499 research outputs found

    Big Data Techniques to Improve Learning Access and Citizen Engagement for Adults in Urban Environments

    Get PDF
    This presentation explores the emerging concept of ‘Big Data in Education’ and introduces novel technologies and approaches for addressing inequalities in access to participation and success in lifelong learning, to produce better life outcomes for urban citizens. It introduces the work of the new Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) at the University of Glasgow, presenting a case study of its first data product – the integrated Multimedia City Data (iMCD) project. Educational engagement and predictive factors are presented for adult learners, and older adult learners, in a representative survey of 1500 households. This was followed up with mobility tracking data using GPS data and wearable camera images, as well as one year’s worth of contextual data from over one hundred web sources (social media, news, weather). The chapter introduces the complex dataset that can help stakeholders, academics, citizens and other external users examine active aging and citizen learning engagement in the modern urban city, and thus support the development of the learning city. It concludes with a call for a more three-dimensional view of citizen-learners’ daily activity and mobility, such as satellite, mobile phone and active travel application data, alongside administrative data linkage to further explore lifelong learning participation and success. Policy implications are provided for addressing inequalities, and interventions proposed for how cities might promote equal and inclusive adult learning engagement in the face of continued austerity cuts and falling adult learner numbers

    From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

    Get PDF
    This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

    Plan on the move : mobile participation in urban planning state-of-the-art and future potential

    Get PDF
    Citizen participation in urban planning has been a topic of academic and practical interest since the 1960s. The adoption of information and communication technologies for civic participation, electronic participation, impacts how citizens and urban planners interact. Within the field of electronic participation, mobile participation is a rather recent chapter. The proliferation of mobile technologies enables both novel forms of participation and the embeddedness of these technologies into existing practices of participation. This dissertation contains five studies exploring how emerging practices of mobile participation are changing citizen participation in urban planning. Each of the five studies describes a facet of mobile participation, beginning with an overview of participatory planning apps in use; exploring next how citizens develop apps themselves; turning then to the theoretical basis of mobile participation grounded in previous theories of participation and the digital divide; covering further the actual usage of the TĂ€sĂ€ urban planning app; and finally, discussing self-organized community planning using mobile technologies. The results provide an overview of the specific features enhancing democratic urban planning, asses who develops mobile apps and with what intentions, and contrasts the circumstances conducive to inclusiveness in mobile participation. Mobile phones are ubiquitous and possess a combination of unique affordances such as situated engagement and participatory sensing, enabling rich, real-time data collection and experimentation. These features resonate with early adopters who, in order to affect change, need to be embedded in the institutional civic participation setting. For citizens, mobile technologies have diversified the roles of participation, so that citizens can choose between being informed, contributing ideas, or developing applications. Finally, the apps developed with open data are the result of negotiations between developers’ agency and open data availability. Overall, this dissertation suggests that mobile participation is socially constructed in as far as the features and practices implemented are subject to a host of stakeholder interests. To this end, mobile participation is conceptualized as maximum allowed deviation: it affords new practices that reshape citizen participation while being part of established forms of civic participation.Kansalaisten osallistuminen kaupunkisuunnitteluun on kiinnostanut sekĂ€ tiedeyhteisöÀ ettĂ€ suunnittelijoita jo 1960-luvulta lĂ€htien. Informaatio- ja kommunikaatioteknologian omaksuminen sekĂ€ sĂ€hköinen osallistuminen ovat vaikuttaneet siihen, miten kaupunkilaiset ja suunnittelijat ovat vuorovaikutuksessa toisiinsa. Mobiiliosallistuminen on uusi sĂ€hköisen osallistumisen ilmiö. Mobiililaitteiden nopea leviĂ€minen sekĂ€ mahdollistaa uusia osallistumismuotoja ettĂ€ sulautuu jo olemassa oleviin kĂ€ytĂ€ntöihin niitĂ€ muuntaen. TĂ€mĂ€ vĂ€itöskirja koostuu viidestĂ€ artikkelista, joissa tutkitaan miten mobiiliosallistuminen muuttaa kansalaisten osallistumista kaupunkisuunniteluun. Osatutkimukset tarkastelevat mobiiliosallistumista eri nĂ€kökulmista. EnsimmĂ€iseksi on kartoitettu millaisia kaupunkisuunnitteluun ja kaupunkien hallintaan osallistavia sovelluksia maailmassa oli kĂ€ytössĂ€ vuoteen 2015 mennessĂ€. Toiseksi on tutkittu, miten kansalaiset osallistuvat itse sovelluksien kehittĂ€miseen avoimen datan kilpailuissa. Kolmanneksi on tutkittu edellytyksiĂ€ mobiiliosallistumiselle, perustaen tarkastelu sosiaalisiin ja poliittisiin osallistumisteorioihin sekĂ€ digitaalisen kuilun ylittĂ€mistĂ€ koskeviin tutkimuksiin. NeljĂ€nnessĂ€ osatutkimuksessa esitellÀÀn Turussa 2015 toteutetun mobiiliosallistumisen kokeilun (TĂ€sĂ€) tuloksia ja viidennessĂ€ kĂ€sitellÀÀn mobiiliteknologian kĂ€yttöÀ kaupunkilaisten itse-organisoituvassa osallistumisessa. Tulokset kertovat miten teknologiset ominaisuudet muuttavat osallistuvaa kaupunkisuunnittelua, mikĂ€ ja mitkĂ€ tahot vaikuttavat sovellusten kehittĂ€miseen avoimella datalla, ja millĂ€ ehdoilla mobiililaitteiden avulla voidaan saavuttaa laaja osallistuminen. Mobiililaitteet ovat jo nyt ihmisten mukana kaikkialla. Niiden ominaisuudet mahdollistavat osallistumisen paikan pÀÀllĂ€ (situated engagement) ja osallistumisen sensoridatan kerÀÀmiseen (participatory sensing) ja siten uusiin ja aiempaa monipuolisempiin kĂ€yttĂ€jĂ€- ja paikkalĂ€htöisiin analyyseihin. TĂ€mĂ€ ominaisuudet ovat olleet houkuttelevia aikaisille omaksujille. Institutionaalista tukea kuitenkin tarvitaan, ettĂ€ uuden teknologian mahdollisuudet voidaan tehdĂ€ tutuksi laajalle yleisölle. Mobiiliosallistuminen on myös monipuolistanut osallistumisrooleja: sen avulla kansalaiset voivat aiempaan helpommin valita mitĂ€ informaatiota saavat, esittÀÀ omia ideoitaan ja kehittÀÀ omia sovelluksia.Avoimen datan kilpailuissa kehitetyt sovellukset ovat kompromissi kehittĂ€jien tavoitteiden ja kĂ€ytössĂ€ olevan datan vĂ€lillĂ€. Kokonaisuudessaan vĂ€itöskirja esittÀÀ, ettĂ€ mobiiliosallistuminen on sosiaalisesti rakentunutta, siinĂ€ mÀÀrin kuin sen ominaisuudet ja kĂ€ytĂ€nnöt mÀÀrittyvĂ€t eri tahojen intressien yhteensovittamisessa. TĂ€mĂ€n vuoksi mobiiliosallistuminen kĂ€sitteellistyy ”suurimmaks sallituksi poikkeamaksi”: se mahdollistaa uusia kĂ€ytĂ€ntöjĂ€ jotka muokkaavat kansalaisten osallistumista samalla kun ne ovat jo osa vakiintunutta kansalaisten osallistumista

    Internet of Things Architectures, Technologies, Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions for Enhanced Living Environments and Healthcare Systems: A Review

    Get PDF
    Internet of Things (IoT) is an evolution of the Internet and has been gaining increased attention from researchers in both academic and industrial environments. Successive technological enhancements make the development of intelligent systems with a high capacity for communication and data collection possible, providing several opportunities for numerous IoT applications, particularly healthcare systems. Despite all the advantages, there are still several open issues that represent the main challenges for IoT, e.g., accessibility, portability, interoperability, information security, and privacy. IoT provides important characteristics to healthcare systems, such as availability, mobility, and scalability, that o er an architectural basis for numerous high technological healthcare applications, such as real-time patient monitoring, environmental and indoor quality monitoring, and ubiquitous and pervasive information access that benefits health professionals and patients. The constant scientific innovations make it possible to develop IoT devices through countless services for sensing, data fusing, and logging capabilities that lead to several advancements for enhanced living environments (ELEs). This paper reviews the current state of the art on IoT architectures for ELEs and healthcare systems, with a focus on the technologies, applications, challenges, opportunities, open-source platforms, and operating systems. Furthermore, this document synthesizes the existing body of knowledge and identifies common threads and gaps that open up new significant and challenging future research directions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    A systems approach towards remote health-monitoring in older adults: Introducing a zero-interaction digital exhaust.

    Get PDF
    Using connected sensing devices to remotely monitor health is a promising way to help transition healthcare from a rather reactive to a more precision medicine oriented proactive approach, which could be particularly relevant in the face of rapid population ageing and the challenges it poses to healthcare systems. Sensor derived digital measures of health, such as digital biomarkers or digital clinical outcome assessments, may be used to monitor health status or the risk of adverse events like falls. Current research around such digital measures has largely focused on exploring the use of few individual measures obtained through mobile devices. However, especially for long-term applications in older adults, this choice of technology may not be ideal and could further add to the digital divide. Moreover, large-scale systems biology approaches, like genomics, have already proven beneficial in precision medicine, making it plausible that the same could also hold for remote-health monitoring. In this context, we introduce and describe a zero-interaction digital exhaust: a set of 1268 digital measures that cover large parts of a person's activity, behavior and physiology. Making this approach more inclusive of older adults, we base this set entirely on contactless, zero-interaction sensing technologies. Applying the resulting digital exhaust to real-world data, we then demonstrate the possibility to create multiple ageing relevant digital clinical outcome assessments. Paired with modern machine learning, we find these assessments to be surprisingly powerful and often on-par with mobile approaches. Lastly, we highlight the possibility to discover novel digital biomarkers based on this large-scale approach

    Automatic detection of learner-style for adaptive eLearning

    Get PDF
    The advent of modern wireless technologies has seen a shift in focus towards the design and development of educational systems for deployment through mobile devices. The use of mobile phones, tablets and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) is steadily growing across the educational sector as a whole. Mobile learning (mLearning) systems developed for deployment on such devices hold great significance for the future of education. However, mLearning systems must be built around the particular learner’s needs based on both their motivation to learn and subsequent learning outcomes. This thesis investigates how biometric technologies, in particular accelerometer and eye-tracking technologies, could effectively be employed within the development of mobile learning systems to facilitate the needs of individual learners. The creation of personalised learning environments must enable the achievement of improved learning outcomes for users, particularly at an individual level. Therefore consideration is given to individual learning-style differences within the electronic learning (eLearning) space. The overall area of eLearning is considered and areas such as biometric technology and educational psychology are explored for the development of personalised educational systems. This thesis explains the basis of the author’s hypotheses and presents the results of several studies carried out throughout the PhD research period. These results show that both accelerometer and eye-tracking technologies can be employed as an Human Computer Interaction (HCI) method in the detection of student learning-styles to facilitate the provision of automatically adapted eLearning spaces. Finally the author provides recommendations for developers in the creation of adaptive mobile learning systems through the employment of biometric technology as a user interaction tool within mLearning applications. Further research paths are identified and a roadmap for future of research in this area is defined

    Big Data Techniques to Improve Learning Access and Citizen Engagement for Adults in Urban Environments

    Get PDF
    This presentation explores the emerging concept of ‘Big Data in Education’ and introduces novel technologies and approaches for addressing inequalities in access to participation and success in lifelong learning, to produce better life outcomes for urban citizens. It introduces the work of the new Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) at the University of Glasgow, presenting a case study of its first data product – the integrated Multimedia City Data (iMCD) project. Educational engagement and predictive factors are presented for adult learners, and older adult learners, in a representative survey of 1500 households. This was followed up with mobility tracking data using GPS data and wearable camera images, as well as one year’s worth of contextual data from over one hundred web sources (social media, news, weather). The chapter introduces the complex dataset that can help stakeholders, academics, citizens and other external users examine active aging and citizen learning engagement in the modern urban city, and thus support the development of the learning city. It concludes with a call for a more three-dimensional view of citizen-learners’ daily activity and mobility, such as satellite, mobile phone and active travel application data, alongside administrative data linkage to further explore lifelong learning participation and success. Policy implications are provided for addressing inequalities, and interventions proposed for how cities might promote equal and inclusive adult learning engagement in the face of continued austerity cuts and falling adult learner numbers
    • 

    corecore