RFID Technology in Intelligent Tracking Systems in Construction Waste Logistics Using Optimisation Techniques

Construction waste disposal is an urgent issue for protecting our environment. This paper proposes a waste management system and illustrates the work process using plasterboard waste as an example, which creates a hazardous gas when land filled with household waste, and for which the recycling rate is less than 10% in the UK. The proposed system integrates RFID technology, Rule-Based Reasoning, Ant Colony optimization and knowledge technology for auditing and tracking plasterboard waste, guiding the operation staff, arranging vehicles, schedule planning, and also provides evidence to verify its disposal. It h relies on RFID equipment for collecting logistical data and uses digital imaging equipment to give further evidence; the reasoning core in the third layer is responsible for generating schedules and route plans and guidance, and the last layer delivers the result to inform users. The paper firstly introduces the current plasterboard disposal situation and addresses the logistical problem that is now the main barrier to a higher recycling rate, followed by discussion of the proposed system in terms of both system level structure and process structure. And finally, an example scenario will be given to illustrate the system’s utilization

An information System for Food Safety Monitoring in Supply Chains based on HACCP, Blockchain and Internet of Things

With the rapid growth of China's economy, people's living standard has been increased continuously, which changed the consuming habit of consumers, and more and more attention is paid to food safety and quality. However, in recent years, a series of serious food safety incidents occurred, such as "Sudan red", "clenbuterol", "Sanlu toxic milk powder" and "trench oi". It is worth noting that not only in China, but even in Europe these kinds of scandals have broken out during the past 20 years, including Escherichia coliin hamburgers, Salmonella in eggs, poultry and pork, Listeria in pates and cheeses, and the "horse meat scandal" in 2013. These food safety problems not only harm people's health, but also undermine their trust in food markets. The main purpose of this cumulative dissertation is trying to guarantee the food quality and safety from a supply chain management perspective, and the key issue is building a decentralized information system which is not dependent on the trust of a central authority or organization for the whole food supply chain. By using the internet of things and blockchain technologies, this new decentralized information system could become a disruptive innovation which could provide an information platform for all supply chain members (including government departments and third-party regulators) based on openness, transparency, neutrality, reliability and security. We want to establish a food supply chain traceability system for real-time food tracing, build a safety control system for food supply chain by integrating it with general supply chain risk management methods, and significantly improve the performance of the food logistics company. All of these will ultimately enhance the safety assurance of a food supply chain

Mechatronic Systems

Mechatronics, the synergistic blend of mechanics, electronics, and computer science, has evolved over the past twenty five years, leading to a novel stage of engineering design. By integrating the best design practices with the most advanced technologies, mechatronics aims at realizing high-quality products, guaranteeing at the same time a substantial reduction of time and costs of manufacturing. Mechatronic systems are manifold and range from machine components, motion generators, and power producing machines to more complex devices, such as robotic systems and transportation vehicles. With its twenty chapters, which collect contributions from many researchers worldwide, this book provides an excellent survey of recent work in the field of mechatronics with applications in various fields, like robotics, medical and assistive technology, human-machine interaction, unmanned vehicles, manufacturing, and education. We would like to thank all the authors who have invested a great deal of time to write such interesting chapters, which we are sure will be valuable to the readers. Chapters 1 to 6 deal with applications of mechatronics for the development of robotic systems. Medical and assistive technologies and human-machine interaction systems are the topic of chapters 7 to 13.Chapters 14 and 15 concern mechatronic systems for autonomous vehicles. Chapters 16-19 deal with mechatronics in manufacturing contexts. Chapter 20 concludes the book, describing a method for the installation of mechatronics education in schools

Innovative Technologies and Services for Smart Cities

A smart city is a modern technology-driven urban area which uses sensing devices, information, and communication technology connected to the internet of things (IoTs) for the optimum and efficient utilization of infrastructures and services with the goal of improving the living conditions of citizens. Increasing populations, lower budgets, limited resources, and compatibility of the upgraded technologies are some of the few problems affecting the implementation of smart cities. Hence, there is continuous advancement regarding technologies for the implementation of smart cities. The aim of this Special Issue is to report on the design and development of integrated/smart sensors, a universal interfacing platform, along with the IoT framework, extending it to next-generation communication networks for monitoring parameters of interest with the goal of achieving smart cities. The proposed universal interfacing platform with the IoT framework will solve many challenging issues and significantly boost the growth of IoT-related applications, not just in the environmental monitoring domain but in the other key areas, such as smart home, assistive technology for the elderly care, smart city with smart waste management, smart E-metering, smart water supply, intelligent traffic control, smart grid, remote healthcare applications, etc., signifying benefits for all countries

Next Generation Access in a Rural Community Context: An Innovation Analysis

This thesis explores how to resolve the digital divide in Wales. This is important because access to advanced broadband is considered an essential requirement, particularly post-COVID19. UK Government is advocating next generation access (NGA) to capitalise on Industry 4.0. However, the financial costs and complexities of connecting the final few rural areas is a persisting problem area. Hence, this thesis explores new innovative approaches to provide NGA (product) to a final few (market). Studies revealed superfast broadband in remote rural communities has four-fold human, social, environmental and financial capital benefits. Analysis resulted in a new conceptual framework which combines neo-endogenous theories alongside a four-fold capital model to characterise the complex ecosystem. Previous literature focused on either supply or demand, but few studies had investigated both together at the local level. Human & social capital were identified as critical success factors in community-led initiatives, thus providing a theoretical underpinning for this thesis. This study employed a novel mutual business approach utilising the Hybrid Value System (HVS) as an ecosystem connecting the core assets of several stakeholders. Furthermore, the World Bank Social Capital Assessment Tool was modified to investigate social capital fertility to enhance investment. Henceforth, a qualitative multi-method and in-depth intrinsic case study was used to explore the ecosystem. The contribution to knowledge is how to engage multi-stakeholder and multi-capital analysis to resolve the problem area. The results identified human capital productivity, social capital collective action, and shared financial capital are required at the local level to reach the final few. The mutual business paradigm challenges all stakeholders to value non-financial capital alongside financial capital for problem area resolution. This thesis concludes that HVS methodology coupled with complex ecosystem-network visualisation techniques, provide academics, management and government policy makers with practical tools to value four-fold capital resources and bridge the digital divide

The Origin of Data: Enabling the Determination of Provenance in Multi-institutional Scientific Systems through the Documentation of Processes

The Oxford English Dictionary defines provenance as (i) the fact of coming from some particular source or quarter; origin, derivation. (ii) the history or pedigree of a work of art, manuscript, rare book, etc.; concr., a record of the ultimate derivation and passage of an item through its various owners. In art, knowing the provenance of an artwork lends weight and authority to it while providing a context for curators and the public to understand and appreciate the work’s value. Without such a documented history, the work may be misunderstood, unappreciated, or undervalued. In computer systems, knowing the provenance of digital objects would provide them with greater weight, authority, and context just as it does for works of art. Specifically, if the provenance of digital objects could be determined, then users could understand how documents were produced, how simulation results were generated, and why decisions were made. Provenance is of particular importance in science, where experimental results are reused, reproduced, and verified. However, science is increasingly being done through large-scale collaborations that span multiple institutions, which makes the problem of determining the provenance of scientific results significantly harder. Current approaches to this problem are not designed specifically for multi-institutional scientific systems and their evolution towards greater dynamic and peer-to-peer topologies. Therefore, this thesis advocates a new approach, namely, that through the autonomous creation, scalable recording, and principled organisation of documentation of systems’ processes, the determination of the provenance of results produced by complex multi-institutional scientific systems is enabled. The dissertation makes four contributions to the state of the art. First is the idea that provenance is a query performed over documentation of a system’s past process. Thus, the problem is one of how to collect and collate documentation from multiple distributed sources and organise it in a manner that enables the provenance of a digital object to be determined. Second is an open, generic, shared, principled data model for documentation of processes, which enables its collation so that it provides high-quality evidence that a system’s processes occurred. Once documentation has been created, it is recorded into specialised repositories called provenance stores using a formally specified protocol, which ensures documentation has high-quality characteristics. Furthermore, patterns and techniques are given to permit the distributed deployment of provenance stores. The protocol and patterns are the third contribution. The fourth contribution is a characterisation of the use of documentation of process to answer questions related to the provenance of digital objects and the impact recording has on application performance. Specifically, in the context of a bioinformatics case study, it is shown that six different provenance use cases are answered given an overhead of 13% on experiment run-time. Beyond the case study, the solution has been applied to other applications including fault tolerance in service-oriented systems, aerospace engineering, and organ transplant management

The Development of Learning Regions in New Zealand: An ICT Perspective

The term "Learning Region" is used to identify a region which is innovative, economically successful, and inhabited by citizens who are active members of their local community. Such regions are characterised by strong links between local businesses, community groups, and education providers. Within a regional area interaction and exchange of information is easier and cheaper than in a national or international context. The success of an individual organisation is directly related to the quality of information available locally. Information technology can be an important tool in improving the flow of knowledge between the stakeholders within a region. The study examines the role that information and communication technologies (ICTs) play in the development of learning regions in New Zealand, and how they can be used to improve the quality of information flows both within the region itself, and between the region and the outside world. In particular the research considers what contribution ICTs make to organisational learning and innovation. Historical methods are used to build up a picture of the significant changes that have taken place within two contrasting regions of New Zealand between 1985 and 2005. The two selected regions are Southland and Wellington. Data was collected by searching regional newspapers, and conducting interviews with key figures in each region. A "6-I" framework of the "ideal" features of a learning region was developed from the literature review and this was used to analyse the data. The findings show a clear linear progression in terms of the development of hard ICT based networks, but a less clear pattern in terms of soft social networks where the same issues were revisited a number of times over the years. Though there was evidence of a relationship between the soft networks that existed at the regional level and the utilisation of hard ICT networks within a region it was difficult to quantify. Hard and soft networks evolve differently over time and the relationship between the two is nuanced. Both regions were successful in setting up high quality ICT networks. However, with the exception of the education sector, both regions struggled to co-ordinate their soft networks. Though good social capital existed in each region, especially in Southland, it was located in different interest groups and was not easy to bring together. This lack of co-ordination meant that the possibilities opened up by ICT infrastructure in terms of increasing innovation were not fully realised. Both regions demonstrated many of the characteristics of learning regions but neither region was able to bring all aspects together to reach their full potential. The thesis demonstrates the important role that soft social networks play in the successful utilisation of ICT networks within a regional setting

Planning in cyberenvironments: an analysis of the impacts of open data in Chicago

Technologies and the Internet have greatly enhanced the production and communication of information, increasingly impacting on our lives and cities. They have also fostered open access to information and the sharing of it via open data platforms. As a result, many cities are now embracing new modes of open data management. However, the impacts of open data extend beyond data management, transparency, and accountability to influencing governance and community participation. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze open data as part of the “smart city,” analyzing its potentialities and implications for urban planning based on Cyberenvironments, a collaborative and open approach. I chose Chicago as a case study, where open data is a bridge to Chicago becoming a smart city. The research analyzes the impacts of open data in Chicago, and focuses on changes in governance and the role of non-governmental actors, such as participants in the civic technology community that has gained the trust of citizens, institutions, organizations, and companies. I employed quantitative and qualitative methods, as previous approaches have been highly dominated by quantitative methods lacking a qualitative perspective. Thus, in this exploratory research, qualitative and quantitative methods are integrated by analyzing a single case study. An online survey was included in order to provide a more detailed characterization of the community that I defined as the “Chicago civic technology community” (CCTC). I then conducted semi-structured interviews of experts and decision makers from different institutions involved with initiatives, plans, and projects regarding open data in Chicago. Chicago has a dynamic open data movement supported by the local government, non-government organizations, universities, and citizens interested in sharing and providing urban solutions. The Chicago open data portal was launched in 2010 and relaunched in 2011. It was then supported by the Chicago Technology Plan in 2013, which provided a framework, vision, and strategies turning Chicago into a technology-based city. The plan incorporated a “civic innovation” strategy to empower citizens to use open data. However, since 2010 citizens have been using requesting and transforming data. The data transformation, occurring in collaborative environments, is helping the City of Chicago to spur better decision-making and efficiency. The role of citizen as “civic innovators” is crucial in accelerating this dynamic civic ecosystem. In this dissertation, what I identified the Chicago civic technology community goes beyond a temporal open data movement or simple network to become an engine of innovation building knowledge-based collaborative environments. The civic technology community’s human capital shows how highly skilled citizens can take advantage of open data, add value to raw data, and transform data into knowledge; the Chicago civic technology community has developed an active environment for interaction and the sharing of knowledge. However, this dynamic may actually increase the gap between highly skilled citizens and less skilled citizens, reinforcing existing patterns of exclusion. Thus, the issue is not only access to the information alone, because people require the capacity to transform data into knowledge. Thus, this dissertation presents a shift of paradigm from the “information age” to the “knowledge age,” and the implications of this in a planning context. The main implication involves the evolution from “e-planning,” based on networks and information, to “knowledge planning” (k-planning), based on Cyberenvironments and knowledge. This dissertation’s main finding is that k-planning represent a new venue in planning, offering a comprehensive and contextualized understanding of “planning in Cyberenvironments,” where “urban space” and “time” work together simultaneously to build such Cyberenvironments. K-planning addresses the real-time dimension by utilizing the “acceleration” of space and time simultaneously as “the acceleration of territorial development.” In term of policy implications, open data means more than simply the availability of online datasets—it requires the development of a dynamic civic innovation space, crucial for both countries and cities. Thus, cities need policies directed at strengthening human capital and reducing the gap between highly and low skilled citizens. K-planning offers an alternative to the development of smart cities beyond mere technology operation. I define K-planning for generation of urban development and for re-generation of existing cities; both cases taking into account “genius loci” (origin) and “milieu innovator” as an outcome. K-planning can be applied to the urban generation of smart cities and regeneration for smarter existing cities. K-planning is about synergies, innovation, and integration; it is about partnership based on ownership (specific achievements) and the contribution made by stakeholders for better policy making and promoting a culture of available, open, and relevant data. The aim is to nurture collective knowledge to meet the needs of the civil society via better governance, consensus building and policy making

Towards sustainable use: design behaviour intervention to reduce household environment impact

The use of electrical products has a significant environmental impact, mainly determined by user behaviour, which has overridden the energy efficiency gains in the household from technological and educational solutions. Designers are identifiably in a position to plan and shape the way in which consumption occurs and to fill the gap between values and everyday user actions. Despite this, the literature demonstrates that the use phase of the product life cycle is often neglected in sustainable design. Few attempts have been made to change user behaviour through design-led interventions to limit its environmental burdens. In addition, there is a lack of understanding of users perceptions of environmental issues with reference to the specific context: actual use, habits and fundamental needs of the product as well as the behaviour changing products. This makes creating sustainable use of the household appliance lessen the significance of its original purpose. The aim of this research is to seek the role that design could play in influencing more sustainable actions to reduce environmental household impacts. Based on a comprehensive literature review in diverse disciplinary fields of enquiry, a Design Behaviour Intervention Model has been established to bridge the social-psychological theories of behaviour and the behaviour intervention approaches. To inform this enquiry, a single product type (household cold appliance) was chosen as a case study to explore the capacity of a qualitative behaviour study to identify unsustainable aspects of product use. Two design activities were carried out: one examining the designer s ability to respond to the design brief and the other applying the findings that emerged from the in-depth behaviour analysis and the model into the design process. The selected outcomes from the design study are evaluated by a focus group to uncover the users acceptance level of these concepts and the behaviour intervention approaches applied. The collective findings are discussed along with the usefulness and effectiveness of the Design Behaviour Intervention Model in Design for Sustainable Behaviour. This research highlights that a detailed user study is not only the first step for improving energy efficiency in product use but also the origin of innovative design concepts to tap the market by providing better and greener use experiences. Useful insights on primary findings have emerged: the effectiveness of applying the social-psychological theory in the Sustainable Design domain; principles of improving effectiveness and acceptability of the behaviour interventions; and a guide for Design for Sustainable Behaviour

Food for All

This book is a historical review of international food and agriculture since the founding of the international organizations following the Second World War, including the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and into the 1970s, when CGIAR was established and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was created to recycle petrodollars. The book concurrently focuses on the structural transformation of developing countries in Asia and Africa, with some making great strides in small farmer development and in achieving structural transformation of their economies. Some have also achieved Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG2, but most have not. Not only are some countries, particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, lagging behind, but they face new challenges of climate change, competition from emerging countries, population pressure, urbanization, environmental decay, dietary transition, and now pandemics. Lagging developing countries need huge investments in human capital, and physical and institutional infrastructure, to take advantage of rapid change in technologies, but the role of international assistance in financial transfers has diminished. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only set many poorer countries back but starkly revealed the weaknesses of past strategies. Transformative changes are needed in developing countries with international cooperation to achieve better outcomes. Will the change in US leadership bring new opportunities for multilateral cooperation