A self-integration testbed for decentralized socio-technical systems

The Internet of Things (IoT) comes along with new challenges for experimenting, testing, and operating decentralized socio-technical systems at large-scale. In such systems, autonomous agents interact locally with their users, and remotely with other agents to make intelligent collective choices. Via these interactions they self-regulate the consumption and production of distributed (common) resources, e.g., self-management of traffic flows and power demand in Smart Cities. While such complex systems are often deployed and operated using centralized computing infrastructures, the socio-technical nature of these decentralized systems requires new value-sensitive design paradigms; empowering trust, transparency, and alignment with citizens’ social values, such as privacy preservation, autonomy, and fairness among citizens’ choices. Currently, instruments and tools to study such systems and guide the prototyping process from simulation, to live deployment, and ultimately to a robust operation of a high Technology Readiness Level (TRL) are missing, or not practical in this distributed socio-technical context. This paper bridges this gap by introducing a novel testbed architecture for decentralized socio-technical systems running on IoT. This new architecture is designed for a seamless reusability of (i) application-independent decentralized services by an IoT application, and (ii) different IoT applications by the same decentralized service. This dual self-integration promises IoT applications that are simpler to prototype, and can interoperate with decentralized services during runtime to self-integrate more complex functionality, e.g., data analytics, distributed artificial intelligence. Additionally, such integration provides stronger validation of IoT applications, and improves resource utilization, as computational resources are shared, thus cutting down deployment and operational costs. Pressure and crash tests during continuous operations of several weeks, with more than 80K network joining and leaving of agents, 2.4M parameter changes, and 100M communicated messages, confirm the robustness and practicality of the testbed architecture. This work promises new pathways for managing the prototyping and deployment complexity of decentralized socio-technical systems running on IoT, whose complexity has so far hindered the adoption of value-sensitive self-management approaches in Smart Cities

An Integrated EPLOS Database as a Tool Supporting TSL Companies

The paper presents the conceptual design of a database for the European Portal of Logistics Services (EPLOS) and its application. The database contains the data on logistics companies, the infrastructure for road, railway, inland, and air transport, as well as the data on the nodal elements of logistics infrastructure (warehouse facilities, seaports, transhipment terminals). Complete and verified information is the fundamental condition for rational decisions about the realization of logistics processes on a meso- and macroeconomic scale. Authors present the relations in the making of the EPLOS database, its assumed scope, and the potential benefits for the TSL market from accessing the EPLOS database

Towards Interoperable Research Infrastructures for Environmental and Earth Sciences

This open access book summarises the latest developments on data management in the EU H2020 ENVRIplus project, which brought together more than 20 environmental and Earth science research infrastructures into a single community. It provides readers with a systematic overview of the common challenges faced by research infrastructures and how a ‘reference model guided’ engineering approach can be used to achieve greater interoperability among such infrastructures in the environmental and earth sciences. The 20 contributions in this book are structured in 5 parts on the design, development, deployment, operation and use of research infrastructures. Part one provides an overview of the state of the art of research infrastructure and relevant e-Infrastructure technologies, part two discusses the reference model guided engineering approach, the third part presents the software and tools developed for common data management challenges, the fourth part demonstrates the software via several use cases, and the last part discusses the sustainability and future directions

Designing a land information system for rural land use planning in Zimbabwe: a situational analysis and feasibility study report

A feasibility study on constructing a national Land/Geographic Information System (LIS/GIS) for the purposes of rural land use planning that would be easily accessed by different stakeholders in Zimbabwe.The objective of this project was to investigate the feasibility of constructing a national Land/Geographic Information System (LIS/GIS) for the purposes of rural land use planning that would be easily accessed by different stakeholders. Existing institutional structures of organisations that use spatial data were looked at. These were the Department of Agricultural Research and Extension, the Department of the Surveyor General, the Deeds Registry, the Department of Natural Resources, Forestry Commission, and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Issues pertaining to data acquisition, human resources, computer hardware and software capabilities were investigated. The Department of the Surveyor General came out as the leading supplier and source of digital data in Zimbabwe As a result, it was suggested as the most logical choice for housing the Land/Geographic Information System, and consequently would oversee all issues on digital data

On the engineering of crucial software

The various aspects of the conventional software development cycle are examined. This cycle was the basis of the augmented approach contained in the original grant proposal. This cycle was found inadequate for crucial software development, and the justification for this opinion is presented. Several possible enhancements to the conventional software cycle are discussed. Software fault tolerance, a possible enhancement of major importance, is discussed separately. Formal verification using mathematical proof is considered. Automatic programming is a radical alternative to the conventional cycle and is discussed. Recommendations for a comprehensive approach are presented, and various experiments which could be conducted in AIRLAB are described