geoSPARQL. A web application back-end has then been built around this ontology. The application backbone is an Ontology-Based Data Access where a Relational Database is mapped to the USA ontology, enabling to link sensors data to pieces of information on the urban environment. Overall, this study has contributed to the body of knowledge by introducing an Ontology-Based Data Access (OBDA) approach to support real-time urban sustainability assessment leveraging sensors networks. It addresses both technical and organisational challenges that the smart systems domain is facing and is believed to be a valuable approach in the upcoming smart city paradigm. The solution proposed to tackle the research questions still faces some limitations such as a limited validation of the USA scheme, the OBDA limited intelligence, an improvable BIM and cityGML models conversion to RDF or the lack of user interface. Future work should be carried out to overcome those limitations and to provide stakeholders a high-hand service

Challenges in Cybersecurity and Privacy - the European Research Landscape

Cybersecurity and Privacy issues are becoming an important barrier for a trusted and dependable global digital society development. Cyber-criminals are continuously shifting their cyber-attacks specially against cyber-physical systems and IoT, since they present additional vulnerabilities due to their constrained capabilities, their unattended nature and the usage of potential untrustworthiness components. Likewise, identity-theft, fraud, personal data leakages, and other related cyber-crimes are continuously evolving, causing important damages and privacy problems for European citizens in both virtual and physical scenarios. In this context, new holistic approaches, methodologies, techniques and tools are needed to cope with those issues, and mitigate cyberattacks, by employing novel cyber-situational awareness frameworks, risk analysis and modeling, threat intelligent systems, cyber-threat information sharing methods, advanced big-data analysis techniques as well as exploiting the benefits from latest technologies such as SDN/NFV and Cloud systems. In addition, novel privacy-preserving techniques, and crypto-privacy mechanisms, identity and eID management systems, trust services, and recommendations are needed to protect citizens’ privacy while keeping usability levels. The European Commission is addressing the challenge through different means, including the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, thereby financing innovative projects that can cope with the increasing cyberthreat landscape. This book introduces several cybersecurity and privacy research challenges and how they are being addressed in the scope of 15 European research projects. Each chapter is dedicated to a different funded European Research project, which aims to cope with digital security and privacy aspects, risks, threats and cybersecurity issues from a different perspective. Each chapter includes the project’s overviews and objectives, the particular challenges they are covering, research achievements on security and privacy, as well as the techniques, outcomes, and evaluations accomplished in the scope of the EU project. The book is the result of a collaborative effort among relative ongoing European Research projects in the field of privacy and security as well as related cybersecurity fields, and it is intended to explain how these projects meet the main cybersecurity and privacy challenges faced in Europe. Namely, the EU projects analyzed in the book are: ANASTACIA, SAINT, YAKSHA, FORTIKA, CYBECO, SISSDEN, CIPSEC, CS-AWARE. RED-Alert, Truessec.eu. ARIES, LIGHTest, CREDENTIAL, FutureTrust, LEPS. Challenges in Cybersecurity and Privacy - the European Research Landscape is ideal for personnel in computer/communication industries as well as academic staff and master/research students in computer science and communications networks interested in learning about cyber-security and privacy aspects

Challenges in Cybersecurity and Privacy - the European Research Landscape

Cybersecurity and Privacy issues are becoming an important barrier for a trusted and dependable global digital society development. Cyber-criminals are continuously shifting their cyber-attacks specially against cyber-physical systems and IoT, since they present additional vulnerabilities due to their constrained capabilities, their unattended nature and the usage of potential untrustworthiness components. Likewise, identity-theft, fraud, personal data leakages, and other related cyber-crimes are continuously evolving, causing important damages and privacy problems for European citizens in both virtual and physical scenarios. In this context, new holistic approaches, methodologies, techniques and tools are needed to cope with those issues, and mitigate cyberattacks, by employing novel cyber-situational awareness frameworks, risk analysis and modeling, threat intelligent systems, cyber-threat information sharing methods, advanced big-data analysis techniques as well as exploiting the benefits from latest technologies such as SDN/NFV and Cloud systems. In addition, novel privacy-preserving techniques, and crypto-privacy mechanisms, identity and eID management systems, trust services, and recommendations are needed to protect citizens’ privacy while keeping usability levels. The European Commission is addressing the challenge through different means, including the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, thereby financing innovative projects that can cope with the increasing cyberthreat landscape. This book introduces several cybersecurity and privacy research challenges and how they are being addressed in the scope of 15 European research projects. Each chapter is dedicated to a different funded European Research project, which aims to cope with digital security and privacy aspects, risks, threats and cybersecurity issues from a different perspective. Each chapter includes the project’s overviews and objectives, the particular challenges they are covering, research achievements on security and privacy, as well as the techniques, outcomes, and evaluations accomplished in the scope of the EU project. The book is the result of a collaborative effort among relative ongoing European Research projects in the field of privacy and security as well as related cybersecurity fields, and it is intended to explain how these projects meet the main cybersecurity and privacy challenges faced in Europe. Namely, the EU projects analyzed in the book are: ANASTACIA, SAINT, YAKSHA, FORTIKA, CYBECO, SISSDEN, CIPSEC, CS-AWARE. RED-Alert, Truessec.eu. ARIES, LIGHTest, CREDENTIAL, FutureTrust, LEPS. Challenges in Cybersecurity and Privacy - the European Research Landscape is ideal for personnel in computer/communication industries as well as academic staff and master/research students in computer science and communications networks interested in learning about cyber-security and privacy aspects