On the scaling of functional spaces, from smart cities to cloud computing

Abstract

The study of spacetime, and its role in understanding functional systems has received little attention in information science. Recent work, on the origin of universal scaling in cities and biological systems, provides an intriguing insight into the functional use of space, and its measurable effects. Cities are large information systems, with many similarities to other technological infrastructures, so the results shed new light indirectly on the scaling the expected behaviour of smart pervasive infrastructures and the communities that make use of them.Using promise theory, I derive and extend the scaling laws for cities to expose what may be extrapolated to technological systems. From the promise model, I propose an explanation for some anomalous exponents in the original work, and discuss what changes may be expected due to technological advancement. * These notes are a continuation my series on semantic spacetimes. This document is inspired by the studies of coarse-grained universal scaling in cities [1-3], and a comparison with models developed over the past decade or two on information systems, e.g. [4,5]. As IT systems grow in scale, is natural to expect a bridge between the behaviours of cities, software networks, and other functionally 'smart' spaces, and one hopes for a better understanding of pervasive information technology in social contexts. Work on this, from the low level viewpoint, has already begin in [6,7]. I want to show how these views relate.

Spacetimes with Semantics (III) - The Structure of Functional Knowledge Representation and Artificial Reasoning

“…Example 138 (Economies of scale in smart cities) Recent work on what makes cities work and grow identified the economics of infrastructure at a key part of the scaling [123,124]. What smart knowledge base could assist in facilitating economies of scale in a city?…”