Smart Sentinel: Monitoring and Prevention System in the Smart Cities

Today, faced with the constant rise of the Smart cities around the world, there is an exponential increase of the use and deployment of information technologies in the cities. The intensive use of Information Technology (IT) in these ecosystems facilitates and improves the quality of life of citizens, but in these digital communities coexist individuals whose health is affected developing or increasing diseases such as electromagnetic hypersensitivity. In this paper we present a monitoring, detection and prevention system to help this group, through which it is reported the rates of electromagnetic radiation in certain areas, based on the information that the own Smart City gives us. This work provides a perfect platform for the generation of predictive models for detection of future states of risk for humans.

A Computational Architecture Based on RFID Sensors for Traceability in Smart Cities

Information Technology and Communications (ICT) is presented as the main element in order to achieve more efficient and sustainable city resource management, while making sure that the needs of the citizens to improve their quality of life are satisfied. A key element will be the creation of new systems that allow the acquisition of context information, automatically and transparently, in order to provide it to decision support systems. In this paper, we present a novel distributed system for obtaining, representing and providing the flow and movement of people in densely populated geographical areas. In order to accomplish these tasks, we propose the design of a smart sensor network based on RFID communication technologies, reliability patterns and integration techniques. Contrary to other proposals, this system represents a comprehensive solution that permits the acquisition of user information in a transparent and reliable way in a non-controlled and heterogeneous environment. This knowledge will be useful in moving towards the design of smart cities in which decision support on transport strategies, business evaluation or initiatives in the tourism sector will be supported by real relevant information. As a final result, a case study will be presented which will allow the validation of the proposal.

SmartUA: Cuadro de Mando Smart University

El Cuadro de Mando SmartUA es una aplicación software que permite localizar y visualizar con facilidad, en cualquier momento y desde cualquier lugar, toda la información recopilada desde diversas fuentes de datos y redes de sensores generadas por el proyecto Smart University de la Universidad de Alicante; representarla en forma de mapas y gráficas; realizar búsquedas y filtros sobre dicha información; y mostrar a la comunidad universitaria en particular y a la ciudadanía en general, de una forma objetiva e inteligible, los fenómenos que ocurren en el campus, interconectado sistemas y personas para un mejor aprovechamiento de los recursos, una gestión eficiente y una innovación continua.

Smart Monitoring Embedded Service for Energy-Efficient and Sustainable Management in Data Centers

Information technologies (IT) currently represent 2% of CO2 emissions. In recent years, a wide variety of IT solutions have been proposed, focused on increasing the energy efficiency of network data centers. Monitoring is one of the fundamental pillars of these systems, providing the information necessary for adequate decision making. However, today’s monitoring systems (MSs) are partial, specific and highly coupled solutions. This study proposes a model for monitoring data centers that serves as a basis for energy saving systems, offered as a value-added service embedded in a device with low cost and power consumption. The proposal is general in nature, comprehensive, scalable and focused on heterogeneous environments, and it allows quick adaptation to the needs of changing and dynamic environments. Further, a prototype of the system has been implemented in several devices, which has allowed validation of the proposal in addition to identification of the minimum hardware profile required to support the model.

Visioni di una utopia moderna : l'immagine della città nelle rappresentazione delle smart cities e il ruolo del design per construire scenari di mondi futuro

Le nostre città stanno cambiando profondamente in relazione ad alcuni fenomeni urbani: la crescita della popolazione, i cambiamenti climatici e la scarsità di risorse energetiche stanno modificando lo stile di vita e la forma delle città. E' necessario modificare alcuni preconcetti per concepire, costruire e vivere in un modo nuovo lo spazio urbano; questo processo prende il nome di Smart City. Per realizzare una Smart City è necessaria una visione olistica dei processi e dei fenomeni urbani; designer e urbanisti devono lavorare insieme per visualizzare gli scenari della città del futuro, tenendo conto delle possibilità offerte dalla tecnologia. Il design della comunicazione ha il compito di creare queste visioni, comunicando le idee di città del futuro e interpretando il ruolo di mediatore, per rendere comprensibili i linguaggi delle molteplici discipline. Questa ricerca ha l'obiettivo di realizzare uno strumento destinato ai designer che elaborano gli scenari del futuro, e agli attori del contesto urbano che interpretano quelle visioni, per pianificare efficaci strategie di miglioramento.

Household debt and the European crisis. ECRI Research Report No. 13, June 2013

The fall in economic output all over Europe since 2008 has had important consequences for household liabilities. Major growth in demand and supply for household credit products has generated an increase in household debt, which contributed to growth rates during the pre-crisis period but – in some countries – became household-debt overhangs and helped inflate asset bubbles. In the run-up to the crisis, long-term economic lessons and theories were often overlooked and signs that the economic situation could worsen were ignored. Although not at the core of the crisis, household debt had important consequences for macroeconomic stability, robustness of growth and the depth of recessions. The last ten years in Europe have demonstrated the typical final stage of a household debt cycle: rapid increase and abrupt retrenchment. Widely varying outcomes across Europe enable us to consider the causes of the rapid growth in household debt and draw theoretical lessons that can help policy-makers and academics devise a coherent regulatory response to avoid extremes of the debt cycle in future.