Quantifying uncertainty in citizen weather data

The sheer volume of citizen weather data collected and uploaded to online data hubs is immense. However as with any citizen data it is difficult to assess the accuracy of the measurements. Within this project we quantify just how much data is available, where it comes from, the frequency at which it is collected, and the types of automatic weather stations being used. We also list the numerous possible sources of error and uncertainty within citizen weather observations before showing evidence of such effects in real data. A thorough intercomparison field study was conducted, testing popular models of citizen weather stations. From this study we were able to parameterise key sources of bias. Most significantly the project develops a complete quality control system through which citizen air temperature observations can be passed. The structure of this system was heavily informed by the results of the field study. Using a Bayesian framework the system learns and updates its estimates of the calibration and radiation-induced biases inherent to each station. We then show the benefit of correcting for these learnt biases over using the original uncorrected data. The system also attaches an uncertainty estimate to each observation, which would provide real world applications that choose to incorporate such observations with a measure on which they may base their confidence in the data. The system relies on interpolated temperature and radiation observations from neighbouring professional weather stations for which a Bayesian regression model is used. We recognise some of the assumptions and flaws of the developed system and suggest further work that needs to be done to bring it to an operational setting. Such a system will hopefully allow applications to leverage the additional value citizen weather data brings to longstanding professional observing networks.

Cultural Institutions and Citizen Science: Some Educational Aspects

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2015

Participatory research with older adults with AMD:co-designing a SMART diet diary app

The global population of people aged 60 years and older is growing rapidly. In the UK, there are currently around 10 million people aged 65 and over, and the number is projected to rise by 50% in the next 20 years (RNIB, 2013). While ongoing advances in information technology (IT) are undoubtedly increasing the scope for IT to enhance and support older adults' daily living, the digital divide between older and younger adults - 43% of people below the age of 55 own and use a smartphone, compared to only 3% of people aged 65 and over (AgeUK, 2013) - raises concerns about the suitability of technological solutions for older adults, especially for older adults with impairments. Evidence suggests that sympathetic design of mobile technology does render it useful and acceptable to older adults: the key issue is, however, how best to achieve such sympathetic design when working with impaired older adults. We report here on a case study in order to outline the practicalities and highlight the benefits of participatory research for the design of sympathetic technology for (and importantly with) older adults with impairments.

Enhanced connectivity and QoE through LTE-WiFi interworking in Smart Cities

Mobile communication and networking infrastructures play an important role in the development of smart cities, to support real-time information exchange and management required in modern urbanization. Mobile WiFi devices that help offloading data traffic from the macro-cell base station and serve the end users within a closer range can significantly improve the connectivity of wireless communications between essential components including infrastructural and human devices in a city. However, this offloading function through interworking between LTE and WiFi systems will change the pattern of resource distributions operated by the base station. In this paper, a resource allocation scheme is proposed to ensure stable service coverage and end-user quality of experience (QoE) when offloading takes place in a macro-cell environment. In this scheme, a rate redistribution algorithm is derived to form a parametric scheduler to meet the required levels of efficiency and fairness, guided by a no-reference quality assessment metric. We show that the performance of resource allocation can be regulated by this scheduler without affecting the service coverage offered by the WLAN access point. The performances of different interworking scenarios and macro-cell scheduling policies are also compared.

Crowdsourcing, citizen science or volunteered geographic information? The current state of crowdsourced geographic information

Citizens are increasingly becoming an important source of geographic information, sometimes entering domains that had until recently been the exclusive realm of authoritative agencies. This activity has a very diverse character as it can, amongst other things, be active or passive, involve spatial or aspatial data and the data provided can be variable in terms of key attributes such as format, description and quality. Unsurprisingly, therefore, there are a variety of terms used to describe data arising from citizens. In this article, the expressions used to describe citizen sensing of geographic information are reviewed and their use over time explored, prior to categorizing them and highlighting key issues in the current state of the subject. The latter involved a review of 100 Internet sites with particular focus on their thematic topic, the nature of the data and issues such as incentives for contributors. This review suggests that most sites involve active rather than passive contribution, with citizens typically motivated by the desire to aid a worthy cause, often receiving little training. As such, this article provides a snapshot of the role of citizens in crowdsourcing geographic information and a guide to the current status of this rapidly emerging and evolving subject.

Co-designing a SMART diet diary application with older adults with AMD

The global population of people aged 60 years and older is growing rapidly. In the UK, there are currently around 10 million people aged 65 and over, and the number is projected to rise by 50% in the next 20 years (RNIB, 2013). While ongoing advances in information technology (IT) are undoubtedly increasing the scope for IT to enhance and support older adults’ daily living, the digital divide between older and younger adults – 43% of people below the age of 55 own and use a smartphone, compared to only 3% of people aged 65 and over (AgeUK, 2013) – raises concerns about the suitability of technological solutions for older adults, especially for older adults with impairments. Evidence suggests that sympathetic design of mobile technology does render it useful and acceptable to older adults: the key issue is, however, how best to achieve such sympathetic design when working with impaired older adults. We report here on a case study in order to outline the practicalities and highlight the benefits of participatory research for the design of sympathetic technology for (and importantly with) older adults with impairments.

Sensing information modelling for smart city

Sensing technology is a key enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT) and could produce huge volume data to contribute the Big Data paradigm. Modelling of sensing information is an important and challenging topic, which influences essentially the quality of smart city systems. In this paper, the author discusses the relevant technologies and information modelling in the context of smart city and especially reports the investigation of how to model sensing and location information in order to support smart city development.

Az információterjedés szerepe az innováció-elfogadásban. Az okostelefonok és az on-line kollektív intelligencia (Role of informationspread in the innovation acceptance: the smart phones and the online collective intelligence)

A tanulmány célja az innováció-terjedés marketingvonzatú irodalmának bemutatása, valamint betekintés az exploratív tartalomelemzés módszerével az informális, kollektív intelligenciát generáló on-line felületek, nevesül a blogok és fórumok kutathatóságába. Az okostelefonok innováció-elfogadásának példáján keresztül a szerzők megpróbálják felderíteni az információterjedés elméletének megvalósulását az elemzett felületeken. Bemutatnak három, a mintára jellemző információterjedési és felvett szerep mintát, melyek alapul szolgálhatnak a további célirányú kutatások számára. / === / Adaptive smart phones that give space for user-added functions create active online discussions. Committed users are ready to share information, advise others, while less expert users seek this information. In their paper the authors show that related user-generated content i.e. blogs and bulletin boards provide a rich data source for analysis, which gives them the opportunity to further elaborate on the diffusion of information in the case of smart phone usage among online Hungarian users. Online collective intelligence may well contribute to the diffusion of innovations through diffusing information. Following a thorough review on the literature on the diffusion of innovations, in their exploratory content analysis, they found two categories of users on the analyzed boards: a first group we dubbed "experts" (corresponding to innovators in Bass's typology) that made a special effort trying to solve particular problems thus contributing to collective intelligence, thus reducing (among others) the perceived complexity of these phones and adding to their trialability, both factors influencing users' innovation acceptance, and a second group, "simple users" (or imitators in Bass's typology), uninterested in product innovation, still asking questions and searching for solutions concerning extant technology. Manufacturers do not seem yet to regard these boards as a source of valuable data, even though these clearly serve as an important pool of information and a growing factor of decision for their potential customers.

"I would like to see that one is able to say I'm proud of being a citizen of the EU…" – the way Hungarian people see Europe and the European Union

This paper explores the concepts of Europe, Europeanism and European Union, their meaning to Hungarians, how people define them and how they relate to these concepts through the analysis of qualitative in-depth interviews. The main question is whether the discourse, expressing attitudes towards Europe and the European Union, are of symbolic or utilitarian character. The symbolic way to relate to the EU is based on principles, an ideological or an emotional approach of the subject, while the pragmatic or utilitarian logic is based on rational cost-benefit analysis. The main argument of this current paper is that the way Hungarians tend to relate to the EU is rather utilitarian and it is the utilitarian logic that represents the relevant frame to understand people’s attitudes on the subject.

Worker remittances and the global preconditions of ‘smart development’

With the growing environmental crisis affecting our globe, ideas to weigh economic or social progress by the ‘energy input’ necessary to achieve it are increasingly gaining acceptance. This question is intriguing and is being dealt with by a growing number of studies, focusing on the environmental price of human progress. Even more intriguing, however, is the question of which factors of social organization contribute to a responsible use of the resources of our planet to achieve a given social result (‘smart development’). In this essay, we present the first systematic study on how migration – or rather, more concretely, received worker remittances per GDP – helps the nations of our globe to enjoy social and economic progress at a relatively small environmental price. We look at the effects of migration on the balance sheets of societal accounting, based on the ‘ecological price’ of the combined performance of democracy, economic growth, gender equality, human development, research and development, and social cohesion. Feminism in power, economic freedom, population density, the UNDP education index as well as the receipt of worker remittances all significantly contribute towards a ‘smart overall development’, while high military expenditures and a high world economic openness are a bottleneck for ‘smart overall development’.

Optimizing the radiation pattern of smart antennas using genetic algorithms

This work is directed towards optimizing the radiation pattern of smart antennas using genetic algorithms. The structure of the smart antennas based on Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) is proposed. It is composed of adaptive antennas, each of which has adjustable weight elements for amplitudes and phases of signals. The corresponding radiation pattern formula available for the utilization of numerical optimization techniques is deduced. Genetic algorithms are applied to search the best phase-amplitude weights or phase-only weights with which the optimal radiation pattern can be achieved. ^ One highlight of this work is the proposed optimal radiation pattern concept and its implementation by genetic algorithms. The results show that genetic algorithms are effective for the true Signal-Interference-Ratio (SIR) design of smart antennas. This means that not only nulls can be put in the directions of the interfering signals but also simultaneously main lobes can be formed in the directions of the desired signals. The optimal radiation pattern of a smart antenna possessing SDMA ability has been achieved. ^ The second highlight is on the weight search by genetic algorithms for the optimal radiation pattern design of antennas having more than one interfering signal. The regular criterion for determining which chromosome should be kept for the next step iteration is modified so as to improve the performance of the genetic algorithm iteration. The results show that the modified criterion can speed up and guarantee the iteration to be convergent. ^ In addition, the comparison between phase-amplitude perturbations and phase-only perturbations for the radiation pattern design of smart antennas are carried out. The effects of parameters used by the genetic algorithm on the optimal radiation pattern design are investigated. Valuable results are obtained. ^

Development and verification of control and protection strategies in hybrid AC/DC power systems for smart grid applications

Modern power networks incorporate communications and information technology infrastructure into the electrical power system to create a smart grid in terms of control and operation. The smart grid enables real-time communication and control between consumers and utility companies allowing suppliers to optimize energy usage based on price preference and system technical issues. The smart grid design aims to provide overall power system monitoring, create protection and control strategies to maintain system performance, stability and security. This dissertation contributed to the development of a unique and novel smart grid test-bed laboratory with integrated monitoring, protection and control systems. This test-bed was used as a platform to test the smart grid operational ideas developed here. The implementation of this system in the real-time software creates an environment for studying, implementing and verifying novel control and protection schemes developed in this dissertation. Phasor measurement techniques were developed using the available Data Acquisition (DAQ) devices in order to monitor all points in the power system in real time. This provides a practical view of system parameter changes, system abnormal conditions and its stability and security information system. These developments provide valuable measurements for technical power system operators in the energy control centers. Phasor Measurement technology is an excellent solution for improving system planning, operation and energy trading in addition to enabling advanced applications in Wide Area Monitoring, Protection and Control (WAMPAC). Moreover, a virtual protection system was developed and implemented in the smart grid laboratory with integrated functionality for wide area applications. Experiments and procedures were developed in the system in order to detect the system abnormal conditions and apply proper remedies to heal the system. A design for DC microgrid was developed to integrate it to the AC system with appropriate control capability. This system represents realistic hybrid AC/DC microgrids connectivity to the AC side to study the use of such architecture in system operation to help remedy system abnormal conditions. In addition, this dissertation explored the challenges and feasibility of the implementation of real-time system analysis features in order to monitor the system security and stability measures. These indices are measured experimentally during the operation of the developed hybrid AC/DC microgrids. Furthermore, a real-time optimal power flow system was implemented to optimally manage the power sharing between AC generators and DC side resources. A study relating to real-time energy management algorithm in hybrid microgrids was performed to evaluate the effects of using energy storage resources and their use in mitigating heavy load impacts on system stability and operational security.

Drying Times: Integrating Citizen Science to Examine Survival of Florida Largemouth Bass in a Coastal Refuge Habitat

In aquatic systems refuge habitats increase resistance to drying events and are necessary for maintaining populations in disturbed environments. However, reduced water availability and altered flow regimes threaten the existence and function of these habitats. To test refuge function I conducted a capture-mark-recapture (CMR) study, integrating citizen science angler sampling into fisheries-independent methods. The objectives of this study were twofold: 1) To determine the contribution of citizen science anglers to improving CMR research, and 2.) to quantify apparent survival of Florida Largemouth Bass, Micropterus salmoides floridanus, in a coastal refuge habitat across multiple years of drying severity. The inclusion of angler sampling was determined to be an effective and feasible method for increasing capture probability. Apparent survival of Florida Bass varied among hydrologic periods with lowest survival when marshes functionally dried (< 10 cm). Overall mortality from drying events increased with the duration of marsh drying upstream.

The science of citizen science

Biodiversity citizen science projects are growing in number, size, and scope, and are gaining recognition as valuable data sources that build public engagement. Yet publication rates indicate that citizen science is still infrequently used as a primary tool for conservation research and the causes of this apparent disconnect have not been quantitatively evaluated. To uncover the barriers to the use of citizen science as a research tool, we surveyed professional biodiversity scientists (n = 423) and citizen science project managers (n = 125). We conducted three analyses using non-parametric recursive modeling (random forest), using questions that addressed: scientists' perceptions and preferences regarding citizen science, scientists' requirements for their own data, and the actual practices of citizen science projects. For all three analyses we identified the most important factors that influence the probability of publication using citizen science data. Four general barriers emerged: a narrow awareness among scientists of citizen science projects that match their needs; the fact that not all biodiversity science is well-suited for citizen science; inconsistency in data quality across citizen science projects; and bias among scientists for certain data sources (institutions and ages/education levels of data collectors). Notably, we find limited evidence to suggest a relationship between citizen science projects that satisfy scientists' biases and data quality or probability of publication. These results illuminate the need for greater visibility of citizen science practices with respect to the requirements of biodiversity science and show that addressing bias among scientists could improve application of citizen science in conservation.