Technologies of austerity urbanism: the “smart city” agenda in Italy (2011–2013)

In the heyday of the late 2000s financial crisis, austerity urbanism became a dominant practice of state financial restructuring—an intensification in the encroachment of the neoliberal project into the agendas of local governments. In the specific case of Italy, which faced political and economic distress between 2011 and 2013, “smart city” policies became one of the foundational political technologies for the implementation of austerity measures. In this paper, I analyse how the smart city provided a lexicon for urban austerity through a series of different sites and vehicles of policymaking, from practitioners to companies and other institutions. I argue that smart city discourses and practices functioned as a political technology that was effective in justifying cost containment measures and supporting the shift to pro-innovation public expenditures. Yet, at the same time, the smart city techno-utopian vocabulary created spaces where other meanings and, potentially, alternative political outcomes were made possible by diverse alignments of knowledge and expertise.     

Governing a city of unicorns: technology capital and the urban politics of San Francisco

San Francisco is now widely considered to be the most important city in the world for the location of new technology start-up firms, especially high valuation “unicorns,” and is increasingly seen as both a locational and metaphorical extension of Silicon Valley. In this paper, I trace some of the political strategies and tensions that have accompanied the city’s prominence in this area, and in particular the distinctive role of technology and venture capital in the political economy of urban development. The paper has four empirical sections. It describes (1) the political machinations surrounding the 2011 and 2015 municipal elections, which saw the election of Ed Lee as Mayor with significant support from individual technology investors such as Ron Conway and Marc Benioff, and accompanied by various “tech-friendly” policy shifts; (2) the foundation of the “tech chamber of commerce” sf.citi as a means of enhancing the policy influence of the tech industry in San Francisco; (3) the introduction of a low taxation regime in the city’s Central Market area that has attracted technology companies such as Twitter as tenants; and (4) the urban policy tensions associated with the evolution of new “sharing economy” firms such as Uber and Airbnb, which have aggressively challenged municipal regulations in the taxi and property rental fields. Throughout these machinations, we can see a reshaping of capital fractions, with venture and angel capital increasingly involved in reengineering the labor, housing, and public transport markets of the city in order to circumvent the accumulation problems that tech investors had suffered in the earlier dot.com failures.     

基于智慧管网的高性能通信前置系统的研究与应用

针对在智慧管网环境下,大量多元化智能终端设备或传感设备接入前置机时,如何统一入口进行海量数据的高效能通信,提出了一种可行的解决方案。依据该方案开发的智慧管网通信前置系统,可以实现多台前置机高效协同通信与负载均衡,能实时获取海量的城市管线设施传感数据,是一种通信能力可扩展的高性能通信前置系统。     

公共服务共享平台设计与研究——以白银市为例

实现对智慧城市大数据中公共服务类的多尺度、非结构化、多源化、海量数据共享与应用是智慧城市建设所面临的巨大挑战。本文以白银市公共服务实体为研究对象,研究并设计了白银市公共服务共享平台。分析了公共服务数据内容,按照空间数据和属性数据两大类进行采集、处理以及数据建库。最后设计了共享平台总体结构框架和公共服务数据显示、编辑、检索和空间分析等功能。     

智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力评价

提升旅游竞争力是智慧旅游城市建设的核心目标。在借鉴前人研究的基础上,建立包括5个一级指标、14个二级指标和33个三级指标的智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力评价指标体系,选取北京、南京、武汉、成都、大连、厦门等12个首批国家智慧旅游试点城市,通过模拟仿真运算构建智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力评价BP神经网络模型,并运用该模型对上述智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力进行评价和分析。结果表明：① 旅游科技创新竞争力是影响智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力最关键的一级指标,其他一级指标按重要性排序依次为旅游经济发展竞争力、旅游发展保障竞争力、旅游发展潜力竞争力和旅游环境支撑竞争力;② 中国智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力整体水平不高且极不均衡,根据评价等级和竞争态势分为5类。第一类北京市是中国智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力的标杆,5项一级指标评价值均领先于其他城市,总评价值高达0.887,评价等级AA、竞争态势“优势”;第二类南京市旅游环境支撑竞争力评价值与北京市并列第1,旅游经济发展竞争力、旅游科技创新竞争力和旅游发展保障竞争力评价值均位列第2,总评价值0.536,明显高于除北京市外的其他智慧旅游城市,评价等级BB、竞争态势“较强”;第三类武汉、大连、成都、厦门、镇江、温州、烟台7市代表目前中国智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力的普遍水平,5项一级指标评价值偏低且差距不明显,总评价值在0.3~0.4之间,评价等级B、竞争态势“一般”;第四类福州、洛阳2市绝大多数一级指标评价值较低,总评价值在0.2~0.3之间,评价等级CC、竞争态势“较弱”;第五类黄山市总评价值仅0.176,评价等级C、竞争态势“弱势”;③ 构建的智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力评价BP神经网络模型具有较好的科学性、普适性和可操作性,根据评价值的大小判断智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力的优劣,比照指标体系寻找差距并加以完善,同时对评价指标进行动态监测,将是智慧旅游城市旅游竞争力研究的重要发展方向。     

区块链安全综述

区块链技术提供了一种在开放环境中存储数据、执行交易和处理业务的新方法,具有去中心化、防篡改等优势.从以比特币为代表的1.0时代,到以以太坊为代表的2.0时代,区块链技术已经对金融、物联网、供应链等行业产生了革命性的影响.然而由于技术和管理等方面的问题,目前区块链技术仍面临着很多安全挑战.首先,本文从信息安全、系统安全和隐私安全3个角度讨论了恶意信息攻击、51%攻击、智能合约攻击、拒绝服务攻击等8种区块链技术面临的攻击,分析了这些攻击的原理、执行过程和破坏性.接着,从以上3个角度详细讨论了智能矿池、Securify分析工具、混合技术、零知识证明等12种区块链安全保障技术,分析了这些安全保障技术的原理、执行过程、优点和局限性.最后,对区块链技术的未来研究方向进行了展望.     

基于Fabric区块链的智能合约协同开发系统

针对传统协同开发系统普遍采用"中心化"存储架构带来的单点故障、数据不可信、故障难以追责等安全问题,以及传统协同办公系统仅支持单一企业内部办公的问题,本文借助超级账本Fabric区块链技术以及业务流程管理和服务组合技术实现了一款基于Fabric区块链的智能合约协同开发系统.系统架构中首先结合传统中心化存储技术和区块链去中心化存储技术,通过将系统核心业务数据信息存储在区块链分布式账本中而把业务流程管理等不重要的数据存储在传统数据库中解决了"中心化"存储管理带来的安全信任问题.其次系统通过结合超级账本联盟链技术提供的企业联盟的特点使得系统可以应用于企业联盟办公中,解决了单一办公的问题.     

基于Android手机手势和语音控制的人机交互系统设计

针对普通遥控器控制智能小车的局限性,结合移动互联网的应用,提出了一种新的人机交互智能小车控制系统的研究方案——一种基于Android手机方向（重力）传感器和语音控制的蓝牙小车控制系统.以Android手机作为上位机,包括语音系统、方向（重力）传感器系统,利用蓝牙通信技术与单片机总控制中心、蓝牙模块、电机驱动模块、蜂鸣器和LED模块、避障模块等组成的下位机进行通信,实现对蓝牙智能小车的实时控制.通过实物制作和测试,验证了系统的可操作性和实用性,同时也为智能轮椅、仓库管理等领域的实际应用奠定了一定的技术基础.     

Designing air ticket taxes for climate change mitigation: insights from a Swedish valuation study

Research on air travellers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for climate change mitigation has focussed on voluntary emissions offsetting so far. This approach overlooks policy relevant knowledge as it does not consider that people may value public goods higher if they are certain that others also contribute. To account for potential differences, this study investigates Swedish adults’ WTP for a mandatory air ticket surcharge both for short- and long-distance flights. Additionally, policy relevant factors influencing WTP for air travel emissions reductions were investigated. The results suggest that mean WTP is higher in the low-cost setting associated with short-distance flights (495 SEK/ tCO₂; 50 EUR/ tCO₂) than for long-distance flights (295 SEK/ tCO₂; 30 EUR/t CO₂). The respondents were more likely to be willing to pay the air ticket tax if they were not frequent flyers, if they were women, had a left political view, if they had a sense of responsibility for their emissions and if they preferred earmarking revenues from the tax for climate change mitigation and sustainable transport projects.

Key policy insights

• A mandatory air ticket tax is a viable policy option that might receive majority support among the population.

• While a carbon-based air ticket tax promises to be an effective tool to generate revenues, its potential steering effect appears to be lower for low cost contexts (short-distance flights) than for high cost contexts (long-distance flights).

• Policy consistency regarding the tax base and its revenue use may increase public acceptability of (higher) air ticket taxes. Earmarking revenues is clearly preferred to tax recycling or general budget use.

• Insights about the personal drivers behind WTP for emissions reductions from air travel can help to inform targeting and segmentation of policy interventions.

     

The differentiated impact of emissions trading system based on company size

Most countries implementing an emissions trading system (ETS), such as EU member states, California in the US, or South Korea, are generally targeting large sized companies, which consume energy above a specific threshold. However, previous studies using computable general equilibrium (CGE) models have analyzed climate policies without considering company size. This may have led to inaccurate results because the impacts of climate policy would differ depending on the coverage of regulated companies. Accordingly, this study examines the environmental and economic impacts of greenhouse gas emission reduction policies, assuming policy results vary by firm size, as covered by the Korean emission trading system. To this end, a CGE model with a separate social accounting matrix based on company size is used to compare three scenarios that reflect different types of carbon pricing methods. The results show that greenhouse gases will be reduced to a lower extent and utility will decrease more if mitigation policies are only imposed to large companies.

Key policy insights

• Carbon pricing policies should consider the different impacts on companies of different sizes and industry sectors.

• Without considering the different sizes of companies covered by an ETS, the expected carbon price and its economic impact will be underestimated.

• Small and medium-sized companies will face more negative impacts than large companies in some industry sectors under an ETS, even if the mitigation burden is only faced by large companies.