Published Article / South African cities are in the process of transition in the changing scenario and need a change in the planning perspective for their sustainable development. The concept of smart city offers opportunities for such development to many middle sized cities of South Africa. Therefore, in this paper conceptual modelling for development of smart cities in South Africa is attempted based on systems concept. The conceptual models are built by using the principles of system dynamics methodology and based on causal feedback relationships among the various factors under different smart characteristics of a city such as, smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment and smart living. The causal feedback loops and interrelationship among various parameters illustrate the dynamicity and influence of parameters on one another, which would able to assist in evolving plausible policy interventions for developing smart cities in South Africa. It is concluded that the modelling approaches presented here could guide the policy makers and city planners to evolve robust and responsive policy interventions for developing smart cities in the changing scenario.

Published Article / In this paper an evaluation of smart socioeconomic, physical and environmental characteristics of Bloemfontein city of South Africa was done to understand the current scenario of the city and evolve perspective indicative planning guidelines for transforming the city into a smart city. The evaluation was done based on 74 smart indicators, and 30 factors under six characteristics, such as, smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment and smart living. For this purpose, survey research methodology with analysis of primary and secondary data and review of the current Integrated Development Plan of the city was followed. The investigation of the various indicators revealed that although the city is lagging behind in most of the characteristics, yet provides ample opportunity to develop it as a smart city, if smart city concept and smart growth principles are employed in city development process.

In the past few years, the general work habits of people have changed dramatically, raising concerns about their well-being. Numerous health-related problems have been observed from their health records such as obesity, diabetes or heart diseases, and unhealthy eating is one of its factors. But these problems can be prevented if people start eating healthy food. The population, in general, is also realizing that healthy eating is important for their well-being. However, they usually resist because they assume that healthy food is not tasty and they do not want to comprise their taste preferences. Moreover, they have various other considerations that become barriers for them while selecting a healthy recipe. These are:(1) their complex, restrained needs (i.e., allergies and nutritional goals), (2) their strict lifestyle or dietary preferences (i.e., their desire to eat only vegan or vegetarian food), (3) lack of knowledge about how to choose healthy recipes while exploiting their taste preferences, (4) choosing recipes that maximize the use of available ingredients in their kitchen. Numerous researchers have been working in this field and developed various applications and systems to suggest healthy recipes. Apart from unhealthy eating, household food wastage has become a public problem, and some of the causes, which trigger it are users’ taste preferences (i.e., disliking of the food), and not cooking food before ingredients expiry dates. Thus, we propose a personalized recipes recommender system as a proof of concept called CAPRECIPES, which is based on context-awareness. It tackles the aforementioned barriers and improves the users’ experiences by providing the recommendations of personalized recipes with minimal efforts while exploiting their dynamically changing contexts. CAPRECIPES also helps in the reduction of food wastage as it first shows the recipes, which contain the ingredients that are expiring soon and matches with users’ taste preferences. It also considers that recipes do not violate users’ health restrictions and nutritional goals, and use the maximum number of available ingredients in users’ kitchen. The proposed system gathers users’ taste preferences by exploiting two third-party social media applications (i.e., Facebook and YouTube) and collaborative-based filtering algorithm. This thesis also explores various natural language processing techniques such as text analysis and parts of speech tagging to identify the recipes’ preferences and to find the most relevant match for each recipe or ingredient having different names. / Graduate

Contemporary cities challenge with complex problems. Different aspects of problems can be listed like ecological, demographical, economical or spatial. These problems require smart solutions. Increasing population and urbanization also force us to develop intelligent approaches to create economically, socially and environmentally sustainable cities. It&rsquo / s important that local authorities and planners have to have precise data to take actions against day to day urban problems. Collecting data and turning them in a knowledge are valuable for taking decisions and formulating urban policies. ICT technologies help spatial planners and decision-makers for collecting data and using them for taking agile and smart decisions. These smart solutions can be applied to different domains of cities. This thesis aims at elaborating the smart city concept and its potentials for solving complex urban challenges. A general analysis of world examples and a more profound analysis of a case study, namely Singapore Intelligent Island, have helped understanding the principles and criteria for attaining smartness in cities. The inferences from these analyses can provide a basis for the Turkish context. There are certain policies driven by Ministry of Environment and Urbanism in Turkey. Strategic action plans and legislative regulations can be a base for smart solutions for Turkish context.

The aim of the thesis Development of Smart Cities in the region of Latin America applied on the case of Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro stands on their comparison provided according to application of six axes smart city concept. Both cities provide their individual approach in their formulation and implementation of smart city initiative. According to this comparison this paper will prove that even though that there is not yet a uniform smart city definition there are indicators according to which it is possible to form a general a framework to identify smart cities. This framework will be important to prove several things about smart cities. They will be necessary for the future growth of humanity as cities become more and more important. This will happen by allowing for better functioning of cities and better use of existing resources. These cities will start to operate for their citizens in ways that lessen the impact of the environment while allowing cities to grow across multiple sectors while improving quality of life among a city s residents. This implementation of ITC technologies will prove a rising tide that will lift the city s poor by empowering their economic lives by improving quality of life and giving better access to resources. The comparison of the two cities will also prove that Rio de Janeiro through its many smart initiatives is further along in its path to becoming a smart city than Mexico City. The difference between the two will also prove just how important smart cities are to the region s future. Mexico City s projects have not been as holistic as those taken in Brazil s largest city. Rio de Janeiro s implementation of projects like COR have transformed the city allowing it to become one of the smartest cities in the region and the world. The COR has implemented ITC technologies and initiatives that have transformed every sector of the six-axes approach model.

我們提出的智慧型睡眠監測系統，是基於影像分析技術進行睡眠品質觀測，並利用所得到的數據來推斷最佳的喚醒時間。此系統命名為iWakeUp，利用非接觸式的方法來收集影像資料並進行後續處理，此裝置將被安裝在一般的臥室來幫助睡眠者，以期成為增進智慧家庭生活品質的一環。在此論文中，我們將會描述iWakeUp的各個模組包括測定動作量、推斷睡眠階段乃至於如何建立喚醒機制。更特別的是，我們考慮了喚醒時間與喚醒機制的關係，於較早的時間喚醒必須具有更高的信心度，否則將付出較大的代價，反之亦然。另外為了處理晨間臥室中的光影變化，不同的背景模型也已被整合測試，以期讓系統可以提升長時間觀測的準確度。最後，我們也進行了使用iWakeUp的臨床實驗，結果指出使用iWakeUp喚醒的睡眠者具有較低的嗜睡感與更好的活力。 / We present a video-based monitoring system to determine the sleep status and optimal wakeup time in this thesis. We envision a smart living space in which a data collection and processing module named iWakeUp is installed in the bedroom to record and monitor sleep in a non-invasive manner. We describe the overall structure of the iWakeUp system, including the procedure to measure amount of motion, the method for inferring wake/sleep status from the acquired video and the logics for deciding the optimal wakeup time. In particular, a time-dependent decision rule has been incorporated to account for unequal penalties when classification error occurs. Furthermore, various background modeling techniques have been examined to address lighting changes at dawn in the bedroom for long-term monitoring. Validation experiments are carried out to compare the alertness level upon awakening with/without reported a lower level of sleepiness and higher level of vigorousness in comparison to the control group.