Privacy Concerns in Sharing Personal Consumption Data through Online Applications

As online eco-feedback social applications are being increasingly used around the world for motivating citizens to become more energy-aware, privacy concerns in terms of sharing personal electricity consumption data among online contacts are rising. Through Social Electricity, an online application offering personal energy management through a social and collaborative environment, we study the privacy concerns of the users in two case studies, in Cyprus and Singapore. For the Cyprus case, we present an analysis of results gathered through a large questionnaire-based survey combined with mini focus group studies. For the Singapore case, we analyze the findings collected through a students’ semester exercise. This paper provides interesting insights about the overall acceptance and tolerance levels of users of eco-feedback social applications

Training Deep Learning Models via Synthetic Data: Application in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper describes preliminary work in the recent promising approach of generating synthetic training data for facilitating the learning procedure of deep learning (DL) models, with a focus on aerial photos produced by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The general concept and methodology are described, and preliminary results are presented, based on a classification problem of fire identification in forests as well as a counting problem of estimating number of houses in urban areas. The proposed technique constitutes a new possibility for the DL community, especially related to UAV-based imagery analysis, with much potential, promising results, and unexplored ground for further research.Comment: Workshop on Deep-learning based computer vision for UAV in conjunction with CAIP 2019, Salerno, italy, September 201

Transfer of manure from livestock farms to crop fields as fertilizer using an ant inspired approach

Intensive livestock production might have a negative environmental impact, by producing large amounts of animal excrements, which, if not properly managed, can contaminate nearby water bodies with nutrient excess. However, if animal manure is exported to distant crop fields, to be used as organic fertilizer, pollution can be mitigated. It is a single-objective optimization problem, in regards to finding the best solution for the logistics process of satisfying nutrient crops needs by means of livestock manure. This paper proposes a dynamic approach to solve the problem, based on a decentralized nature-inspired cooperative technique, inspired by the foraging behavior of ants (AIA). Results provide important insights for policy-makers over the potential of using animal manure as fertilizer for crop fields, while AIA solves the problem effectively, in a fair way to the farmers and well balanced in terms of average transportation distances that need to be covered by each livestock farmer. Our work constitutes the first application of a decentralized AIA to this interesting real-world problem, in a domain where swarm intelligence methods are still under-exploited.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterizing halloumi cheese's bacterial communities through metagenomic analysis

Halloumi is a semi hard cheese produced in Cyprus for centuries and its popularity has significantly risen over the past years. High throughput sequencing (HTS) was applied in the present research to characterize traditional Cyprus Halloumi bacterial diversity. Eighteen samples made by different milk mixtures and produced in different areas of the country were analyzed, to reveal that Halloumi microbiome was mainly comprised by lactic acid bacteria (LAB), including Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc, and Pediococcus, as well as halophilic bacteria, such as Marinilactibacillus and Halomonas. Additionally, spore forming bacteria and spoilage bacteria, were also detected. Halloumi produced with the traditional method, had significantly richer bacterial diversity compared to Halloumi produced with the industrial method. Variations detected among the bacterial communities highlight the contribution of the initial microbiome that existed in milk and survived pasteurization, as well as factors associated with Halloumi manufacturing conditions, in the final microbiota composition shaping. Identification and characterization of Halloumi microbiome provides an additional, useful tool to characterize its typicity and probably safeguard it from fraud products that may appear in the market. Also, it may assist producers to further improve its quality and guarantee consumers safety

A Smart Bluetooth-based Ad Hoc Management System for Appliances in Home Environments

The number of home devices integrating new technologies is continuously increasing. These advances allow us to improve our daily routines. In addition, the improvement in network infrastructure and the development of smart phones and mobile devices allow us access from any place to any of our systems over the Internet. Bearing in mind this idea, we have developed a low-cost ad hoc protocol based on Bluetooth technology that allows us to control all our home appliances and monitor the power consumption of our homes. Our proposal is based on an Android application installed on a mobile device which acts as server. The application allows users to program the various appliances. It is also able to check the status of the appliance, as well as controlling the power consumption of the house and its cost. The system is equipped with a smart algorithm able to manage all appliances and decide which ones should work as a function of various criteria such as time of day or power consumption. Finally, the system is able to detect faults in water and electricity supply for acting accordingly. All data received and sent by the server are stored in a database which the system can check and compare to make their own decisions.Sendra, S.; Laborda, A.; Díaz Santos, JR.; Lloret, J. (2015). A Smart Bluetooth-based Ad Hoc Management System for Appliances in Home Environments. Springer Verlag (Germany): LNCS. 8487:128-141. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-07425-2_10S1281418487Garcia, M., Sendra, S., Lloret, J., Canovas, A.: Saving energy and improving communications using cooperative group-based Wireless Sensor Networks. Telecommunication Systems 52(4), 2489–2502 (2013)Liu, Y., Zhou, G.: Technologies and Applications of Internet of Things. In: Proceedings of 2012 Fifth International Conference on Intelligent Computation Technology and Automation (ICICTA), Zhangjiajie, China, January 12-14, pp. 197–200 (2012)Aiello, M.: The Role of Web Services at Home. 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Discovering Spatio-Temporal Patterns in Precision Agriculture Based on Triclustering

Agriculture has undergone some very important changes over the last few decades. The emergence and evolution of precision agri culture has allowed to move from the uniform site management to the site-specific management, with both economic and environmental advan tages. However, to be implemented effectively, site-specific management requires within-field spatial variability to be well-known and character ized. In this paper, an algorithm that delineates within-field management zones in a maize plantation is introduced. The algorithm, based on tri clustering, mines clusters from temporal remote sensing data. Data from maize crops in Alentejo, Portugal, have been used to assess the suit ability of applying triclustering to discover patterns over time, that may eventually help farmers to improve their harvests.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2017-88209-C2Fundaçao para a Ciéncia e a Tecnologia (FCT) UIDB/04561/202

Sustained unresponsiveness to peanut in subjects who have completed peanut oral immunotherapy

Although peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT) has been conclusively shown to cause desensitization, it is currently unknown whether clinical protection persists after stopping therapy

Big Data for the Greater Good: An Introduction

Big Data, perceived as one of the breakthrough technological developments of our times, has the potential to revolutionize essentially any area of knowledge and impact on any aspect of our life. Using advanced analytics techniques such as text analytics, machine learning, predictive analytics, data mining, statistics, and natural language processing, analysts, researchers, and business users can analyze previously inaccessible or unusable data to gain new insights resulting in better and faster decisions, and producing both economic and social value; it can have an impact on employment growth, productivity, the development of new products and services, traffic management, spread of viral outbreaks, and so on. But great opportunities also bring great challenges, such as the loss of individual privacy. In this chapter, we aim to provide an introduction into what Big Data is and an overview of the social value that can be extracted from it; to this aim, we explore some of the key literature on the subject. We also call attention to the potential ‘dark’ side of Big Data, but argue that more studies are needed to fully understand the downside of it. We conclude this chapter with some final reflections

Older People’s Needs and Opportunities for Assistive Technologies

Older adults experience a disconnect between their needs and adoption of technologies that have potential to assist and to support more independent living. This paper reviewed research that links people’s needs with opportunities for assistive technologies. It searched 13 databases identifying 923 papers with 34 papers finally included for detailed analysis. The research papers identified needs in the fields of health, leisure, living, safety, communication, family relationship and social involvement. Amongst these, support for activities of daily living category was of most interest. In specific sub-categories, the next most reported need was assistive technology to support walking and mobility followed by smart cooking/kitchen technology and assistive technology for social contacts with family member/other people. The research aimed to inform a program of research into improving the adoption of technologies where they can ameliorate identified needs of older people