Smart cities

Abstract

The aim is to improve cities' management of natural and municipal resources and in turn the quality of life of their citizens.

Inclusive smart cities: theory and tools to improve the experience of people with disabilities in urban spaces.

“…Literature presents the citizens' empowerment as one of SC challenges and research opportunities (Khatoun & Zeadally, 2016;Nam & Pardo, 2011;Santana, Chaves, Gerosa, Kon, & Milojicic, 2017). Continuously and connected citizens can become smart citizens, the basis of SC initiatives.…”

“…One of the reasons for that is due to the multiple academic fields and industry sectors orbiting around the subject "Smart City", studying and making advancements sometimes in a collaborative way, and other times in a very distinct and field-driven way. Smart City vision is one of the rare research and industry topics capable to bring together areas that are normally seen as unrelated, such as Computer Science, Anthropology, Geography, Urban Planning, Tourism, Engineering, Sociology, Politics, and Economics (Angelidou, 2015;Khatoun & Zeadally, 2016).…”

“…On the other hand, distributing smart objects everywhere increases the risks to information security. Indeed, security and privacy is one of the challenges and they still have open issues related to the IoT technology (Atzori et al, 2010;Khatoun & Zeadally, 2016). Atzori et al (2011) emphasize that enabling objects to communicate represents a danger to our future, for instance, hidden smart objects can be used as surveillance mechanisms against people and environments; also, since cars have become equipped with embedded systems, they are increasingly susceptible to hackers' attacks, which could put lives at risk.…”

“…Although they are not included in the strict scope of this thesis, there are other technologies associated to SC projects that are frequently mentioned in the literature as high-value resources in achieving projects' goal or even in doing it in a more efficient and fast way (Khatoun & Zeadally, 2016;Obaidat & Nicopolitidis, 2016;Song, Srinivasan, Sookoor, & Jeschke, 2017), such as:…”

“…More than hardware and software, cities started to be supplied with intelligence. Sensors, actuators and a vast number of "things" are now interconnected by an heterogeneous network infrastructure fitted together with the purpose of addressing the needs of businesses, institutions, government, and especially citizens (Khatoun & Zeadally, 2016). Moreover, the rise of location-based application changed the way people interact with each other and with the city itself (Schmitz Weiss, 2013).…”