TCitySmartF: A comprehensive systematic framework for transforming cities into smart cities

A shared agreed-upon definition of "smart city" (SC) is not available and there is no "best formula" to follow in transforming each and every city into SC. In a broader inclusive definition, it can be described as an opportunistic concept that enhances harmony between the lives and the environment around those lives perpetually in a city by harnessing the smart technology enabling a comfortable and convenient living ecosystem paving the way towards smarter countries and the smarter planet. SCs are being implemented to combine governors, organisations, institutions, citizens, environment, and emerging technologies in a highly synergistic synchronised ecosystem in order to increase the quality of life (QoL) and enable a more sustainable future for urban life with increasing natural resource constraints. In this study, we analyse how to develop citizen- and resource-centric smarter cities based on the recent SC development initiatives with the successful use cases, future SC development plans, and many other particular SC development solutions. The main features of SC are presented in a framework fuelled by recent technological advancement, particular city requirements and dynamics. This framework - TCitySmartF 1) aims to aspire a platform that seamlessly forges engineering and technology solutions with social dynamics in a new philosophical city automation concept - socio-technical transitions, 2) incorporates many smart evolving components, best practices, and contemporary solutions into a coherent synergistic SC topology, 3) unfolds current and future opportunities in order to adopt smarter, safer and more sustainable urban environments, and 4) demonstrates a variety of insights and orchestrational directions for local governors and private sector about how to transform cities into smarter cities from the technological, social, economic and environmental point of view, particularly by both putting residents and urban dynamics at the forefront of the development with participatory planning and interaction for the robust community- and citizen-tailored services. The framework developed in this paper is aimed to be incorporated into the real-world SC development projects in Lancashire, UK

Context-awareness for mobile sensing: a survey and future directions

The evolution of smartphones together with increasing computational power have empowered developers to create innovative context-aware applications for recognizing user related social and cognitive activities in any situation and at any location. The existence and awareness of the context provides the capability of being conscious of physical environments or situations around mobile device users. This allows network services to respond proactively and intelligently based on such awareness. The key idea behind context-aware applications is to encourage users to collect, analyze and share local sensory knowledge in the purpose for a large scale community use by creating a smart network. The desired network is capable of making autonomous logical decisions to actuate environmental objects, and also assist individuals. However, many open challenges remain, which are mostly arisen due to the middleware services provided in mobile devices have limited resources in terms of power, memory and bandwidth. Thus, it becomes critically important to study how the drawbacks can be elaborated and resolved, and at the same time better understand the opportunities for the research community to contribute to the context-awareness. To this end, this paper surveys the literature over the period of 1991-2014 from the emerging concepts to applications of context-awareness in mobile platforms by providing up-to-date research and future research directions. Moreover, it points out the challenges faced in this regard and enlighten them by proposing possible solutions

Contributions to Context-Aware Smart Healthcare: A Security and Privacy Perspective

Les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació han canviat les nostres vides de manera irreversible. La indústria sanitària, una de les indústries més grans i de major creixement, està dedicant molts esforços per adoptar les últimes tecnologies en la pràctica mèdica diària. Per tant, no és sorprenent que els paradigmes sanitaris estiguin en constant evolució cercant serveis més eficients, eficaços i sostenibles. En aquest context, el potencial de la computació ubiqua mitjançant telèfons intel·ligents, rellotges intel·ligents i altres dispositius IoT ha esdevingut fonamental per recopilar grans volums de dades, especialment relacionats amb l'estat de salut i la ubicació de les persones. Les millores en les capacitats de detecció juntament amb l'aparició de xarxes de telecomunicacions d'alta velocitat han facilitat la implementació d'entorns sensibles al context, com les cases i les ciutats intel·ligents, capaços d'adaptar-se a les necessitats dels ciutadans. La interacció entre la computació ubiqua i els entorns sensibles al context va obrir la porta al paradigma de la salut intel·ligent, centrat en la prestació de serveis de salut personalitzats i de valor afegit mitjançant l'explotació de grans quantitats de dades sanitàries, de mobilitat i contextuals. No obstant, la gestió de dades sanitàries, des de la seva recollida fins a la seva anàlisi, planteja una sèrie de problemes desafiants a causa del seu caràcter altament confidencial. Aquesta tesi té per objectiu abordar diversos reptes de seguretat i privadesa dins del paradigma de la salut intel·ligent. Els resultats d'aquesta tesi pretenen ajudar a la comunitat científica a millorar la seguretat dels entorns intel·ligents del futur, així com la privadesa dels ciutadans respecte a les seves dades personals i sanitàries.Las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación han cambiado nuestras vidas de forma irreversible. La industria sanitaria, una de las industrias más grandes y de mayor crecimiento, está dedicando muchos esfuerzos por adoptar las últimas tecnologías en la práctica médica diaria. Por tanto, no es sorprendente que los paradigmas sanitarios estén en constante evolución en busca de servicios más eficientes, eficaces y sostenibles. En este contexto, el potencial de la computación ubicua mediante teléfonos inteligentes, relojes inteligentes, dispositivos wearables y otros dispositivos IoT ha sido fundamental para recopilar grandes volúmenes de datos, especialmente relacionados con el estado de salud y la localización de las personas. Las mejoras en las capacidades de detección junto con la aparición de redes de telecomunicaciones de alta velocidad han facilitado la implementación de entornos sensibles al contexto, como las casas y las ciudades inteligentes, capaces de adaptarse a las necesidades de los ciudadanos. La interacción entre la computación ubicua y los entornos sensibles al contexto abrió la puerta al paradigma de la salud inteligente, centrado en la prestación de servicios de salud personalizados y de valor añadido mediante la explotación significativa de grandes cantidades de datos sanitarios, de movilidad y contextuales. No obstante, la gestión de datos sanitarios, desde su recogida hasta su análisis, plantea una serie de cuestiones desafiantes debido a su naturaleza altamente confidencial. Esta tesis tiene por objetivo abordar varios retos de seguridad y privacidad dentro del paradigma de la salud inteligente. Los resultados de esta tesis pretenden ayudar a la comunidad científica a mejorar la seguridad de los entornos inteligentes del futuro, así como la privacidad de los ciudadanos con respecto a sus datos personales y sanitarios.Information and communication technologies have irreversibly changed our lives. The healthcare industry, one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing industries, is dedicating many efforts in adopting the latest technologies into daily medical practice. It is not therefore surprising that healthcare paradigms are constantly evolving seeking for more efficient, effective and sustainable services. In this context, the potential of ubiquitous computing through smartphones, smartwatches, wearables and IoT devices has become fundamental to collect large volumes of data, including people's health status and people’s location. The enhanced sensing capabilities together with the emergence of high-speed telecommunication networks have facilitated the implementation of context-aware environments, such as smart homes and smart cities, able to adapt themselves to the citizens needs. The interplay between ubiquitous computing and context-aware environments opened the door to the so-called smart health paradigm, focused on the provision of added-value personalised health services by meaningfully exploiting vast amounts of health, mobility and contextual data. However, the management of health data, from their gathering to their analysis, arises a number of challenging issues due to their highly confidential nature. In particular, this dissertation addresses several security and privacy challenges within the smart health paradigm. The results of this dissertation are intended to help the research community to enhance the security of the intelligent environments of the future as well as the privacy of the citizens regarding their personal and health data

Opportunistic and Context-aware Affect Sensing on Smartphones: The Concept, Challenges and Opportunities

Opportunistic affect sensing offers unprecedented potential for capturing spontaneous affect ubiquitously, obviating biases inherent in the laboratory setting. Facial expression and voice are two major affective displays, however most affect sensing systems on smartphone avoid them due to extensive power requirement. Encouragingly, due to the recent advent of low-power DSP (Digital Signal Processing) co-processor and GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) technology, audio and video sensing are becoming more feasible. To properly evaluate opportunistically captured facial expression and voice, contextual information about the dynamic audio-visual stimuli needs to be inferred. This paper discusses recent advances of affect sensing on the smartphone and identifies the key barriers and potential solutions of implementing opportunistic and context-aware affect sensing on smartphone platforms

Blockchain for the IoT: Privacy-Preserving Protection of Sensor Data

An ever growing variety of smart, connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices poses completely new challenges for businesses regarding security and privacy. In fact, the adoption of smart products may depend on the ability of organizations to offer systems that ensure adequate sensor data integrity while guaranteeing sufficient user privacy. In light of these challenges, previous research indicates that blockchain technology could be a promising means to mitigate issues of data security arising in the IoT. Building upon the existing body of knowledge, we propose a design theory, including requirements, design principles, and features, for a blockchain-based sensor data protection system (SDPS) that leverages data certification. To support this, we designed and developed an instantiation of an SDPS (CertifiCar) in three iterative cycles intented to prevent the fraudulent manipulation of car mileage data. Following the explication of our SDPS, we provide an ex post evaluation of our design theory considering CertifiCar and two additional use cases in the areas of pharmaceutical supply chains and energy microgrids. Our results suggest that the proposed design ensures the tamper-resistant gathering, processing, and exchange of IoT sensor data in a privacy-preserving, scalable, and efficient manner

Incentive Mechanisms for Participatory Sensing: Survey and Research Challenges

Participatory sensing is a powerful paradigm which takes advantage of smartphones to collect and analyze data beyond the scale of what was previously possible. Given that participatory sensing systems rely completely on the users' willingness to submit up-to-date and accurate information, it is paramount to effectively incentivize users' active and reliable participation. In this paper, we survey existing literature on incentive mechanisms for participatory sensing systems. In particular, we present a taxonomy of existing incentive mechanisms for participatory sensing systems, which are subsequently discussed in depth by comparing and contrasting different approaches. Finally, we discuss an agenda of open research challenges in incentivizing users in participatory sensing.Comment: Updated version, 4/25/201

The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next evolution in Internet technology—creating a more dynamic and integrated entity that connects virtual and physical worlds in highly unified and increasingly useful ways. The IoT takes advantage of radio-frequency identification (RFID) and sensor technology to integrate extensively with our physical environment. The world is currently poised to experience widespread use of this potentially disruptive technology which employs radio tags to uniquely identify and create computerized inventories of all objects and persons. With the information that the IoT makes available on real-world objects, the world will become even more highly connected than it already is by connecting and facilitating human-to-human (H2H), human-to-thing (H2T), and thing-to-thing (T2T)--also referred to as machine-to-machine (M2M)—interactions. The purpose of this research project is to conduct a review of the IoT as it pertains to individuals and businesses, and to perform an exploratory study that focuses on individual perceptions and level of awareness relating to this technological revolution. The project’s scope includes 1) a thorough literature review to define the IoT as it is currently understood and to discuss its potential as a disruptive technology with societal implications, and 2) a discussion of information ethics as it pertains to innovative and disruptive technologies. The latter part of the project presents and discusses the results of a survey of college students designed to explore their perceptions of the IoT with regards to the constructs of convenience, privacy, security, and trust surrounding this new technology. College students were selected as the focus of the survey as they will directly experience this technological revolution in full force as it continues to rapidly develop while today’s students begin to take on greater responsibility as tomorrow’s leaders in business and society