Innovative Technologies and Services for Smart Cities

A smart city is a modern technology-driven urban area which uses sensing devices, information, and communication technology connected to the internet of things (IoTs) for the optimum and efficient utilization of infrastructures and services with the goal of improving the living conditions of citizens. Increasing populations, lower budgets, limited resources, and compatibility of the upgraded technologies are some of the few problems affecting the implementation of smart cities. Hence, there is continuous advancement regarding technologies for the implementation of smart cities. The aim of this Special Issue is to report on the design and development of integrated/smart sensors, a universal interfacing platform, along with the IoT framework, extending it to next-generation communication networks for monitoring parameters of interest with the goal of achieving smart cities. The proposed universal interfacing platform with the IoT framework will solve many challenging issues and significantly boost the growth of IoT-related applications, not just in the environmental monitoring domain but in the other key areas, such as smart home, assistive technology for the elderly care, smart city with smart waste management, smart E-metering, smart water supply, intelligent traffic control, smart grid, remote healthcare applications, etc., signifying benefits for all countries

Context-aware gestural interaction in the smart environments of the ubiquitous computing era

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyTechnology is becoming pervasive and the current interfaces are not adequate for the interaction with the smart environments of the ubiquitous computing era. Recently, researchers have started to address this issue introducing the concept of natural user interface, which is mainly based on gestural interactions. Many issues are still open in this emerging domain and, in particular, there is a lack of common guidelines for coherent implementation of gestural interfaces. This research investigates gestural interactions between humans and smart environments. It proposes a novel framework for the high-level organization of the context information. The framework is conceived to provide the support for a novel approach using functional gestures to reduce the gesture ambiguity and the number of gestures in taxonomies and improve the usability. In order to validate this framework, a proof-of-concept has been developed. A prototype has been developed by implementing a novel method for the view-invariant recognition of deictic and dynamic gestures. Tests have been conducted to assess the gesture recognition accuracy and the usability of the interfaces developed following the proposed framework. The results show that the method provides optimal gesture recognition from very different view-points whilst the usability tests have yielded high scores. Further investigation on the context information has been performed tackling the problem of user status. It is intended as human activity and a technique based on an innovative application of electromyography is proposed. The tests show that the proposed technique has achieved good activity recognition accuracy. The context is treated also as system status. In ubiquitous computing, the system can adopt different paradigms: wearable, environmental and pervasive. A novel paradigm, called synergistic paradigm, is presented combining the advantages of the wearable and environmental paradigms. Moreover, it augments the interaction possibilities of the user and ensures better gesture recognition accuracy than with the other paradigms

Combining SOA and BPM Technologies for Cross-System Process Automation

This paper summarizes the results of an industry case study that introduced a cross-system business process automation solution based on a combination of SOA and BPM standard technologies (i.e., BPMN, BPEL, WSDL). Besides discussing major weaknesses of the existing, custom-built, solution and comparing them against experiences with the developed prototype, the paper presents a course of action for transforming the current solution into the proposed solution. This includes a general approach, consisting of four distinct steps, as well as specific action items that are to be performed for every step. The discussion also covers language and tool support and challenges arising from the transformation

Affective Computing

This book provides an overview of state of the art research in Affective Computing. It presents new ideas, original results and practical experiences in this increasingly important research field. The book consists of 23 chapters categorized into four sections. Since one of the most important means of human communication is facial expression, the first section of this book (Chapters 1 to 7) presents a research on synthesis and recognition of facial expressions. Given that we not only use the face but also body movements to express ourselves, in the second section (Chapters 8 to 11) we present a research on perception and generation of emotional expressions by using full-body motions. The third section of the book (Chapters 12 to 16) presents computational models on emotion, as well as findings from neuroscience research. In the last section of the book (Chapters 17 to 22) we present applications related to affective computing

ICT and InnovationA Step Forward to a Global Society

ItAIS (www.itais.org) was established in 2003 as the Italian Chapter of the Association for Information Systems (AIS - www.aisnet.org) and has since then been promoting the exchange of ideas, experience, and knowledge among both academics and professionals committed to the development, management, organization and use of information systems. The itAIS conference is the major annual event of the Italian Information System community and it is thought as a forum to promote discussions and experiences exchanges among researchers in the field, both from the academy and the industry. Being the current the eleventh edition, in 2016 itAIS was held in Verona. The previous editions took place in Rome on 2015, Genova on 2014, Milan on 2013, Rome on 2012 and 2011, Naples on 2010, Costa Smeralda on 2009, Paris on 2008, Venice on 2007, Milan on 2006, Verona on 2005, and again Naples on 2004. itAIS 2016 aims to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and doctoral students to exchange and share their experiences, ideas, challenges, solutions, and research results about all aspects related to the impact of Information Technology and Innovation Trends in Organizations. The conference includes 16 tracks: (1) Organizational change and Impact of ICT; (2) Accounting Information Systems; (3) Advanced ICT support for innovation strategies, management, and implementations; (4) Human-computer interaction; (5) Continuous Redesign of Socio-Technical Systems; (6) Digitalization trends in Human Resources Management; (7) e-Services, Social Networks, and Smartcities; (8) ICT-enabled innovation in public services: co-production and collaborative networking; (9) The new era of digitalization in Healthcare and Public sector; (10) IS (lost) in the Cloud; (11) Internet of Things: exploring tensions in global information infrastructures; (12) Technology- enhanced learning: transforming learning processes in organizations; (13) Supply Chain Resilience and Security; (14) Digital Marketing and Analytics. The participation success that has been registered in the previous editions is confirmed this year. The conference attracted more than 80 submissions from Italian and foreigner researchers. Among them, more 6 than 68 contributions have been accepted for presentation at the conference following a double-blind review process. Among them, 19 are published in this book, the other will appear in a volume of the Springer Series Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisations1. The conference took place at Economics Department, University of Verona (Santa Marta campus) on October 7th \u2013 8th, 2016 and is organized in 5 parallel sessions. We would like to thank all the authors who submitted papers and all conference participants. We are also grateful to the chairs of the fourteen tracks and the external referees, for their thorough work in reviewing submissions with expertise and patience, and to the President and members of the itAIS steering committee for their strong support and encouragement in the organization of itAIS 2016. A special thanks to all members of the Organizing Committee for their precious support to the organization and management of the event and in the publication of the enclosed proceedings

SBE16 Brazil & Portugal - Sustainable Urban Communities towards a Nearly Zero Impact Built Environment

Vol. IThe organizers of SBE 16 Brazil & Portugal were challenged to promote discussions and the development of solutions for an important and, at the same time, very ambitious topic ? Sustainable Urban Communities towards a Nearly Zero Impact Built Environment. This is the main focus of the international conference SBE16 Brazil & Portugal; the only event of the SBE16/17 conference series being held in Latin America, more precisely, in Vitória (Espírito Santo), Brazil, from the 7th until the 9th of September 2016. The conference offered a unique opportunity to bring together researchers from all over the world to share evidence-based knowledge in the field and succeeded to achieve its goals since many contributions from various parts of the planet were received, addressing a tiny part of the problem or trying to perform the difficult task of making the sum of the parts a coherent whole.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

SBE16 Brazil & Portugal - Sustainable Urban Communities towards a Nearly Zero Impact Built Environment

Vol. IThe organizers of SBE 16 Brazil & Portugal were challenged to promote discussions and the development of solutions for an important and, at the same time, very ambitious topic ? Sustainable Urban Communities towards a Nearly Zero Impact Built Environment. This is the main focus of the international conference SBE16 Brazil & Portugal; the only event of the SBE16/17 conference series being held in Latin America, more precisely, in Vitória (Espírito Santo), Brazil, from the 7th until the 9th of September 2016. The conference offered a unique opportunity to bring together researchers from all over the world to share evidence-based knowledge in the field and succeeded to achieve its goals since many contributions from various parts of the planet were received, addressing a tiny part of the problem or trying to perform the difficult task of making the sum of the parts a coherent whole.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio