Governing with urban big data in the smart city environment: an italian perspective

A smart city is more than its mere technological components. From a legal standpoint, smartness means a civic-enabling regulatory environment, access to technological resources, and openness to the political decision-making process. No doubt, the core asset of this socio-technical revolution is the data generated within the urban contest. However, national and EU law does not provide a specific regulation for using this data. Indeed, the next EU data strategy, with the open data and non-personal data legislation and the forthcoming Data Act, aims to promote a more profitable use of urban and local big data. Nonetheless, at present, this latter still misses a consistent approach to this issue. A thorough understanding of the smart city requires, first of all, the reconceptualization of big data in terms of urban data. Existing definitions and studies about this topic converge on the metropolises of East Asia and, sometimes, the USA. Instead, we approach the issues experienced in medium-size cities, focusing on the main Italian ones. Especially in this specific urban environment, data can help provide better services, automatize administrations, and further democratization only if they are understood holistically - as urban data. Cities, moreover, are a comprehensive source of data themselves, both collected from citizens and urban things. Among the various types of data that can be gathered, surveillance recordings play a crucial role. On the one hand, video surveillance is essential for many purposes, such as protecting public property, monitoring traffic, controlling high-security risk areas, and preventing crime and vandalism. From another standpoint, these systems can be invasive towards citizens' rights and freedoms: in this regard, urban data collected from video surveillance systems may be shared with public administrations or other interested entities, only afterward they have been anonymized. Even this process needs to be aligned with the transparency and participation values that inform the city's democracy. Thus, the anonymization process must be fully compliant with data protection legislation, looking for the most appropriate legal basis and assessing all the possible sources of risks to the rights and freedoms of people (DPIA). Urban data, indeed, is a matter of local democracy. The availability of data and the economy of platforms can significantly transform a city's services and geography as well as citizens' lifestyles. However, the participation of citizens to express their views on both the use of urban data for public policy and the regulation of the digital economy is still a challenge. The paper aims to analyze the projects of some Italian cities - including Milan, Rome, and Turin - which have tried to introduce participatory urban data management tools and to highlight the possible challenges of a democratic management of service platforms and data transfer for social and economic development

Inactivating SARS-CoV-2 Using 275 nm UV-C LEDs through a Spherical Irradiation Box: Design, Characterization and Validation

We report on the design, characterization and validation of a spherical irradiation system for inactivating SARS-CoV-2, based on UV-C 275 nm LEDs. The system is designed to maximize irradiation intensity and uniformity and can be used for irradiating a volume of 18 L. To this aim: (i) several commercially available LEDs have been acquired and analyzed; (ii) a complete optical study has been carried out in order to optimize the efficacy of the system; (iii) the resulting prototype has been characterized optically and tested for the inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 for different exposure times, doses and surface types; (iv) the result achieved and the efficacy of the prototype have been compared with similar devices based on different technologies. Results indicate that a 99.9% inactivation can be reached after 1 min of treatment with a dose of 83.1 J/m2

Governing with urban big data in the smart city environment: an italian perspective

A smart city is more than its mere technological components. From a legal standpoint, smartness means a civic-enabling regulatory environment, access to technological resources, and openness to the political decision-making process. No doubt, the core asset of this socio-technical revolution is the data generated within the urban contest. However, national and EU law does not provide a specific regulation for using this data. Indeed, the next EU data strategy, with the open data and non-personal data legislation and the forthcoming Data Act, aims to promote a more profitable use of urban and local big data. Nonetheless, at present, this latter still misses a consistent approach to this issue. A thorough understanding of the smart city requires, first of all, the reconceptualization of big data in terms of urban data. Existing definitions and studies about this topic converge on the metropolises of East Asia and, sometimes, the USA. Instead, we approach the issues experienced in medium-size cities, focusing on the main Italian ones. Especially in this specific urban environment, data can help provide better services, automatize administrations, and further democratization only if they are understood holistically - as urban data. Cities, moreover, are a comprehensive source of data themselves, both collected from citizens and urban things. Among the various types of data that can be gathered, surveillance recordings play a crucial role. On the one hand, video surveillance is essential for many purposes, such as protecting public property, monitoring traffic, controlling high-security risk areas, and preventing crime and vandalism. From another standpoint, these systems can be invasive towards citizens' rights and freedoms: in this regard, urban data collected from video surveillance systems may be shared with public administrations or other interested entities, only afterward they have been anonymized. Even this process needs to be aligned with the transparency and participation values that inform the city's democracy. Thus, the anonymization process must be fully compliant with data protection legislation, looking for the most appropriate legal basis and assessing all the possible sources of risks to the rights and freedoms of people (DPIA). Urban data, indeed, is a matter of local democracy. The availability of data and the economy of platforms can significantly transform a city's services and geography as well as citizens' lifestyles. However, the participation of citizens to express their views on both the use of urban data for public policy and the regulation of the digital economy is still a challenge. The paper aims to analyze the projects of some Italian cities - including Milan, Rome, and Turin - which have tried to introduce participatory urban data management tools and to highlight the possible challenges of a democratic management of service platforms and data transfer for social and economic development

TopIE: An Integral Equation Tool for Topology Optimization in Electromagnetics

Topology optimization for the design of electromagnetic devices has recently garnered significant interest, thanks to advancements in additive manufacturing techniques that enable the fabrication of intricate geometries. This has opened up new possibilities for utilizing integral equation methods to solve electromagnetic (EM) problems, particularly in the analysis of Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) devices. In this context, we introduce a novel topology optimization tool called TopIE, which is built upon the Integral Equation method for EM problem solutions. TopIE adopts the logic of Topology Optimization of Binary Structures (TOBS), a sensitivity-based approach that leverages binary design variables to clearly differentiate the material properties within the design domain. The tool is specifically employed for optimizing IPT devices, and sample implementations of the method are made publicly available. By combining the power of topology optimization and integral equation methods, TopIE offers a promising avenue for enhancing the design and performance of EM devices