The Metaverse: Survey, Trends, Novel Pipeline Ecosystem & Future Directions

The Metaverse offers a second world beyond reality, where boundaries are non-existent, and possibilities are endless through engagement and immersive experiences using the virtual reality (VR) technology. Many disciplines can benefit from the advancement of the Metaverse when accurately developed, including the fields of technology, gaming, education, art, and culture. Nevertheless, developing the Metaverse environment to its full potential is an ambiguous task that needs proper guidance and directions. Existing surveys on the Metaverse focus only on a specific aspect and discipline of the Metaverse and lack a holistic view of the entire process. To this end, a more holistic, multi-disciplinary, in-depth, and academic and industry-oriented review is required to provide a thorough study of the Metaverse development pipeline. To address these issues, we present in this survey a novel multi-layered pipeline ecosystem composed of (1) the Metaverse computing, networking, communications and hardware infrastructure, (2) environment digitization, and (3) user interactions. For every layer, we discuss the components that detail the steps of its development. Also, for each of these components, we examine the impact of a set of enabling technologies and empowering domains (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, Security & Privacy, Blockchain, Business, Ethics, and Social) on its advancement. In addition, we explain the importance of these technologies to support decentralization, interoperability, user experiences, interactions, and monetization. Our presented study highlights the existing challenges for each component, followed by research directions and potential solutions. To the best of our knowledge, this survey is the most comprehensive and allows users, scholars, and entrepreneurs to get an in-depth understanding of the Metaverse ecosystem to find their opportunities and potentials for contribution

Conflict-free access rules for sharing smart patient health records

This research is funded by the EU H2020 project Serums (Securing Medical Data in Smart Patient-Centric Healthcare Systems), grant code 826278.With an increasing trend in personalised healthcare provision across Europe, we need solutions to enable the secure transnational sharing of medical records, establishing granular access rights to personal patient data. Access rules can establish what should be accessible by whom for how long, and comply with collective regulatory frameworks, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The challenge is to design and implement such systems integrating novel technologies like Blockchain and Data Lake to enhance security and access control. The blockchain module must deal with adequate policies and algorithms to guarantee that no data leaks occur when authorising data retrieval requests. The data lake module tackles the need for an efficient way to retrieve potential granular data from heterogeneous data sources. In this paper, we define a patient-centric authorisation approach, incorporating a structured format for composing access rules that enable secure data retrieval and automatic rules conflict checking.Postprin

WarVictimSampo 1914–1922: a National War Memorial on the Semantic Web for Digital Humanities Research and Applications

AcceptedThis article presents the semantic portal and Linked Open Data service WARVICTIMSAMPO 1914-1922 about the war victims, battles, and prisoner camps in the Finnish Civil and other wars in 1914-1922. The system is based on a database of the National Archives of Finland and additional related data created, compiled, and linked during the project. The system contains detailed information about some 40,000 deaths extracted from several data sources and data about over 1,000 battles of the Civil War. A key novelty of WARVICTIMSAMPO 1914-1922 is the integration of ready-to-use Digital Humanities visualizations and data analysis tooling with semantic faceted search and data exploration, which allows, e.g., studying data about wider prosopographical groups in addition to individual war victims. The article focuses on demonstrating how the tools of the portal, as well as the underlying SPARQL endpoint openly available on the Web, can be used to explore and analyze war history in flexible and visual ways. WARVICTIMSAMPO 1914-1922 is a new member in the series of "Sampo" model-based semantic portals. The portal is in use and has had 23,000 users, including both war historians and the general public seeking information about their deceased relatives.Peer reviewe

RAGE Reusable Game Software Components and Their Integration into Serious Game Engines

This paper presents and validates a methodology for integrating reusable software components in diverse game engines. While conforming to the RAGE com-ponent-based architecture described elsewhere, the paper explains how the interac-tions and data exchange processes between a reusable software component and a game engine should be implemented for procuring seamless integration. To this end, a RAGE-compliant C# software component providing a difficulty adaptation routine was integrated with an exemplary strategic tile-based game “TileZero”. Implementa-tions in MonoGame, Unity and Xamarin, respectively, have demonstrated successful portability of the adaptation component. Also, portability across various delivery platforms (Windows desktop, iOS, Android, Windows Phone) was established. Thereby this study has established the validity of the RAGE architecture and its un-derlying interaction processes for the cross-platform and cross-game engine reuse of software components. The RAGE architecture thereby accommodates the large scale development and application of reusable software components for serious gaming

Measuring the Business Value of Cloud Computing

The importance of demonstrating the value achieved from IT investments is long established in the Computer Science (CS) and Information Systems (IS) literature. However, emerging technologies such as the ever-changing complex area of cloud computing present new challenges and opportunities for demonstrating how IT investments lead to business value. Recent reviews of extant literature highlights the need for multi-disciplinary research. This research should explore and further develops the conceptualization of value in cloud computing research. In addition, there is a need for research which investigates how IT value manifests itself across the chain of service provision and in inter-organizational scenarios. This open access book will review the state of the art from an IS, Computer Science and Accounting perspective, will introduce and discuss the main techniques for measuring business value for cloud computing in a variety of scenarios, and illustrate these with mini-case studies

Towards a smart and sustainable single European transport area : an assessment of the past 10 years of EU regulation

For more than a decade, hundreds of experts have gathered at the hills overlooking Florence to analyse the evolution of European transport policy and regulation at the call of the Florence School of Regulation (FSR). This book reflects the discussions in Florence, and more broadly, it documents the evolution of transport regulation in the European Union. The purpose of this book is to share the knowledge we at FSR Transport have built as privileged observers by bringing to the forefront the most interesting pieces in our “Observers”. In particular, we have selected the more relevant valuative pieces opening our Observers over the last decade whilst organising them according to the topic they address in four different blocks. We open with the rail block, as rail was the original topic of most of our Forums. Aviation has also received a lot of our attention, and in particular, Air Traffic Management and the Single European Sky, which in turn, have their own dedicated sub-block. We close with a block on intermodality, which has drawn increasing attention. The texts have not been edited for the book other than minor temporal references to improve readability. We have included as opening pieces our “Manifesto for the Next Five Years of EU Regulation of Transport”, published in November 2019 ahead of the start of the von der Leyen Commission’s mandate, and an update for a post-COVID-19 recovery, published in June 2020. In these documents, a more comprehensive vision of the challenges in EU transport regulation is provided.-- Introduction -- PART I : Towards a Smart and Sustainable Single European Transport Area -- Manifesto for the Next Five Years of EU -- Regulation of Transport -- Manifesto for a post-COVID-19 Recovery Towards Smarter and More Sustainable Transport -- PART II : Railways as the Backbone of the European Transport System -- Modal Shift: The Moment of Truth. Main Takeaways and Lessons Learnt from the European Year of Rail -- Building a European Railway Network for Long-Distance Passenger Services -- State Aid in a Sustainable and Smart Railway Ecosystem -- From National Railway Infrastructures to a Pan-European Freight Network -- How to Revitalise Rail Freight with Digitalisation? -- Green Finance and Sustainability: Is there a Space for Railways? -- What is Wrong with European Rail Freight? -- Private Financing of European Railway Infrastructure? -- Competition in the Passenger Railways in Europe -- Railways in the Age of Digitalisation? -- Competition in the Railway Passenger Market -- Security: Rail is NOT Air! -- Regulating the Performance of European Railways: What can we learn from Air Transport? -- The Digital Single European Railway Area: How to Think it? -- Rail Freight Corridors: The Challenges Ahead -- The 4th Railway Package: Further Challenges for the Regulator -- Financing Railways: What Role for Regulation? -- PART III - Aviation: Facing the Dual Challenges of Decarbonisation and Competitiveness -- A Resilient European Aviation Market: Lessons Learnt -- What Role for Competition Rules when Restarting Aviation? -- Decarbonising Aviation…but how? -- Airports as ‘Enablers’ for the Aviation Sector’s Take-Off Towards Net-Zero Carbon Emissions -- Air Services Regulation: Some Need for Review -- Navigating Towards a More Efficient Airport Slots Allocation Regime in Europe -- PART IV - Modernising European Air Traffic Management -- The European Economic Regulator, a Catalyst for an overdue Change in ATM Governance -- Context and History of Air Traffic Management Data Services -- What can Air Traffic Management Learn From Electricity? -- Incentivising the Evolution Towards Interoperability -- How to Better Align the Performance Scheme? -- Air Traffic Management: Why a Technological Disruption is needed – and why it is coming -- Regulating Drones: What is the Right Approach? -- Which Governance for SESAR Deployment? -- From Single European Sky Gridlock to Air Traffic Control Markets to Evolving the Role of EUROCONTROL -- PART V - When the Modes Come Together: Towards Increasingly Intermodal Transport Regulation -- Multimodal Ticketing: What Kind of Regulation is Necessary? -- How to Think the Greening of European Cargo Operations? -- Placing Governance Considerations at the Core of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators’ Design Process -- COVID-19: An Opportunity to Redesign Mobility Towards Greater Sustainability and Resilience? -- Integrated Multimodal Ticketing Will Not Happen Without Clear Rules About Data Sharing -- Pricing, Regulation and Rethinking of Mobility Needs is Required for Transport to Fully Account for its External Costs -- Obstacles on the Road to the European Single Market for Road Transport -- In the Era of Digitalisation and in Order to Achieve an Intermodal Level Playing Field, do we Need to Regulate? -- Mobility-As-A-Service: From the Regulation of Transport as a Sector to the Regulation of Transport as a Service? -- Low-Cost Air and High-Speed Rail: An Untapped Potential for Complementarity

Investigating individual preferences for new mobility services: the case of “mobility as a service” products

In just a few years, the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept has gone from an idea discussed by very few, to being a prominent topic in any transportation related debate. However, within this time, there have only been few rigorous studies that explore the various aspects of MaaS. This thesis aims to contribute to existing knowledge by providing empirical evidence on individual preferences for MaaS plans and their components. In doing so, first desk-research is conducted to summarise existing MaaS schemes and outline the MaaS ecosystem. Next, MaaS surveys that are able to capture individual preferences for MaaS products are designed and specific challenges in the design process identified. The MaaS surveys, including MaaS plan stated preference experiments, are applied in two case study areas of London and Greater Manchester. Using the novel data collected, individual preferences for MaaS plans are examined using two distinct studies: (1) a mixed methods research conducted in London, which expands the survey by adding a qualitative (in-depth interview) element to examine user preferences for MaaS plans and the ways individuals choose between them; and (2) a latent class choice model based on data collected from Manchester to examine whether there is heterogeneity in preferences. Finally, implications for industry and policy stakeholders are discussed as well as interventions that can best support the widespread adoption of MaaS. The results of this thesis show there is interest in the concept of MaaS among potential users as many see value in a single app that integrates different transport modes into a single service. In general, individuals are hesitant in purchasing pre-payed MaaS plans and would be more comfortable with a pay-as-you-go product option. While many people are reluctant towards MaaS plans, the results indicate that heterogeneity exists in preferences towards them and there are different user groups based on socio-demographic characteristics and current mobility habits. Smaller, less expensive plans including modes such as public transport and bike sharing can be used to target students or middle-income people with have high overall mode usage. Larger, more expensive plans that include modes such as taxi and car sharing in addition to public transport, will be attritive to individuals who are likely younger, male, well-educated, have higher income and already use many transport modes. Older population groups, individuals with low income and those that do not use any transport modes or are uni-modal are least likely to adopt MaaS plans. The thesis also provides insights into individuals’ preferences towards transport modes within MaaS plans. The analysis showed that respondents classify modes within MaaS plans into three categories: ‘essential’ modes that are pivotal to the individual and which they most likely already frequently use; ‘considered’ modes are those that they would be willing to include but may not yet use; and ‘excluded’ modes are those that they definitely do not want in their plans and would eliminate any plan that included these. Public transport consistently proved to be an essential mode, while taxi, car sharing and bike sharing could be ‘essential’, ‘considered’ or ‘excluded’ depending on the characteristics of the individual. The main contributions of this thesis are the novel data collected in two case study cities about individuals’ preferences for MaaS plans and the findings gained through the analysis providing insights into possible target audiences and product designs for MaaS plans

Towards Data Sharing across Decentralized and Federated IoT Data Analytics Platforms

In the past decade the Internet-of-Things concept has overwhelmingly entered all of the fields where data are produced and processed, thus, resulting in a plethora of IoT platforms, typically cloud-based, that centralize data and services management. In this scenario, the development of IoT services in domains such as smart cities, smart industry, e-health, automotive, are possible only for the owner of the IoT deployments or for ad-hoc business one-to-one collaboration agreements. The realization of "smarter" IoT services or even services that are not viable today envisions a complete data sharing with the usage of multiple data sources from multiple parties and the interconnection with other IoT services. In this context, this work studies several aspects of data sharing focusing on Internet-of-Things. We work towards the hyperconnection of IoT services to analyze data that goes beyond the boundaries of a single IoT system. This thesis presents a data analytics platform that: i) treats data analytics processes as services and decouples their management from the data analytics development; ii) decentralizes the data management and the execution of data analytics services between fog, edge and cloud; iii) federates peers of data analytics platforms managed by multiple parties allowing the design to scale into federation of federations; iv) encompasses intelligent handling of security and data usage control across the federation of decentralized platforms instances to reduce data and service management complexity. The proposed solution is experimentally evaluated in terms of performances and validated against use cases. Further, this work adopts and extends available standards and open sources, after an analysis of their capabilities, fostering an easier acceptance of the proposed framework. We also report efforts to initiate an IoT services ecosystem among 27 cities in Europe and Korea based on a novel methodology. We believe that this thesis open a viable path towards a hyperconnection of IoT data and services, minimizing the human effort to manage it, but leaving the full control of the data and service management to the users' will