Smart Brix—a continuous evolution framework for container application deployments

Container-based application deployments have received significant attention in recent years. Operating system virtualization based on containers as a mechanism to deploy and manage complex, large-scale software systems has become a popular mechanism for application deployment and operation. Packaging application components into selfcontained artifacts has brought substantial flexibility to developers and operation teams alike. However, this flexibility comes at a price. Practitioners need to respect numerous constraints ranging from security and compliance requirements, to specific regulatory conditions. Fulfilling these requirements is especially challenging in specialized domains with large numbers of stakeholders.Moreover, the rapidly growing number of container images to be managed due to the introduction of new or updated applications and respective components, leads to significant challenges for container management and adaptation. In this paper, we introduce Smart Brix, a framework for continuous evolution of container application deployments that tackles these challenges. Smart Brix integrates andunifies concepts of continuous integration, runtimemonitoring, and operational analytics. Furthermore, it allows practitioners to define generic analytics and compensation pipelines composed of self-assembling processing components to autonomously validate and verify containers to be deployed.We illustrate the feasibility of our approach by evaluating our framework using a case study from the smart city domain. We show that Smart Brix is horizontally scalable and runtime of the implemented analysis and compensation pipelines scales linearly with the number of container application packages. Subjects Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems, Distributed and Parallel Computing, Software Engineering Document type: Articl

Being cosmopolitan: the consumption practices and behaviors of consumers betwixt and between marketplaces

Contemporary global nomadism is an emerging phenomenon enabled by the far-reaching forces of globalization, whereby people voluntarily chose to embrace lifestyles of continuous mobility be- tween different countries and cultures. This research examines how do nomadic cosmopolitan consumers navigate through diverse constellations of sociocultural environments, marketplace offerings, possessions, experiences and brands while transitioning from one location to another. Following the theoretical paradigms of practice theory, this study advances the notion that cosmo- politan nomadism is a complex social practice – consisting of material artifacts, skills, routines, teleoaffective structures, and cultural understandings – which attracts and “recruits” individuals, and which becomes a foundational building block of their social life. Based on insight from a series of phenomenological interviews with nomadic cosmopolitans, it is suggested that consumption emerges through and for the sake of migrants’ participation as practitioners in the nomadic cos- mopolitan practice. Within this operational context, meanings, doings and material artifacts are orchestrated through three primary dispersed practices of anchoring, immersion and divestment. Consumption varies within each of those practices as they influence the kinds of brands, products and possessions consumers orient themselves towards, or detach from, throughout the temporal phases that segment the length of time one spends in a certain location – namely, phases of arri- val, settling in and departure. The perspective offered by this study illuminates a new theoretical angle through which we can begin to better understand the trajectory of possessions, brands, experiences and beliefs in condi- tions of continuous transnational mobility. It shows that nomadic cosmopolitanism is dynamic and individually differentiated – hence, it is the fact of one’s unique way of engagement in the practice that explains individuated processes of consumption. This research suggests that percep- tions of value and utility, as well as symbolic meaning of objects and activities, pivot around com- plex cognitive structures and subject positions, and evolve continuously as one changes as a practi- tioner, not only in the grander scheme of his/her life, but also within the temporal frame of a single residency

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Working Spaces

This edited volume presents a compendium of emerging and innovative studies on the proliferation of new working spaces (NeWSps), both formal and informal (such as coworking spaces, maker spaces, fab labs, public libraries, and coffee shops), and their role during and following the COVID-19 pandemic in urban and regional development and planning. This book presents an original, interdisciplinary approach to NeWSps through three features: (i) situating the debate in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has transformed NeWSp business models and the everyday work life of their owners and users; (ii) repositioning and rethinking the debate on NeWSps in the context of socioeconomics and planning and comparing conditions between before and during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (iii) providing new directions for urban and regional development and resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic, considering new ways of working and living. The 17 chapters are co-authored by both leading international scholars who have studied the proliferation of NeWSps in the last decade and young, talented researchers, resulting in a total of 55 co-authors from different disciplines (48 of whom are currently involved in the COST Action CA18214 ‘The Geography of New Working Spaces and Impact on the Periphery’ 2019–2023: www.new-working-spaces.eu). Selected comparative studies among several European countries (Western and Eastern Europe) and from the US and Lebanon are presented. The book contributes to the understanding of multi-disciplinary theoretical and practical implications of NeWSps for our society, economy, and urban/regional planning in conditions following the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Working Spaces

This edited volume presents a compendium of emerging and innovative studies on the proliferation of new working spaces (NeWSps), both formal and informal (such as coworking spaces, maker spaces, fab labs, public libraries, and cofee shops), and their role during and following the COVID-19 pandemic in urban and regional development and planning. This book presents an original, interdisciplinary approach to NeWSps through three features: (i) situating the debate in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has transformed NeWSp business models and the everyday work life of their owners and users; (ii) repositioning and rethinking the debate on NeWSps in the context of socioeconomics and planning and comparing conditions between before and during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (iii) providing new directions for urban and regional development and resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic, considering new ways of working and living. The 17 chapters are co-authored by both leading international scholars who have studied the proliferation of NeWSps in the last decade and young, talented researchers, resulting in a total of 55 co-authors from diferent disciplines (48 of whom are currently involved in the COST Action CA18214 ‘The Geography of New Working Spaces and Impact on the Periphery’ 2019–2023: www.newworking- spaces.eu). Selected comparative studies among several European countries (Western and Eastern Europe) and from the US and Lebanon are presented. The book contributes to the understanding of multi-disciplinary theoretical and practical implications of NeWSps for our society, economy, and urban/regional planning in conditions following the COVID-19 pandemic

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2021

This open access book is the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 28th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER21@yourplace virtual conference January 19–22, 2021. This book advances the current knowledge base of information and communication technologies and tourism in the areas of social media and sharing economy, technology including AI-driven technologies, research related to destination management and innovations, COVID-19 repercussions, and others. Readers will find a wealth of state-of-the-art insights, ideas, and case studies on how information and communication technologies can be applied in travel and tourism as we encounter new opportunities and challenges in an unpredictable world

Pop-up Home: Evidencing an urban nomad’s distributed domestic intimacy beyond a sedentary home

“A home is not a house” can be read as a design hypothesis for an alternative urban domesticity and an attempt to explore a more distributed mode of existence than what a fixed house might have presumably confined for its users. In this design hypothesis, the sedentary narrative for the design of a fixed house was questioned, mostly on its physical forms and as well, on its social implications. As a design research, Pop-up Home further explores this design hypothesis in a refreshed context of a distributed home and on a focused subject of domestic intimacy. For Pop-up Home, domestic intimacy can be defined as a spatial “sense of home” which can be found extending beyond a sedentary home. Pop-up Home takes on a combination of an auto-ethnographic and a participatory action research. Through the perspective of an auto-ethnographic urban nomad, the design research collects a set of “lived-experience” ranging from being a compact home renter, to a “rug sojourner”, then to a “rickshaw-bed rider”, and to a “digital nomad” with a lifestyle of “living as service” via distributed accommodation platforms such as Airbnb and Couchsurfing, etc. Through this perspective of the urban nomad, the MPhil thesis explores spatial evidence for alternative forms of urban domesticity which are not based upon a fixed house, but rather which take a more distributed form. Through the same perspective, the thesis also explores an alternative design narrative of urban domesticity in which a new social form of domestic life in a more distributed mode is emerging. The collected examples of urban nomads and their distributed domestic intimacy have been captured through the auto-ethnographic work and experiential encounters in Hong Kong, Pune India, and London. Documenting and curating the above set of examples, and based on the theoretical framework of “spatial agency”, the design research constructs both an empathetic and an intellectual framework for understanding the evidenced changes in urban domesticity, in relation to the increasingly precarious conditions of life in modern economies. The MPhil thesis, as a phase of the design research overall, aims to focus on the conflicts between the institution of the sedentary home and the nomadic nature of a “creative user”; and to evoke a positive ideology where a fixed house could be planned, transformed, maintained, and/or altered creatively by these users. This framework for a distributed home might lead to a specific method of “participatory design” to think, practice, and finance future urban domesticity in a “small, local, open and connected” design scenario of a world city, and contribute to a more genuine human-centred design method and design thinking for future urban domesticity

City marketing and convention bureaus value propositions in the post-covid time

City marketing and convention bureaus value propositions in the post-covid timeThe role of convention bureaus across the world is to market destinations and cities.This paper explores destination marketing in the post pandemic time. It focusses on thevalues that convention bureaus, a key actor in the meetings industry, propose topotential visitors. The concept of value propositions (VPs) is commonly regarded as astrategic tool for organizations to communicate what and how they will provide benefitsto clients in their offerings of products or services (Payne, Frow and Eggert 2017, Payneet al. 2020). A value proposition is a central part of the business model. VPs can bethought of in terms of promises made to clients or to market segments in externalcommunication (Grönroos and Voima 2013). This calls for an appropriate packaging andpresentation of the values in the communication of organisations (Payne, et al. 2017).From a strategic perspective, VPs affects the process communicating and deliveringvalues (Lanning 2020). Previous research of VPs within in tourism studies include valueco-creation and co-destruction in tourism services (Assiouras et al. 2022), value andtourist brand loyalty (Bose et al. 2022), tourism stakeholder value-co creation (Carrasco-Farré et al. 2022), value propositions in digitalisation processes (Endres et al. 2020) valuepropositions for community building (Butler and Szromek 2019), power in tourismmarketing (Kannisto 2016) and values in experience design (Tussyadiah 2014). The topicappears however to be understudied from a communication perspective and also withrespect to how unexpected events, such as the pandemic, frame the processes ofcommunicating values. The aim of this paper is to advance the knowledge about valuepropositions socio-cultural dimensions by exploring how benefits for meetings bookersand visitors are discursively constructed. The study will answer three questions: how isvalue proposed in the marketing communication of convention bureaus, and whatprofessional meetings discourses are formed in the post covid time?Case, method and theoryTexts and images in the online marketing of 20 convention bureaus (CBs) was collectedbetween May 2022 and March 2023. Dispersed across five world continents, most CBsare located in large cities. A CBs main purpose is to increase the number of meetings ina destination. CBs collaborate with companies in its area to market their offerings, andthey are often a unit of a DMO of a city or a municipality's business department. Themeetings industry increased its activity in the beginning of 2022, when all restrictionswere gradually lifted, and therefore the data constitute an example of marketing thatwas planned and executed during a crisis. The material was imported and text-scannedin NVivo software. Codes were created inductively, by identifying presentations ofbenefits in chunks of texts and images that were manually coded as value propositions,screenshot by screenshot. Inspired by discourse theory (Wetherell et al. 2001), thesecond step of the analysis aimed for a more abstract level. The theory wasoperationalized by looking for reoccurring expressions used to propose value, terms,narratives, symbols, metaphors, and images, and by identifying things that are excluded,and ambiguities in the communication. A set of identified values emerged, as a map ofhow convention bureaus on a global level imagine the meetings demand. The analysis2discusses some vantage points that the CBs depart from. The analytical perspective thusprovides a broad societal interpretation of the themes.FindingsTwo main VP discourses emerged. First, the offering of “The meeting in a destination” isconstructed as place-bound meetings. Place is represented in images of historicalbuildings, spectacular nature, or references to place specific professional networks. Thecommunicated benefits emphasise physical interactions and location in relation to otherplaces. The place bound discourse constructs an essential need of being and engaging ininteractions and experience place, for successful meetings. The CBs engage in aplaceification of professional meetings.Second, the “Sustainable meetings” is a morally packaged offering, that is often basedon presenting benefits of ethical concern such as expressions of care for theenvironment or displays of certifications and expert lists of wise consumption choices.This offering thus constructs morally conscious and responsible choices at the center ofa good meeting. Sustainable consumption is constructed as a norm, in this ethicificationof the professional meetings offering. In sum, the representations relate to differentnorms like mobility and the ethical. The first emphasises experiences of place, whichpartly contradicts the offering of sustainability, The placeification contradicts theethicification of meetings, in so far that places require physical infrastructures andtravelling. The ethicification of meetings stress on the other hand travelling aspotentially harmful for the environment. The sustainability theme does not stress lesstravelling, it rather suggests alternative forms.Discussion and conclusionsThe communication can be interpreted as formations of new norms emerging in relationto change in society. The meeting industry has always emphasised the value of a specificlocation for meetings, an essential part of the tourism industry business models.Revenues depend on sold rooms, dinners, and personal service in that place.Experiences of place requires people to be there. This communication may thereforeseem like a given vantage point. However, digitalisation of society has acceleratedduring Covid-19 pandemic and it seems to have paved a way for customer segments thatdo not want to, or cannot not travel to a remote destination, for different reasons.Especially urgent during the pandemic and to some extent still valid, digital meetingformats are still used. The meeting industry have had to address the question ofmobility, where digital meetings formats could be part of a possible venue in asustainable direction. Carbon emissions from aviation is a significant contributor toclimate change while a lot of people around the world go to meetings by plane, on aregular basis. It may be that the industry addresses these challenges by promotingsustainable meetings. Hence the communication discursively establishes the meetingsindustry as a player within sustainable development. Communication can trivializeconceptions of sustainable challenges and this study suggests that value propositionsare powerful communicative tools and that value propositions emerge in relation tochange in society.References3Assiouras, Ioannis, et al. (2022), 'Value propositions during service mega-disruptions:Exploring value co-creation and value co-destruction in service recovery',ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, 97.Ballantyne, D., P. Frow, R. J. Varey and A. Payne (2011). "Value propositions ascommunication practice: Taking a wider view." Industrial MarketingManagement 40 (2): 202-210.Bose, Sunny, et al. (2022), 'Customer-Based Place Brand Equity and Tourism: A Regional IdentityPerspective', Journal of Travel Research, 61 (3), 511-27.Butler, R. W. and Szromek, A. R. (2019), 'Incorporating the value proposition for society withbusiness models of health tourism enterprises', Sustainability, 11 (23), 6711.Carrasco-Farré, Carlos, et al. (2022), 'The stakeholder value proposition of digital platforms in anurban ecosystem', Research Policy, 51 (4), N.PAG-N.PAG.Christensen, E. Christensen and L. T. (2022). The saying and the doing. Research handbook onstrategic communication. J. Falkheimer and M. Heide, Edward Elgar Publishing.Christensen, L. T., O. Thyssen and M. Morsing (2020). "Talk–Action Dynamics: Modalities ofaspirational talk." Organization Studies.du Gay, P. and Pryke, M. (2002), Cultural Economy: Cultural Analysis and Commercial Life (SAGEPublications).Endres, Herbert, Stoiber, Kristina, and Wenzl, Nina Magdalena (2020), 'Managing digitaltransformation through hybrid business models', Journal of Business Strategy, 41 (6),49-56.Gieben, B. and S. Hall (1992). Formations of modernity, Polity Press in association with the OpenUniv.Grönroos, Christian and Voima, Päivi (2013), 'Critical service logic: making sense of valuecreation and co-creation', Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 41 (2), 133-50.Hall, S. In Wetherell, M., S. Taylor and S. J. Yates (2001). Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader,SAGE Publications.Kannisto, Päivi (2016), '“I'M NOT A TARGET MARKET”: Power asymmetries in marketsegmentation', Tourism Management Perspectives, 20, 174-80.Kodish, S. and L. Pettegrew (2008). "Enlightened Communication Is the Key to BuildingRelationships." Journal of Relationship Marketing 7(2): 151-176.Lanning, M. J. (2020). "Try taking your value proposition seriously - Why delivering winning valuepropositions should be but usually is not the core strategy for B2B (and otherbusinesses)." Industrial Marketing Management 87: 306-308.Payne, A., P. Frow and A. Eggert (2017). "The customer value proposition: evolution,development, and application in marketing." Journal of the Academy of MarketingScience: Official Publication of the Academy of Marketing Science 45(4): 467-489.Payne, A., P. Frow, L. Steinhoff and A. Eggert (2020). "Toward a comprehensive framework ofvalue proposition development: From strategy to implementation." IndustrialMarketing Management 87: 244-255.Truong, Y., G. Simmons and M. Palmer (2012). "Reciprocal value propositions in practice:Constraints in digital markets." Industrial Marketing Management 41(1): 197-206.Tussyadiah, Iis P. (2014), 'Toward a Theoretical Foundation for Experience Design in Tourism',Journal of Travel Research, 53 (5), 543-64.Wetherell, M., Taylor, S., and Yates, S.J. (2001), Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader (SAGEPublications).Winther Jörgensen, M. and L. Phillips (1999). Diskursanalys som teori och metod. Lund,Studentlitteratur.