Sharing Human-Generated Observations by Integrating HMI and the Semantic Sensor Web

Current “Internet of Things” concepts point to a future where connected objects gather meaningful information about their environment and share it with other objects and people. In particular, objects embedding Human Machine Interaction (HMI), such as mobile devices and, increasingly, connected vehicles, home appliances, urban interactive infrastructures, etc., may not only be conceived as sources of sensor information, but, through interaction with their users, they can also produce highly valuable context-aware human-generated observations. We believe that the great promise offered by combining and sharing all of the different sources of information available can be realized through the integration of HMI and Semantic Sensor Web technologies. This paper presents a technological framework that harmonizes two of the most influential HMI and Sensor Web initiatives: the W3C’s Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) with its semantic extension, respectively. Although the proposed framework is general enough to be applied in a variety of connected objects integrating HMI, a particular development is presented for a connected car scenario where drivers’ observations about the traffic or their environment are shared across the Semantic Sensor Web. For implementation and evaluation purposes an on-board OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) architecture was built, integrating several available HMI, Sensor Web and Semantic Web technologies. A technical performance test and a conceptual validation of the scenario with potential users are reported, with results suggesting the approach is soun

New Generation Sensor Web Enablement

Many sensor networks have been deployed to monitor Earth’s environment, and more will follow in the future. Environmental sensors have improved continuously by becoming smaller, cheaper, and more intelligent. Due to the large number of sensor manufacturers and differing accompanying protocols, integrating diverse sensors into observation systems is not straightforward. A coherent infrastructure is needed to treat sensors in an interoperable, platform-independent and uniform way. The concept of the Sensor Web reflects such a kind of infrastructure for sharing, finding, and accessing sensors and their data across different applications. It hides the heterogeneous sensor hardware and communication protocols from the applications built on top of it. The Sensor Web Enablement initiative of the Open Geospatial Consortium standardizes web service interfaces and data encodings which can be used as building blocks for a Sensor Web. This article illustrates and analyzes the recent developments of the new generation of the Sensor Web Enablement specification framework. Further, we relate the Sensor Web to other emerging concepts such as the Web of Things and point out challenges and resulting future work topics for research on Sensor Web Enablement

Citizen surveillance of the state: a mirror for e-government

Abstract. This paper discusses, conceptually and empirically, the role of geographic ICT (geoICT) and virtual globes (e.g. Google Earth) at the interface of public policy and citizens. Our preliminary findings from on-going field work in an Indian city and in Zanzibar suggest that virtual globe technology can potentially transfer to citizens surveillance power, traditionally held by the government. Starting from the traditional electronic government framework, where bureaucracy acts as a filter between policy makers and citizens with grievances, we outline an emerging framework where commercial virtual globes act as mediators between policy-makers and citizens. We show that the emerging framework holds the potential of allowing citizens concerned, in our case, about the quality of water services, to influence policy makers directly. The virtual globe acts as a mirror to the traditional eGovernment framework and lends a different societal visibility both to public services provision, and to localized citizens' needs

A service-oriented middleware for integrated management of crowdsourced and sensor data streams in disaster management

The increasing number of sensors used in diverse applications has provided a massive number of continuous, unbounded, rapid data and requires the management of distinct protocols, interfaces and intermittent connections. As traditional sensor networks are error-prone and difficult to maintain, the study highlights the emerging role of “citizens as sensors” as a complementary data source to increase public awareness. To this end, an interoperable, reusable middleware for managing spatial, temporal, and thematic data using Sensor Web Enablement initiative services and a processing engine was designed, implemented, and deployed. The study found that its approach provided effective sensor data-stream access, publication, and filtering in dynamic scenarios such as disaster management, as well as it enables batch and stream management integration. Also, an interoperability analytics testing of a flood citizen observatory highlighted even variable data such as those provided by the crowd can be integrated with sensor data stream. Our approach, thus, offers a mean to improve near-real-time applications

Participatory Mapping, E-Participation, and E-Governance: Applications in Environmental Policy

This chapter focuses on participatory mapping as an e-governance tool to facilitate public participation. Public participation is a key component of democratic governance, and there is a growing reliance on digital government tools such as the internet and social networking sites and geographic information systems (GIS). This chapter focuses on public engagement using information and communication technology, namely participatory mapping, known by a variety of terms such as participatory GIS (PGIS), public participation GIS (PPGIS), and voluntary GIS. While the analysis involves use of participatory mapping related to environmental issues, the chapter brings together seminal work from various fields of citizen engagement and participatory mapping. The idea is to create one common narrative for scholars and practitioners, bringing together various terminologies, practices, and studies in participatory mapping in the environmental arena that offers a beginner\u27s frame of reference

Developing a Resilient Network Ambidexterity Scale

The purpose of this study was to develop a resilient network ambidexterity scale. While numerous research efforts have considered the dimensions of social capital, resilience, and adaptive capacity to evaluate organizations and communities, few have explored social network indicators within organizations that can be used to mobilize ambidextrous strategies during times of disruption. The emphasis here was to understand the tendencies and behaviors that networks possess to sustain or achieve success along the parallel strategies of optimization and exploration. This study progressed in three specific phases toward filling this void in organizational development literature, using a mixed-methods approach. Phase 1 was the development of the item pool and analysis of the scale to establish face and content validity. Phase 2 included administering an online survey to 344 participants. Data collected were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, followed by a partial confirmatory factor analysis These revealed a two-factor solution central to identifying resilient network ambidexterity: Optimizing Organizational Boundaries and Exploring Novelty. Phase 3 involved getting feedback on the revised scale from organizational leaders and practitioners working in innovative fields to refine the final RNA instrument. This research made connections between resilience and ambidexterity in organizations through ongoing inquiry on ways that fusing distinct paradigms impacts organizational outcomes. The development of this scale can serve as a useful tool for organizations to assess their level of resilience and mobilize the features of optimization and exploration. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and Ohiolink ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu

The design of civic technology: factors that influence public participation and impact

Civic technology needs to be better understood in terms of the factors that promote representative public participation and impact. This paper reports on a mixed-methods study of a civic tech platform that enabled the public to provide feedback on public transport to the service providers. The overall aim of this research was to investigate the public's use of a leading civic tech platform, FixMyTransport. The key findings were that: an effective and easy-to-use civic technology platform enables broad participation; data and process complexity need to be removed; factual information can be captured in situ with impacts, consequences and opinions added later; emotions (if important) need to be explicitly elicited; feedback to, and a 'conversation' with, the users is important for engagement, as is a feeling of being part of a community. These findings can contribute to the future design of civic technology platforms. Practitioner Summary: There is a lack of understanding of how 'civic tech' platforms are used and how they may be designed for maximum effectiveness. Multiple data collection methods were used to investigate a well-developed example of civic tech. Effective civic tech can enable broad democratic participation to improve public services

Living Labs: A Bibliometric Analysis

The objective of this study is to understand how Living Lab(s) (LL) as a concept and research approach has developed, proliferated and influenced scholarly research to date. The goal is in assisting both the LL and Action Design Research (ADR) communities in advancing both fields by establishing understanding, commonalities and challenges in advancing both research agendas. We adopt a bibliometric methodology to understand the scholarly impact, contribution and intellectual structure of LL as a new approach to innovation. We conclude with recommendations on advancing both ADR and LL fields of research, highlighting that increased cross-collaboration going forward offers clear opportunities to both fields

Deep Flow: a tentacular worlding of dance, biosensor technology, lived experience and embodied materials of the human and non-humankind

How to find relations between lived experience and biosensor technology in dance practice? This PaR presents a novel methodology, tentacular worlding, to explore Embodied Dance practice as lived experience, using phenomenological methods and biosensor technologies to better understand experiential aspects of dance more fully, by looking inwardly. It challenges dance practice intersecting with biosensors that visualise invisible physiological events such as heart rate, in external mediated environments, to which dancer’s respond. These ocularcentric practices illustrate only certain aspects of a dancer’s bodily engagement with technology thereby privileging vision over bodily experience. Looking outwardly neglects the vast storehouse of lived experiences that technologies used instrumentally, cannot capture. To explore the strategy of looking inwardly, a relational methodological approach tentacular worlding is applied. This inspires an interdisciplinary study of the human body in dance practice, phenomenology, technology, and ecofeminist posthumanism. Phenomenological dance methods are used to; explore whole bodily experiences; investigate bodily interactions with differing environments; and discover human relations with biosensor technologies and differing materials. It challenges ocularcentrism by blindfolding the practitioner to augment bodily sensing in the absence of visual information. Multimodal qualitative and quantitative methods are used to interpret these experiences and methods of analysis emphasise tentacular relations between lived experience, the heart, and biometric data. Tentacular worlding gave birth to the Embodied Dance practice Deep Flow, to foreground relations between lived and bodily experiencing, meditation, fascia release and heart rate variability. By looking inwardly, within an ecology of embodied experience, visible and invisible, tangible, and intangible materials, Deep Flow collapses binary notions of inside and outside, subject and object, an embodied materiality. It proposes; a return to bodily experience and embodied states of flow, to construct knowledge from a first-person perspective and to explore the complexity of relations between the heart, the human and nonhuman