Mechatronics & the cloud

Conventionally, the engineering design process has assumed that the design team is able to exercise control over all elements of the design, either directly or indirectly in the case of sub-systems through their specifications. The introduction of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things (IoT) means that a design team’s ability to have control over all elements of a system is no longer the case, particularly as the actual system configuration may well be being dynamically reconfigured in real-time according to user (and vendor) context and need. Additionally, the integration of the Internet of Things with elements of Big Data means that information becomes a commodity to be autonomously traded by and between systems, again according to context and need, all of which has implications for the privacy of system users. The paper therefore considers the relationship between mechatronics and cloud-basedtechnologies in relation to issues such as the distribution of functionality and user privacy

A Framework for Integrating Transportation Into Smart Cities

In recent years, economic, environmental, and political forces have quickly given rise to “Smart Cities” -- an array of strategies that can transform transportation in cities. Using a multi-method approach to research and develop a framework for smart cities, this study provides a framework that can be employed to: Understand what a smart city is and how to replicate smart city successes; The role of pilot projects, metrics, and evaluations to test, implement, and replicate strategies; and Understand the role of shared micromobility, big data, and other key issues impacting communities. This research provides recommendations for policy and professional practice as it relates to integrating transportation into smart cities

Humanising policy from ‘Warriors to Guardians’: An evaluation of Coordinated Management and Emergency Response Assemblages in Ireland and the US

Coordinated Management and Emergency Response Assemblages (CMaERAs) are complex, multi-faceted, institutionalised networks of emergency response agencies, people, processes, technologies, histories, geographies and cultures which shape the strength of inter-agency coordination and emergency response. This thesis explores how a variety of actors, actants and technologies involved in emergency management assemble and organise. The methodology adopted is qualitative and uses two case studies to evaluate how CMaERA oscillate from their organised shape as dictated by policy to a new shape emanating from the needs of a response call. The case studies were: the Irish Emergency Management Assemblages (IEMA) response to the winter storms of 2015/2016 and the United States Emergency Management Assemblages (USEMA) response to the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. Fifty-one semi-structured interviews of key stakeholders and emergency response agents were conducted and supported by an interpretive analysis of key policy documents. By adopting assemblage theory and applying it to the empirical findings of the IEMA and USEMA, conceptualised within Foucauldian and Agambien understanding of power and sovereignty, this thesis offers a theoretical and philosophical framework to study emergency services, their interactions and power dynamics while keeping in sight their histories, cultures and current situations. This resulted in recognising that CMaERAs re-shape and oscillate position regularly to ensure that response is adequate and efficient. These movements are influenced both by the situation, inter-agency trust, and previous working relationships, but also from external factors, such as the institutionalisation and siloed manner of agencies, (in)formalisation, their relationship with the government, technological advancements, data analytics but also human nature. These broad factors affect inter-agency coordination and collaboration by creating barriers preventing the development of a true Coordinated Management and Emergency Response Assemblage. Finally, it provides three wider contributions to knowledge: expansion of the term ‘vulnerability’, development of embodied assemblages, and the identification of three urban factors which affect assemblage oscillation

The making of smart cities : borders, security and value in New Town Kolkata and Cape Town

The making of smart cities transforms not only infrastructures and practices but also the techniques of urban government and security, and economic processes. This thesis draws on analysis conducted in two research sites: Cape Town, in South Africa and New Town Rajarhat, a satellite township on the outskirts of Kolkata, to present three key arguments. Firstly, and as opposed to mainstream narratives that describe smart cities as seamlessly connected environments, this thesis suggests that urban digitalisation is linked to bordering processes. Whereas critical literature has comprehensively discussed the political implications and risks associated with smart city projects, such as corporatisation and technocratic governance, the specific relations between digital infrastructures and borders, within the urban space, have not yet been discussed. Secondly, this thesis argues that smart cities are inherently security projects, insofar as the deployment of a computing infrastructure of sensing initiates a preemptive apparatus. In security systems, such as the Emergency Policing and Incident Command (EPIC) program in Cape Town, or the Xpresso software for social media monitoring in New Town, algorithms are continuously modelling and acting upon future scenarios; from traffic jams to wildfires, from crime hotspots to citizens’ moods. My third argument is that the computing apparatus of security also serves as an infrastructure of value extraction. Recently, there has been much theorising and debate about security platforms’ economic operations, but the situated modalities in which they extract value from the urban environment remain to be examined. Overall, this thesis points to the socio-spatial, governmental and economic relations that computing infrastructures are generating, or reconfiguring, in the urban environment. These relations articulate distinct processes, including the hierarchisation and control of the urban space, preemptive policies and extractive strategies. Critically analysing these processes allows the registration of the political implications of smart city projects

Slave to the Algorithm? Why a \u27Right to an Explanation\u27 Is Probably Not the Remedy You Are Looking For

Algorithms, particularly machine learning (ML) algorithms, are increasingly important to individuals’ lives, but have caused a range of concerns revolving mainly around unfairness, discrimination and opacity. Transparency in the form of a “right to an explanation” has emerged as a compellingly attractive remedy since it intuitively promises to open the algorithmic “black box” to promote challenge, redress, and hopefully heightened accountability. Amidst the general furore over algorithmic bias we describe, any remedy in a storm has looked attractive. However, we argue that a right to an explanation in the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is unlikely to present a complete remedy to algorithmic harms, particularly in some of the core “algorithmic war stories” that have shaped recent attitudes in this domain. Firstly, the law is restrictive, unclear, or even paradoxical concerning when any explanation-related right can be triggered. Secondly, even navigating this, the legal conception of explanations as “meaningful information about the logic of processing” may not be provided by the kind of ML “explanations” computer scientists have developed, partially in response. ML explanations are restricted both by the type of explanation sought, the dimensionality of the domain and the type of user seeking an explanation. However, “subject-centric explanations (SCEs) focussing on particular regions of a model around a query show promise for interactive exploration, as do explanation systems based on learning a model from outside rather than taking it apart (pedagogical versus decompositional explanations) in dodging developers\u27 worries of intellectual property or trade secrets disclosure. Based on our analysis, we fear that the search for a “right to an explanation” in the GDPR may be at best distracting, and at worst nurture a new kind of “transparency fallacy.” But all is not lost. We argue that other parts of the GDPR related (i) to the right to erasure ( right to be forgotten ) and the right to data portability; and (ii) to privacy by design, Data Protection Impact Assessments and certification and privacy seals, may have the seeds we can use to make algorithms more responsible, explicable, and human-centered

Smart Technology and the Emergence of Algorithmic Bureaucracy:Artificial Intelligence in UK Local Authorities

In recent years, local authorities in the UK have begun to adopt a variety of ‘smart’ technological changes to enhance service delivery. These changes are producing profound impacts on the structure of public administration. Focusing on the particular case of artificial intelligence, specifically autonomous agents and predictive analytics, a combination of desk research, a survey questionnaire, and interviews were used to better understand the extent and nature of these changes in local government. Findings suggest that local authorities are beginning to adopt smart technologies and that these technologies are having an unanticipated impact on how public administrators and computational algorithms become imbricated in the delivery of public services. This imbrication is described as algorithmic bureaucracy and it provides a framework within which to explore how these technologies transform both the socio‐technical relationship between workers and their tools, as well as the ways that work is organized in the public sector

Mobile health systems and emergence

Changes in the age distribution of the population and increased prevalence of chronic illnesses, together with a shortage of health professionals and other resources, will increasingly challenge the ability of national healthcare systems to meet rising demand for services. Large-scale use of eHealth and mHealth services enabled by advances in ICT are frequently cited as providing part of the solution to this crisis in future provision. As part of this picture, self-monitoring and remote monitoring of patients, for example by means of smartphone apps and body-worn sensors, is on the way to becoming mainstream. In future, each individual’s personal health system may be able to access a large number of devices, including sensors embedded in the environment as well as in-body smart medical implants, in order to provide (semi-)autonomous health-related services to the user. This article presents some examples of mHealth systems based on emerging technologies, including body area networks (BANs), wireless and mobile technologies, miniature body-worn sensors and distributed decision support. Applications are described in the areas of management of chronic illnesses and management of (large- scale) emergency situations. In the latter setting BANs form part of an advanced ICT system proposed for future major incident management; including BANs for monitoring casualties and emergency services personnel during first response. Some challenges and possibilities arising from current and future emerging mHealth technologies, and the question of how emergence theory might have a bearing on understanding these challenges, is discussed here