An eco-friendly hybrid urban computing network combining community-based wireless LAN access and wireless sensor networking

Computer-enhanced smart environments, distributed environmental monitoring, wireless communication, energy conservation and sustainable technologies, ubiquitous access to Internet-located data and services, user mobility and innovation as a tool for service differentiation are all significant contemporary research subjects and societal developments. This position paper presents the design of a hybrid municipal network infrastructure that, to a lesser or greater degree, incorporates aspects from each of these topics by integrating a community-based Wi-Fi access network with Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) functionality. The former component provides free wireless Internet connectivity by harvesting the Internet subscriptions of city inhabitants. To minimize session interruptions for mobile clients, this subsystem incorporates technology that achieves (near-)seamless handover between Wi-Fi access points. The WSN component on the other hand renders it feasible to sense physical properties and to realize the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. This in turn scaffolds the development of value-added end-user applications that are consumable through the community-powered access network. The WSN subsystem invests substantially in ecological considerations by means of a green distributed reasoning framework and sensor middleware that collaboratively aim to minimize the network's global energy consumption. Via the discussion of two illustrative applications that are currently being developed as part of a concrete smart city deployment, we offer a taste of the myriad of innovative digital services in an extensive spectrum of application domains that is unlocked by the proposed platform

The future of Cybersecurity in Italy: Strategic focus area

This volume has been created as a continuation of the previous one, with the aim of outlining a set of focus areas and actions that the Italian Nation research community considers essential. The book touches many aspects of cyber security, ranging from the definition of the infrastructure and controls needed to organize cyberdefence to the actions and technologies to be developed to be better protected, from the identification of the main technologies to be defended to the proposal of a set of horizontal actions for training, awareness raising, and risk management

A participatory design approach for the development of support environments in eGovernment services to citizens

The introduction of eGovernment services and applications leads to major changes in the structure and operation of public administrations. In this paper we describe the work in progress in an Italian project called “SPO.T.” aimed at the analysis, development, deployment and evaluation of tools and environments to support the people who plan, deliver, use and evaluate user-centred provision of One-Stop-Shop services to citizens. The “SPO.T.” project has focused on two requirements: 1. the support tools and environments must facilitate the active involvement of all stakeholders in the definition and evolution of eGovernment applications and services, and it is argued that through participatory design changes of structure, process and culture can be delivered effectively; 2. they must embody a set of architecturally coherent resources which reflect the new roles and relationships of public administration and which are sufficiently generic to be relevant to a wide range of local contexts across the community

Interoperability, Trust Based Information Sharing Protocol and Security: Digital Government Key Issues

Improved interoperability between public and private organizations is of key significance to make digital government newest triumphant. Digital Government interoperability, information sharing protocol and security are measured the key issue for achieving a refined stage of digital government. Flawless interoperability is essential to share the information between diverse and merely dispersed organisations in several network environments by using computer based tools. Digital government must ensure security for its information systems, including computers and networks for providing better service to the citizens. Governments around the world are increasingly revolving to information sharing and integration for solving problems in programs and policy areas. Evils of global worry such as syndrome discovery and manage, terror campaign, immigration and border control, prohibited drug trafficking, and more demand information sharing, harmonization and cooperation amid government agencies within a country and across national borders. A number of daunting challenges survive to the progress of an efficient information sharing protocol. A secure and trusted information-sharing protocol is required to enable users to interact and share information easily and perfectly across many diverse networks and databases globally.Comment: 20 page

Personal security in travel by public transport : the role of traveller information and associated technologies

Acknowledgement This research reported in this paper has been funded by a grant award from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council: EP/I037032/1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Emerging privacy challenges and approaches in CAV systems

The growth of Internet-connected devices, Internet-enabled services and Internet of Things systems continues at a rapid pace, and their application to transport systems is heralded as game-changing. Numerous developing CAV (Connected and Autonomous Vehicle) functions, such as traffic planning, optimisation, management, safety-critical and cooperative autonomous driving applications, rely on data from various sources. The efficacy of these functions is highly dependent on the dimensionality, amount and accuracy of the data being shared. It holds, in general, that the greater the amount of data available, the greater the efficacy of the function. However, much of this data is privacy-sensitive, including personal, commercial and research data. Location data and its correlation with identity and temporal data can help infer other personal information, such as home/work locations, age, job, behavioural features, habits, social relationships. This work categorises the emerging privacy challenges and solutions for CAV systems and identifies the knowledge gap for future research, which will minimise and mitigate privacy concerns without hampering the efficacy of the functions

Innovative public governance through cloud computing: Information privacy, business models and performance measurement challenges

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze challenges and to discuss proposed solutions for innovative public governance through cloud computing. Innovative technologies, such as federation of services and cloud computing, can greatly contribute to the provision of e-government services, through scaleable and flexible systems. Furthermore, they can facilitate in reducing costs and overcoming public information segmentation. Nonetheless, when public agencies use these technologies, they encounter several associated organizational and technical changes, as well as significant challenges. Design/methodology/approach: We followed a multidisciplinary perspective (social, behavioral, business and technical) and conducted a conceptual analysis for analyzing the associated challenges. We conducted focus group interviews in two countries for evaluating the performance models that resulted from the conceptual analysis. Findings: This study identifies and analyzes several challenges that may emerge while adopting innovative technologies for public governance and e-government services. Furthermore, it presents suggested solutions deriving from the experience of designing a related platform for public governance, including issues of privacy requirements, proposed business models and key performance indicators for public services on cloud computing. Research limitations/implications: The challenges and solutions discussed are based on the experience gained by designing one platform. However, we rely on issues and challenges collected from four countries. Practical implications: The identification of challenges for innovative design of e-government services through a central portal in Europe and using service federation is expected to inform practitioners in different roles about significant changes across multiple levels that are implied and may accelerate the challenges' resolution. Originality/value: This is the first study that discusses from multiple perspectives and through empirical investigation the challenges to realize public governance through innovative technologies. The results emerge from an actual portal that will function at a European level. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited