V for variety: Lessons learned from complex smart cities data harmonization and integration

With emerging trends for Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities, complex data transformation, aggregation and visualization problems are becoming increasingly common. These tasks support improved business intelligence, analytics and enduser access to data. However, in most cases developers of these tasks are presented with challenging problems including noisy data, diverse data formats, data modeling and increasing demand for sophisticated visualization support. This paper describes our experiences with just such problems in the context of Household Travel Surveys data integration and harmonization. We describe a common approach for addressing these harmonizations. We then discuss a set of lessons that we have learned from our experience that we hope will be useful for others embarking on similar problems. We also identify several key directions and needs for future research and practical support in this area.

Rethinking value in the stack: smart cities and digital currencies

O Seminário Estratégico "A Reinvenção do Dinheiro e a Emergência das Moedas Criativas" reunirá 15 especialistas de diferentes áreas para discutir as transformações contemporâneas implicadas na digitalização do dinheiro e na emergência resultante de novos circuitos de monetização da produção, do consumo, da distribuição, do financiamento e da reciclagem de todos os bens e serviços, assim como da própria informação.O debate marca o lançamento da campanha MIL CLICKS de monetização de projetos de Media and Information Literacy (MIL) pela UNESCO na USP, plataforma desenhada pelo grupo de pesquisa Cidade do Conhecimento em parceria com Dentsu Aegis Network e UNESCO, integrada à Global MIL Week UNESCO 2016 na Escola de Comunicações e Artes da USP (2 a 6 de novembro de 2016).

Streetwise Asia, a practical guide for the conservation and revitalisation of heritage cities and towns in Asia.

This is a practical and accessible guide for residents and professionals concerned to preserve and revitalise heritage cities in Asia. Heritage cities (many listed by UNESCO) are of course of major interest to one of the world's largest industries, tourism. Using inset colour photographs to complement the text, the realities of destructive and constructive development, repairs, restoration and usage are made clear. Legal, financial, administrative, historical and educational aspects of conservation policies, incentives and implementations are discussed. With outlines for strategy, goals and bibliography.

Utility-driven evidence for healthy cities : problems with evidence generation and application

The question whether the WHO Healthy Cities project ‘works’ has been asked ever since a number of novel ideas and actions related to community health, health promotion and healthy public policy in the mid 1980s came together in the Healthy Cities Movement initiated by the World Health Organization. The question, however, has become more urgent since we have entered an era in which the drive for ‘evidence’ seems all-pervasive.

The article explores the nature of evidence, review available evidence on Healthy Cities accomplishments, and discusses whether enough evidence has been accumulated on different performances within the realm of Healthy Cities. A main point of reference is the European Healthy Cities Project (E-HCP).

Building on the information gathered through documentary research on the topic, it is concluded that there is fair evidence that Healthy Cities works. However, the future holds great challenges for further development and evidence-oriented evaluations of Healthy Cities. There are problems with (1) the communication of evidence, (2) the tension between the original intention of the Healthy Cities Movement and its current operations, and (3) the complex nature of Healthy Cities and the methodological tools currently available.

The cultural role of capital cities : Hanoi and Hue, Vietnam

Hanoi promotes itself both as a place for foreign investment in urban development and as the 'cradle of Vietnamese civilisation'. Special status is given to places of national heritage significance, and policy makers and planners face challenges of balancing heritage conservation and modern development. By contrast, the former capital, Hue, continues to decline economically relative to other Vietnamese cities and is discovering value in its imperial heritage as a 'vector for development'. These Vietnamese capital cities demonstrate that heritage conservation is a key consideration in government efforts to improve the position of their constituencies in the newly-shaping global and national economic systems.

Housing price diffusion pattern of Australia's state capital cities

The ripple effect of house prices within metropolitan areas has recently been recognised by researchers. However, it is very difficult to formulate and measure this effect using conventional house price theories particularly in consideration of the spatial locations of cities. Based on econometrics principles of the cointegration test and the error correction model, this research develops an innovative approach to quantitatively examine the diffusion patterns of house prices in mega-cities of a country. Taking Australia's eight capital cities as an example, the proposed approach is validated in terms of an empirical study. The results show that a 1-1-2-4 diffusion pattern exists within these cities. Sydney is on the top tier with Melbourne in the second; Perth and Adelaide are in the third level and the other four cities lie on the bottom. This research may be applied to predict the regional housing market behavior in a country.

Smart cluster bombs - control of multi-agent systems for military applications

This paper introduces an aggregation algorithm for airborne swarming guided weapon systems, which can aggregate munitions into a given shape while reaching the surface. The algorithm uses an artificial force based controller to navigate the members of the swarm into the desired geographical position and evenly distribute them inside the shape. Inter-member repulsion forces are used to avoid collisions among members, which is crucial for a weapon deployment system. Moreover, a lower bound for the release height was obtained which guarantee convergence of the complete weapon system into the target area. The proposed swarming guided weapon system was tested using computer simulations.

RFID-based real-time smart waste management system

In an environmental context, the use of RFID (radio frequency identification) and load cell sensor technology can be employed for not only bringing down waste management costs, but also to facilitate automating and streamlining waste (e.g., garbage, recycling, and green) identification and weight measurement processes for designing smart waste management systems. In this paper, we outline a RFID and sensor model for designing a system in real-time waste management. An application of the architecture is described in the area of RFID and sensor based automatic waste identity, weight, and stolen bins identification system (WIWSBIS).

Knowledge, risk perceptions and condom usage in male sex workers from three Australian cities

The study identifies factors associated with knowledge and perception of risk of HIV/AIDS, as well as attitudes to and usage of condoms by a sample of male sex workers (MSW). One hundred and eighty-five male sex workers completed a self-reported questionnaire, including knowledge about HIV transmission, attitudes to condom use and perceptions and personal susceptibility to HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) risk, and a two-week diary recording use of condom during commercial sex encounters. The findings reveal that condom use was found in 77.7% of the encounters with clients and the majority of the respondents perceived themselves to be at no risk for HIV because of sex work. Independent sex workers from Melbourne and workers who owned their place of residence used condoms in a significant lower proportion. Generally speaking, knowledge about the risks associated with AIDS was high, with respondents showing lower knowledge about the risks associated with unprotected receptive or active oral sex. Participants held a positive attitude to condom use; most considered the provisions of condoms to be their responsibility rather than clients; and they were more worried about contracting an STI than HIV. Those who scored higher on the knowledge scale had more positive attitudes to condom use and those who had a more positive attitude to condom use recorded a perceived lower risk of contracting STI but not HIV. The study discusses the relevance of these findings for public health risk reduction and sexual health education campaigns.

A proposed smart-card solution for Australian health services : the problems encountered

This case study describes the experience of a state government health department in evaluating the use of smart card technology to redesign health benefits programs for the disabled in Australia. The social and political context of the system is explained in detail, and the potential benefits and risks accruing to the government, health care intermediaries and the community are examined.

The reality of quality systems software : working for the machine, or smart people around the machine?

This case study-based research examines the outcomes of using quality system software (QSS) in terms of the support it provides to, and the constraints it imposes on, its users. The results indicate that QSS can help facilitate knowledge access and sharing, and to a lesser extent, facilitate communication. It can be an effective mechanism for initiating and managing changes to work processes. Although some writers have opined that information technology (IT) is another way of controlling workers, this was not evidenced in this study. Technical shortcomings did hamper performance of some tasks, and for some managers, extra work was involved.