Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Market Expansion, Private Sector Growth and Economic Development

The rate of growth in economic activities in the private sector and the level of economic development depends on the width and depth of market activities in an economy. Increased in market participation is dependent on a number of co-determinant factors working together. These factors include the level of monetization of economic activities with the resulting boost in the level of specialization (implying a fall in the level of subsistent activities); direct physical development of market; increased in the supply of infrastructure, especially those of transportation and communication; improvement the moral (social) capital of trust among the people in the society; promotion market-oriented policies by the government; among other things. If these factors are adequately available in the economy, jobs will be created through increased participation in income-generating activities, which naturally lead to market expansion, growth in directly productive activities of the private sector, and development. Even though market expansion will result in economic development, market activities must be regulated and given proper policy guide and direction for sustainable beneficial outcomes to be realized. Keywords: Market expansion, growth in economic activities, government policies, infrastructure provision, economic developmen

The Effect of Monetization on Federal Civil Servants in Nigeria

This study examined the effect of monetization on workers in Nigerian civil service. Purposefully, the study investigated the monetization benefits if it is commensurate with civil servants socio-economic needs; the impact of monetization on workers’ attitude toward job performance in Nigerian public service; and the impact of monetization on workers’ job satisfaction in Nigerian public service. The researcher used descriptive and survey designs to carry out the study. The respondents were one hundred and twenty (120) civil servants drawn from five federal ministries. The data obtained was facilitated by administering a research questionnaire of twenty (20) items to ninety-six (96) civil servants, having a response rate of 80%. Among other things, the findings of the study revealed that the monetization benefits are not commensurate with civil servants socio-economic needs in Nigeria; there is no positive impact of monetization policy implementation on workers’ attitude toward job performance in Nigerian civil service; and the monetization policy implementation has no positive effect on workers’ job satisfaction in Nigerian civil service. From the empirical evidence of the findings, the study concluded that there is no positive effect of monetization on workers in Nigerian civil servic

Open Innovation Clusters: The Case of Cova da Beira Region (Portugal)

This paper aims to reveal the role played by open innovation schemes in the development of new competitive advantages. Furthermore, it aims to present a normative model for networking knowledge clusters, that is, traditional clusters that are applied to the case of the Cova da Beira region (Portugal) such as Agro-Food, Textile, and Public Sector; and a set of emergent clusters that include Bioscience, Biotechnology, Multimedia, Tourism, Health, and Knowledge. In this paper, the basic framework about clusters was expanded, taking as reference the studies of Porter (1985, 1990, 1998, 2005), Feldman (1994), Porter and Stern (2001), and Furman, Porter and Stern (2002). The problematic related to open innovation schemes is integrated in this framework in order to reveal the importance of building new kinds of open innovation networks that don’t involve the geographic concentration of the enterprises. After making a literature review in order to present the analytical framework that includes the clusters theory, a normative model is presented through the development of a case study applied to the Cova da Beira region (Portugal). This option is due to the existence of a local University that has historically interfaced the launching of open-innovation spin-offs into local and international clusters networks. The present paper reveals a high degree of originality, since it contributes to the introduction of the concept of open innovation into the literature about clusters. The main point is that open innovation provides two main implications to build up and leverage both internal and external knowledge into international clusters networks. First, this study presents a basic implication for several agents such as, entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers; that is, universities are principals in interfacing the sources of open innovation and the transfer of processes of knowledge into the international clusters networks. Second, it promotes the inclusion of the issue related to the creation of international and institutional networks in the short agenda of the referred agents in order to promote the introduction of new open innovation schemes.Clusters; Entrepreneurship; Institutional Networks; Open Innovation

The co-evolution of two Chinese mobile short video apps: Parallel platformization of Douyin and TikTok

TikTok is the international twin of China’s mobile short video app, Douyin, and one of the fastest growing short video platforms in the world. Owned by Chinese tech giant, ByteDance, TikTok and Douyin share many similarities in terms of appearance, functionality, and platform affordances; however, they exist in radically different markets and are governed by radically different forces. Unlike other popular mobile media platforms in China and internationally, TikTok and Douyin are neither part of the big three tech giants in China nor the big five in the US. This provides an interesting case study to investigate how an emerging internet company adapts its products to better fit divergent expectations, cultures, and policy frameworks in China and abroad. Using the app walkthrough method informed by platformization of culture production theory, this study highlights the similarities and distinctions between these two platforms. We argue the co-evolution of Douyin and TikTok is a new paradigm of global platform expansion that differs from strategies of regionalization adopted by previous major social media platforms. We contribute to platformization theory by developing the concept of parallel platformization to explain ByteDance’s strategies for surviving in two opposing platform ecosystems in China and abroad