Developing capabilities in smart city ecosystems: a multi-level approach

Smart city projects require complex coordination of resources, but research on how capabilities form at the city-ecosystem level remains scarce. This article develops a multi-level approach to capability development in smart city ecosystems through an empirical study of London’s city data. We analyse the London case to discover how two ecosystem-level capabilities – data provisioning and data insights – developed through global, configural and shared aggregation processes. We find that the emergence process changes as the smart city ecosystem develops, requiring different coordination and resource mobilisation mechanisms at various stages. We contribute to the capability development and smart city literatures by focusing on ecosystem-level capabilities linked to collective city-level outcomes rather than the capabilities of the leading city authority. Insights from the study are of value to city authorities considering how to scale up and organise smart city initiatives in support of urban development goals

An orchestration approach to smart city data ecosystems

Research on smart cities has illustrated the use of data analytics, open data, smart sensors and other data-intensive applications that have significant potential to transform urban environments. As the complexity and intensity of these projects has increased, there is a need to understand smart city data ecosystems as an integrated view of data applications by the various city entities that operate within an institutional environment. This paper examines how authorities involved in such ecosystems coordinate data initiatives from an orchestration perspective. A case study of London's city data initiatives highlights the challenges faced in complex city data environments and the importance of an integrated view. Three elements of orchestration in smart city data ecosystems – namely openness, diffusion and shared vision– are identified as the main enablers of city data initiatives within London's local government authorities. The study contributes to our theoretical understanding of orchestration within data ecosystems, as well as the social and technological impacts of city data

Physics of eccentric binary black hole mergers: A numerical relativity perspective

Gravitational wave observations of eccentric binary black hole mergers will provide unequivocal evidence for the formation of these systems through dynamical assembly in dense stellar environments. The study of these astrophysically motivated sources is timely in view of electromagnetic observations, consistent with the existence of stellar mass black holes in the globular cluster M22 and in the Galactic center, and the proven detection capabilities of ground-based gravitational wave detectors. In order to get insights into the physics of these objects in the dynamical, strong-field gravity regime, we present a catalog of 89 numerical relativity waveforms that describe binary systems of non-spinning black holes with mass-ratios $1\leq q \leq 10$, and initial eccentricities as high as $e_0=0.18$ fifteen cycles before merger. We use this catalog to quantify the loss of energy and angular momentum through gravitational radiation, and the astrophysical properties of the black hole remnant, including its final mass and spin, and recoil velocity. We discuss the implications of these results for gravitational wave source modeling, and the design of algorithms to search for and identify eccentric binary black hole mergers in realistic detection scenarios.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 2 appendices. A visualization of this numerical relativity waveform catalog is available at https://gravity.ncsa.illinois.edu/products/outreach/; v2: 13 pages, 5 figures, calculations for angular momentum emission and recoil velocities are now included, references added. Accepted to Phys. Rev.

Enabling real-time multi-messenger astrophysics discoveries with deep learning

Multi-messenger astrophysics is a fast-growing, interdisciplinary field that combines data, which vary in volume and speed of data processing, from many different instruments that probe the Universe using different cosmic messengers: electromagnetic waves, cosmic rays, gravitational waves and neutrinos. In this Expert Recommendation, we review the key challenges of real-time observations of gravitational wave sources and their electromagnetic and astroparticle counterparts, and make a number of recommendations to maximize their potential for scientific discovery. These recommendations refer to the design of scalable and computationally efficient machine learning algorithms; the cyber-infrastructure to numerically simulate astrophysical sources, and to process and interpret multi-messenger astrophysics data; the management of gravitational wave detections to trigger real-time alerts for electromagnetic and astroparticle follow-ups; a vision to harness future developments of machine learning and cyber-infrastructure resources to cope with the big-data requirements; and the need to build a community of experts to realize the goals of multi-messenger astrophysics

Developing capabilities in smart city ecosystems: A multi-level approach

Smart city projects require complex coordination of resources, but research on how capabilities form at the city-ecosystem level remains scarce. This article develops a multi-level approach to capability development in smart city ecosystems through an empirical study of London’s city data. We analyse the London case to discover how two ecosystem-level capabilities – data provisioning and data insights – developed through global, configural and shared aggregation processes. We find that the emergence process changes as the smart city ecosystem develops, requiring different coordination and resource mobilisation mechanisms at various stages. We contribute to the capability development and smart city literatures by focusing on ecosystem-level capabilities linked to collective city-level outcomes rather than the capabilities of the leading city authority. Insights from the study are of value to city authorities considering how to scale up and organise smart city initiatives in support of urban development goals

A soft ecosystems methodology of digital innovation through a case study of the insurance industry’s response to connected cars

Digital innovations are increasingly the result of the combination of resources and skills beyond organisational boundaries and/or industries, resulting in the rise of a new organisational form – the digital innovation ecosystem. Studies of ecosystems have considered the structural, conceptual, and temporal aspects such as emergence, however, understanding of ecosystems in flux remains nascent. In particular, existing research focuses on change in the ecosystem rather than imagined (anticipated) change and its impact on the ecosystems future. To address this, we adopt a systems thinking perspective that builds on soft systems methodology and British Cybernetics to propose what we refer to as ‘soft ecosystems methodology– and introduce the notion of ecosystem-as-was, ecosystem-as-is, and ecosystem-to-be. We discuss this emergent methodology in light of the disruptive digital innovation faced by the car insurance industry

Insertion of a naphthalenediimide unit in a metal-free donor-acceptor organic sensitizer for efficiency enhancement of a dye-sensitized solar cell

Through the use of a planar conjugated naphthalenediimide (NDI) functionality, a novel, metal-free organic chromophore was designed, synthesized and characterized for application in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The new sensitizer, 2-cyano-3-(5-(9-(5-(4-(diphenylamino)phenyl)thiophen-2-yl)-2,7-dioctyl-1,3,6,8-tetraoxo-1,2,3,6,7,8-hexahydrobenzo[lmn] [3,8]phenanthrolin-4-yl)thiophen-2-yl)acrylic acid (coded as A1), was based on a donor–π-bridge–acceptor (D–π–A) module where a simple triphenylamine functionality served as an electron donor, a cyanoacrylic acid as an electron acceptor and anchoring group, and a NDI moiety as the π-bridge embedded between the two thiophene units. Because of the extensively conjugated NDI unit, the new dye A1 exhibited high extinction coefficient, tuned energy levels and improved DSSC performance when compared with DSSCs fabricated using the conventional sensitizer, 2-cyano-3-(5’-(4-(diphenylamino)phenyl)-[2,2’-bithiophen]-5-yl)acrylic acid (R1). Furthermore, DSSCs that were constructed using A1 showed an increase in electron lifetime when compared with DSSCs fabricated using R1. A1 demonstrated its suitability with a variety of electrolyte systems and DSSC power conversion efficiencies of 6.24%, 6.05% and 5.17% were recorded using cobalt-, solvent- and ionic liquid-based redox shuttles. To our knowledge, A1 is the first reported example in the literature where NDI unit has been embedded between thiophene functionalities to extend the π-conjugation in a given D–A system for DSSC applications