Disruptive Technologies in Smart Cities: A Survey on Current Trends and Challenges

The artistic image processing for visual healing in smart city

This study investigates the processing methods of artistic images within the context of Smart city (SC) initiatives, focusing on the visual healing effects of artistic image processing to enhance urban residents' mental health and quality of life. Firstly, it examines the role of artistic image processing techniques in visual healing. Secondly, deep learning technology is introduced and improved, proposing the overlapping segmentation vision transformer (OSViT) for image blocks, and further integrating the bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) algorithm. An innovative artistic image processing and classification recognition model based on OSViT-BiLSTM is then constructed. Finally, the visual healing effect of the processed art images in different scenes is analyzed. The results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves a classification recognition accuracy of 92.9% for art images, which is at least 6.9% higher than that of other existing model algorithms. Additionally, over 90% of users report satisfaction with the visual healing effects of the artistic images. Therefore, it is found that the proposed model can accurately identify artistic images, enhance their beauty and artistry, and improve the visual healing effect. This study provides an experimental reference for incorporating visual healing into SC initiatives.

Guidelines for a participatory Smart City model to address Amazon's urban environmental problems

Climate change is a global challenge, and the Brazilian Amazon Forest is a particular concern due to the possibility of reaching a tipping point that could amplify environmental crises. Despite many studies on the Amazon Forest, this research was conducted in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, to address five gaps, including the lack of local citizen consultation on urban environmental issues, Smart Cities, decarbonization, and disruptive technologies. This study holds significance for the academy community, government bodies, policymakers, and investors, as it offers novel insights into the Amazon region and proposes a model to engage citizens in Smart Cities. This model could also guide other municipalities aspiring for participatory sustainable development with a decarbonization focus, mitigating future risks, and protecting future generations. Basically, it is an explanatory and applied study that employs mixed methods, including literature, bibliometric and documentary reviews, two questionnaires, and descriptive statistical approaches, organized in four phases to reach the following goals: (a) provide information on the main challenges facing humanity, the Brazilian Amazon state, and the city of Manaus; (b) identify the best Smart City approaches for engaging citizens in solving urban problems; (c) contextualize and consult Manaus City Hall about the effectiveness of the Smart City project; (d) investigate the perceptions of citizens living in Manaus on the main city's environmental problems, as well as their level of knowledge and interest on issues related to Smart Cities, decarbonization, and disruptive technologies; (e) propose a participatory Smart City model with recommendations. Among the result, the study found that the term "Smart City" dominates scholarly publications among nineteen urban-related terms, and the five main environmental problems in Manaus are an increase in stream pollution, garbage accumulation, insufficient urban afforestation, air pollution, and traffic congestion. Although citizens are willing to help, the majority lack knowledge on Smart City and Decarbonized City issues, but there is a considerable interest in training related to these issues, as well as disruptive technologies. It was found that Amsterdam, Melbourne, Montreal, San Francisco, Seoul, and Taipei all have a formal model to engage citizens in solving their urban problems. The main conclusion is that, after 6 years, the Smart City Project in Manaus is a political fallacy, as no model, especially with a citizen participatory approach, has been effectively adopted. In addition, after conducting a literature and documentary review and analyzing 25 benchmark Smart Cities, the P5 model and the Citizen Engagement Kit model are proposed with 120 approaches and guidelines for addressing the main environmental problems by including Manaus' citizens in the Smart City and/or decarbonization journey.

Artificial Intelligence-Based Recommendation and Application of Public Services in Smart Cities

With the promotion and application of information technology, smart cities based on artificial intelligence have become the best choice for the government to solve urban problems, connect urban citizens, and provide quality public services. From the initial information city and digital city to the current smart city, the construction of smart cities has undergone profound changes with five major characteristics: big data, intelligence, innovation, interaction, and integration, and Internet giants have emerged in the field of public services in smart cities. Internet giants are emerging in the construction of public service platforms for smart cities, and traditional smart city construction enterprises are also expanding various forms of urban operation services through the form of "Internet+". Nevertheless, there is still a gap between the quantity and quality of China's smart cities compared with developed countries, and there is a need to build a number of pilot smart cities characterized by the linkage of artificial intelligence technology and public services, easy to promote, and sustainable development. The smart city construction model with public services as the core has research value and has the possibility of becoming the mainstream development in the future. Therefore, exploring the organic combination of AI technology and urban public services is the key to answer whether AI technology can promote the improvement of urban public services.

Advanced Techniques for Monitoring and Management of Urban Water Infrastructures—An Overview

Water supply systems are essential for a modern society. This article presents an overview of the latest research related to information and communication technology systems for water resource monitoring, control and management. The main objective of our review is to show how emerging technologies offer support for smart administration of water infrastructures. The paper covers research results related to smart cities, smart water monitoring, big data, data analysis and decision support. Our evaluation reveals that there are many possible solutions generated through combinations of advanced methods. Emerging technologies open new possibilities for including new functionalities such as social involvement in water resource management. This review offers support for researchers in the area of water monitoring and management to identify useful models and technologies for designing better solutions.

Smart Cities from the Perspective of Systems

Modern cities are complex adaptive systems in which there is a lot of dependency and interaction between the various stakeholders, components, and subsystems. The use of digital Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has opened up the vision of smart cities in which the city dwellers can have a better quality of life and the city can be better organized and managed. The deployment of ICT solutions, however, does not automatically or invariably improve the quality of living of the citizens. Analyzing cities as complex systems with various interacting sub-systems can help us understand urban dynamics and the fate of smart cities. We will be able to analyze various policy interventions and ascertain their effectiveness and anticipate potential unintended consequences. In this paper, we discuss how smart cities can be viewed through the lens of systems thinking and complex systems and provide a comprehensive review of related techniques and methods. Along with highlighting the science of cities in light of historic urban modeling and urban dynamics, we focus on shedding light on the smart city complex systems. Finally, we will describe the various challenges of smart cities, discuss the limitations of existing models, and identify promising future directions of work.

An Intelligent Collection System of Big Data in Medical and Health Education Based on the Internet of Things

The Internet of Medical Things has developed rapidly as an important direction in the field of Internet of Things, especially through the use of the new generation of information technology, theoretical and applied research on medical IoT intelligent health management that provides "full-service." It has become a research hotspot of many universities and research institutions. Therefore, conducting research on intelligent health management in the network of medical things is of great engineering importance and theoretical guidance to improve the level of medical information. For health management in the network of medical things to conduct research around the goal of health management "Everything full spectrum for everyone," analyzed the lack of sharing of health information in current health management, lack of continuous monitoring and management of health indicators, etc., a new "individual-family-community-hospital" four-level intelligent health management service model is proposed, the hardware architecture of intelligent healthcare management and the software maintenance system have been built. Through methods such as real-time multi-source data collection, mobile sensing, cloud computing, multi-network fusion technology, continuous monitoring and intelligent management of health data is realized convenient, fast and efficient. It solves the problems that the existing medical system cannot meet the multi-level health needs, personal data security and privacy protection, etc., it has achieved the goal of real-time interactive health management of regionalization, multi-level and multi-center, and whole-person, whole-process and all-round.

Blockchain technology in the smart city: a bibliometric review

Blockchain can function as a foundational technology with numerous applications in smart cities. The objective of this paper is twofold. First, it provides a detailed overview of the extant literature on blockchain applications in smart cities; second, it reveals the trends and suggests future research directions for scholars who wish to contribute to this rapidly growing field. We conducted a bibliometric review using a keyword co-occurrence network and article co-citation analysis. The analysis includes the assessment of 148 articles published between 2016 and 2020 in 76 academic journals. The review results demonstrate that the number of articles devoted to the study of blockchain applications and smart cities has increased exponentially in recent years. More importantly, the research identifies some of the most influential studies in this area. The paper discusses trends and highlights the challenges related to the deployment of blockchain in smart cities. To the authors’ best knowledge, this represents the first study to review the literature from leading journals on blockchain applications in smart cities using bibliometric techniques.

The Use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as an Element of Smart City Implementation: A Case Study of Electricity Billing Document Management at Bydgoszcz City Hall

Smart cities are an extremely important, multi-faceted subject, both in terms of their practical aspects and in terms of research. This is expressed, among other things, in the multitude of approaches to this concept. These approaches differ based on the emphasis placed on individual aspects: some focus more on technology, and others put more weight on social issues, while still others value sustainable development issues. Currently, an important topic of discussion about the development of the smart city—the importance of which has become even greater in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic—is the digital transformation of the city. The use of robotic process automation (RPA) tools can be a part of such a transformation, as such tools, using advanced software, enable the automation of those tasks carried out thus far by humans. Although such an approach has, to date, been widespread in the case of enterprises (in particular, those operating in the financial and BPO/SSC sectors, but less often in the utilities sector, the first applications of these solutions in the context of process automation for cities are also beginning to emerge in various parts of the world. This article is based on a case study approach. The implementation conditions (including the constraints) of such an approach, the benefits achieved, and the lessons learned (which can be important for other local government units) are outlined using the example of the Bydgoszcz city hall’s (Poland) electricity billing document management. The results of the case study presented here lead to the conclusion that the use of RPA tools enables, very quickly and at relatively low cost, measurable results to be achieved that are related to the processing of electricity billing documentation for the city of Bydgoszcz. This allows the assertion to be made that robotic process automation can be taken into consideration as one of the tools used to build smart cities.

Disruption Potential Assessment of the Power-to-Methane Technology

Power-to-methane (P2M) technology is expected to have a great impact on the future of the global energy sector. Despite the growing amount of related research, its potential disruptive impact has not been assessed yet. This could significantly influence investment decisions regarding the implementation of the P2M technology. Based on a two-year-long empirical research, the paper focuses on exploring the P2M technology deployment potential in different commercial environments. Results are interpreted within the theoretical framework of disruptiveness. It is concluded that P2M has unique attributes because of renewable gas production, grid balancing, and combined long-term energy storage with decarbonization, which represent substantial innovation. Nevertheless, empirical data suggest that the largest P2M plants can be deployed at industrial facilities where CO2 can be sourced from flue gas. Therefore, a significant decrease of carbon capture technology related costs could enable the disruption potential of the P2M technology in the future, along with further growth of renewable energy production, decarbonization incentives, and significant support of the regulatory environment.

Impact of smart logistics on smart city sustainable performance: an empirical investigation

Purpose

Technologies continue to disrupt logistics and freight transport (known as smart logistics), but their impacts on smart city sustainability is underinvestigated. Drawing on technology, organisation and environment (TOE) perspective, the objective of this study is to empirically investigate the hierarchical effects of smart logistics on smart city sustainable dimensions (i.e. environmental, social and economic).

Design/methodology/approach

The study used cross-sectional survey to collect data from urban transporters, warehouse managers, retailers and information technology (IT) managers in Australia. Data were analysed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesised relationship between constructs of smart logistics and smart city sustainable performance.

Findings

The findings reveal that information and communications technologies (ICTs) use and IT capability (ITC) have positive and significant effects on smart logistics. Technology-enabled smart logistics have an immediate positive effect on smart city environment, which in turn has positive impacts on social and economic performance.

Practical implications

The study informs managers that smart logistics equipped with freight transport telematics can improve smart city environment through enhanced tracking and tracing of goods movement. The improved environmental stewardship is likely to support social and economic performance.

Originality/value

Smart city research remains primarily theoretical and focussed on concerns surrounding sustainable growth amid urbanisation and digitalisation. City logistics and urban freights play key role in smart city economic growth, but vehicular pollution pose social and environmental challenges. Technology-assisted smart logistics are likely to improve smart city sustainable performance but yet to find how they affect each other.

A Predictive Vehicle Ride Sharing Recommendation System for Smart Cities Commuting

Smart Cities (or Cities 2.0) are an evolution in citizen habitation. In such cities, transport commuting is changing rapidly with the proliferation of contemporary vehicular technology. New models of vehicle ride sharing systems are changing the way citizens commute in their daily movement schedule. The use of a private vehicle per single passenger transportation is no longer viable in sustainable Smart Cities (SC) because of the vehicles’ resource allocation and urban pollution. The current research on car ride sharing systems is widely expanding in a range of contemporary technologies, however, without covering a multidisciplinary approach. In this paper, the focus is on performing a multidisciplinary research on car riding systems taking into consideration personalized user mobility behavior by providing next destination prediction as well as a recommender system based on riders’ personalized information. Specifically, it proposes a predictive vehicle ride sharing system for commuting, which has impact on the SC green ecosystem. The adopted system also provides a recommendation to citizens to select the persons they would like to commute with. An Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled weighted pattern matching model is used to assess user movement behavior in SC and provide the best predicted recommendation list of commuting users. Citizens are then able to engage a current trip to next destination with the more suitable user provided by the list. An experimented is conducted with real data from the municipality of New Philadelphia, in SC of Athens, Greece, to implement the proposed system and observe certain user movement behavior. The results are promising for the incorporation of the adopted system to other SCs.