Making the smart city: technologies, experiences, and future perspectives

Smart City Analytics: state of the art and future perspectives

In accordance with a "people centred" vision, this paper critically examines current approaches to smart cities benchmarking. In particular, by means of correlation analysis and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) we put in evidence current limitations of city rankings and, as well, the emergence of different perspectives for data interpretations. To follow, a possible redesign of the "Smart Cit...

The impact of foresight on innovation policy-making: recent experiences and future perspectives

Foresight has evolved as a distinct prospective analytical tool: it considers alternative futures of various S&T fields or socio-economic systems by bringing together the perspectives of various stakeholder groups, and thus assists the decision-making processes at different levels. However, in order to avoid hypes — and subsequent disappointments — about what foresight can deliver, the potentia...

Making (in) the smart city: The emergence of makerspaces

Critical approaches to the smart city concept are used to begin highlighting the promises of makerspaces, that is to say, those emerging urban sites that promote sharing practices; exercise community-based forms of governance; and utilize local manufacturing technologies. A bird’s-eye-view of the history of makerspaces is provided tracing their roots back to the hacker movement. Drawing from se...

Smart Home Applications for disabled Persons - Experiences and Perspectives

Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) devices in combination with Environmental Control Systems (ECS) offer remarkable benefits for severely and multiple impaired persons. The authors have developed such a combined ECS and AAC system called AUTONOMY. This system was set up at two validation sites based on EIB Twisted Pair and EIB Power Line installations. An intensive evaluation took...

Membrane Engineering: Future Perspectives