Brain-Inspired Intelligent Systems for Daily Assistance

The fields of machine learning and cognitive computing have been in the last decade revolutionised with neural-inspired algorithms (e.g., deep ANNs and deep RL) and brain-intelligent systems that assist in many real-world learning tasks from robot monitoring and interaction at home to complex decision-making about emotions and behaviours in humans and animals. While there are remarkable advances in these brain-inspired algorithms and systems, they need to be trained with huge data sets, and their results lack flexibility to adapt to diverse learning tasks and sustainable performance over long periods of time. To address these challenges, it is essential to gain an analytical understanding of the principles that allow biological inspired intelligent systems to leverage knowledge and how they can be translated to hardware for daily assistance and practical applications. This special issue brings researchers from interdesciplinary domains to report their latest research work on algorithms and neural-inspired systems that flexibly adapt to new learning tasks, learn from the environment using multimodal signals (e.g., neural, physiological, and kinematic), and produce autonomous adaptive agencies, which utilise cognitive and affective data, within a social neuroscientific framework. In this special issue, we have selected five papers out of fourteen high-quality papers after a careful reviewing process, which brings the acceptance rate to 35.7 percent. The five papers are representative of the current state-of-the-art in this area

Editorial for Special Issue on “Electronic Systems and Energy Harvesting Methods for Automation, Mechatronics and Automotive”

none3noElectronic apparatus have become essential components of civil and industrial systems, including the automotive, home and building automation, Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) and control applications, and playing an essential role in improving security, efficiency, manageability, and rapid feedback [1–3]. Indeed, the increasing demands of electronic systems have led to innovations and findings in electronic networks for automotive and automation plants, replacing efficiently and securely mechanical and hydraulic sections [4]. Also, the researchers have focused their attention on meeting the increasing power demand of vehicles equipment, developing 42-V automotive systems. Moreover, smart buildings and homes represent a very actual research topic in the scientific community, aimed to improve energy conservation and the liveability of everyday life environments, thanks to IoT solutions [5]. In fact, smart homes and buildings comprise innovative solutions enabling communication between users and the infrastructure, as well as performing advanced monitoring tasks, like surveillance, light and water management, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system management, smart energy monitoring and elderly care. IoT technology employs sensors to detect the environmental temperature for the HVAC system, water and energy consumption, and health monitoring and decision-making systems to assist elderly people and detect fires [6,7]. The scientific community is concentrating their efforts to design innovative infrastructures, management models as well as operating scenarios to make production activities simpler and more efficient [8]. In this field, IoT is one of the key elements triggering this revolution, enabling communications between machines (M2M), thus creating a manufacturing environment human-free. The combination of M2M, IoT and CPS (cyber physical systems) makes the manufacturing systems more robust, reliable and efficient. Besides, cloud computing constitutes a powerful tool, promising to solve several difficult issues with previous productive architectures. For instance, in [9], a novel architecture integrating cloud computing, IoT, and smart devices, was presented. The model uses modern manufacturing technologies, allowing highly configurable, flexible manufacturing processes involving human and robotic participants. This Special Issue aimed to cover a wide range of disciplines and application fields, collecting innovative studies on advanced sensing and energy harvesting technologies and applications in automotive, automation and mechatronics fields. The introduced innovations could mitigate the impact of human activities on the environment and revolutionize the production process by employing eco-sustainable production models, preventing climate change and natural resources waste. A total of 5 papers have been published in this special issue; the paper covers a wide range of topics but is deemed relevant to the topics covered by the special issues. The authors are from geographically distributed countries such as Italy, Mexico, Spain, and China. This reflects the great impact of the proposed topic and the effective organization of the guest editorial team of this special issue.openPaolo Visconti, Nicola Ivan Giannoccaro, Roberto de FazioVisconti, Paolo; Giannoccaro, NICOLA IVAN; DE FAZIO, Robert

Designing evolving cyber-physical-social systems: computational research opportunities

In the context of the theme for this special issue, namely, challenges and opportunities in computing research to enable next generation engineering applications, our intent in writing this paper is to seed the dialog on furthering computing research associated with the design of cyber-physical-social systems. Cyber-Physical-Social Systems (CPSS's) are natural extensions of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS's) that add the consideration of human interactions and cooperation with cyber systems and physical systems. CPSS's are becoming increasingly important as we face challenges such as regulating our impact on the environment, eradicating disease, transitioning to digital and sustainable manufacturing, and improving healthcare. Human stakeholders in these systems are integral to the effectiveness of these systems. One of the key features of CPSS is that the form, structure, and interactions constantly evolve to meet changes in the environment. Design of evolving CPSS include making tradeoffs amongst the cyber, the physical, and the social systems. Advances in computing and information science have given us opportunities to ask difficult, and important questions, especially those related to cyber-physical-social systems. In this paper we identify research opportunities worth investigating. We start with theoretical and mathematical frameworks for identifying and framing the problem – specifically, problem identification and formulation, data management, CPSS modeling and CPSS in action. Then we discuss issues related to the design of CPSS including decision making, computational platform support, and verification and validation. Building on this foundation, we suggest a way forward

Knowledge management, innovation and big data: Implications for sustainability, policy making and competitiveness

This Special Issue of Sustainability devoted to the topic of “Knowledge Management, Innovation and Big Data: Implications for Sustainability, Policy Making and Competitiveness” attracted exponential attention of scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers from all over the world. Locating themselves at the expanding cross-section of the uses of sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT) and insights from social science and engineering, all papers included in this Special Issue contribute to the opening of new avenues of research in the field of innovation, knowledge management, and big data. By triggering a lively debate on diverse challenges that companies are exposed to today, this Special Issue offers an in-depth, informative, well-structured, comparative insight into the most salient developments shaping the corresponding fields of research and policymaking

Ethics and Design in the Brazilian Context

Often driven by practical and immediate requirements, more and more people are incorporating technology into a variety of aspects of their lives, often without reflecting on the consequences of using them. On the other hand, studies on interactive system development that lead to behavioral change have been gaining ground on the agenda of large HCI conferences. This movement brings to the forefront the fundamental issues of ethics in design and technology use. A designer’s intentions, when directing certain actions or behaviors, are not always explicit or desired by the stakeholders affected by the use of the technology. Systems that induce an undesired purchase, or even those that use conditioning strategies to cause a behavioral change are examples of such intentions. The challenge proposed is therefore about the relationship between design and personal freedom in a way that these technology users do not become victims, either passively or submissively, of the effects of its use. This advance allows for the redefinition of the relationship between man and technology, and the application of new forms of designing and developing interactive systems that take into account the ethical aspects of this relationship

Energy Saving In Data Centers

Globally CO2 emissions attributable to Information Technology are on par with those resulting from aviation. Recent growth in cloud service demand has elevated energy efficiency of data centers to a critical area within green computing. Cloud computing represents a backbone of IT services and recently there has been an increase in high-definition multimedia delivery, which has placed new burdens on energy resources. Hardware innovations together with energy-efficient techniques and algorithms are key to controlling power usage in an ever-expanding IT landscape. This special issue contains a number of contributions that show that data center energy efficiency should be addressed from diverse vantage points. © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Mobile Life: A Research Foundation for Mobile Services

The telecom and IT industry is now facing the challenge of a second IT-revolution, where the spread of mobile and ubiquitous services will have an even more profound effect on commercial and social life than the recent Internet revolution. Users will expect services that are unique and fully adapted for the mobile setting, which means that the roles of the operators will change, new business models will be required, and new methods for developing and marketing services have to be found. Most of all, we need technology and services that put people at core. The industry must prepare to design services for a sustainable web of work, leisure and ubiquitous technology we can call the mobile life. In this paper, we describe the main components of a research agenda for mobile services, which is carried out at the Mobile Life Center at Stockholm University. This research program takes a sustainable approach to research and development of mobile and ubiquitous services, by combining a strong theoretical foundation (embodied interaction), a welldefined methodology (user-centered design) and an important domain with large societal importance and commercial potential (mobile life). Eventually the center will create an experimental mobile services ecosystem, which will serve as an open arena where partners from academia and industry can develop our vision an abundant future marketplace for future mobile servíces

Human computer interaction for international development: past present and future

Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in research into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of developing regions, particularly into how such ICTs might be appropriately designed to meet the unique user and infrastructural requirements that we encounter in these cross-cultural environments. This emerging field, known to some as HCI4D, is the product of a diverse set of origins. As such, it can often be difficult to navigate prior work, and/or to piece together a broad picture of what the field looks like as a whole. In this paper, we aim to contextualize HCI4D—to give it some historical background, to review its existing literature spanning a number of research traditions, to discuss some of its key issues arising from the work done so far, and to suggest some major research objectives for the future