Provision Of Infrastructure Services Research Articles

Impact of downstream emissions cap-and-trade policy on electric vehicle and clean utility adoption

In this research, we incorporate emissions cap-and-trade policy into a decision making model for the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). We consider a fleet environment that includes a taxicab company (TC, a downstream tailpipe emitter) and an infrastructure-service provider (SP, an upstream energy user) that provides fast charging services. Both SP and TC must have allowances to account for their own emissions. We examine several scenarios including (i) an equilibrium case, where the selling and buying prices of carbon are equal, (ii) a “buy-low-sell-high” case with financial derivatives, and (iii) a “transient” case based on market conditions. We combine both analytical and computational approaches to assess the impact of various emission cap values and carbon pricing on TC’s adoption of EVs, SP’s utility provider selection, total emissions, and the profitability of both entities. For instance, in both buy-low-sell-high and transient scenarios, penalizing upstream utility emissions more than tailpipe emissions is preferred if electric vehicles are likely to be adopted; otherwise, tighter tailpipe emissions restrictions should be preferred. In the equilibrium case, we show that policymakers will require additional mandates or market mechanisms to influence TC and SP choices, as both entities prefer dirty technologies. Additionally, we demonstrate that providing intermediate utility options – less expensive, but dirtier or more expensive, but cleaner – did not result in reduced emissions. This indicates that expanding utility options may not be a necessary or high-priority policy.

Development of a cloud intelligent machine monitoring and control system

Facing the trend of Industry 4.0, the cloud-based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system employing cloud computing and IoT technology can help the manufacturing industry reduce software investment and system maintenance costs. However, manufacturers may need to install new sensors and controllers, the connection of SCADA system and shop floor machine controller, monitoring dashboard design and implementation usually need to outsource to an experienced system integration company, which may impede medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs). This paper aims to develop a cloud-based intelligent machine monitoring and control system (CIM-MCS) framework, the service structure, and approach to deploying the CIM-MCS in a public cloud infrastructure platform and service provider. The package diagram is proposed for building the CIM-MCS’s virtual factory model to improve modeling efficiency and data stability. CIM-MCS and its SCADA application in a leading automatic filling and packaging production line show that the CIM-MCS is easy to implement. The transmission time is short and acceptable for practical application. The integration of CIM-MCS with a cloud-based advanced planning scheduling system has the advantage of real-time monitoring, production progress reporting, scheduling, and dispatching and achieves the goal of anytime, anywhere, anyone, and any platform operating an intelligent factory.

Pricing on‐demand services: Alternative ways of combining usage and access fees

Many firms are adopting an “everything or anything” as a service—“XaaS”—model to sell goods and value‐added services. Buyers for such goods are heterogeneous both in the number of units they desire and the valuations for each unit. Suppliers designing such revenue models can offer either a usage‐based per‐unit fee or an access‐based per‐period fee, often combining them both as a nonlinear two‐part tariff plan that imposes both types of fees on all buyers or let buyers self‐select from a menu of per‐unit and per‐period plans. We develop a theoretical model to analyze the economic implications of alternative designs for mixing per‐unit and per‐period fees. Our analysis produces the following practical insights on these plans' profitability and market coverage. First, the menu is generally a better way of combining access and usage fees for a firm selling digital goods with zero variable costs. Second, the preferred design switches to a two‐part tariff if the firm's production environment resells or runs on top of a back‐end infrastructure or data service provider that imposes nonnegligible variable costs. Third, we show that the revenue advantage of these two designs (which employ both fees) over a simple plan that employs only one fee (best of per unit and per period) is most significant when the rate of change in marginal valuation is relatively similar across buyers.

Exploring the social legitimacy of urban road PPPs in Nigeria

Abstract Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become an effective and efficient contractual agreement between the state and the private sector for providing infrastructure services. Yet, their social acceptance and legitimacy are questionable. Communities accept such changes to their social contract with the government only if the PPPs are perceived to be legitimate as public institutions are not trusted by the communities. As a result, the disappointments and controversial underperformance of PPPs in Nigeria, like most developing countries, have been generally associated with community opposition due to any agency or competence-related failure. Hence, the need for this study. Drawing on data from two urban road PPPs in Nigeria, we identify the following three deeply internalised shared beliefs that shape a community group’s perceptions and attitudes towards an infrastructure built by PPPs in their neighbourhood: the public services should be provided for free, PPPs are created mainly to serve perceived ‘corrupt’ politicians and public institutions are not effective and efficient in service delivery. These beliefs, combined with the community’s structural power, explain why some community groups oppose (or support) infrastructure PPPs within their proximity, and the growing legitimacy challenge PPPs face. Our paper in this regard provides a guidance for designing effective and targeted community engagement strategies for PPP projects and contributed to PPP stakeholder management and mainstream stakeholder management research.

Distributed dual-layer autonomous closed loops for self-protection of 5G/6G IoT networks from distributed denial of service attacks

Internet of Things (IoT) is a major application area of the Fifth-Generation (5G) and beyond capable of providing massive machine-type communications (mMTC) at a large scale. It enables a wide range of applications such as smart cities, smart grids, smart factories and so on. In light of the huge number of devices involved, it is prohibitive to manage the massive large-scale cyber security scenarios manually. Therefore, closed automation loops are essential to automate such management. This paper proposes a new cognitive closed loop system to offer distributed dual-layer self-protection capabilities to battle against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The proposed system features the novel usage of concurrent autonomous closed-loops for the different stakeholders’ business roles: Digital Service Providers (DSPs) and Infrastructure Service Providers (ISPs) respectively, suitable to provide a multi-layer self-protection defence mechanisms across multiple administrative domains. It has been designed, implemented and experimentally validated. Empirical results have shown that there is a high potential in the collaboration between the stakeholders to achieve the common goal of self-protection of infrastructures. It makes a major difference in the performance of the whole infrastructure for detecting, analysing and mitigating the threat when the proposed distributed dual-layer loops are applied instead of a standalone loop. The system has achieved a 78.12% of effectiveness compared with a 4.73% of the standalone counterpart, for a large scale attack when stopping 256 infected devices. Also, the proposed system has achieved a response time of 18 s whereas the standalone has required 57 s, achieving an optimization of performance of 316%.

Research data management in agricultural sciences in Germany: We are not yet where we want to be.

To meet the future challenges and foster integrated and holistic research approaches in agricultural sciences, new and sustainable methods in research data management (RDM) are needed. The involvement of scientific users is a critical success factor for their development. We conducted an online survey in 2020 among different user groups in agricultural sciences about their RDM practices and needs. In total, the questionnaire contained 52 questions on information about produced and (re-)used data, data quality aspects, information about the use of standards, publication practices and legal aspects of agricultural research data, the current situation in RDM in regards to awareness, consulting and curricula as well as needs of the agricultural community in respect to future developments. We received 196 (partially) completed questionnaires from data providers, data users, infrastructure and information service providers. In addition to the diversity in the research data landscape of agricultural sciences in Germany, the study reveals challenges, deficits and uncertainties in handling research data in agricultural sciences standing in the way of access and efficient reuse of valuable research data. However, the study also suggests and discusses potential solutions to enhance data publications, facilitate and secure data re-use, ensure data quality and develop services (i.e. training, support and bundling services). Therefore, our research article provides the basis for the development of common RDM, future infrastructures and services needed to foster the cultural change in handling research data across agricultural sciences in Germany and beyond.

Game theory-based dynamic resource allocations scheme in virtual networks

ABSTRACT This paper deals with resource allocation challenge focusing on Infrastructure Providers (InPs) and Service Providers (SPs) in virtual network environments. In such environments, resources (storage space, bandwidth, CPU, …) can be reallocated easily between users, involving Cloud services widespread. However, while these resources come from physical network, the allocations are constrained. To maintain on demand resources provisioning, service providers must frequently deal with many parameters (use duration, price, availability, fidelity, …) which involve unfair and non-optimal allocation scheme. We propose two game theory-based solutions that allow physical infrastructure providers to assign resources to service providers. Whereas literature works consider only one type of resource, we consider several types, such as storage space, bandwidth, RAM and processor. We design a set of non-cooperative games between physical infrastructure providers and service providers. Simulation results show that our solutions optimize resource usage and service quality compared to the literature.

Planning to grow, planning to rock on – infrastructure management and development in shrinking municipalities

ABSTRACT Previous work on shrinking cities has mainly addressed shrinkage and its effects in large and former industrial cities and not as much in municipalities in rural areas. In this paper, we focus on infrastructure challenges, responsibilities, and growth strategies in Swedish municipalities. We argue that there is a tension between the responsibilities connected to the municipal operations and infrastructure challenges posed by being a shrinking municipality on the one hand, and the ways the municipalities are planning for growth on the other hand. The municipalities are all struggling with the effects of population decline, leading to economic strains in all areas, including infrastructure management and development, but investments in infrastructure are many times directed towards the establishment of specific industries such as the tourism or mining industry with the belief of attracting new inhabitants, visitors, firms and industry. In addition, many of the municipalities lack the capacity and jurisdiction needed to manage the infrastructure development in some areas such as fibre optics, district heating, and electricity grids. Also, in some municipalities, the populations are spread over large geographical areas but must still provide infrastructure services to all inhabitants.

Multi-Stakeholder Service Placement via Iterative Bargaining With Incomplete Information

Mobile edge computing based on cloudlets is an emerging paradigm to improve service quality by bringing computation and storage facilities closer to end users and reducing operating cost for infrastructure providers (IPs) and service providers (SPs). To maximize their individual benefits, IP and SP have to reach an agreement about placing and executing services on particular cloudlets. We show that a Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS) yields the optimal solution with respect to social cost and fairness if IP and SP have complete information about the parameters of their mutual cost functions. However, IP and SP might not be willing or able to share all information due to business secrets or technical limitations. Therefore, we present a novel iterative bargaining approach without complete mutual information to achieve substantial cost reductions for both IP and SP. Furthermore, we investigate how different degrees of information sharing impact social cost and fairness of the different approaches. Our evaluation based on the mobile augmented reality game Ingress shows that our approach achieves up to about 82% of the cost reduction that the NBS achieves and a cost reduction of up to 147% compared to traditional Take-it-or-Leave-it approaches, despite incomplete information.

The Evolution of Green Building Amenities: The Case of EV Charging Stations

The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) by consumers has been increasing over the past years. It raises the need for charging stations in locations where EVs can be charged between uses. Office, apartment, and retail properties represent such locations. If tenants are willing to pay a premium for the ability to charge EVs between uses, a sales price premium is expected for buildings with this green building feature. This study uses commercial real estate transaction data to investigate whether the sales price premium for EV charging stations 1) varies across property types, locations, and building sizes, and 2) is distinct from the sales price premium for green building certifications (LEED or EnergyStar). Results suggest that the presence of EV charging stations adds a premium to the sales prices of 1) office, 2) suburban, and 3) medium-sized properties. The premium for EV charging stations exists independently from the premium for LEED or EnergyStar certification. However, charging stations in combination with green building certifications do not add an additional sales price premium. The findings of this study have implications for the decisionmaking of commercial real estate investors and marketing strategy of EV infrastructure service providers.

Contribution of Multiprotocol Label Switching Traffic Engineering in Throughput Enhancement

Multiprotocol Label Switching traffic engineering offers competency to all types of service providers including mobile,internet. Service provider should provide highly stable and seamless connections over the globe for customers connected to network. This paper describes designing of Multiprotocol Label Switching along with traffic engineering with the help of Interior Gateway Protocol. Multiprotocol Label Switchingtraffic engineering also assures path, link and node protection functionality along with router reflector features which always ensure better efficiency and easy administration. The efficient use of available resources in internet service provider infrastructures is one of the key requirement to meet today's highly demanding business which can be possible with the help of Multiprotocol Label Switchingtraffic engineering. In this paper, one of solution has been demonstrated to mitigate subjected the requirement.

Economic analysis of vehicle infrastructure cooperation for driving automation

The current approach to driving automation has been primarily vehicle-centric. However, a vehicle-infrastructure cooperative approach, in which infrastructure and vehicles cooperate to perform the different driving tasks, may prevail in enabling automated driving. This paper conducts an economic analysis of vehicle infrastructure cooperation for automated driving. In doing so, we present a model that captures investment decisions in vehicle automation and infrastructure digitalization and their effect on travelers’ purchase and travel decisions. Our analysis shows that, under certain conditions, equipping both infrastructure and vehicles is socially optimal. However, by analyzing strategic interactions between infrastructure support service providers and automakers, we show that lack of coordination between these two actors results in suboptimal investment in vehicle automation and infrastructure digitalization. Especially, when these two technologies are complementary, service providers are reluctant to invest in digital infrastructure and vehicle manufacturers tend to over equip their vehicles so as to avoid relying on infrastructure technology. Thus, we conclude by showing that better coordination between automakers and service providers – under the form of profit sharing – is welfare-improving and could potentially yield the socially optimal levels of automation and digitalization.

Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities in Public Spaces: Welcomed or Shunned?

This viewpoint discusses the role of inclusive and accessible public spaces in enabling enjoyment of human rights by persons with psychosocial disabilities. It acknowledges that in accessing public spaces, accessibility requirements for people with psychosocial disabilities often go unnoticed and are rarely taken into account while those of persons with more visible disabilities are often considered.ThevViewpoint bases its propositions on the lived experiences of the author, and uses this foundation to discuss critical issues on how persons with psychosocial disabilities access (or do not) public spaces. Issues addressed include stigma, violence and human rights abuses as they face persons with psychosocial disabilities in public spaces; reflections on urban designs and whether this is done with the broader perspective of supporting inclusion of all persons with disabilities; accessibility as a key concept running throughout the paper; as well as the views on participation of persons with disabilities and industry in making public spaces accessible and inclusive of marginalized populations. A key theme that is also considered is how important attitude changes are necessary in ensuring persons with disabilities are accessing public spaces, and also thoughts around the roles of patience, kindness and empathy.The propositions in the Viewpoint are based on human rights and development frameworks including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; the New Urban Agenda (2016), as well as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2016). Finally, the viewpoint offers proposals on the way forward; proposing for example that governments at all levels, in particular local and regional governments, together with organisations of persons with disabilities must build the staff capacity of infrastructure service providers and urban practitioners in understanding the different accessibility requirements for all types of impairments when reflecting on inclusive urban designs.
 
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An Evaluation of the Legal and Regulatory Framework for Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in Nigeria

The privatisation of its industries and utilities started in Britain in the early 1980s and since then the private sector became involved in the ownership, operation and management of public assets and the provision of infrastructure services. The era of government providing singlehandedly providing infrastructural development and facilities are long gone. Government all over the world in this present dispensation cooperate with private sectors in the provision and management of various infrastructural facilities in their respective countries . Privatisation and economic liberalization became a standard policy prescription by international development institutions for most developing economies. The most common form of private investment in infrastructures has been the Public-Private Partnership (PPP). The success or otherwise of PPP in delivering infrastructure in developing societies such as Nigeria has, however, been a vexed issue. Since 1998, Nigeria has enacted a number of laws to regulate private investment in infrastructure development. One reason why policymakers opt for PPP include the need for the government to tap from private sector skill and expertise, the necessity for the public sector to concentrate on policymaking as well as the urgency to meet the increase in demand for infrastructure An examination of the legal and institutional framework for private sector investment in infrastructure assets and services and its prospects for Nigeria and other developing countries would be undertaken in this paper. Keywords: public-private partnership, infrastructural development, Nigeria DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/118-05 Publication date: February 28 th 2022

Performance evaluation of multi-ONU customers in ethernet passive optical networks

Resources of Passive Optical Networks (PONs) can be shared by a diverse spectrum of customers such as residential users, business subscribers, mobile network operators, and service providers. A PON customer can rent one or several Optical Network Units (ONUs) from an Infrastructure Service Provider. The ONUs of a customer (multi-ONU customer) can be subject to large spatiotemporal traffic variability, resulting in underutilization of particular ONUs and overutilization of others. The Interleaved Polling with Adaptive Cycle Time with Multi-ONU SLAs support (MOS-IPACT) algorithm has been recently proposed to promote the redistribution of unused bandwidth of underloaded ONUs of a multi-ONU customer. This paper introduces an analytical model to evaluate the duration of idle periods in bandwidth usage, as well as a performance evaluation of the MOS-IPACT algorithm in networks with traditional and multi-ONU customers. Numerical results show that the MOS-IPACT algorithm efficiently distributes the excess bandwidth among the ONUs of multi-ONU customers without compromising the bandwidth availability.

Efforts to improve by provision of infrastructure services and extracuricular implementation learning achievement

The main objective of this research is to define and explain, through the provision of facilities and extracurricular implementation, the enhancement of student learning achievement. The data collection tool is observation, questionnaires and documentation. Quantitative research is the type of research performed in this study. The sampling technique in this study was purposive random sampling, namely all 125 students of MTs N Sekecamtan Sekayu. The approach used is the methodology of descriptive analysis and multiple linear regression. Using SPSS version 23 for windows, the data was analyzed descriptively.From the results of the analysis test shows that; The simultaneous influence of the provision of infrastructure and implementation of extracurricular activities on improving learning achievement. There is a substantial rise in the provision of learning achievement facilities. The implementation of extracurricular activities on student achievement is dramatically growing.

Efforts to improve by provision of infrastructure services and extracuricular implementation learning achievement

The main objective of this research is to define and explain, through the provision of facilities and extracurricular implementation, the enhancement of student learning achievement. The data collection tool is observation, questionnaires and documentation. Quantitative research is the type of research performed in this study. The sampling technique in this study was purposive random sampling, namely all 125 students of MTs N Sekecamtan Sekayu. The approach used is the methodology of descriptive analysis and multiple linear regression. Using SPSS version 23 for windows, the data was analyzed descriptively.From the results of the analysis test shows that; The simultaneous influence of the provision of infrastructure and implementation of extracurricular activities on improving learning achievement. There is a substantial rise in the provision of learning achievement facilities. The implementation of extracurricular activities on student achievement is dramatically growing

Effects of floods on infrastructure users in Kenya

AbstractEvents associated with climate change such as floods increase outages of infrastructure services. Developing countries largely react rather than being proactive in managing the effects of floods on infrastructure. This is clearly demonstrated by inadequate level of preparedness experienced before, during, and after events of floods. This research discusses the effects of floods on infrastructure users in Kenya based on a primary study carried out in 27 counties out of 47 counties in Kenya. The research findings show that events of floods in Kenya disrupt provision of infrastructure services by damaging road networks, energy facilities, buildings, and social facilities. The study reveals Kenya spend huge amount of resources in recovery phase to address the effects of floods. The study notes that local communities play a critical role in responding and recovery from floods. The study also reveals Kenya lacks climate sensitive policies, legislation, and development plans that make reference to resilience in order to protect infrastructure against known and foreseen climate risks. The study recommends that building resilience in infrastructure to respond and withstand the effects of floods demands common vision among different stakeholders.

URBAN PLANNING MEASURES FOR SMART CITY DEVELOPMENT

Cities represent the driving force of urban development in economic, social, and cultural life which is reflecting on the spatial organization of human society. As a result, the formulation of the national strategic plan into action at the local level need to correspond the requirements of current development. Urban planning measures for controlling the development also plays an important role as an encouragement instrument as well as granting the right to utilize the land for public purposes. In this study, the application of urban planning measures under the concept of smart city development was studied to understand the needs of all stakeholders and create an appropriate investment model in Thailand by using factor analysis technique. The government sector is the key player on the role of providing infrastructure services in addition to support and guide the direction of smart city development. For the role of private sector, investment environment would encourage them to help on upgrading technology, infrastructure, and unlocking public data. The smart city development approach can open up new value chains and opportunities. Therefore, the utilize urban planning measures as a tool for urban development will bring benefit on transforming cities as well as making them smarter and more sustainable which are an important goal for integrated urban development approach.

Regulatory exemptions illustrate the humanitarian-development nexus in highly developed cities

In recent years, forcible displacement has increased around the globe, with significant numbers of people seeking shelter in urban areas. However, increased densification has added pressure to housing in these urban host communities, creating a situation where temporary accommodation is not always readily available. The integration of humanitarian response and pre-existing sustainable development activities is necessary to avoid disruptions to the provision of infrastructure services. This humanitarian-development nexus (HD-nexus) has proven to be difficult to operationalize. Using the experience of Sweden in 2015, this study looks at the provision of temporary accommodation for asylum-seekers within the existing regulatory framework as a place to explore the HD-nexus. Results show that humanitarian actors justify circumventing government institutions to achieve short-term response while development activities operate within these same institutions. Regulatory exemptions are one pathway by which we can observe this fundamental difference between the two approaches. Interviews with 19 individuals from government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private companies were qualitatively analyzed to relate legitimacy with humanitarian response and development logics in the context of providing temporary accommodation. Results show that although formal regulatory definitions of temporary for temporary accommodations exist, this is not always adopted by stakeholders, leading to regulatory exemptions and non-compliance. Findings support decision-makers in improving response time and coordination for future events, and development goals of sustainable urban development.