Smart Cities and challenges of sustainability

The paper proposes an idea of smart, secure and inclusive city that generates new directions for architecture and urban spaces, and especially better management, which encourages the use of alternative energy optimization and energy saving in “optical circular urban metabolism”, mobilizing resources and technological behaviors that can make sustainable, and therefore more competitive territory. Future city concept focuses on the optimization of the relationship between technological advancement and challenges of sustainability at the urban scale. A common element in all the cities of the future must be the environmental virtuosity and the participation of smart community. To address the social problems of urban and metropolitan (mobility, security and territorial monitoring, etc.) is not enough to imagine individual services compared to question varied of services, energy control, urban security; policy must be implemented for environmental performance (efficiency and environmental virtuosity) optimizing the participation of the urban community. The implementation of the new idea of the city will strengthen the effective participation of citizens in decision-making: promoting of digital pages and the use of tools that allow you to influence the drafting of policies through electronically dialogue systems. An approach to the city and urban society problems focuses on “prevention”; the answers given by the planning instruments to the new social needs do not end in the “spatialization” of welfare policies. Multiethnic city and security. To elaborate a scientific structure (of knowledge) focused on man, common in multi-ethnic cities in Europe, with the purpose to (evaluate different options) boost the communication and trans-cultural and inter-cultural interaction

Smart Cities: Towards a New Citizenship Regime? A Discourse Analysis of the British Smart City Standard

Growing practice interest in smart cities has led to calls for a less technology-oriented and more citizen-centric approach. In response, this articles investigates the citizenship mode promulgated by the smart city standard of the British Standards Institution. The analysis uses the concept of citizenship regime and a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to discern key discursive frames defining the smart city and the particular citizenship dimensions brought into play. The results confirm an explicit citizenship rationale guiding the smart city (standard), although this displays some substantive shortcomings and contradictions. The article concludes with recommendations for both further theory and practice development

Sustainable–Smart–Resilient–Low Carbon–Eco–Knowledge Cities; Making sense of a multitude of concepts promoting sustainable urbanization

Over the last couple of decades, metropolitan areas around the world have been engaged in a multitude of initiatives aimed at upgrading urban infrastructure and services, with a view to creating better environmental, social and economic conditions and enhancing cities' attractiveness and competitiveness. Reflecting these developments, many new categories of 'cities' have entered the policy discourse: 'sustainable cities'; 'green cities'; 'digital cities'; 'smart cities'; intelligent cities'; 'information cities'; 'knowledge cities'; 'resilient cities'; 'eco-cities'; 'low carbon cities'; 'liveable cities'; and even combinations, such as 'low carbon eco-cities' and 'ubiquitous eco-cities’. In practice, these terms often appear to be used interchangeably by policy makers, planners and developers. However, the question arises whether these categories nevertheless each embody distinct conceptual perspectives, which would have implications for how they are understood theoretically and applied in policy. In response, this article investigates, through a comprehensive bibliometric analysis, how the twelve most frequent city categories are conceptualised individually and in relation to one another in the academic literature. We hypothesize that, notwithstanding some degree of overlap and cross-fertilization, in their essence the observed categories each harbour particular conceptual perspectives that render them distinctive. This is borne out by the findings, which demonstrate robustly for the first time the conceptual differences and interrelationships among twelve dominant city categories. The 'sustainable city' is the most frequently occurring category and, in a map of keyword co-occurrences, by far the largest and most interconnected node, linked closely to the 'eco-city' and 'green city' concepts. Recently, the more narrow concepts of 'low carbon city' and 'smart city' have been on the rise, judging by their frequency of occurrence in academic journals; the latter in particular appears to have become an increasingly dominant category of urban modernization policy. On their part, ‘resilient city’ and ‘knowledge city’ represent distinct concepts, albeit with comparatively low frequency. Overall, the findings point to the need for rigor and nuance in the use of these terms, not least if one wishes to comprehend their implications for urban development and regeneration policy and practice

A few StePS forward in unveiling the complexity of galaxy evolution: Light-weighted stellar ages of intermediate-redshift galaxies with WEAVE

The upcoming new generation of optical spectrographs on four-meter-class telescopes will provide invaluable information for reconstructing the history of star formation in individual galaxies up to redshifts of about 0.7. We aim at defining simple but robust and meaningful physical parameters that can be used to trace the coexistence of widely diverse stellar components: younger stellar populations superimposed on the bulk of older ones. We produce spectra of galaxies closely mimicking data from the forthcoming Stellar Populations at intermediate redshifts Survey (StePS), a survey that uses the WEAVE spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope. First, we assess our ability to reliably measure both ultraviolet and optical spectral indices in galaxies of different spectral types for typically expected signal-to-noise levels. Then, we analyze such mock spectra with a Bayesian approach, deriving the probability density function of r- and u-band light-weighted ages as well as of their difference. We find that the ultraviolet indices significantly narrow the uncertainties in estimating the r- and u-band light-weighted ages and their difference in individual galaxies. These diagnostics, robustly retrievable for large galaxy samples even when observed at moderate signal-to-noise ratios, allow us to identify secondary episodes of star formation up to an age of ~0.1 Gyr for stellar populations older than ~1.5 Gyr, pushing up to an age of ~1 Gyr for stellar populations older than ~5 Gyr. The difference between r-band and u-band light-weighted ages is shown to be a powerful diagnostic to characterize and constrain extended star-formation histories and the presence of young stellar populations on top of older ones. This parameter can be used to explore the interplay between different galaxy star-formation histories and physical parameters such as galaxy mass, size, morphology, and environment

Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles (MISEV2023): From basic to advanced approaches

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), through their complex cargo, can reflect the state of their cell of origin and change the functions and phenotypes of other cells. These features indicate strong biomarker and therapeutic potential and have generated broad interest, as evidenced by the steady year-on-year increase in the numbers of scientific publications about EVs. Important advances have been made in EV metrology and in understanding and applying EV biology. However, hurdles remain to realising the potential of EVs in domains ranging from basic biology to clinical applications due to challenges in EV nomenclature, separation from non-vesicular extracellular particles, characterisation and functional studies. To address the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field, the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) updates its 'Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles', which was first published in 2014 and then in 2018 as MISEV2014 and MISEV2018, respectively. The goal of the current document, MISEV2023, is to provide researchers with an updated snapshot of available approaches and their advantages and limitations for production, separation and characterisation of EVs from multiple sources, including cell culture, body fluids and solid tissues. In addition to presenting the latest state of the art in basic principles of EV research, this document also covers advanced techniques and approaches that are currently expanding the boundaries of the field. MISEV2023 also includes new sections on EV release and uptake and a brief discussion of in vivo approaches to study EVs. Compiling feedback from ISEV expert task forces and more than 1000 researchers, this document conveys the current state of EV research to facilitate robust scientific discoveries and move the field forward even more rapidly

Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles (MISEV2023): From basic to advanced approaches.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), through their complex cargo, can reflect the state of their cell of origin and change the functions and phenotypes of other cells. These features indicate strong biomarker and therapeutic potential and have generated broad interest, as evidenced by the steady year-on-year increase in the numbers of scientific publications about EVs. Important advances have been made in EV metrology and in understanding and applying EV biology. However, hurdles remain to realising the potential of EVs in domains ranging from basic biology to clinical applications due to challenges in EV nomenclature, separation from non-vesicular extracellular particles, characterisation and functional studies. To address the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field, the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) updates its Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles, which was first published in 2014 and then in 2018 as MISEV2014 and MISEV2018, respectively. The goal of the current document, MISEV2023, is to provide researchers with an updated snapshot of available approaches and their advantages and limitations for production, separation and characterisation of EVs from multiple sources, including cell culture, body fluids and solid tissues. In addition to presenting the latest state of the art in basic principles of EV research, this document also covers advanced techniques and approaches that are currently expanding the boundaries of the field. MISEV2023 also includes new sections on EV release and uptake and a brief discussion of in vivo approaches to study EVs. Compiling feedback from ISEV expert task forces and more than 1000 researchers, this document conveys the current state of EV research to facilitate robust scientific discoveries and move the field forward even more rapidly

Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles (MISEV2023): From basic to advanced approaches

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), through their complex cargo, can reflect the state of their cell of origin and change the functions and phenotypes of other cells. These features indicate strong biomarker and therapeutic potential and have generated broad interest, as evidenced by the steady year-on-year increase in the numbers of scientific publications about EVs. Important advances have been made in EV metrology and in understanding and applying EV biology. However, hurdles remain to realising the potential of EVs in domains ranging from basic biology to clinical applications due to challenges in EV nomenclature, separation from non-vesicular extracellular particles, characterisation and functional studies. To address the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field, the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) updates its ‘Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles’, which was first published in 2014 and then in 2018 as MISEV2014 and MISEV2018, respectively. The goal of the current document, MISEV2023, is to provide researchers with an updated snapshot of available approaches and their advantages and limitations for production, separation and characterisation of EVs from multiple sources, including cell culture, body fluids and solid tissues. In addition to presenting the latest state of the art in basic principles of EV research, this document also covers advanced techniques and approaches that are currently expanding the boundaries of the field. MISEV2023 also includes new sections on EV release and uptake and a brief discussion of in vivo approaches to study EVs. Compiling feedback from ISEV expert task forces and more than 1000 researchers, this document conveys the current state of EV research to facilitate robust scientific discoveries and move the field forward even more rapidly

Intelligently-Sustainable Cities? Assessing the contribution of Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes to the achievement of urban sustainability

The current challenges that the world is facing are urging us to re-think the structure and functioning of our social and economic systems. A critical paradigm shift is required if issues such as climate change, growing poverty, depletion of natural resources and uncertain energy futures are to be effectively solved. Global leaders and scientists all over the world have agreed that the time has come for a new form of development to radically transform our classic models of growth so that they embrace the concept of sustainability. But if achieving sustainability appears as a straightforward solution, the same cannot be said regarding the strategies required for turning this new paradigm of development into concrete actions. In this scenario, cities are called to take the lead. In fact, cities are the systems where the three pillars of sustainability merge together (i.e. economy, environment and society), they are the largest consumers of resources and producers of waste, and they are the center of economic activities and engines of wealth production. But above all, their key role in guiding this transition is evidenced by the prospect of a dramatic increase in urban population. Cities urgently need new forms of urban planning and management that can deal with these challenges while remaining competitive as they enter in the era of Global City Regions. In a nutshell, they have to become socially, economically and environmentally sustainable. In the quest for achieving Sustainable Cities, many governments have placed their bid on Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes (ICPs and KCPs), mainly as a consequence of the uncertainties related to the performance of different urban structures in terms of sustainability, their excessively long implementation time and their significant costs. These programmes exploit state of the art Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the city’s digital infrastructure for different purposes. The goal of ICPs is to pursue urban operational excellence through the improved management of the city’s sectors and infrastructure, while KCPs are designed for improving territorial governance systems and for turning the city into an innovation hub that nurtures knowledge and creativity. ICPs and KCPs are being mostly implemented in the more developed regions of the world, where mature cities characterized by abundant infrastructure legacy and scarcity of land are located. But as governments believe that the strategy of creating “smarter cities” will also result in the achievement of sustainability, the precise connection between the concepts of sustainable and intelligence is not entirely clear. Nobody argues on the desirability of making cities smarter, but the fundamental questions of how and to what extent can ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of urban sustainability lack a precise answer. The goal of this research project is to determine whether the connection between Sustainable and Intelligent Cities is supported by evidence or simply affected by wishful thinking. To accomplish the goal, a methodology for investigating the modalities through which ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement or urban sustainability is developed. The proposed assessment model is then applied to general theory on Intelligent and Knowledge Cities, and to case studies which will provide more insights on the nature of these two urban initiatives. This research is structured as follows: Chapter 1: Understanding the essentials of Sustainable Development. Chapter 2: Recognizing the configuration of Sustainable Cities. Chapter 3: Developing a system for monitoring the progress of cities towards sustainability. Chapter 4: Identifying the features and value added of ICPs and KCPs Chapter 5: Assessing the contribution of ICPs and KCPs to urban sustainability Chapter 6: Final conclusions The number of case studies analyzed only allows the formulation of preliminary conclusions (the project provides recommendations for directing future research efforts). The results of this research evidence that: A. Through improved management of urban sectors and infrastructure (with particular emphasis on the electricity grid), ICPs mainly contribute to the achievement of a sustainable urban metabolism (i.e. reduced consumption of non-renewable energy and natural resources, and reduced environmental impact of urban sub-systems), while KCPs support this goal by promoting behavior changes within the community and, in some cases, through the promotion of innovation-based activities. B. Through improved urban safety and mobility, better governance systems and the development of a knowledge-based economy, ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of a sustainable society (i.e. improved quality of life and attractiveness of the city). C. Through improved management of urban sectors and infrastructure and the development of a knowledge-based economy, ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of a sustainable economy (i.e. higher short- and long-term competitiveness). D. Through the improved management of environmental compartments, ICPs are facilitators for the achievement of a sustainable environment (i.e. preservation of the three environmental compartments and biodiversity). However, the main contribution of ICPs to this pillar derives from the optimization of the city’s infrastructure and services, which reduces the environmental impact of urban sectors by lowering the emissions of toxic substances and consumption of natural resources. KCPs also contribute to this goal by promoting behavior changes within the community which are more eco-compatible. Despite the positive contribution of ICPs and KCPs to the achievement of urban sustainability, this research evidences that other actions are required for pursuing truly sustainable urban environments. In fact, the achievement of Sustainable Cities is compromised by the prospects of a dramatic growth in urban population and increasing consumption levels in emerging countries. These two trends seriously hamper the world’s journey towards sustainability, and there is not much that ICPs and KCPs can do to slow them down. These programmes can, however, limit the negative impacts of these two trends, but other actions are urgently required. Furthermore, this research underlines that in order for ICPs and KCPs to successfully leverage sustainability, “optimization” of urban sectors and “behavior changes” need to be pursued in tandem. The main reason justifying this need is to reduce the probability that higher urban efficiency indirectly translates into increasing per capita consumption levels. Reflecting in general terms on the contribution of ICPs and KCPs to urban sustainability, this research noticed that a considerable number of these programmes deeply rely on the extent to which humans become “intelligent”. In fact, both ICPs and KCPs are enablers of human and collective intelligence, which means that their implementation does not guarantee that citizens will change their behaviors as planned. While the effects of ICPs directly optimizing urban sectors and infrastructure (i.e. through automated management systems or by supporting urban managers take more efficient and effective decisions) are more quantifiable, the indirect contribution of programmes ultimately relying on the “good will” of citizens is hard to predict. In fact, most of these programmes dealing with human behavior are being implemented in the form of pilots (i.e. Amsterdam Smart City). Whereas the costs of ICPs and KCPs are quantifiable, their exact benefits are still vague and too dependent on the assumption that humans act rationally and that they are willing to change their consumption habits. The basic principle is that, besides the obstacles faced by Intelligent and Knowledge Cities, becoming smart requires efforts, and not just in the form of investments in ICT and digital infrastructure. In conclusion, this research demonstrates that urban intelligence and sustainability are strongly related, but it is incorrect to consider them as the two opposite sides of the same medal. At the present moment, ICPs and KCPs represent the best tools for supporting cities (especially the ones with significant infrastructure legacy) in their journey towards true sustainability, but other actions are required for the achievement of this goal. Altogether, the conclusions of this research indicate that Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes are the best known enablers of sustainable urban environments. "Being an Intelligent-Knowledge City is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a Sustainable City."Engineering and Policy AnalysisPolicy, Organization, Law and GamingTechnology, Policy and Managemen