Transitioning from Smart Cities to Smarter Cities: The Future Potential of ICT of Pervasive Computing for Advancing Environmental Sustainability

Author(s):  
Simon Elias Bibri
Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Attila Buzási

Wine producers face several challenges regarding climate change, which will affect this industry both in the present and the future. Vulnerability assessments are at the forefront of current climate research, therefore, the present paper has two main aims. First, to assess two components of climate vulnerability regarding the Szekszárd wine region, Hungary; second, to collect and analyze adaptation farming techniques in terms of environmental sustainability aspects. Exposure analyses revealed that the study area will face several challenges regarding intensive drought periods in the future. Sensitivity indicators show the climate-related characteristics of the most popular grapevines and their relatively high level of susceptibility regarding changing climatic patterns. Since both external and intrinsic factors of vulnerability show deteriorating trends, the development of adaptation actions is needed. Adaptation interventions often provide unsustainable solutions or entail maladaptation issues, therefore, an environmental-focused sustainability assessment of collected interventions was performed to avoid long-term negative path dependencies. The applied evaluation methodology pointed out that nature-based adaptation actions are preferred in comparison to using additional machines or resource-intensive solutions. This study can fill the scientific gap by analyzing this wine region for the first time, via performing an ex-ante lock-in analysis of available and widely used adaptation interventions in the viticulture sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Elias Bibri

AbstractIn recent years, it has become increasingly feasible to achieve important improvements of sustainability by integrating sustainable urbanism with smart urbanism thanks to the proven role and synergic potential of data-driven technologies. Indeed, the processes and practices of both of these approaches to urban planning and development are becoming highly responsive to a form of data-driven urbanism, giving rise to a new phenomenon known as “data-driven smart sustainable urbanism.” Underlying this emerging approach is the idea of combining and integrating the strengths of sustainable cities and smart cities and harnessing the synergies of their strategies and solutions in ways that enable sustainable cities to optimize, enhance, and maintain their performance on the basis of the innovative data-driven technologies offered by smart cities. These strengths and synergies can be clearly demonstrated by combining the advantages of sustainable urbanism and smart urbanism. To enable such combination, major institutional transformations are required in terms of enhanced and new practices and competences. Based on case study research, this paper identifies, distills, and enumerates the key benefits, potentials, and opportunities of sustainable cities and smart cities with respect to the three dimensions of sustainability, as well as the key institutional transformations needed to support the balancing of these dimensions and to enable the introduction of data-driven technology and the adoption of applied data-driven solutions in city operational management and development planning. This paper is an integral part of a futures study that aims to analyze, investigate, and develop a novel model for data-driven smart sustainable cities of the future. I argue that the emerging data-driven technologies for sustainability as innovative niches are reconfiguring the socio-technical landscape of institutions, as well as providing insights to policymakers into pathways for strengthening existing institutionalized practices and competences and developing and establishing new ones. This is necessary for balancing and advancing the goals of sustainability and thus achieving a desirable future.


Author(s):  
Savino Sciascia ◽  
Dario Roccatello ◽  
Chary Lopez-Pedrera ◽  
Maria Jose’ Cuadrado
Keyword(s):  
B Cells ◽  

Nanotechnology is a speedily increasing and innovating range of research, where advanced characteristics of resources manufactures on the nanoscale can be exploited as advantages for people at large through various methods or mechanisms of construction. Being a varied technical and scientific arena that brings and covers numerous application kinds, the contribution of nanotechnological innovations is immense for various sectors of construction industries. It also possesses a large future potential for ecological efficiency, which is dire need of the hour. In construction industry there are many factors involved to achieve the major goal of sustainability like smart design, planning through which energy can be saved, resource usage can be reduced and environmental damage can be avoided. No doubt, the application of nanotechnology materials and its various causes on the atmosphere and living organisms are not clearly defined yet which can become a problem. For instance, leakage of materials into the water resources, and seas, as well, discharge of nanoparticles into the air generating dust and exposure to harmful materials during various construction, maintenance and use etc. Considering tremendous revolution in Nanotechnological field there is an important aspect in relation to the impact of nanoparticles and nanomaterials on human health and environment which should be discussed at length. This paper intends to give a research review of current and near future, safety and eco-efficiency applications of nanotechnology to not only improve and maintain but also deal with certain future challenges and directions related to the sustainable development.


Author(s):  
Mohammed Mouhcine Maaroufi ◽  
Laila Stour ◽  
Ali Agoumi

Managing mobility, both of people and goods, in cities is a thorny issue. The travel needs of urban populations are increasing and put pressure on transport infrastructure. The Moroccan cities are no exception and will struggle, in the short term, to respond to the challenges of the acceleration of the phenomenon of urbanization and the increase in demand for mobility. This will inevitably prevent them from turning into smart cities. The term smart certainly alludes to better use of technologies, but smart mobility is also defined as “a set of coordinated actions intended to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and environmental sustainability of cities” [1]. The term mobility highlights the preponderance of humans over infrastructure and vehicles. Faced with traffic congestion, the solutions currently adopted which consist of fitting out and widening the infrastructures, only encourage more trips and report the problem with more critical consequences. It is true that beyond a certain density of traffic, even Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are not useful. The concept of dynamic lane management or Advanced Traffic Management (ATM) opens up new perspectives. Its objective is to manage and optimize road traffic in a variable manner, in space and in time. This article is a summary of the development of a road infrastructure dedicated to Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV), the first of its kind in Morocco. It aims to avoid the discomfort caused by trucks in the urban road network of the city of Casablanca. This research work is an opportunity to reflect on the introduction of ITS and ATM to ensure optimal use of existing infrastructure before embarking on heavy and irreversible infrastructure projects.


Author(s):  
Maha Mezied ◽  
Norah Alnasser ◽  
Reema Al Owaid ◽  
Rand Bakhsh ◽  
Lama Alkhudhayr ◽  
...  

The accuracy of the intraoral digital impression systems has been previously reported to refer to the quality of the obtained data from the related scanning procedures, irrespective of the quality of the clinical outcomes and the estimated costs. Trueness and precision have been frequently found among studies in the literature as two terms describing the accuracy of the intraoral digital impression systems. Various digital impression modalities have been proposed among studies in the literature and were investigated for estimation of their accuracy. The paper aims to review and discuss the most common literature regarding the current common systems and their accuracy among the different studies in the literature. According to the results, Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramic (CEREC) systems appear to have the highest estimated rates of trueness and precision as compared to the other modalities while the iTero system appears to have the lowest estimated rates. However, some studies have reported contradicting results and the current evidence is mainly based on findings from in vitro investigations. Accordingly, further studies might be needed for further validation of the current evidence and strengthening the quality of the future potential implications for clinicians. 


2021 ◽  
pp. 237-252
Author(s):  
Elena Laudante

The paper focuses on the importance of robotics and artificial intelligence inside of the new urban contexts in which it is possible to consider and enhance the different dimensions of quality of life such as safety and health, environmental quality, social connection and civic participation. Smart technologies help cities to meet the new challenges of society, thus making them more livable, attractive and responsive in order to plan and to improve the city of the future. In accordance with the Agenda 2030 Program for sustainable development that intends the inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable city, the direction of growth and prosperity of urban environments is pursued by optimizing the use of resources and respecting the environment. In the current society, robotic technology is proposed as a tool for innovation and evolution in urban as well as industrial and domestic contexts. On the one hand the users-citizens who participate dynamically in the activities and on the other the new technological systems integrated in the urban fabric. Existing urban systems that are “amplified” of artificial and digital intelligence and give life to smart cities, physical places that allow new forms of coexistence between humans and robots in order to implement the level of quality of life and define “human centered” innovative solutions and services thus responding to the particular needs of people in an effective and dynamic way. The current city goes beyond the definition of smart city. In fact, as said by Carlo Ratti, it becomes a "senseable city", a city capable of feeling but also sensitive and capable of responding to citizens who define the overall performance of the city. The multidisciplinary approach through the dialogue between designers, architects, engineers and urban planners will allow to face the new challenges through the dynamics of robot integration in the urban landscape. The cities of the future, in fact, will be pervaded by autonomous driving vehicles, robotized delivery systems and light transport solutions, in response to the new concept of smart mobility, on a human scale, shared and connected mobility in order to improve management and control of the digitized and smart city. Automation at constant rates as the keystone for urban futures and new models of innovative society. Through the identification of representative case studies in the field of innovative systems it will be possible to highlight the connections between design, smart city and "urban" robotics that will synergically highlight the main "desirable" qualities of life in the city as a place of experimentation and radical transformations. In particular, parallel to the new robotic solutions and human-robot interactions, the design discipline will be responsible for designing the total experience of the user who lives in synergy with the robots, thus changing the socio-economic dynamics of the city.


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