Internet Service Providers’ Monitoring Obligations: Recent Developments

Since 2004, legislation or courts in Europe have insistently required internet service providers (ISPs) to play various roles in the fight against online copyright infringement. Some of the obligations being placed upon the ISPs have included the disclosure of subscribers’ personal data, the filtering and blocking of access to infringing content or committing to sustained cooperative regulatory policies such as a graduated response mechanism. Although such approaches may be aimed at controlling illicit file-sharing, the trends being pursued by the copyright holders are also to be seen by ISPs as a move from their “passive-reactive roles” towards “active-preventative” roles. Particularly, the scope of ISP obligations are increasingly being seen as blurred and this has prompted several legal challenges in the courts with some of the litigations ended at the national levels and others required the intervention of the European Court of Justice. This paper will examine the extent to which the monitoring obligations placed upon the ISPs have been interpreted and assess the possible implications for the fight against file-sharing

E-commerce website personalisation based on ontological profiling

Electronic commerce has become an important part of our consumer lives, and we increasingly choose to do more and more of our shopping online. Along with the growth of online sales, the number of e-commerce retailers has also increased. This has inevitably put additional demands on existing companies as well as new market entrants to ensure that their growth (if not just survival) as well as competitiveness are sustainable and evolving. Web personalisation has been adopted as a means to support business sustainability and competitiveness. It is now increasingly common and has been recognised by e-commerce businesses and consumers as a feature and functionality, expected to be offered as ‘standard’. Recent World Wide Web technology advances have greatly improved the way ecommerce websites are designed and deployed. However, the analysis of academic literature and professional practices shows that these advances are not used to their full potential. This research gap is an opportunity for this community to consider how techniques such as ontologies could be used to enhance personalisation of e-commerce websites. This thesis presents a novel approach to e-commerce website personalisation (PERSONTO), and in particular, personalisation of content presentation. Personalisation is achieved by means of an ontology-based e-shopper profiling. For this purpose, a reusable, extendible and Semantic Web compatible customer profiling ontology OntoProfi is designed and implemented. A ‘proof-of-concept’ prototype of PERSONTO confirmed the feasibility of the proposed approach. The analysis of achievements of the research objectives and outcomes showed that the approach is flexible, extendible and reusable, and that it was achieved by using systematic methods in the system design and implementation of the prototype. The evaluation of the acceptance of the proposed approach suggests there is a high level of acceptance of the approach by the prospective end users and e-commerce developers

Citizen Science and Geospatial Capacity Building

This book is a collection of the articles published the Special Issue of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information on “Citizen Science and Geospatial Capacity Building”. The articles cover a wide range of topics regarding the applications of citizen science from a geospatial technology perspective. Several applications show the importance of Citizen Science (CitSci) and volunteered geographic information (VGI) in various stages of geodata collection, processing, analysis and visualization; and for demonstrating the capabilities, which are covered in the book. Particular emphasis is given to various problems encountered in the CitSci and VGI projects with a geospatial aspect, such as platform, tool and interface design, ontology development, spatial analysis and data quality assessment. The book also points out the needs and future research directions in these subjects, such as; (a) data quality issues especially in the light of big data; (b) ontology studies for geospatial data suited for diverse user backgrounds, data integration, and sharing; (c) development of machine learning and artificial intelligence based online tools for pattern recognition and object identification using existing repositories of CitSci and VGI projects; and (d) open science and open data practices for increasing the efficiency, decreasing the redundancy, and acknowledgement of all stakeholders

Validation of design artefacts for blockchain-enabled precision healthcare as a service.

Healthcare systems around the globe are currently experiencing a rapid wave of digital disruption. Current research in applying emerging technologies such as Big Data (BD), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Digital Twin (DT), Wearable Sensor (WS), Blockchain (BC) and Smart Contracts (SC) in contact tracing, tracking, drug discovery, care support and delivery, vaccine distribution, management, and delivery. These disruptive innovations have made it feasible for the healthcare industry to provide personalised digital health solutions and services to the people and ensure sustainability in healthcare. Precision Healthcare (PHC) is a new inclusion in digital healthcare that can support personalised needs. It focuses on supporting and providing precise healthcare delivery. Despite such potential, recent studies show that PHC is ineffectual due to the lower patient adoption in the system. Anecdotal evidence shows that people are refraining from adopting PHC due to distrust. This thesis presents a BC-enabled PHC ecosystem that addresses ongoing issues and challenges regarding low opt-in. The designed ecosystem also incorporates emerging information technologies that are potential to address the need for user-centricity, data privacy and security, accountability, transparency, interoperability, and scalability for a sustainable PHC ecosystem. The research adopts Soft System Methodology (SSM) to construct and validate the design artefact and sub-artefacts of the proposed PHC ecosystem that addresses the low opt-in problem. Following a comprehensive view of the scholarly literature, which resulted in a draft set of design principles and rules, eighteen design refinement interviews were conducted to develop the artefact and sub-artefacts for design specifications. The artefact and sub-artefacts were validated through a design validation workshop, where the designed ecosystem was presented to a Delphi panel of twenty-two health industry actors. The key research finding was that there is a need for data-driven, secure, transparent, scalable, individualised healthcare services to achieve sustainability in healthcare. It includes explainable AI, data standards for biosensor devices, affordable BC solutions for storage, privacy and security policy, interoperability, and usercentricity, which prompts further research and industry application. The proposed ecosystem is potentially effective in growing trust, influencing patients in active engagement with real-world implementation, and contributing to sustainability in healthcare

Enhanced Living Environments

This open access book was prepared as a Final Publication of the COST Action IC1303 “Algorithms, Architectures and Platforms for Enhanced Living Environments (AAPELE)”. The concept of Enhanced Living Environments (ELE) refers to the area of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) that is more related with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Effective ELE solutions require appropriate ICT algorithms, architectures, platforms, and systems, having in view the advance of science and technology in this area and the development of new and innovative solutions that can provide improvements in the quality of life for people in their homes and can reduce the financial burden on the budgets of the healthcare providers. The aim of this book is to become a state-of-the-art reference, discussing progress made, as well as prompting future directions on theories, practices, standards, and strategies related to the ELE area. The book contains 12 chapters and can serve as a valuable reference for undergraduate students, post-graduate students, educators, faculty members, researchers, engineers, medical doctors, healthcare organizations, insurance companies, and research strategists working in this area

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2022

This open access book presents the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 29th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER2022 conference, which will be held on January 11–14, 2022. The book provides an extensive overview of how information and communication technologies can be used to develop tourism and hospitality. It covers the latest research on various topics within the field, including augmented and virtual reality, website development, social media use, e-learning, big data, analytics, and recommendation systems. The readers will gain insights and ideas on how information and communication technologies can be used in tourism and hospitality. Academics working in the eTourism field, as well as students and practitioners, will find up-to-date information on the status of research

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2022

This open access book presents the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 29th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER2022 conference, which will be held on January 11–14, 2022. The book provides an extensive overview of how information and communication technologies can be used to develop tourism and hospitality. It covers the latest research on various topics within the field, including augmented and virtual reality, website development, social media use, e-learning, big data, analytics, and recommendation systems. The readers will gain insights and ideas on how information and communication technologies can be used in tourism and hospitality. Academics working in the eTourism field, as well as students and practitioners, will find up-to-date information on the status of research