Secure Cloud-Edge Deployments, with Trust

Assessing the security level of IoT applications to be deployed to heterogeneous Cloud-Edge infrastructures operated by different providers is a non-trivial task. In this article, we present a methodology that permits to express security requirements for IoT applications, as well as infrastructure security capabilities, in a simple and declarative manner, and to automatically obtain an explainable assessment of the security level of the possible application deployments. The methodology also considers the impact of trust relations among different stakeholders using or managing Cloud-Edge infrastructures. A lifelike example is used to showcase the prototyped implementation of the methodology

USEM: A ubiquitous smart energy management system for residential homes

With the ever-increasing worldwide demand for energy, and the limited available energy resources, there is a growing need to reduce our energy consumption whenever possible. Therefore, over the past few decades a range of technologies have been proposed to assist consumers with reducing their energy use. Most of these have focused on decreasing energy consumption in the industry, transport, and services sectors. In more recent years, however, growing attention has been given to energy use in the residential sector, which accounts for nearly 30% of total energy consumption in the developed countries. Here we present one such system, which aims to assist residential users with monitoring their energy usage and provides mechanisms for setting up and controlling their home appliances to conserve energy. We also describe a user study we have conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this system in supporting its users with a range of tools and visualizations developed for ubiquitous devices such as mobile phones and tablets. The findings of this study have shown the potential benefits of our system, and have identified areas of improvement that need to be addressed in the future

Modelling the User: How design for sustainable behaviour can reveal different stakeholder perspectives on human nature

Copyright @ 2010 TU DelftInfluencing more environmentally friendly and sustainable behaviour is a current focus of many projects, ranging from government social marketing campaigns, education and tax structures to designers’ work on interactive products, services and environments. There is a wide variety of techniques and methods used—we have identified over 100 design patterns in our Design with Intent toolkit—each intended to work via a particular set of cognitive and environmental principles. These approaches make different assumptions about ‘what people are like’: how users will respond to behavioural interventions, and why, and in the process reveal some of the assumptions that designers and other stakeholders, such as clients commissioning a project, make about human nature. In this paper, we discuss three simple models of user behaviour—the Pinball, the Shortcut and the Thoughtful—which emerge from user experience designers’ statements about users while focused on designing for behaviour change. We characterise these models using systems terminology and examine the application of each model to design for sustainable behaviour via a series of examples

On participatory service provision at the network edge with community home gateways

Edge computing is considered as a technology to enable new types of services which operate at the network edge. There are important use cases in ambient intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) for edge computing driven by huge business potentials. Most of today's edge computing platforms, however, consist of proprietary gateways, which are either closed or fairly restricted to deploy any third-party services. In this paper we discuss a participatory edge computing system running on home gateways to serve as an open environment to deploy local services. We present first motivating use cases and review existing approaches and design considerations for the proposed system. Then we show our platform which materializes the principles of an open and participatory edge environment, to lower the entry barriers for service deployment at the network edge. By using containers, our platform can flexibly enable third-party services, and may serve as an infrastructure to support several application domains of ambient intelligence.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Empirical study on intrinsic motivation factors of employees in transition economies

Purpose: This research study aims to unequivocally discuss and explore the intrinsic motivation factors of the employees in transition economies. The purpose of this study is to find which are the main internal factors that motivate employees? Taking in to consideration changes to the economic systems, different factors derived from theories, as well as other research analyzed. Design/Methodology/Approach: To describe the relationship between motivational factors that motivate workers today, we have developed a questionnaire which is distributed and filled by 510 respondents, not taking into account their hierarchy in the organization. Methodologies used in this research are Pearson correlation matrix to test the relationship with independent variables and dependent variable which in our case is intrinsic motivation and as a main econometric model binary logit is used Findings: The research shows that most of the data that we have used in this model are correlated, and have high level of significance, and there is no multicollinearity. Whereas, in Binary Logit model used Cox & Snell R Square is .696 meaning that our model is predicted by around 70 percent from the independent variables. From our research we found that most important intrinsic motivational factors are competence, job satisfaction, job recognition as well as financial rewards. There is no impact on intrinsic motivation that is dependent on finding the job interesting or not. Worthy of note is that the odds of employees to be intrinsically motivated are much higher in public institution than in private businesses. Practical Implications: This study raises awareness of motivational factors in economies that are still in transition. Results of this study can serve as a good guide especially for small businesses and business startups on importance of behaviorist approach for motivation factors as competence and job recognition. Originality/Value: this paper provides original insights of the compound relationship between different factors that have a direct affect in intrinsic motivation of employees’ therefore as an outcome better job performance.peer-reviewe

Identification of drivers, benefits, and challenges of ISO 50001 through case study content analysis

An expanding body of research is defining drivers, benefits, and challenges of adopting ISO 50001 energy management systems. The Clean Energy Ministerial's Energy Management Leadership Awards program requires ISO 50001-certified organizations to develop case studies of their implementation experience. 72 recent case studies spanning multiple economic sectors provide a unique global look at implementation from certified organizations' perspectives. This dataset was investigated through content analysis of phrases related to motivations and goals, the role of management and the organization, benefits achieved, keys to success, and challenges. This paper presents findings from this quantitative analysis of “codes” assigned to phrases that capture their meaning. While organizations adopted ISO 50001 for different motives and saw myriad benefits beyond energy savings and associated greenhouse gas emissions reductions, commonalities exist. The most frequently identified drivers are existing values and goals, environmental sustainability, and government incentives or regulations. Findings also include: obtaining and sustaining top management support is critical; top benefits mentioned are cost savings, productivity, and operational improvements; and the primary barrier is lacking a culture of energy management. Policymakers and others looking to accelerate ISO 50001 uptake can use these findings to highlight benefits and incentives that will resonate with corporate decisionmakers worldwide

A Data Annotation Architecture for Semantic Applications in Virtualized Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have become very popular and are being used in many application domains (e.g. smart cities, security, gaming and agriculture). Virtualized WSNs allow the same WSN to be shared by multiple applications. Semantic applications are situation-aware and can potentially play a critical role in virtualized WSNs. However, provisioning them in such settings remains a challenge. The key reason is that semantic applications provisioning mandates data annotation. Unfortunately it is no easy task to annotate data collected in virtualized WSNs. This paper proposes a data annotation architecture for semantic applications in virtualized heterogeneous WSNs. The architecture uses overlays as the cornerstone, and we have built a prototype in the cloud environment using Google App Engine. The early performance measurements are also presented.Comment: This paper has been accepted for presentation in main technical session of 14th IFIP/IEEE Symposium on Integrated Network and Service Management (IM 2015) to be held on 11-15 May, 2015, Ottawa, Canad