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This article investigates the innovative role of machine learning (ML) in the development of smart cities, emphasizing the critical interrelationship between ML and urban environments. While existing studies address ML and urban settings separately, this work uniquely examines their intersection, highlighting the transformative potential of ML in urban development. Utilizing the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology, a systematic and reproducible approach was employed to review 42 relevant studies. The analysis reveals four key themes: transportation and traffic optimization, people and event flow tracking, sustainability applications, and security use cases. These findings underscore ML's ability to revolutionize smart city initiatives by enhancing efficiency, sustainability, and security. This review identifies significant research gaps and proposes future directions, positioning ML as a cornerstone in the evolution of intelligent urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deployment of fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks has already laid the ground-work for futuristic smart cities but along with this, it has also triggered the rapid growth of a wide range of applications, for example, the Internet of Everything (IoE), online gaming, extended/virtual reality (XR/VR), telemedicine, cloud computing, and others, which require ultra-low latency, ubiquitous coverage, higher data rates, extreme device density, ultra-high capacity, energy efficiency, and better reliability. Moreover, the predicted explosive surge in mobile traffic until 2030 along with envisioned potential use-cases/scenarios in a smart city context will far exceed the capabilities for which 5G was designed. Therefore, there is a need to harness the 6th Generation (6G) capabilities, which will not only meet the stringent requirements of smart megacities but can also open up a new range of potential applications. Other crucial concerns that need to be addressed are related to network security, data privacy, interoperability, the digital divide, and other integration issues. In this article, we examine current and emerging trends for the implementation of 6G in the smart city arena. Firstly, we give an inclusive and comprehensive review of potential 6th Generation (6G) mobile communication technologies that can find potential use in smart cities. The discussion of each technology also covers its potential benefits, challenges and future research direction. Secondly, we also explore promising smart city applications that will use these 6G technologies, such as, smart grids, smart healthcare, smart waste management, etc. In the conclusion part, we have also highlighted challenges and suggestions for possible future research directions. So, in a single paper, we have attempted to provide a wider perspective on 6G-enabled smart cities by including both the potential 6G technologies and their smart city applications. This paper will help readers gain a holistic view to ascertain the benefits, opportunities and applications that 6G technology can bring to meet the diverse, massive and futuristic requirements of smart cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The swift advancement of communication and information technologies has transformed urban infrastructures into smart cities. Traditional assessment methods face challenges in capturing the complex interdependencies and temporal dynamics inherent in these systems, risking urban resilience. This study aims to enhance the criticality assessment of geographic zones within smart cities by introducing a novel deep learning architecture. Utilizing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for spatial feature extraction and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks for temporal dependency modeling, the proposed framework processes inputs such as total electricity use, flooding levels, population, poverty rates, and energy consumption. The CNN component constructs hierarchical feature maps through successive convolution and pooling operations, while the LSTM captures sequence-based patterns. Fully connected layers integrate these features to generate final predictions. Implemented in Python using TensorFlow and Keras on an Intel Core i7 system with 32 GB RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti GPU, the model demonstrated a superior performance. It achieved a mean absolute error of 0.042, root mean square error of 0.067, and an R-squared value of 0.935, outperforming existing methodologies in real-time adaptability and resource efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) envisions the interconnection of all electronic devices, ushering in a new technological era. IoT and 5G technology are linked, complementing each other in a manner that significantly enhances their impact. As sensors become increasingly embedded in our daily lives, they transform everyday objects into "smart" devices. This synergy between IoT sensor networks and 5G creates a dynamic ecosystem where the infrastructure provided by 5G's high-speed, low-latency communication enables IoT devices to function more efficiently and effectively, paving the way for innovative applications and services that enhance our awareness and interactions with the world. Moreover, application-oriented and multifunctional antennas need to be developed to meet these high demands. In this review, a comprehensive analysis of IoT antennas is conducted based on their application characteristics. It is important to note that, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that this categorization has been performed in the literature. Indeed, comparing IoT antennas across different applications without considering their specific operational contexts is not practical. This review focuses on four primary operational fields: smart homes, smart cities, and biomedical and implantable devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federated learning (FL) and bioinspired computing (BIC), two distinct, yet complementary fields, have gained significant attention in the machine learning community due to their unique characteristics. FL enables decentralized machine learning by allowing models to be trained on data residing across multiple devices or servers without exchanging raw data, thus enhancing privacy and reducing communication overhead. Conversely, BIC draws inspiration from nature to develop robust and adaptive computational solutions for complex problems. This paper explores the state of the art in the integration of FL and BIC, introducing BIC techniques and discussing the motivations for their integration with FL. The convergence of these fields can lead to improved model accuracy, enhanced privacy, energy efficiency, and reduced communication overhead. This synergy addresses inherent challenges in FL, such as data heterogeneity and limited computational resources, and opens up new avenues for developing more efficient and autonomous learning systems. The integration of FL and BIC holds promise for various application domains, including healthcare, finance, and smart cities, where privacy-preserving and efficient computation is paramount. This survey provides a systematic review of the current research landscape, identifies key challenges and opportunities, and suggests future directions for the successful integration of FL and BIC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart city networks are critical for delivering essential services such as healthcare, education, and business operations. However, these networks are highly susceptible to a range of threats, including natural disasters and intentional cyberattacks, which can severely disrupt their functionality. To address these vulnerabilities, we present the resilient smart city (ResiSC) system, designed to enhance the resilience of smart city communication networks through a topological design approach. Our system employs a graph‐theoretic algorithm to determine the optimal network topology for a given set of nodes, aiming to maximize connectivity while minimizing link provisioning costs. We introduce two novel connectivity measurements, All Nodes Reachability (ANR) and Sum of All Nodes Reachability (SANR), to evaluate network resilience. We applied our approach to data from two public universities of different sizes, simulating various attack scenarios to assess the robustness of the resulting network topologies. Evaluation results indicate that our solution improves network resilience against targeted attacks by 38% compared to baseline methods such as k‐nearest neighbours (k‐NN) graphs, while also reducing the number of additional links and their associated costs. Results also indicate that our proposed solution outperforms baseline methods like k‐NN in terms of network resilience against targeted attacks by 41%. This work provides a practical framework for developing robust smart city networks capable of withstanding diverse threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) in smart cities can solve rapid urbanization. It will provide better urban services, addressing urban problems that develop because of enhancing urbanization without establishing policies focusing on well-being. The present investigation explores the growing trend of the dynamic publications associated with the advanced technologies integrated into smart city publication productivity using bibliometric analysis. This approach enables the detection of the usage history, the usage scheme, and the research landscape topic in scientific papers on IoT in smart cities. This study included 976 articles from 2013 to 2023. The area of research in smart cities is categorized into six important clusters: (1) IoT application areas in smart cities, (2) IoT infrastructure for smart cities, (3) IoT security and privacy for smart cities, (4) IoT architecture for smart cities, (5) IoT technologies and communication protocol for smart cities, (6) IoT data analysis for smart cities. Moreover, this study reveals that the issues related to new technologies, security, and privacy of IoT to integrate into smart cities would be an interesting topic for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated how cutting‐edge smart city technologies (SCT) contribute to developmental strategies and foster sustainable, efficient, and technologically advanced urban ecosystems. The study is based on multi‐qualitative methods. In the first phase, comprehensive literature was reviewed using the systematic literature review (SLR). Based on the literature recommendations in the second phase, structured interviews were conducted with the professionals based on snowball and purposive sampling techniques. The data were collected from NEOM's working professionals for the interviews. In the third phase, the conclusions of the case studies were also added to generalize the findings comprehensively. The study proclaims that SCT plays a significant role in developing the smart ecosystem in smart cities. The study also investigated the NEOM's potential to elevate urban sustainability. Moreover, the study found that implementing the SCT enhances operational efficiencies, creates new job opportunities, and improves mobility and quality of life. The study also contributed to the equitable theory and presented the shared resources concept. The integration of SCT enhances the quality of life and attracts investment. The study also emphasized the availability of robust data infrastructure and stakeholder engagement to integrate SCT in urban planning and development successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrical energy saving was evaluated by taking advantage of PV and ESS in a community unit. An artificial neural network (ANN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) were employed to create a predictive model for PV generation. Annual demand data for residential buildings were estimated using EnergyPlus, while data for other buildings were collected from measurements in J Energy Town, Republic of Korea. Pearson correlation coefficients identified six crucial variables for the model. Comparative analysis of 310 cases revealed that the best-performing model was an ANN with three hidden layers and nodes of 14, 13 and 11. The model satisfied ASHRAE guidelines with a CV(RMSE) of 29.1 % and NMBE of −7.14 %. Evaluating electricity consumption in the community, case B (PV generation) showed a significant 46.3 % reduction compared to case A, while case D achieved a 5 % energy savings relative to case E over the year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comprehensive study explores the influence of aerosols and clouds on solar radiation in the urban environments of nine of Greece's largest cities over the decade from 2014 to 2023. Utilizing a combination of Earth Observation data, radiative transfer models, and geographic information systems, the research undertook digital surface modeling and photovoltaic simulations. The study meticulously calculated the optimal rooftop areas for photovoltaic installation in these cities, contributing significantly to their energy adequacy and achieving a balance between daily electricity production and demand. Moreover, the research provides an in-depth analysis of energy and economic losses, while also highlighting the environmental benefits. These include a reduction in pollutant emissions and a decrease in the carbon footprint, aligning with the global shift towards local energy security and the transformation of urban areas into green, smart cities. The innovative methodology of this study, which leverages open access data, sets a strong foundation for future research in this field. It opens up possibilities for similar studies and has the potential to contribute to the creation of an updated, comprehensive solar potential map for continental Greece. This could be instrumental in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, thereby promoting sustainable urban development and environmental preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective air quality monitoring and forecasting are essential for safeguarding public health, protecting the environment, and promoting sustainable development in smart cities. Conventional systems are cloud-based, incur high costs, lack accurate Deep Learning (DL)models for multi-step forecasting, and fail to optimize DL models for fog nodes. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a Fog-enabled Air Quality Monitoring and Prediction (FAQMP) system by integrating the Internet of Things (IoT), Fog Computing (FC), Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs), and Deep Learning (DL) for improved accuracy and efficiency in monitoring and forecasting air quality levels. The three-layered FAQMP system includes a low-cost Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) node transmitting data via LoRa to the Fog Computing layer and then the cloud layer for complex processing. The Smart Fog Environmental Gateway (SFEG) in the FC layer introduces efficient Fog Intelligence by employing an optimized lightweight DL-based Sequence-to-Sequence (Seq2Seq) Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) attention model, enabling real-time processing, accurate forecasting, and timely warnings of dangerous AQI levels while optimizing fog resource usage. Initially, the Seq2Seq GRU Attention model, validated for multi-step forecasting, outperformed the state-of-the-art DL methods with an average RMSE of 5.5576, MAE of 3.4975, MAPE of 19.1991%, R2 of 0.6926, and Theil's U1 of 0.1325. This model is then made lightweight and optimized using post-training quantization (PTQ), specifically dynamic range quantization, which reduced the model size to less than a quarter of the original, improved execution time by 81.53% while maintaining forecast accuracy. This optimization enables efficient deployment on resource-constrained fog nodes like SFEG by balancing performance and computational efficiency, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of the FAQMP system through efficient Fog Intelligence. The FAQMP system, supported by the EnviroWeb application, provides real-time AQI updates, forecasts, and alerts, aiding the government in proactively addressing pollution concerns, maintaining air quality standards, and fostering a healthier and more sustainable environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are essential for a wide range of applications, including environmental monitoring and smart city developments, thanks to their ability to collect and transmit diverse physical and environmental data. The nature of WSNs, coupled with the variability and noise sensitivity of cost-effective sensors, presents significant challenges in achieving accurate data analysis and anomaly detection. To address these issues, this paper presents a new framework, called Online Adaptive Kalman Filtering (OAKF), specifically designed for real-time anomaly detection within WSNs. This framework stands out by dynamically adjusting the filtering parameters and anomaly detection threshold in response to live data, ensuring accurate and reliable anomaly identification amidst sensor noise and environmental changes. By highlighting computational efficiency and scalability, the OAKF framework is optimized for use in resource-constrained sensor nodes. Validation on different WSN dataset sizes confirmed its effectiveness, showing 95.4% accuracy in reducing false positives and negatives as well as achieving a processing time of 0.008 s per sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless sensing is a crucial technology for building smart cities, playing a vital role in applications such as human monitoring, route planning, and traffic management. Analyzing the data provided by wireless sensing enables the formulation of more scientific decisions. The wireless sensing of dynamic events is a significant branch of wireless sensing. Sensing the specific times and durations of dynamic events is a challenging problem due to the dynamic event information is concealed within static environments. To effectively sense the relevant information of event occurrence, we propose a wireless sensing method for dynamic events based on RSSI, named RSSI-WSDE. RSSI-WSDE utilizes variable-length sliding windows and statistical methods to process original RSSI time series, amplifying the differences between dynamic events and static environments. Subsequently, z-score normalization is employed to enhance the comparability of the sensing effects for different dynamic events. Furthermore, by setting the adaptive threshold, the occurrence of dynamic event is sensed and the relevant information is marked on the original RSSI time series. In this study, the sensing performance of RSSI-WSDE was tested in indoor corridors and outdoor urban road environments. The wireless sensing of dynamic events, including walking, running, cycling, and driving, was conducted. The experimental results demonstrate that RSSI-WSDE can accurately sense the occurrence of dynamic events, marking the specific time and duration with millisecond-level precision. Moreover, RSSI-WSDE exhibits robust performance in wireless sensing of dynamic events in both indoor and outdoor environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer Vision (CV) has become increasingly important for Single-Board Computers (SBCs) due to their widespread deployment in addressing real-world problems. Specifically, in the context of smart cities, there is an emerging trend of developing end-to-end video analytics solutions designed to address urban challenges such as traffic management, disaster response, and waste management. However, deploying CV solutions on SBCs presents several pressing challenges (e.g., limited computation power, inefficient energy management, and real-time processing needs) hindering their use at scale. Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) and software-level developments have emerged recently in addressing these challenges to enable the elevated performance of SBCs; however, it is still an active area of research. There is a gap in the literature for a comprehensive review of such recent and rapidly evolving advancements on both software and hardware fronts. The presented review provides a detailed overview of the existing GPU-accelerated edge-computing SBCs and software advancements including algorithm optimization techniques, packages, development frameworks, and hardware deployment specific packages. This review provides a subjective comparative analysis based on critical factors to help applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers in demonstrating the existing state of the art and selecting the best suited combinations for their specific use-case. At the end, the paper also discusses potential limitations of the existing SBCs and highlights the future research directions in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of large volumes of data collected from heterogeneous sources is increasingly important for the development of megacities, the advancement of smart city technologies, and ensuring a high quality of life for citizens. This study aimed to develop algorithms for analyzing and interpreting social media data to assess citizens' opinions in real time and for verifying and examining data to analyze social tension and predict the development of situations during the implementation of urban projects. The developed algorithms were tested using an urban project in the field of transportation system development. The study's material included data from social networks, messenger channels and chats, video hosting platforms, blogs, microblogs, forums, and review sites. An interdisciplinary approach was utilized to analyze the data, employing tools such as Brand Analytics, TextAnalyst 2.32, GPT-3.5, GPT-4, GPT-4o, and Tableau. The results of the data analysis showed identical outcomes, indicating a neutral perception among users and the absence of social tension surrounding the project's implementation, allowing for the prediction of a calm development of the situation. Additionally, recommendations were developed to avert potential conflicts and eliminate sources of social tension for decision-making purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the operational functionality of intelligent transport systems to enhance smart cities by reducing traffic congestion. Given the increasing populations of smart cities, there is a growing demand for public transit systems to address the issue of traffic congestion. Therefore, the suggested system is developed using a few parametric design models, which combine point-to-point protocol and mode control optimization. The multi-objective parametric design for a smart transportation system is conducted using min–max functions to minimize the waiting time period for end users. Furthermore, customers are given the option to utilize a line following mechanism that offers suitable connectivity, along with independent identification and revitalize functions. The predicted model effectively eliminates the delay produced by transportation devices when positioning units are involved, ensuring that individual messages are delivered without any interruptions. In order to evaluate the results of the proposed system model, four different scenarios were examined. A comparison analysis revealed that the suggested method achieves a suitable directional flow for 96% of smart transport units. Additionally, it reduces delays and waiting periods by 2% and 6% respectively, while increasing energy consumption by 29%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a research domain, the smart city keeps growing, despite the remaining contradictions and ambiguity related to its conceptual aspects. We propose to dig deeper into the complex socio-technical nature of the smart city and examine the concept through the lens of different public governance paradigms, therefore aligning it with the sustainability outcomes. Embracing interrelated dimensions of humans, technologies and organisations, the smart city can be viewed through the intersection of public governance paradigms (digital governance, collaborative governance and networks). The case of the smart city initiative of Tampere in Finland serves as an empirical illustration of how the proposed conceptual model might be applied in practice. Providing a novel approach to the smart city from a public management perspective, this model would allow policymakers to acquire a more comprehensive understanding of smart city governance and its multi-dimensional outcomes, in terms of social, environmental and economic sustainability. This approach enables the unlocking of the potential to generate multiple values for each group of actors and ensure more effective integration of smart initiatives, policies and projects, based on the public governance paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) promises to revolutionize transportation in smart cities, but its interconnectedness raises critical security and privacy concerns. Limited computational power, diverse network technologies, and many sensors and vehicles challenge data integrity and trust in data exchange. Existing solutions, often dependent on specific environments and protocols, struggle to address these issues across the entire IoV ecosystem. This paper explores the potential of blockchain technology to address these challenges. We argue that blockchain's immutability and decentralization offer a unique solution for trust management in various IoV environments. We review existing blockchain-based algorithms and models proposed for IoV integration and propose a novel taxonomy to categorize these approaches. This taxonomy will help us analyze effective parameters, implementation methods, and evaluation metrics in the reviewed literature. According to our research, the most critical evaluation parameter for blockchain-based methods is time, including system-level service-related time parameters and solution implementation time, and 38% of existing papers simulated the approach using Hyperledger. Additionally, we will identify key challenges from integrating blockchain into the IoV landscape. By providing a comprehensive review and analysis of blockchain-based trust management solutions for IoV, this paper aims to contribute to the ongoing development of secure and reliable intelligent transportation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advancement of technology allows for easy adaptability with IoT devices. Internet of Things (IoT) devices can interact without human intervention, which leads to the creation of smart cities. Nevertheless, security concerns persist within IoT networks. To address this, Software Defined Networking (SDN) has been introduced as a centrally controlled network that can solve security issues in IoT devices. Although there is a security concern with integrating SDN and IoT, it specifically targets Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. These attacks focus on the network controller since it is centrally controlled. Real-time, high-performance, and precise solutions are necessary to tackle this issue effectively. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using intelligent deep learning techniques in Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) through a Software-Defined IoT network (SDN-IoT). The concept of a Wireless Network Intrusion Detection System (WNIDS) aims to create an SDN controller that efficiently monitors and manages smart IoT devices. The proposed WNIDS method analyzes the CSE-CIC-IDS2018 and SDN-IoT datasets to detect and categorize intrusions or attacks in the SDN-IoT network. Implementing a deep learning method called Bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM)--based WNIDS model effectively detects intrusions in the SDN-IoT network. This model has achieved impressive accuracy rates of 99.97% and 99.96% for binary and multi-class classification using the CSE-CIC-IDS2018 dataset. Similarly, with the SDN-IoT dataset, the model has achieved 95.13% accuracy for binary classification and 92.90% accuracy for multi-class classification, showing superior performance in both datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The improvement of edge perception layer anomaly detection performance has an immeasurable driving effect on the development of smart cities. However, many existing anomaly detection methods often suffer from problems such as ignoring the correlation between multiple source temporal sequences and losing key features of a single temporal sequence. Therefore, a new anomaly detection method using BiLSTM and attention mechanism is proposed. First, a fusion algorithm TCDCD was formed by combining Data Correlation Detection (DCD) and Temporal Continuity Detection (TCD) to preprocess Edge Perception Data (EPD). Then, BiLSTM is employed to gather deep-level features of EPD, and the attention mechanism is utilized to enhance important features that contribute to anomaly detection. Ultimately, the SoftMax classifier is employed to categorize abnormal data. The experimental findings from the SWaT and WADI datasets demonstrate that the suggested method achieves better performance than other newer anomaly detection methods. Among them, the accuracy, precision, recall and F1 of the proposed method on the SWaT dataset were 96.62%, 94.32%, 96.02% and 94.30%, respectively. In terms of performance, it is superior to traditional EPD anomaly detection models, and has good representational and generalization capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D urban building modeling is a vital foundational step for building Digital Twins and Smart Cities. In response to existing challenges, such as high time costs, complex production processes, and low consistency with real‐world textures in large‐scale 3D urban building modeling methods, this research proposes a reconstructing 3D urban building models (3DUBM) approach that integrates geospatial data and street view. The approach achieves an enhanced generation of large‐scale 3DUBMs. Based on open geospatial data and street‐view imagery (SVI), the approach was tested in modeling experiments conducted in Shanghai, Hongkong, and Nanjing. Furthermore, a dataset covering unique blocks of 30 cities in China was constructed to demonstrate the approach's characteristics of large coverage, high time efficiency, high model quality and low economic cost. The accuracy of texture mapping from SVI to 3DUBM reached 85%. This achievement has significant economic value in bridging the gap in the production of large‐scale and low‐cost 3DUBM data, promoting the construction of Digital Twins, Smart Cities, and Real‐world 3D modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of smart cities will require the construction of smart buildings. Smart buildings will demand the incorporation of elements for efficient monitoring and control of electrical consumption. The development of efficient AI algorithms is needed to generate more accurate electricity consumption predictions; therefore; anomaly detection in electricity consumption predictions has become an important research topic. This work focuses on the study of the detection of anomalies in domestic electrical consumption in Mexico. A predictive machine learning model of future electricity consumption was generated to evaluate various anomaly-detection techniques. Their effectiveness in identifying outliers was determined, and their performance was documented. A 30-day forecast of electrical consumption and an anomaly-detection model have been developed using isolation forest. Isolation forest successfully captured up to 75% of the anomalies. Finally, the Shapley values have been used to generate an explanation of the results of a model capable of detecting anomalous data for the Mexican context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the efficiency of information acquisition and task selection in Virtual Reality (VR) systems, enhance the interactive experience, and reduce cognitive load for users, it is crucial to effectively organize and leverage user cognitive psychology and design elements during the VR scene design phase. This paper focuses on analyzing the low cognitive load requirements of users and the need for a satisfactory user perceptual experience based on the cognitive resource theory. We propose a method for optimizing the design of VR system scenario tasks under low cognitive load requirements. By utilizing human-computer hybrid intelligent assistance for predicting user cognitive load and incorporating intelligent optimization genetic algorithms into the optimization of VR system design elements, we aim to minimize cognitive load as the objective function based on the principle of low cognitive load. Important knowledge granularity nodes are used as fitness functions in the optimization process of VR system design resource elements. An application study is conducted, combining the multi-channel cognition in a smart city VR system task information interface, to optimize the system resource features. The study validates and compares the solutions obtained through traditional design processes and the solutions optimized by the method proposed in this paper, using virtual reality eye-tracking experiments for the same design task requirements in VR systems. The results demonstrate that users experience lower cognitive load and better task operation experience when interacting with the optimized solutions proposed in this paper. Therefore, the optimization method studied in this paper can serve as a reference for the construction of virtual reality systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of 5G mobile communication technology, the growing demand for media services in society is becoming a characteristic of smart cities. Technical study has exhaustively investigated the low-latency resource supply of edge computing systems for web hosting services. However, external variables (such as transmission and network delays) impact the transmission between edge servers and service requests, resulting in service request delays. In addition, resource service requests that are constantly updated and in dynamic distribution may overload some servers while others are idle, resulting in poor load balancing. Consequently, this research presents a Resource Pre-Allocation method (RPA) for cognitive analytics-based social media platforms, which aims to improve the load balancing of edge servers while serving requests with strict latency requirements, so as to obtain the optimal resource allocation strategy. First, the resource requirement prediction algorithm is developed based on temporal-spatial demand history. Then, we propose a multi-objective algorithm combined with the optimal solution selection techniques to obtain the ideal resource allocation decisions. Finally, the performance of RPA is tested and evaluated. The experimental results show that RPA can allocate resources better than other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in big data and Internet of Things devices have brought novel service modes, such as smart cities and intelligent transportation, to daily life. With the widespread deployment of smart terminals comes an exponentially increasing amount of data, which, causes conflict due to the intensive resource demand and limited computation capacity. To manage this conflict, edge computing has been introduced as an auxiliary technique to cloud computing. However, the emerging computation-intensive service chains bring high resource demands that may exceed the computation capability of a single edge server. Simply offloading them to cloud servers is hardly time saving and is challenging for typical edge-cloud schemes. In this paper, we address the challenge of coordinating the workflow scheduler from multiple users in a partially observable environment. We first partition the workflow by leveraging graph theory to split the component tasks into clusters based on their dependency constraints. We further model the possible contention on edge servers among multiple users as a Markov game and propose a multiagent reinforcement learning-based edge server coordination algorithm named partially observable multiagent workflow scheduler (POMAWS) as the solution. With fine-trained agents, the proposed scheme can intelligently activate nearby edge nodes to form a temporal workgroup and manage contention when it occurs. The numerical results validate the feasibility of our proposed scheme, as its performance exceeds typical cloud computing and traditional clustering schemes with an improved QoS in terms of processing delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the intelligent city, in the late 2000s, was a worldwide success that has invited itself to the national political agendas of several countries in world association of the major metropolises as well as in the multinational strategy. The success of this global phenomenon is indisputable; however, the smart city remains enigmatic, without precise definition and vague terms. The smart cities projects are characterized by the ability to interconnect urban systems between themselves, including transport system, electricity system, waste system, water system, gas system, etc. and to make each system develop itself; For instance, the field of urban and interurban transport has experienced a spectacular boom over the last few decades mainly with the appearance of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) having promoted the concept of smarts cities mentioned by the birth of intelligent transport systems (ITS). The notion of routing is important and necessary for ITS in order to establish an efficient transmission process in VANETs. A large number of routing protocols exist in VANETs that are classified by different methods and according to determined criteria. This paper proposes a new geographic routing solution based on an intersection entitled A Geographic Routing Based on Local Traffic Density and Multi-hop Intersections in VANETs (GRBLTD-MI) that is more adapted in the context of smart cities. This new approach will discuss the selection of the next intersection when taking into consideration the connectivity of the multi-hop intersection with the use of vehicle's local traffic density, speed, distance and direction. Simulation comparison of GRBLTD-MI against some strong routing protocols has shown the superiority of our approach in terms of packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay and packet overhead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VANET technology is an essential component of Intelligent Transportation Systems, which makes c communication between moving cars and stationary Road Side Units more accessible. It allows vehicle nodes to share crucial data among communication devices. VANET has significant potential to enhance traffic efficiency and road safety. This is accomplished by decreasing the chances of collisions between vehicles and reducing the number of accidents. Man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks are a crucial issue in VANET which needs significant consideration from researchers. To solve the problem of man-in-the-middle attacks, this article presents a dynamic and optimized routing approach for VANET conversation in smart cities by utilizing a chaotic secure multi-verse optimization algorithm. The strategy that has been proposed seeks to achieve the goal of ensuring safe and effective interaction between vehicles participating in VANETs by dynamically determining the optimal path for the exchange of data. A chaotic protect multi-verse optimization approach is used to generate several random sequences from which the most secure route may be selected. This is done to enhance the security of the VANET transmission network during transmission. The results of the trials indicate that the suggested technique is more successful in avoiding MITM and improving the functioning of VANET connections in settings that are characterized by intelligent cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective quality management plays a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth operation of smart city systems, which have significant implications for safety, accessibility, affordability, and maintainability. Dependability of autonomous systems is of utmost importance, as achieving satisfactory levels of availability and reliability poses considerable challenges. Smart cities are characterized by interconnected sub-architectures, encompassing vehicle monitoring, sidewalk monitoring, and building monitoring, all of which need to function efficiently. Analytical models such as Petri nets, Markov chains, and fault trees are well-suited for evaluating complex scenarios in the context of smart cities. This paper presents analytical models that utilize fault tree and Markov chain techniques to assess the availability and reliability of smart city monitoring systems. The model is divided into shared and non-shared components, with non-shared components being specific to certain contextual applications, while shared components, such as data processing and electrical power, are essential for all smart city monitoring and management systems. The study underscores the ease with which the fault tree model can enhance availability by modifying failure requirements and resources. Case studies provide concrete examples of how availability improved from 95.3 to 99.8% by varying a configuration known as "KooN" in multiple components. This paper takes a comprehensive approach to evaluating the dependability of smart city architectures and contributes advancements, such as hierarchical modeling, sequential sensitivity analysis, and the "KooN" analytic method. These contributions expand the existing knowledge and methodologies in smart city dependability analysis. Moreover, this work aims to serve as a practical tool to assist smart city managers in optimizing their proposals. All modeling aspects and parameters are detailed thoroughly to enable effective implementation of the proposed approach by anyone using it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wide application of urban outdoor surveillance systems has greatly improved the efficiency of urban management and social security index. However, most of the existing urban outdoor surveillance cameras lack the records of important parameters such as geospatial coordinates, field of view angle and lens distortion, which brings difficulties to the unified management and layout optimization of the cameras, geospatial analysis of video data, and the computer vision applications such as the trajectory tracking of moving targets. To address this problem, this paper designs a marker with a chessboard pattern and a positioning device, makes the marker move in outdoor space through vehicles and other mobile carriers, and utilizes the marker image captured by the surveillance camera and the spatial position information obtained by the positioning device to batch calibrate the outdoor surveillance cameras and calculate its geospatial coordinates and field of view angle, which achieves the rapid acquisition of important parameters of the surveillance camera, and provides a new method for the rapid calibration of urban outdoor surveillance cameras, which contributes to the informationization management of urban surveillance resources and the spatial analysis and computation of surveillance video data, and make it play a greater role in the application of smart transportation and smart city. Taking the outdoor surveillance cameras within 2.5Km2 of a city as an example, calibration tests were performed on 295 surveillance cameras in the test area, and the geospatial coordinates, field of view angle and lens parameters of 269 surveillance cameras were obtained, and the average error of the spatial position was 0.527 m, and the maximum error was 1.573 m, and the average error of the field of view angle was 1.63°, and the maximum error was 3.4°, which verified the effectiveness and accuracy of the method in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of congestion on an urban road network is a key issue for the development of sustainable mobility in future smart cities. In this work, we propose a reductionist approach by studying the stationary states of a simple transport model using a random process on a graph, where each node represents a location and the link weights give the transition rates to move from one node to another, representing the mobility demand. Each node has a maximum flow rate and a maximum load capacity, and we assume that the average incoming flow equals the outgoing flow. In the approximation of the single-step process, we are able to analytically characterize the traffic load distribution on the single nodes using a local maximum entropy principle. Our results explain how congested nodes emerge as the total traffic load increases, analogous to a percolation transition where the appearance of a congested node is an independent random event. However, using numerical simulations, we show that in the more realistic case of synchronous dynamics for the nodes, entropic forces introduce correlations among the node states and favor the clustering of empty and congested nodes. Our aim is to highlight the universal properties of congestion formation and, in particular, to understand the role of traffic load fluctuations as a possible precursor of congestion in a transport network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban land-use allocation problem is a spatial optimization problem that allocates optimum land-uses to specific land units in urban areas. This problem is an NP (nondeterministic polynomial time)-hard problem because of involving many objective functions, many constraints, and complex search space. Moreover, this subject is an important issue in smart cities and newly developed areas of cities to achieve a sustainable arrangement of land-uses. Different types ofMulti-Objective Optimization Algorithms (MOOAs) based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been frequently employed, but their ability and performance have not been evaluated and compared properly. This paper aims to employ and compare three commonly used MOOAs i.e. NSGA-II, MOPSO, and MOEA/D in urban land-use allocation problems. Selected algorithms belong to different categories of MOOAs family to investigate their advantage and disadvantages. The objective functions of this study are compatibility, dependency, suitability, and compactness of land-uses and the constraint is compensating of Per-Capita demand in the urban environment. Evaluation of results is based on the dispersion of the solutions, diversity of the solutions' space, and comparing the number of dominant solutions in Pareto-Fronts. The results showed that all three algorithms improved the objective functions related to the current arrangement of the land-uses. However, the run time of NSGA-II is the worst, related to the Diversity Metric (DM) which represents the regularity of the distance between solutions at the highest degree. Moreover, MOPSO provides the best Scattering Diversity Metric (SDM) which shows the diversity of solutions in the solution space. Furthermore, In terms of algorithm execution time, MOEA/D performed better than the other two. So, Decision-makers should consider different aspects in choosing the appropriate MOOA for land-use management problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although walking methodologies (WMs) and machine learning (ML) have been objects of interest for urban scholars, it is difficult to find research that integrates both. We propose a 'cyborg walk' method and apply it to studying litter in public spaces. Walking routes are created based on an unsupervised learning algorithm (k-means) to classify public spaces. Then, a deep learning model (YOLOv5) is used to collect data from geotagged photos taken by an automatic Insta360 X3 camera worn by human walkers. Results from image recognition have an accuracy between 83.7% and 95%, which is similar to what is validated by the literature. The data collected by the machine are automatically georeferenced thanks to the metadata generated by a GPS attached to the camera. WMs could benefit from the introduction of ML for informative route optimisation and georeferenced visual data quantification. The links between these findings and the existing WM literature are discussed, reflecting on the parallels between this 'cyborg walk' experiment and the seminal cyborg metaphor proposed by Donna Haraway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatially concentrated architecture of the cloud environment causes excessive latency and network congestion in traditional smart healthcare systems designed for smart cities. Fog computing underpins IoT-enabled smart city solutions for latency sensitivity by putting computing power closer to the network boundary. However, resource management issues degrade service quality and accelerate energy depletion in real-time smart healthcare systems, as the fog node workload has increased exponentially. This paper offers a fog-driven patient-centric smart healthcare system for an e-healthcare environment to maintain Quality of Service (QoS) during severe traffic load on a fog platform. The multi-objective EQLS (Energyefficient QoS-aware Load balancing Strategy), is proposed to stabilize workload among processing nodes to increase real-time sensitivity of critical tasks within optimal response time and energy usage. Using the iFogSim simulator to present the significance of research work, the proposed technique is compared to existing load-balancing policies (Round Robin (RR) and Fog Node Placement Algorithm (FNPA)) regarding energy usage, response time, and cost. The simulation results reveal that EQLS saves 8.7% and 14.9% more energy and 6.2% and 13.4% greater response time over FNPA and RR, respectively. The results signify that the proposed approach can efficiently support real-time applications of smart cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living in a smart city has many advantages, such as improved waste and water management, access to quality healthcare facilities, effective and safe transportation systems, and personal protection. Explainable AI (XAI) is called a system that is capable of providing explanations for its judgments or predictions. This term describes a model, its expected impacts, and any potential biases that may be present. XAI tools and frameworks can aid in comprehending and trusting the output and outcomes generated by machine-learning algorithms. This study used XAI methods to classify cities based on smart city metrics. The logistic regression method with LIME achieved perfect accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, predicting correctly all cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Healthy City concept aims to improve the physical and social environment in order to expand community resources and strengthen daily life functions, one of which is through healthy, clean water management. The aim of this research is efficient clean water management, with a special focus on Pagak District, Malang Regency, Indonesia, which often faces the challenge of drought. Water Poverty Index (WPI) analysis and Social Network Analysis (SNA) are used to achieve this goal. WPI is a comprehensive tool that considers five main components: availability of water resources, access to clean water, adequate water management capacity, efficient water use, and the impact of water management on the environment. Next, SNA analysis is carried out as a systematic approach to understanding social capital in a community, thereby enabling a deeper understanding of social dynamics and available resources. The research results show that in Pagak District, Tlogorejo Village has the lowest WPI value of 44.51, which is categorized as critical. Apart from that, Tlogorejo Village also has the lowest SNA score with a participation rate of 1.39 and a relationship density of 35.3%. Implementing the Healthy City concept recognizes the importance of overcoming the challenges of clean water management in areas experiencing water scarcity through improving the physical and social environment. Implementation of this strategy not only increases access to clean water but also strengthens social ties and overall community well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies trends in the application of big data in the transport sector and categorizes research work across scientific subfields. The systematic analysis considered literature published between 2012 and 2022. A total of 2671 studies were evaluated from a dataset of 3532 collected papers, and bibliometric techniques were applied to capture the evolution of research interest over the years and identify the most influential studies. The proposed unsupervised classification model defined categories and classified the relevant articles based on their particular scientific interest using representative keywords from the title, abstract, and keywords (referred to as top words). The model's performance was verified with an accuracy of 91% using Naïve Bayesian and Convolutional Neural Networks approach. The analysis identified eight research topics, with urban transport planning and smart city applications being the dominant categories. This paper contributes to the literature by proposing a methodology for literature analysis, identifying emerging scientific areas, and highlighting potential directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) has expanded rapidly, allowing for a network of sensors and gadgets to collect and share information to make people's lives easier and more convenient. As the Internet of Things (IoT) grows, however, energy efficiency becomes a major issue, especially for portable and wireless gadgets. Low-power, long-range communication capabilities are needed, and Long-Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) has emerged as a viable solution to meet this need. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the LoRaWAN-based, low-power Internet of Things. The suggested network architecture is optimized for low power consumption and high connectivity for numerous Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. This low-power Internet of Things network relies on LoRaWAN gateways, end devices, and a server to function. LoRaWAN is a technology that enables the low-power, long-range transmission of data packets. The results show that the optimized case and nonoptimized case have a delivery ratio of 0.85 to 0.73 from node 100 to 500. LoRaWAN significantly reduces energy usage compared to conventional IoT connectivity alternatives, making it a fantastic option for battery-powered devices in far-flung or limited-resource locations. Finally, the adoption of LoRaWAN provides a viable solution to address the energy efficiency concerns in IoT networks, hence allowing for sustainable, long-lasting IoT installations and enabling a wide variety of new applications within the IoT ecosystem. Furthermore, addresses the potential applications of this technology in the future, including upgrades and integration with other technologies like edge computing and 5G networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates how a mobile-based archive application and digital literacy impact pre-service administrators' understanding of the smart village concept in rural governance. It uses a quantitative approach with a questionnaire given to 100 pre-service administrators to evaluate their attitudes towards these factors. Validity and reliability tests were conducted as part of the data analysis, and the data were assessed for normality assumption. The data were then analyzed using a multiple linear regression model. The coefficient of determination, which is 99.3%, suggests that nearly all variables related to the smart village concept can be explained through the archive application and digital literacy variables. Furthermore, the mobile-based archive application and digital literacy have a positive and significant impact on understanding the smart village concept, both simultaneously (0.000<0.05) and partially (0.000<0.05). We found a negative t value (-5.739) for the understanding of the smart village concept, which can be improved through the mobile-based archive application (9.299) and digital literacy (6.538) variables. The implications from these findings indicate that pre-service administrators in rural governance recognize the need for improvement in their understanding of the smart village concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing e-waste involves collecting it, extracting valuable metals at low costs, and ensuring environmentally safe disposal. However, monitoring this process has become challenging due to e-waste expansion. With IoT technology like LoRa-LPWAN, pre-collection monitoring becomes more cost-effective. Our paper presents an e-waste collection and recovery system utilizing the LoRa-LPWAN standard, integrating intelligence at the edge and fog layers. The system incentivizes WEEE holders, encouraging participation in the innovative collection process. The city administration oversees this process using innovative trucks, GPS, LoRaWAN, RFID, and BLE technologies. Analysis of IoT performance factors and quantitative assessments (latency and collision probability on LoRa, Sigfox, and NB-IoT) demonstrate the effectiveness of our incentive-driven IoT solution, particularly with LoRa standard and Edge AI integration. Additionally, cost estimates show the advantage of LoRaWAN. Moreover, the proposed IoT-based e-waste management solution promises cost savings, stakeholder trust, and long-term effectiveness through streamlined processes and human resource training. Integration with government databases involves data standardization, API development, security measures, and functionality testing for efficient management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic congestion is one of the major modern-day crisis in the world. There are many reasons behind this problem, among which the common reasons are poor traffic management, cars changing lanes, unplanned stoppage, dysfunctional traffic lights, drivers not following rules, emergency vehicle priorities not met etc. To overcome such situations traffic police is placed and the traffic congestion is handled by them manually. But in congested cities, it is very tough to handle huge traffic by a traffic police manually. As more and more vehicles are being commissioned in an already congested traffic system, there is an urgent need for a whole new traffic control system using advanced technologies to utilize the already existent infrastructures to its fullest extent. In this work, we create a fully automated system for traffic control based on traffic density with the help of a machine learning algorithm. We used foreground background subtraction to identify the vehicles in each lane. Using K-nearest neighbour algorithm we computed the density of each lane. Using KNN algorithm we found the accuracy as 99.04% and recall as 73.18%. We then create a database with the density values of each lane using phpmyadmin. The density values are fetched by NodeMCU from the cloud and traffic signals are activated based on the largest density in a round robin fashion. We further improvise the system for prioritizing emergency vehicles in the congestion. We use the Yolo object detection algorithm to detect emergency vehicles like ambulances so that traffic can be cleared up for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) has enabled the development of smart cities, intelligent buildings, and advanced industrial ecosystems. When the IoT is matched with machine learning (ML), the advantages of the resulting enhanced environments can span, for example, from energy optimization to security improvement and comfort enhancement. Together, IoT and ML technologies are widely used in smart buildings, in particular, to reduce energy consumption and create Intelligent Energy-Efficient Buildings (IEEBs). In IEEBs, ML models are typically used to analyze and predict various factors such as temperature, humidity, light, occupancy, and human behavior with the aim of optimizing building systems. In the literature, many review papers have been presented so far in the field of IEEBs. Such papers mostly focus on specific subfields of ML or on a limited number of papers. This paper presents a systematic meta-survey, i.e., a review of review articles, that compares the state of the art in the field of IEEBs using the Prisma approach. In more detail, our meta-survey aims to give a broader view, with respect to the already published surveys, of the state-of-the-art in the IEEB field, investigating the use of supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised, and self-supervised models in a variety of IEEB-based scenarios. Moreover, our paper aims to compare the already published surveys by answering five important research questions about IEEB definitions, architectures, methods/models used, datasets and real implementations utilized, and main challenges/research directions defined. This meta-survey provides insights that are useful both for newcomers to the field and for researchers who want to learn more about the methodologies and technologies used for IEEBs' design and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst the rapid urbanisation and increasing calls for sustainable development, this study examines the key drivers and barriers influencing sustainable smart city initiatives in Nigeria. By employing a quantitative approach, the research amalgamates insights from diverse professionals, integrating descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and Spearman rank correlation analysis to illuminate the intricate landscape of sustainable smart city development within the Nigerian context. The findings underscore the interconnected nature of various factors, underscoring the imperative of an all‐encompassing approach that synergistically incorporates infrastructure integration, environmental sustainability, efficient governance, social inclusivity, and economic innovation. Furthermore, identifying specific barriers, including challenges related to integrated urban transformation, socioeconomic equity, and governance and infrastructure, highlights the critical need for precise interventions to surmount these obstacles. The implications and recommendations derived from this study emphasise the pivotal role of collaborative endeavours among diverse stakeholders, accentuating the significance of inclusive decision‐making processes, sustainable environmental practices, and equitable economic expansion. The insights gleaned from this research serve as an invaluable resource for policymakers and urban planners, providing a robust groundwork for informed policy formulation and strategic planning to guide sustainable smart city development in Nigeria and other developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an innovative framework for the management of virtual companies in smart urban environments, with an emphasis on socio-economic resilience facilitated by Sustainable Information Systems. The system aims to equip virtual enterprises in smart cities with tools for robust operations amid socio-economic challenges. Its effectiveness is evidenced by improvements in investment risk assessment, business process simulation, and HR project management, enhancing efficiency and foresight. A key feature is predictive analytics for crisis demand forecasting, enabling swift market adjustments and strategic inventory management. It also helps identify alternative clients and suppliers, ensuring business continuity. Integrating machine learning and augmented reality, the system supports automation and strategic decision-making, significantly benefiting the e-commerce sector by addressing fluctuating demand, supply chain issues, and market adaptations during crises. The Sustainable Information System for Virtual Company Management in Smart Cities offers crucial support for e-businesses facing these socio-economic challenges, facilitating their navigation through turbulent times. Its meticulously designed architecture and functionalities make it a powerful instrument for assisting virtual companies in crisis conditions, fostering their sustainable growth within the socio-economic framework of smart urban settings. Comparative studies with existing models underscore this system's superior efficiency and holistic approach, highlighting its contribution to enhancing the operational efficiency of virtual companies by 95%, reducing the time needed for critical activities like investment risk analysis and business process simulation, and bolstering the socio-economic resilience of smart cities against crises [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the dynamics of road vehicle traffic have significantly evolved, compelling traffic engineers to develop innovative traffic monitoring solutions, especially for dense road networks. Traditional methods for measuring traffic volume along road sections may no longer suffice for modern traffic control systems. This is particularly true for induction loops, a widely used method since the last century. In contrast, measuring techniques using microwaves or visible light offer better accuracy but are often hindered by the high cost of sensors. This paper presents new techniques for measuring traffic flow and other parameters that adapt to changing traffic dynamics using low-cost optical distance sensors. Our study demonstrates that the integration of multiple monitoring approaches enhances measurement accuracy, contingent on the dynamics and specific characteristics of the traffic. The results indicate that cheap optical distance sensors are particularly well suited for use in smart city road networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The in-depth participation and application of new-generation information and communication technologies, such as big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, etc., in the field of smart cities have promoted their abilities in urban fine governance, public services, ecological livability, scientific and technological innovation, etc. Smart cities are gradually becoming recognized as the best solution to "urban problems". Smart city construction drives urban innovative development, accumulates kinetic energy for economic growth, strengthens social support functions, enhances the effectiveness of the ecological environment, and promotes the convergence and integration of urban green development and high-quality development. This paper constructs a difference-in-differences model based on propensity score matching. Additionally, fiscal science and technology investment is introduced as mediating variables to further explain the mechanism through which smart city pilot policy impacts urban green and high-quality development. This research uses panel data from 156 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019 to empirically test that the construction of smart cities has a significant positive effect on urban green and high-quality development. The mediation effect model shows that an increase in the level of local government's fiscal science and technology investment enhances the positive effect of smart city construction on urban green and high-quality development. This research concludes with policy recommendations: the government should seize the development opportunity presented by smart city pilot policy, providing necessary policy support and financial incentive for the construction of smart cities. This will optimize the local economic structure, transform the driving forces of urban development, and assist cities in achieving green and high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry is constantly evolving through government policies, technologies, and innovative processes. BIM and modular construction are innovative concepts aimed at achieving sustainable smart cities by enhancing cost performance, efficiency, and sustainability. Despite growing global interest in their integration, there is a notable knowledge gap in sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, this research aims to explore the barriers to integrating BIM into modular construction in sub-Saharan Africa. The study adopted a non-experimental design, using a four-stage methodological framework. Initially, a literature review was carried out to conceptualize the study. Stage two involves a pilot survey to create an adequate data collection instrument. In the third stage, 81 registered companies were purposely selected, and data was collected through an online survey. Finally, the fourth stage uses descriptive and inferential techniques to make logical and informed conclusions. The top-ranked barriers are high initial costs, insufficient cross-field expertise, stakeholder collaboration problems, limited software interoperability, and skills shortages. Recommendations include early stakeholder collaboration, BIM execution plan development by modular companies, improved staff training, and increasing financial support from the government. Future research should explore country-specific barriers and case studies to aid the integration of the two innovative solutions in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crosswalks play a fundamental role in road safety. However, over time, many suffer wear and tear that makes them difficult to see. This project presents a solution based on the use of computer vision techniques for identifying and classifying the level of wear on crosswalks. The proposed system uses a convolutional neural network (CNN) to analyze images of crosswalks, determining their wear status. The design includes a prototype system mounted on a vehicle, equipped with cameras and processing units to collect and analyze data in real time as the vehicle traverses traffic routes. The collected data are then transmitted to a web application for further analysis and reporting. The prototype was validated through extensive tests in a real urban environment, comparing its assessments with manual inspections conducted by experts. Results from these tests showed that the system could accurately classify crosswalk wear with a high degree of accuracy, demonstrating its potential for aiding maintenance authorities in efficiently prioritizing interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the development of Smart Cities, efficient waste collection networks are crucial, especially those that consider recycling. To plan for the future, routing and depot location techniques must handle heterogeneous cargo for proper waste separation. This paper introduces a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model and a three-level metaheuristic to address the Periodic Location Routing Problem (PLRP) for urban waste collection. The PLRP involves creating routes that ensure each customer is visited according to their waste demand frequency, aiming to minimize logistical costs such as transportation and depot opening. Unlike previous approaches, this approach characterizes each type of customer considering different needs for waste collection. A total of 25 customer types were created based on mixed waste demands and visit frequencies. The proposed algorithm uses Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) and Local Search heuristics, comprising three neighborhood generation structures. Computational experiments demonstrate that the VNS algorithm delivers solutions seven times better than exact methods in a fraction of the time. For larger instances, VNS achieves feasible solutions where the MILP model fails within the same time frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart cities are urban areas that leverage technological solutions to enhance traditional network management and efficiency to benefit residents and businesses. Based on the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol, this study presents a systematic literature review aimed at analyzing the existing literature on smart cities research. The literature review specifically focuses on the impact of blockchain technology on the urban environment and its potential to contribute to the development of inclusive and sustainable communities, including financial systems and infrastructures with similar characteristics to serve these societies. The findings reveal a lack of studies on the practical applications of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), particularly blockchain, that specifically focus on the urban context capable of developing the (financial) ecosystem of smart cities. To address this gap, a future research agenda is proposed, highlighting several research questions that could guide academics and practitioners interested in exploring the development of smart city systems, with particular attention on the financial framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]