A fuzzy synthetic evaluation of the challenges of smart city development in developing countries

© 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: This study presents a fuzzy synthetic evaluation of the challenges of smart city realisation in developing countries, using Nigeria as a case study. By defining and delineating the problems faced by the country, more viable directions to attaining smart city development can be achieved. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted a post-positivist philosophical stance with a deductive approach. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data from built environment professionals involved in the delivery of Nigerian public infrastructures. Six dimensions of the challenges of smart cities were identified from literature and explored. They are governance, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal issues. Data gathered were analysed using Cronbach alpha test for reliability, Shapiro-Wilks test for normality, Kruskal-Wallis H-test for consistency and fuzzy synthetic evaluation test for the synthetic evaluation of the challenges of smart city attainment. Findings: The findings revealed that all six assessed dimensions have a significant impact on the attainment of smart cities in Nigeria. More specifically, issues relating to environmental, technological, social and legal challenges are more prominent. Originality/value: The fuzzy synthetic approach adopted provides a clear, practical insight on the issues that need to be addressed before the smart city development can be attained within developing countries

A fuzzy synthetic evaluation of the challenges of smart city development in developing countries

Purpose: This study presents a fuzzy synthetic evaluation of the challenges of smart city realisation in developing countries, using Nigeria as a case study. By defined and delineating the problems facing the country, more viable directions to attaining smart city development can be achieved. Design/Methodology/ Approach: The study adopted a post-positivist philosophical stance with a deductive approach. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data from built environment professionals involved in the delivery of Nigerian public infrastructures. Six dimensions of the challenges of smart cities were identified from literature and explored. These are governance, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal issues. Data gathered were analysed using Cronbach alpha test for reliability, Shapiro-Wilks test for normality, Kruskal-Wallis H-Test for consistency, and Fuzzy synthetic evaluation test for the synthetic evaluation of the challenges of smart city attainment. Findings: The findings revealed that all six assessed dimensions have a significant impact on the attainment of smart cities in Nigeria. More specifically, issues relating to environmental, technological, social and legal challenges are more prominent. Originality/Value: The fuzzy synthetic approach adopted provides a clear, practical insight on the issues that need to be addressed before the smart city development can be attained within developing countries

URLLC for 5G and Beyond: Requirements, Enabling Incumbent Technologies and Network Intelligence

The tactile internet (TI) is believed to be the prospective advancement of the internet of things (IoT), comprising human-to-machine and machine-to-machine communication. TI focuses on enabling real-time interactive techniques with a portfolio of engineering, social, and commercial use cases. For this purpose, the prospective 5{th} generation (5G) technology focuses on achieving ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) services. TI applications require an extraordinary degree of reliability and latency. The 3{rd} generation partnership project (3GPP) defines that URLLC is expected to provide 99.99% reliability of a single transmission of 32 bytes packet with a latency of less than one millisecond. 3GPP proposes to include an adjustable orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technique, called 5G new radio (5G NR), as a new radio access technology (RAT). Whereas, with the emergence of a novel physical layer RAT, the need for the design for prospective next-generation technologies arises, especially with the focus of network intelligence. In such situations, machine learning (ML) techniques are expected to be essential to assist in designing intelligent network resource allocation protocols for 5G NR URLLC requirements. Therefore, in this survey, we present a possibility to use the federated reinforcement learning (FRL) technique, which is one of the ML techniques, for 5G NR URLLC requirements and summarizes the corresponding achievements for URLLC. We provide a comprehensive discussion of MAC layer channel access mechanisms that enable URLLC in 5G NR for TI. Besides, we identify seven very critical future use cases of FRL as potential enablers for URLLC in 5G NR

Technology Manufacturing Leaders’ Innovation Strategies to Improve Users’ Choice Capabilities in a Fast-Changing Markets

Some leaders of technology manufacturing organizations lack strategies to educate their users on how to make the optimal cloud technology selection decisions for their organizations during rapidly evolving innovation, resulting in significant risk of wrong choices and loss of customer loyalty. Grounded in resource-based view theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies technology manufacturing leaders use to educate users on how to make optimal cloud technology selection decisions for their organizations. The participants were six executive-level leaders of the strategic sales division of a multinational technology organization based in the western United States who focus on educating their customers, partners, and users of cloud technology products. Study data were collected through semistructured interviews, a review of company websites, and organizational documents. Using an adapted version of Yin’s approach for thematic analysis, three themes emerged: (a) strategic customer intelligence, (b) credible agnostic cloud education, and (c) socially responsible involvement in the cloud industry ecosystem. The key recommendation to the leadership is to expand agnostic cloud education to include adaptive training tailored to evolving user needs and reposition the cloud education unit as a strategic business unit with significant autonomy to compete effectively in the new cloud curricula product line. The implication for positive social change is the potential to enrich employee careers, boost organizations’ sustainable innovation performance and capabilities to contribute more value to the business ecosystem and improve the quality of life in the community

The Disruptions of 5G on Data-Driven Technologies and Applications

10.1109/TKDE.2020.2967670IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON KNOWLEDGE AND DATA ENGINEERING3261179-119