Search

The commonly accepted definition of sustainability considers the availability of relevant resources to make an activity feasible and durable while also recognizing users’ support as an essential part of the social side of sustainability. IoT represents a disruption in the general scenario of computing for both users and professionals. The real expansion and integration of applications based on IoT depend on our capacity of exploring the necessary skills and professional profiles that are essential for the implementation of IoT projects, but also on the perception of relevant aspects for users, e.g., privacy, legal, IPR, and security issues. Our participation in several EU-funded projects with a focus on this area has enabled the collection of information on both sides of IoT sustainability through surveys but also by collecting data from a variety of sources. Thanks to these varied and complementary sources of information, this article will explore the user and professional aspects of the sustainability of the Internet of Things in practice.

This paper examines the situation of e-commerce and m-commerce in SMEs in the European Union and analyses if their behaviour in this field is determined by a series of factors, such as the size of the company, the type of business, turnover, etc. which may also influence their needs of specific training for their employees. This study is based on an online survey responded by 674 SMEs from eight different countries in Europe, aimed at providing training assistance to SMEs to support their efforts towards m-commerce. The objective is the analysis of the skills and knowledge to be recommended to employees of SMEs for a better preparation to implement the companies' strategy of m-commerce. Although analysis of results from survey has supported the initial goal of developing training courses for m-commerce which include different economic, legal and technical topics, it has mainly provided very relevant conclusions on the factors which impact the adoption of e-commerce and m-commerce by SMEs.

IT project management requires qualified staff capable of facing the rapidly changing conditions and even terminology of technology while managing large teams of people where main costs come from human work. A key factor for managing human side of IT is the understanding of the essential feature of people performance: skills. Capability to cope with this highly demanding field should firstly rely on clear and standardized frameworks for skills, not only the technical or hard ones but also the soft or behavioral ones, considered by employers as essential for employees' productivity. This chapter shows how the recent development of frameworks and standards in European Union (e.g. EN16234 or ESCO classification) is enabling the powerful exploitation of open big data from existing skills analysis systems for a more precise and solid determination of recommended skills for IT project management. The analysis will especially focus on the behavioral skills.

The rapid evolution and expansion of ICT labor markets requires a common language to manage offer and demand of talent, which is especially critical and complex in a transnational integration scenario like the European Union. Models and frameworks represent useful tools for this purpose. This chapter analyzes the most relevant e-competences frameworks in the European Union (e-CF or EN16234, ESCO, and Body of Knowledge or BoK) as well as their integration and similarities. The present impact of these European frameworks in the ICT labor market and their connection to training and education is presented through data and several examples taken from two EU-funded projects: e-Skills Match and e-CF Council.

In recent years, smartphones have become the main computing tool for most of the population, making them an ideal tool in many areas. Most of these smartphones are equipped with cutting-edge hardware on their digital cameras, sensors and processors. For this reason, this paper discusses the possibility of using smartphones as an accessible and accurate tool, focusing on the measurement of light, which is an element that has a high impact on human behavior, which promotes conformance and safety, or alters human physiology when it is inappropriate. To carry out this study, three different ways to measure light through smartphones have been checked: the ambient light sensor, the digital camera and an external Bluetooth luxmeter connected with the smartphone. As a result, the accuracy of these methods has been compared to check if they can be used as accurate measurement tools.

There are very few countries that have provisions addressing the energy efficiency of the whole street lighting system, such as Spain or the Netherlands. Nevertheless, there is not an agreement about how energy efficiency must be assessed. The Spanish Government contemplates it in the Royal Decree 1890/2008 with the goal of improving energy savings and efficiency. However, this has not obtained the expected results. Nowadays, energy efficiency of this kind of systems is assessed using a label. In the case of Spain, this label only assesses one magnitude. The contributions of this paper are two evaluation systems (kiviat diagram and pie chart) which assess five magnitudes: lamps, energy efficiency index, light pollution, renewable energy contribution, and harness of the luminous flux using dimming. After that, a survey was done to study several subjects: (1) if citizens are aware about the efficiency of street lighting systems, (2) whether the sample of colors used in the label is adequate, and (3) if our proposed systems could replace the current evaluation system. Finally, the paper finishes with the conclusions of the survey.

Energy consumption rose about 28% over the 2001 to 2011 period in the Spanish residential sector. In this environment, domestic hot water (DHW) represents the second highest energy demand. There are several methodologies to estimate DHW consumption, but each methodology uses different inputs and some of them are based on obsolete data. DHW energy consumption estimation is a key tool to plan modifications that could enhance this consumption and we decided to update the methodologies. We studied DHW consumption with data from 10 apartments in the same building during 18 months. As a result of the study, we updated one chosen methodology, adapting it to the current situation. One of the challenges to improve efficiency of DHW use is that most of people are not aware of how it is consumed in their homes. To help this information to reach consumers, we developed a website to allow users to estimate the final electrical energy needed for DHW. The site uses three estimation methodologies and chooses the best fit based on information given by the users. Finally, the application provides users with recommendations and tips to reduce their DHW consumption while still maintaining the desired comfort level.

Street lighting installations are an essential service for modern life due to their capability of creating a welcoming feeling at nighttime. Nevertheless, several studies have highlighted that it is possible to improve the quality of the light significantly improving the uniformity of the illuminance. The main difficulty arises when trying to improve some of the installation’s characteristics based only on statistical analysis of the light distribution. This paper presents a new algorithm that is able to obtain the overall illuminance uniformity in order to improve this sort of installations. To develop this algorithm it was necessary to perform a detailed study of all the elements which are part of street lighting installations. Because classification is one of the most important tasks in the application areas of artificial neural networks, we compared the performances of six types of training algorithms in a feed forward neural network for analyzing the overall uniformity in outdoor lighting systems. We found that the best algorithm that minimizes the error is “Levenberg-Marquardt back-propagation”, which approximates the desired output of the training pattern. By means of this kind of algorithm, it is possible to help to lighting professionals optimize the quality of street lighting installations.

Outdoor lighting is an essential service for modern life. However, the high influence of this type of facility on energy consumption makes it necessary to take extra care in the design phase. Therefore, this manuscript describes an algorithm to help light designers to get, in an easy way, the best configuration parameters and to improve energy efficiency, while ensuring a minimum level of overall uniformity. To make this possible, we used a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. These algorithms are well established, and are simple and effective to solve optimization problems. To take into account the most influential parameters on lighting and energy efficiency, 500 simulations were performed using DIALux software (4.10.0.2, DIAL, Ludenscheid, Germany). Next, the relation between these parameters was studied using to data mining software. Subsequently, we conducted two experiments for setting parameters that enabled the best configuration algorithm in order to improve efficiency in the proposed process optimization.

Lighting is an essential element for modern life, promoting a sense of wellbeing for users. However, bad illumination may produce health problems such as headaches and fatigue, among other vision problems. For that reason, this paper proposes the development of a smartphone-based application to help in lighting evaluation to guarantee the compliance of illumination regulations and to help increase illuminance efficiency, reducing its energy consumption. To perform this evaluation, the smartphone can be used as a lighting measurement tool, evaluating those measurements through an intelligent agent based in rules capable of guiding the decision-making process. As a result, this tool allows the evaluation of the real working environment to guarantee lighting requirements, helping in the prevention of health problems derived from bad illumination and improving the lighting efficiency at the same time.

A significant decrease in water consumption has been achieved in recent years thanks to different campaigns run by different institutions in Spain. However, most citizens do not have a very clear idea about whether or not they are efficiently using water. To solve this situation, this paper aims is to develop two water labels in order to improve the current water billing. These water labels evaluate the total water consumption and the domestic hot water consumption. To make the tags, several research studies were tackled for establishing consumer trends and behavior patterns. Furthermore, a survey and data collection were conducted to obtain updated values to validate information obtained from previous studies. The result are two water labels that establish six different levels to graphically show the efficiency, and they also include a comparison with the average consumption by customers of the same province. To ensure that the benefits of this evaluation are available to citizens, its inclusion on the water bill is proposed.

The objective of this paper is to describe a developed model and its corresponding application, known as System to Evaluate the Water Consumption at Home (SEWAT). The aim is to create a new model to evaluate the efficiency of water consumption. Thanks to the input of the water bills by users, the model allows them to check if water consumption is efficient, in order to give them an opportunity to evaluate their water usage. To succeed in it, several researches were tracked in order to establish consumer trends and to identify the most efficient value for this magnitude. Furthermore, a survey was conducted to obtain updated values to validate information from previous studies. However, the main aim of this model is to use the resources efficiently, so it has to be useful accordingly. Therefore, after the evaluation, the application has a section with recommendations for the users to reduce their water consumption through a range of different indications. This section is divided into four: bathroom, kitchen, new appliance and reusing water. Each section shows the expected benefits if the users follow the recommended options. The main result is a unique application in Spain, which includes a system of evaluation, comparison and a section of recommendations for the users. Eventually, the model will have a promising outcome, because it surely will change the awareness of citizens about this subject.