Binding the Smart City Human-Digital System with Communicative Processes

This chapter will explore the dynamics of power underpinning ethical issues within smart cities via a new paradigm derived from Systems Theory. The smart city is an expression of technology as a socio-technical system. The vision of the smart city contains a deep fusion of many different technical systems into a single integrated “ambient intelligence”. ETICA Project, 2010, p. 102). Citizens of the smart city will not experience a succession of different technologies, but a single intelligent and responsive environment through which they move. Analysis of such an environment requires a framework which transcends traditional ontologically-based models in order to accommodate this deep fusion. This chapter will outline a framework based on Latour’s Actor-Network Theory and Luhmann’s treatment of society as an autopoetic system. We shall use this framework to map the influence of relevant factors on ethical issues, irrespective of their composition or type. For example, under this treatment, both human praxis and technical design can be viewed as comparable tools of domination. This chapter will provide a framework for the analysis of relations between any elements of the smart city, ranging from top-level urban management processes down to individual device operations. While we will illustrate the use of this schema through examination of ethical issues arising from power dynamics within the smart city, it is intended that this example will demonstrate the wider utility of the model in general

Ontology-based data integration from heterogeneous urban systems: A knowledge representation framework for smart cities

This paper presents a novel knowledge representation framework for smart city planning and management that enables the semantic integration of heterogeneous urban data from diverse sources. Currently, the combination of information across city agencies is cumbersome, as the increasingly available datasets are stored in disparate data silos, using different models and schemas for their description. To overcome this interoperability barrier, the presented framework employs a modular and scalable system architecture, comprising a comprehensive ontology capable of integrating data from various sectors within a city, a web ontology browser, and a web-based knowledge graph for online data discovery, mapping, and sharing across stakeholders. Linked Data, Semantic Web technologies, and ontology matching techniques are key to the framework’s implementation. The paper ultimately showcases an application example, where the framework is used as a semantic enrichment mechanism in a platform for urban analytics, focusing particularly on human-generated data integration.Architectural Engineering +TechnologyArchitecture and The Built Environmen

SmartScapes: Big data and urban informatics for performative cities

The distribution of sensor networks throughout the contemporary urban environment together with advances in mobile and web-related technologies, create new opportunities for practice and research in Urbanism. Digitally-driven systems and devices provide immense amounts of real-time data streams, which reflect city dynamics. In turn, this increasing availability of real-time information is capable of providing the urban designers/planners with a highly detailed and dynamic picture of the urban fabric. Part and parcel to this new dimension of reality, the discourse surrounding Smart Cities is gaining in popularity recently. Yet, digital ubiquity - as a 'by-product' of the post-industrial age - is not the sole motivating factor. There are also global phenomena, fueled by the increasing urban populations, along with the socio-economical and environmental repercussions they bring about, that instigate it.Architectural Engineering +TechnologyArchitecture and The Built Environmen

Sensing the city through new forms of urban data

Internet of Thing

Urban Analytics

Web Information System

Designing for Urban Health and Well-being by Revisiting Proximity, Walkability, and Accessibility

Can planning and design influence health and well-being in urban settings? Even though it was the public health issues faced by industrial cities that originally gave rise to the field of city planning, their paths have diverged over the years.However, how human settlements are planned, designed, and built can drastically improve or harm human health and well-being through factors that either promote or obstruct healthier lifestyles. Global organizations currently advocate city designs that enhance access to a wide range of resources and experiences for all. But how do we evaluate the successful translation of these goals into healthy, resilient, and socially cohesive human settlements and communities? This chapter revisits fundamental concepts of proximity, walkability, and accessibility that are omnipresent in planning and design directives for healthier communities. It critically examines prevailing conceptualizations and measures and offers alternative directions for operationalizations that accommodate the variety of human behaviours and the complex linkages between factors in the urban environment.Internet of Thing

Social Smart Meter: Identifying Energy Consumption Behavior in User-Generated Content

Having a thorough understanding of energy consumption behavior is an important element of sustainability studies. Traditional sources of information about energy consumption, such as smart meter devices and surveys, can be costly to deploy, may lack contextual information or have infrequent updates. In this paper, we examine the possibility of extracting energy consumption-related information from user-generated content. More specifically, we develop a pipeline that helps identify energy-related content in Twitter posts and classify it into four categories (dwelling, food, leisure, and mobility), according to the type of activity performed. We further demonstrate a web-based application--called Social Smart Meter--that implements the proposed pipeline and enables different stakeholders to gain an insight into daily energy consumption behavior, as well as showcase it in case studies involving several world cities

Contributions of PET in molecular imaging of 5-HT1A and 5-HT7 serotonin receptors

Le système sérotoninergique, impliqué dans plusieurs pathologies du système nerveux central, peut être exploré in vivo par l’imagerie TEP (tomographie par émission de positons). La recherche et la validation préclinique de radiotraceurs ciblant spécifiquement les récepteurs sérotoninergiques est donc cruciale. Au cours de ce travail, nous nous sommes intéressés à deux récepteurs sérotoninergiques pour lesquels nous avons développé des outils moléculaires pour leur imagerie fonctionnelle: (i) les récepteurs 5-HT1A et (ii) les récepteurs 5-HT7. (i) Les récepteurs 5-HT1A sont parmi les récepteurs à sérotonine les mieux décrits à l’heure actuelle. Cependant, si des radiotraceurs TEP sont déjà disponibles, ceux-ci sont des antagonistes qui se fixent indifféremment aux récepteurs 5-HT1A, couplés aux protéines G et fonctionnels, et aux récepteurs 5-HT1A, découplés et non fonctionnels. Nous avons donc proposé une stratégie originale de développement d’un agoniste 5- HT1A radiomarqué au fluor afin d’accéder à une imagerie des récepteurs fonctionnels. Deux molécules, le F15599 et le F13714, initialement développées pour leurs propriétés antidépressives par un partenaire industriel, ont été radiomarquées au fluor 18 puis ont été évaluées in vitro, ex vivo et in vivo chez le rat et le chat. Nos résultats montrent que le [18F]F13714 permet de visualiser de manière inédite les récepteurs 5- HT1A couplés aux protéines G. (ii) Le deuxième axe de cette thèse concerne les récepteurs 5-HT7, de découverte récente et proposés comme cible thérapeutique antidépressive. A l’inverse des récepteurs 5-HT1A, les récepteurs 5-HT7 ne disposent pas encore de radiotraceur TEP. Notre approche a consisté à sélectionner, à partir du pharmacophore du récepteur, quatre structures d’antagonistes 5-HT7, synthétisées par un laboratoire partenaire de chimie : le 2FP3, le 4FP3, le 2FPMP et le 4FPMP. Nos études radiopharmacologiques in vitro, ex vivo et in vivo nous ont conduit à retenir un radiotraceur, le [18F]2FP3. À l’issue de ce travail de thèse CIFRE, nous pouvons donc proposer deux radiotraceurs TEP originaux, ouvrant des perspectives inédites d’imagerie moléculaires de la neurotransmission 5-HT1A et 5-HT7 et dont nous envisageons la poursuite du développement comme radiopharmaceutiques cliniquesThe serotonergic system, implicated in several diseases of central nervous system, can be explored in vivo by PET imaging (positron emission tomography). The research and the preclinical validation of radiotracers that specifically target serotonin are crucial. In this work, we focused on two serotonin receptors for which we have developed molecular tools for functional imaging: (i) the 5-HT1A and (ii) the 5-HT7. (i) 5-HT1A receptors are among the serotonin receptors the best described at present. However, if PET radiotracers are already available, they are antagonists and bind either to 5-HT1A receptors, G protein-coupled and functional, and to 5-HT1A receptors decoupled and non-functional. We therefore proposed an original strategy to develop a 5-HT1A agonist labeled with fluorine to access imagery of functional receptors. Two molecules, the F15599 and F13714, initially developed for their antidepressant properties by an industrial partner, were radiolabeled with fluorine-18 and were evaluated in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo in rats and cats. Our results show that the [18F] F13714 may view in a new way the 5-HT1A G protein-coupled (ii) The second focus of this thesis for the 5-HT7, recently discovered and proposed as a therapeutic target antidepressant. Unlike the 5-HT1A, 5-HT7 receptors do not yet have PET radiotracer. Our approach was to select, from the pharmacophore of the receptor, four structures of 5-HT7 antagonists, synthesized by a lab partner in chemistry: the 2FP3, the 4FP3, the 2FPMP and 4FPMP. Our radiopharmacology in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo led us to retain a radiotracer, the [18F] 2FP3. At the conclusion of this thesis CIFRE, we can propose two originals PET radiotracers , opening new perspectives for molecular imaging of neurotransmission of 5-HT1A and 5-HT7 receptors and which we plan further development as clinical radiopharmaceutical

Measuring children's and adolescents' accessibility to greenspaces from different locations and commuting settings

Recent evidence underscores the importance of greenspace exposure in promoting physical activity, and in having a positive impact on mental health and cognitive development. Accessibility has been identified to be the primary motivating factor when it comes to encouraging greenspace use and, correspondingly, exposure. Existing quantitative approaches to measuring greenspace accessibility predominantly focus on the areas surrounding home locations, often disregarding access from other settings such as schools or workplaces, exposures while on the move, and mobility differences among different population age groups. This article introduces a novel method to measure greenspace accessibility that considers access from different activity settings (i.e., homes, schools, and the commutes between them) for children and adolescents, while accounting for the dependency of human access on the road network. We use Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague in the Netherlands as case studies to illustrate the utility of our method. Compared to conventional measures of greenspace accessibility, we show that accounting for school and commuting settings, in addition to residences, captures previously untapped accessibility aspects for both children and adolescents. Our approach can be replicated in other cities worldwide, with the aspiration to provide planners and public health policy-makers with a methodological tool that can help in evaluating access and use of greenspaces when designing health-promoting interventions.</p

The adaptive city: A socio-technical interaction-driven approach towards urban systems

This paper aims at establishing an associative relation between pervasive digital technologies, the physicality of the urban fabric and its inhabitants. It introduces a methodological framework for the development of an interactive urban system, installed within urban open public spaces, in the form of a hybrid interface that can serve as an interactive platform for both citizens and local planning authorities. This particular system apart from harnessing and visualizing real-time diverse quantifiable data, derived from everyday urban activities, aims to further provide the inhabitants with an agency via a continuous feedback loop processes to, ultimately, influence the physical and behavioural patterns of the city. In other words, the platform does not only imply interaction at an information exchange level, but rather aims to provoke a complex variety of inter-relations between the social and the technological via real-time spatial adaptation and spatial customization possibilities. The proposal focuses towards a system that is perceived as an integral part of the urban environment and less on the development of a specialized application or website platform that only overlays an additional virtual layer to the already existing ones in contemporary cities. Lastly, the paper deploys a set of critical issues that need to be taken into account regarding the evaluation of such systems in practice.UrbanismArchitectur