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Techno-Human Collective Systems for Smart Cities Innovation
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Techno-Human Collective Systems for Smart Cities Innovation

A special issue of Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks (ISSN 2224-2708).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 December 2015) | Viewed by 72017

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Ioannis Chatzigiannakis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer, Control & Informatics Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Interests: distributed computing; algorithmic engineering; software engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last decade we have witnessed a tremendous progress towards the interconnection of the digital and physical domains, giving rise to the "Internet of Things". New systems emerge that orchestrate myriads of devices, web services, business processes, people, companies, and institutions that are continuously integrated and connected with individual properties, objectives, and actions. The coexistence and cooperation of embedded systems with our social life is unveiling a brand new era of exciting possibilities.

In such systems, it is simply infeasible to expect from individuals to be aware of the full range of potentially relevant possibilities and be able to pull them together manually. We need to shift from passive machines that wait for user commands, to highly interconnected collectives of computational components that act autonomously and intelligently. We need future systems to anticipate the user needs, preferences and actions, and suitably adapt their performance so that they can be used by a multitude of human and societal interests.

We invite authors to submit papers reporting original, previously unpublished research, which addresses this new area. We are open to papers addressing a broad range of topics, from foundational topics regarding the operating principles of large-scale collective systems, and novel design principles for building future collective systems; to papers presenting advanced frameworks and technological platforms for developing real-world collectives; to pilots reporting innovative approaches for human engagement in co-creating smart city services.

Topics:

žFuture applications and insights on innovative uses of techno-human collective systems
Frameworks, models and broader classifications that can act as foundations regarding techno-human collective systems for smart cities
Pilot applications of techno-human collective systems in smart cities
Experiences on co-creation of smart city services and alternative collaborative approaches to problem solving
Revolutionary designs and new paradigms for real-world techno-human collective systems
Privacy-enhanced, Privacy-preserving and Privacy-by-design in smart city services and techno-human collective systems
Methodologies for studying, analysing and building techno-human collective systems
Novel theories for the design and efficient operation of techno-human collective systems
Data Management and Knowledge extraction in smart city services and techno-human collective systems

Prof. Ioannis Chatzigiannakis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.


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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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2234 KiB  
Article
Novel Simulation Approaches for Smart Grids
by Eleftherios Tsampasis, Lambros Sarakis, Helen Catherine Leligou, Theodore Zahariadis and John Garofalakis
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2016, 5(3), 11; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan5030011 - 29 Jun 2016
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 8806
Abstract
The complexity of the power grid, in conjunction with the ever increasing demand for electricity, creates the need for efficient analysis and control of the power system. The evolution of the legacy system towards the new smart grid intensifies this need due to [...] Read more.
The complexity of the power grid, in conjunction with the ever increasing demand for electricity, creates the need for efficient analysis and control of the power system. The evolution of the legacy system towards the new smart grid intensifies this need due to the large number of sensors and actuators that must be monitored and controlled, the new types of distributed energy sources that need to be integrated and the new types of loads that must be supported. At the same time, integration of human-activity awareness into the smart grid is emerging and this will allow the system to monitor, share and manage information and actions on the business, as well as the real world. In this context, modeling and simulation is an invaluable tool for system behavior analysis, energy consumption estimation and future state prediction. In this paper, we review current smart grid simulators and approaches for building and user behavior modeling, and present a federated smart grid simulation framework, in which building, control and user behavior modeling and simulation are decoupled from power or network simulators and implemented as discrete components. This framework enables evaluation of the interactions between the communication infrastructure and the power system taking into account the human activities, which are at the focus of emerging energy-related applications that aim to shape user behavior. Validation of the key functionality of the proposed framework is also presented. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Techno-Human Collective Systems for Smart Cities Innovation)
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6032 KiB  
Article
A Privacy-by-Design Contextual Suggestion System for Tourism
by Pavlos S. Efraimidis, George Drosatos, Avi Arampatzis, Giorgos Stamatelatos and Ioannis N. Athanasiadis
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2016, 5(2), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan5020010 - 5 May 2016
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 11044
Abstract
We focus on personal data generated by the sensors and through the everyday usage of smart devices and take advantage of these data to build a non-invasive contextual suggestion system for tourism. The system, which we call Pythia, exploits the computational capabilities of [...] Read more.
We focus on personal data generated by the sensors and through the everyday usage of smart devices and take advantage of these data to build a non-invasive contextual suggestion system for tourism. The system, which we call Pythia, exploits the computational capabilities of modern smart devices to offer high quality personalized POI (point of interest) recommendations. To protect user privacy, we apply a privacy by design approach within all of the steps of creating Pythia. The outcome is a system that comprises important architectural and operational innovations. The system is designed to process sensitive personal data, such as location traces, browsing history and web searches (query logs), to automatically infer user preferences and build corresponding POI-based user profiles. These profiles are then used by a contextual suggestion engine to anticipate user choices and make POI recommendations for tourists. Privacy leaks are minimized by implementing an important part of the system functionality at the user side, either as a mobile app or as a client-side web application, and by taking additional precautions, like data generalization, wherever necessary. As a proof of concept, we present a prototype that implements the aforementioned mechanisms on the Android platform accompanied with certain web applications. Even though the current prototype focuses only on location data, the results from the evaluation of the contextual suggestion algorithms and the user experience feedback from volunteers who used the prototype are very positive. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Techno-Human Collective Systems for Smart Cities Innovation)
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946 KiB  
Article
Business Model Design and Architecture for the Internet of Everything
by Dennis Pfisterer, Mirjana Radonjic-Simic and Julian Reichwald
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2016, 5(2), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan5020007 - 2 Apr 2016
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 14196
Abstract
Smart devices and cyber-physical systems, which are interconnected to IT systems and services, form the basis for the arising Internet of Everything, opening up new economic opportunities for its participants and users beyond its technological aspects and challenges. While today’s e-business scenarios are [...] Read more.
Smart devices and cyber-physical systems, which are interconnected to IT systems and services, form the basis for the arising Internet of Everything, opening up new economic opportunities for its participants and users beyond its technological aspects and challenges. While today’s e-business scenarios are mostly dominated by a few centralized online platforms, future business models, which will be feasible for the Internet of Everything, need to address special requirements. Such business models, e.g., leveraging the possibilities of smart cities, need to cope with arbitrary combinations of products and services orchestrated into complex products in a highly distributed and dynamic environment. Furthermore, these arbitrary combinations are influenced by real-time context information derived from sensor networks or IT systems, as well as the users’ requirements and preferences. The complexity of finding the optimal product/service combination overstrains users and leads to decisions according to the principle of adverse selection (i.e., choosing good enough instead of optimal). Such e-business models require an appropriate underlying value generation architecture that supports users in this process. In this paper, we develop a business model that addresses these problems. In addition, we present the Distributed Market Spaces (DMS) software-system architecture as a possible implementation, which enables the aforementioned decentralized and context-centric e-business scenario and leverages the commercial possibilities of smart cities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Techno-Human Collective Systems for Smart Cities Innovation)
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659 KiB  
Article
Routing Protocols for Delay Tolerant Networks: A Reference Architecture and a Thorough Quantitative Evaluation
by Khalil Massri, Andrea Vitaletti, Alessandro Vernata and Ioannis Chatzigiannakis
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2016, 5(2), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan5020006 - 29 Mar 2016
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 9085
Abstract
In this paper, we propose a reference architecture for Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) routing protocols and a thorough quantitative evaluation of many protocols proposed in the literature. We categorize DTN protocols according to their use of the three techniques that are the key elements [...] Read more.
In this paper, we propose a reference architecture for Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) routing protocols and a thorough quantitative evaluation of many protocols proposed in the literature. We categorize DTN protocols according to their use of the three techniques that are the key elements of our reference architecture: queue management, forwarding and replication. Queue management orders and manages the messages in the node’s buffer; forwarding selects the messages to be delivered when there is a contact; and finally, replication bounds the number of replicas in the network. Contrary to most previous papers, where either only qualitative comparisons have been presented or only a single category of protocols has been analyzed, in our work, we discuss the results of our experimental activity on many of the DTN protocols in the literature. Our results, which have been obtained both using synthetic and real mobility traces, show that an effective combination of the proposed techniques can significantly improve the performance of the protocols in terms of delivery ratio, overhead and delay. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Techno-Human Collective Systems for Smart Cities Innovation)
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7701 KiB  
Article
Dealing with Data Quality in Smart Home Environments—Lessons Learned from a Smart Grid Pilot
by Alessandro Leonardi, Holger Ziekow, Martin Strohbach and Panayotis Kikiras
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2016, 5(1), 5; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan5010005 - 3 Mar 2016
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 9694
Abstract
Over the last years, we have witnessed increasing interconnection between the physical and digital world. The so called Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming more and more a reality in application domains like manufacturing, mobile computing, transportation, and many others. However, despite promising [...] Read more.
Over the last years, we have witnessed increasing interconnection between the physical and digital world. The so called Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming more and more a reality in application domains like manufacturing, mobile computing, transportation, and many others. However, despite promising huge potential, the application domain of smart homes is still at its infancy and lags behind other fields of IoT. A deeper understanding of this type of techno-human system is required to make this vision a reality. In this paper, we report findings from a three year pilot that sheds light on the challenges of leveraging IoT technology in the home environment. In particular, we provide details on data quality issues in real-world deployments. That is, we analyze application level data for errors in measurements as well as issues in the end-to-end communication. Understanding what data errors to expect is crucial for understanding the smart building domain and paramount for building successful applications. With our work, we provide insights in a domain of IoT that has tremendous growth potential and help researchers as well as practitioners to better account for the data characteristics of smart homes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Techno-Human Collective Systems for Smart Cities Innovation)
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638 KiB  
Review
Social Internet of Vehicles for Smart Cities
by Leandros A. Maglaras, Ali H. Al-Bayatti, Ying He, Isabel Wagner and Helge Janicke
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2016, 5(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan5010003 - 6 Feb 2016
Cited by 118 | Viewed by 17912
Abstract
Digital devices are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and interconnected. Their evolution to intelligent parts of a digital ecosystem creates novel applications with so far unresolved security issues. A particular example is a vehicle. As vehicles evolve from simple means of transportation to smart entities [...] Read more.
Digital devices are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and interconnected. Their evolution to intelligent parts of a digital ecosystem creates novel applications with so far unresolved security issues. A particular example is a vehicle. As vehicles evolve from simple means of transportation to smart entities with new sensing and communication capabilities, they become active members of a smart city. The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) consists of vehicles that communicate with each other and with public networks through V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle), V2I (vehicle-to-infrastructure) and V2P (vehicle-to-pedestrian) interactions, which enables both the collection and the real-time sharing of critical information about the condition on the road network. The Social Internet of Things (SIoT) introduces social relationships among objects, creating a social network where the participants are not humans, but intelligent objects. In this article, we explore the concept of the Social Internet of Vehicles (SIoV), a network that enables social interactions both among vehicles and among drivers. We discuss technologies and components of the SIoV, possible applications and issues of security, privacy and trust that are likely to arise. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Techno-Human Collective Systems for Smart Cities Innovation)
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