Using Ambient Geographic Information (AGI) in order to understand emotion & stress within smart cities

De Oliveira, T. H. M. (2015). The Emotion-Aware City: Using Ambient Geographic Information (AGI) in order to understand emotion & stress within smart cities. In 3rd AGILE PhD School Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe, AGILE PhD School 2015 (Vol. 1598, pp. 1-5). (CEUR Workshop Proceedings).publishersversionpublishe

Using Ambient Geographic Information (AGI) in Order to Understand Emotion & Stress within Smart Cities

Oliveira, T. H., & Painho, M. (2015). Using Ambient Geographic Information (AGI) in Order to Understand Emotion & Stress within Smart Cities. In F. Bação, M. Y. Santos, & M. Painho (Eds.), AGILE 2015 : 18th AGILE International Conference on Geographic Information Science: Geographic Information Science as an Enabler of Smarter Cities and Communities AGILE.Since one of the main ambitions of a smart city is to improve urban functions and provided services, it is often perceived as a living urban fabric, in which connected urban citizens, acting as active sensors, have the capacity to contribute even more efficiently to the spatial intelligence of cities. This “immaterial” dimension is related with the need that smart cities have to assess their citizen’s feelings, perception and well-being, giving rise to an emotion-aware city. Mapping emotion builds on a tradition of studies in cognitive mapping, evaluative mapping, environmental preference and environmental affect, adding an approach in which people experience, evaluate and describe their environment “in situ” through social media. This paper aims to present an Ambient Geographic Information (AGI) approach to assemble geo-tagged data from Twitter, Flickr, Instagram and Facebook related with people’s perception and feelings regarding Lisbon (Portugal), and therefore characterize its emotional dimension, by comparing these subjective observations with objective measurements (such as socio-demographic statistics, questionnaires and data retrieved from biometric sensors). With this vision of a smart city, that is capable to interpret and harnessing the emotional states of its citizens, it is essential to find new methods and techniques to sensing affect in an urban context.publishersversionpublishe

The V in VGI: Citizens or Civic Data Sources

Volunteered geographic information (VGI), delivered via mobile and web apps, offers new potentials for civic engagement. If framed in the context of open, transparent and accountable governance then presumably VGI should advance dialogue and consultation between citizen and government. If governments perceive citizens as consumers of services then arguably such democratic intent elide when municipalities use VGI. Our empirical research shows how assumptions embedded in VGI drive the interaction between citizens and government. We created a typology that operationalises VGI as a potential act of citizenship and an instance of consumption. We then selected civic apps from Canadian cities that appeared to invoke these VGI types. We conducted interviews with developers of the apps; they were from government, private sector, and civil society. Results from qualitative semi-structured interviews indicate a blurring of consumer and citizen-centric orientations among respondents, which depended on motivations for data use, engagement and communication objectives, and sector of the respondent. Citizen engagement, an analogue for citizenship, was interpreted multiple ways. Overall, we found that government and developers may increase choice by creating consumer-friendly apps but this does not ensure VGI offers an act of civic participation. The burden is placed on the contributor to make it so. Apps and VGI could potentially further a data-driven and neoliberal government. Planners should be mindful of the dominance of a consumer-centric view even as they assume VGI invariably improves democratic participation

drivers and emerging innovations in knowledge based destinations towards a research agenda

Abstract Research on innovation in tourism is fragmented and confined to traditional paradigms. This critical review paper, which cross-fertilises and discusses the relevant literature in tourism and other theoretical domains, proposes an integrative theoretical framework of innovation in destinations. The paper identifies four emerging innovations – experience co-creation, smart destinations, e-participative governance and social innovation – as evolutionary, knowledge-driven phenomena that are generated by the interaction among four destination actors and facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social capital. The discussion and conclusion present some theoretical advances as follows: local contexts matter in destination innovation when assuming a repository role of spatial and cross-sectorial knowledge; social capital and ICT infrastructures facilitate innovativeness and stakeholder engagement; and emerging innovations are pervasive and the holistic results of the collective knowledge of four destination actors and are facilitated by ICT and social capital. The paper offers avenues for future research and challenges that should be explored by academics, policy makers and destination managers

APREGOAR: Development of a geospatial database applied to local news in Lisbon

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Geographic Information Systems and ScienceHá informações valiosas em formato de texto não estruturado sobre a localização, calendarização e a essências dos eventos disponíveis no conteúdo de notícias digitais. Vários trabalhos em curso já tentam extrair detalhes de eventos de fontes de notícias digitais, mas muitas vezes não com a nuance necssária para representar com precisão onde as coisas realmente acontecem. Alternativamente, os jornalistas poderiam associar manualmente atributos a eventos descritos nos seus artigos enquanto publicam, melhorando a exatidão e a confiança nestes atributos espaciais e temporais. Estes atributos poderiam então estar imediatamente disponíveis para avaliar a cobertura temática, temporal e espacial do conteúdo de uma agência, bem como melhorar a experiência do utilizador na exploração do conteúdo, fornecendo dimensões adicionais que podem ser filtradas. Embora a tecnologia de atribuição de dimensões geoespaciais e temporais para o emprego de aplicaçãoes voltadas para o consumidor não seja novidade, tem ainda de ser aplicada à escala das notícias. Além disso, a maioria dos sistemas existentes suporta apenas uma definição pontual da localização dos artigos, que pode não representar bem o(s) local(is) real(ais) dos eventos descritos. Este trabalho define uma aplicação web de código aberto e uma base de dados espacial subjacente que suporta i) a associação de múltiplos polígonos a representar o local onde cada evento ocorre, os prazos associados aos eventos, em linha com os atributos temáticos tradicionais associados aos artigos de notícias; ii) a contextualização de cada artigo através da adição de mapas de eventos em linha para esclarecer aos leitores onde os eventos do artigo ocorrem; e iii) a exploração dos corpora adicionados através de filtros temáticos, espaciais e temporais que exibem os resultados em mapas de cobertura interactivos e listas de artigos e eventos. O projeto foi aplicado na área da grande Lisboa de Portugal. Para além da funcionalidade acima referida, este projeto constroi gazetteers progressivos que podem ser reutilizados como associações de lugares, ou para uma meta-análise mais aprofundada do lugar, tal como é percebido coloquialmente. Demonstra a facilidade com que estas dimensões adicionais podem ser incorporadas com grade confiança na precisão da definição, geridas, e alavancadas para melhorar a gestão de conteúdo das agências noticiosas, a compreensão dos leitores, a exploração dos investigadores, ou extraídas para combinação com outros conjuntos dos dados para fornecer conhecimentos adicionais.There is valuable information in unstructured text format about the location, timing, and nature of events available in digital news content. Several ongoing efforts already attempt to extract event details from digital news sources, but often not with the nuance needed to accurately represent the where things actually happen. Alternatively, journalists could manually associate attributes to events described in their articles while publishing, improving accuracy and confidence in these spatial and temporal attributes. These attributes could then be immediately available for evaluating thematic, temporal, and spatial coverage of an agency’s content, as well as improve the user experience of content exploration by providing additional dimensions that can be filtered. Though the technology of assigning geospatial and temporal dimensions for the employ of consumer-facing applications is not novel, it has yet to be applied at scale to the news. Additionally, most existing systems only support a single point definition of article locations, which may not well represent the actual place(s) of events described within. This work defines an open source web application and underlying spatial database that supports i) the association of multiple polygons representing where each event occurs, time frames associated with the events, inline with the traditional thematic attributes associated with news articles; ii) the contextualization of each article via the addition of inline event maps to clarify to readers where the events of the article occur; and iii) the exploration of the added corpora via thematic, spatial, and temporal filters that display results in interactive coverage maps and lists of articles and events. The project was applied to the greater Lisbon area of Portugal. In addition to the above functionality, this project builds progressive gazetteers that can be reused as place associations, or for further meta analysis of place as it is colloquially understood. It demonstrates the ease of which these additional dimensions may be incorporated with a high confidence in definition accuracy, managed, and leveraged to improve news agency content management, reader understanding, researcher exploration, or extracted for combination with other datasets to provide additional insights

Design and Optimization of Mobile Cloud Computing Systems with Networked Virtual Platforms

A Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) system is a cloud-based system that is accessed by the users through their own mobile devices. MCC systems are emerging as the product of two technology trends: 1) the migration of personal computing from desktop to mobile devices and 2) the growing integration of large-scale computing environments into cloud systems. Designers are developing a variety of new mobile cloud computing systems. Each of these systems is developed with different goals and under the influence of different design constraints, such as high network latency or limited energy supply. The current MCC systems rely heavily on Computation Offloading, which however incurs new problems such as scalability of the cloud, privacy concerns due to storing personal information on the cloud, and high energy consumption on the cloud data centers. In this dissertation, I address these problems by exploring different options in the distribution of computation across different computing nodes in MCC systems. My thesis is that "the use of design and simulation tools optimized for design space exploration of the MCC systems is the key to optimize the distribution of computation in MCC." For a quantitative analysis of mobile cloud computing systems through design space exploration, I have developed netShip, the first generation of an innovative design and simulation tool, that offers large scalability and heterogeneity support. With this tool system designers and software programmers can efficiently develop, optimize, and validate large-scale, heterogeneous MCC systems. I have enhanced netShip to support the development of ever-evolving MCC applications with a variety of emerging needs including the fast simulation of new devices, e.g., Internet-of-Things devices, and accelerators, e.g., mobile GPUs. Leveraging netShip, I developed three new MCC systems where I applied three variations of a new computation distributing technique, called Reverse Offloading. By more actively leveraging the computational power on mobile devices, the MCC systems can reduce the total execution times, the burden of concentrated computations on the cloud, and the privacy concerns about storing personal information available in the cloud. This approach also creates opportunities for new services by utilizing the information available on the mobile device instead of accessing the cloud. Throughout my research I have enabled the design optimization of mobile applications and cloud-computing platforms. In particular, my design tool for MCC systems becomes a vehicle to optimize not only the performance but also the energy dissipation, an aspect of critical importance for any computing system

Could Smart Communities Improve the Efficiency of Cancer Services in Sheffield?

This critical digital health study draws upon smart community and smart city literature to gain insights into how to address the practical and complex issue of improving healthcare, with a focus on cancer services in Sheffield. The study’s approach brought together ideas from literature and primary data through a process of theory informed critical reflexivity. It applied a critical systems heuristics methodology that included 3 workshops and 30 semi-structured interviews. Workshops focussed on creating rich pictures of what future systems might look like based on the smart community concept. The interpretation of data applied Bourdieu’s Practice Theory to help understand and highlight power dynamics in existing and proposed solutions. The three corners of the study’s sense making process were: expressed ideas of interviewees and workshop participants, reflections of the researcher, based on his life experience and ideas expressed in journals. By reflecting on opportunities and challenges within smart city, smart community and digital health literature, strengths and weaknesses of emergent ideas were identified. Theory emerged through the creation of a framework that maps out what a more efficient system of cancer services might look like based on the concept of smart community. Whilst smart city and community literature has acknowledged differences between top down and bottom up approaches the divisions within top down and bottom up approaches are rarely given much consideration. To address these limitations a framework was developed that subdivides top down into private vs government led and bottom up between individual and collective approaches. The study concludes that a new system based on smart community is only likely to improve efficiency without undesirable ethical consequences if applied in a specific way. New relationships with and through smart technology would be required as would greater consideration of the structural factors that impact on health outcomes

Desenvolvimento de infraestruturas de dados espaciais locais : proposta e aplicação de um modelo exploratório para avaliação multinível da capacitação individual, institucional e territorial

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Information Management, specialization in Geographic Information SystemsO conhecimento científico, a inovação tecnológica e organizacional e as opções políticas enquadram o desenvolvimento e a difusão de Sistemas de Informação Geográfica (SIG) na implementação de Infraestrutura de Dados Espaciais (IDE) à escala global, nacional e local (IDEL). Os SIG e IDE integram dados, tecnologias, utilizadores, normas e políticas na produção, gestão, partilha e aplicação de dados espaciais e informação geográfica. Os SIG focam-se na produção e análise de dados, enquanto as IDE privilegiam a comunicação, a partilha e o acesso aos dados e serviços de dados entre utilizadores e sistemas. As IDE são infraestruturas digitais de informação que promovem iniciativas de governança digital, as sociedades e comunidades espacialmente habilitadas lideradas por entidades públicas com vista à participação, coesão e inclusão social, à qualidade ambiental, a sustentabilidade territorial e à geração de novas economias do conhecimento pelas entidades privadas. A implementação e efetivação das potencialidades destas iniciativas e instrumentos relacionam-se com o domínio técnico-científico dos promotores e dos utilizadores, a capacidade de definir um âmbito espacial e temático adequado, uma visão estratégica comum, um forte impulso e liderança política e administrativa associado à reorganização e de capacitação das entidades humanas. A capacitação individual, institucional e territorial é um elemento central na conceção, implementação e manutenção destas infraestruturas digitais sociotécnicas. Os custos, os desafios e os potenciais impactes indicam a importância e a tendência de desenvolver abordagens e modelos de avaliação consciência, prontidão, maturidade, desempenho e satisfação das IDE. A natureza complexa dinâmica e multifacetada das IDE bem como, a experimentação dos modelos desenvolvidos, indicam a dificuldade de conceber e aplicar abordagens e modelos de avaliação sistémicos com perspetivas centradas em componentes, fases ou processos de desenvolvimento específico das IDEL. Esta tese de doutoramento visa fundamentar, conceber, experimentar e propor um modelo exploratório de avaliação da capacitação multinível que colocar em questão em que medida os projetos de desenvolvimento de SIG capacitam os indivíduos, as instituições e os territórios para o desenvolvimento de IDEL. A experimentação do modelo associa-se à inventariação, descrição e análise dos processos e resultados de 61 projetos de I&D+i, ensino e formação desenvolvidos pelo CIGESA-IPVC no período de 2000 a 2015 sobre: i) a aquisição de conhecimentos, aptidões ou atitudes de diversas tipologias de utilizadores individuais de C&TIG; ii) as componentes (politicas, normas, dados, utilizadores e tecnologias) na capacitação do IPVC (instituição); iii) ou no conjunto da região (território) para a implementação de uma IDEL do Alto Minho. Os resultados indicam os avanços na produção, modelação e partilha de dados e metadados espaciais, do número de utilizadores e áreas de aplicação, da utilização de normas internacionais, do estabelecimento de processos e de redes de conhecimento e de trabalho locais, regionais e espaços transfronteiriços. Em simultâneo verificam-se desafios e propostas de formalização, adoção social, opção política e prática técnica para a avaliação e melhoria contínua dos itinerários de desenvolvimento e dos impactes das IDEL. O modelo de avaliação mostrou se interessante para avaliar os resultados de projetos SIG no sentido de proposta para formalizar uma IDEL do Alto Minho. Mesmo assim, importa experimentar, simplificar, instrumentalizar e operacionalizar o modelo bem como adaptar e comparar a outros âmbitos ou fases de implementação. A avaliação de experiências publicadas e a avaliação de diversos estudos de casos suportam a proposta de um modelo de natureza concetual, sistémica e holística acerca da capacidade hierárquica para desenvolver e sustentar IDEL. O modelo exploratório de avaliação da capacitação multinível contribui para novos conceitos científicos, abordagens e modelos de avaliação multidisciplinar para as IDE, formula e propõe referências, instrumentos, conteúdos formativos, um programa de investigação, práticas de planeamento, gestão e monitorização de projetos SIG e IDEL