scholarly journals Tracking Light Aircraft with Smartphones at Low Altitudes

Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Benjamin Lilly ◽  
Deniz Cetinkaya ◽  
Umut Durak

Most aircraft in the world are tracked by various surveillance radar systems. Currently there is no legal requirement for light aircraft to be fitted with a transponder; however, this does not mean light aircraft should not be tracked. By adding a cheap, live tracking solution for light aircraft, the safety of low-flying aircraft pilots can be greatly increased. The radio operators who coordinate the aircraft can have an improved understanding of the air traffic and in the event of an emergency, the position of the aircraft can be relayed to emergency services. This paper proposes an approach to use a smartphone as an aircraft transponder to improve the radar tracking capabilities of low-flying aircraft. This study presents a practical and effective approach as well as a prototype implementation. The study includes the development of the three main components: (1) A mobile application that transforms a smartphone into an aircraft transponder; exploiting the GPS functionalities, (2) a desktop application that visualizes the aircraft data in real time on a map, and (3) a backend that bridges the mobile and the desktop application. To evaluate the study, flight tests were performed in a real aircraft over the Isle of Wight in the UK.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Balaji Hariharan ◽  
Ramesh Guntha

<p>With the <em>Landslide Tracker</em> mobile app's launch to track landslides through a crowdsourcing model during the monsoon season of 2020, we learned several important lessons that may help us improve the data quality, volunteer participation, and participation from institutions. The '<em>Landslide Tracker</em>' mobile application allows tracking the landslides and details such as GPS location, date & time of occurrence, images, type, material, size, impact, area, geology, geomorphology, and comments. This app is available on Google Play Store for free, and at http://landslides.amrita.edu, with software conceived and developed by Amrita University in the context of the UK NERC/FCDO funded LANDSLIP research project (http://www.landslip.org/). The <em>Landslide tracker</em> app was released during the 2020 monsoon season, and more than 250 landslides were recorded through the app across India and the world.</p><p>Due to the nature of crowdsourcing, we have seen test entries, duplicate entries, entries with apparent mistakes such as the wrong location. In many cases, these entries were deleted by the administrator through proactive verification. To sustain the removal of invalid entries with continued usage, we can allow users to mark a landslide for verification. The administrator can remove invalid entries or approach the original contributor to update the data with minimum effort. Currently it takes under three minutes to record a landslide. To reduce the time further, it is requested to make a single page form to record date, location, images and few questions. To improve volunteer participation for contributing and validating landslide entries, we can implement digital rewards such as points, badges, titles, leader boards, etc. Additionally, allow users to like, comment, and share the landslide entries to improve the engagement. To improve the participation of universities, disaster management authorities, district authorities, and other governmental and non-governmental agencies for contributing and using landslide information, we can implement the institutional management functionality. It allows the institution to configure the staff and manager user. The manager can review, update, delete entries from the team, get reports on the contribution of the staff, and download and share the landslides contributed by the whole institution.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-124
Author(s):  
Sandy Henderson ◽  
Ulrike Beland ◽  
Dimitrios Vonofakos

On or around 9 January 2019, twenty-two Listening Posts were conducted in nineteen countries: Canada, Chile, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Germany (Frankfurt and Berlin), Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy (two in Milan and one in the South), Peru, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UK. This report synthesises the reports of those Listening Posts and organises the data yielded by them into common themes and patterns.


Healthcare ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Wathinani ◽  
Attila J. Hertelendy ◽  
Sultana Alhurishi ◽  
Abdulmajeed Mobrad ◽  
Riyadh Alhazmi ◽  
...  

The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has a direct and indirect effect on the different healthcare systems around the world. In this study, we aim to describe the impact on the utilization of emergency medical services (EMS) in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic. We studied cumulative data from emergency calls collected from the SRCA. Data were separated into three periods: before COVID-19 (1 January–29 February 2020), during COVID-19 (1 March–23 April 2020), and during the Holy Month of Ramadan (24 April–23 May 2020). A marked increase of cases was handled during the COVID-19 period compared to the number before pandemic. Increases in all types of cases, except for those related to trauma, occurred during COVID-19, with all regions experiencing increased call volumes during COVID-19 compared with before pandemic. Demand for EMS significantly increased throughout Saudi Arabia during the pandemic period. Use of the mobile application ASAFNY to request an ambulance almost doubled during the pandemic but remained a small fraction of total calls. Altered weekly call patterns and increased call volume during the pandemic indicated not only a need for increased staff but an alteration in staffing patterns.


Author(s):  
Jordan Bell ◽  
Lis Neubeck ◽  
Kai Jin ◽  
Paul Kelly ◽  
Coral L. Hanson

Physical activity referral schemes (PARS) are a popular physical activity (PA) intervention in the UK. Little is known about the type, intensity and duration of PA undertaken during and post PARS. We calculated weekly leisure centre-based moderate/vigorous PA for PARS participants (n = 448) and PARS completers (n = 746) in Northumberland, UK, between March 2019–February 2020 using administrative data. We categorised activity levels (<30 min/week, 30–149 min/week and ≥150 min/week) and used ordinal regression to examine predictors for activity category achieved. PARS participants took part in a median of 57.0 min (IQR 26.0–90.0) and PARS completers a median of 68.0 min (IQR 42.0–100.0) moderate/vigorous leisure centre-based PA per week. Being a PARS completer (OR: 2.14, 95% CI: 1.61–2.82) was a positive predictor of achieving a higher level of physical activity category compared to PARS participants. Female PARS participants were less likely (OR: 0.65, 95% CI: 0.43–0.97) to achieve ≥30 min of moderate/vigorous LCPA per week compared to male PARS participants. PARS participants achieved 38.0% and PARS completers 45.3% of the World Health Organisation recommended ≥150 min of moderate/vigorous weekly PA through leisure centre use. Strategies integrated within PARS to promote PA outside of leisure centre-based activity may help participants achieve PA guidelines.


1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Taylor

Editorial note. March 17th, 1971 was the fiftieth anniversary of the opening by Marie Stopes of her birth control clinic in Holloway, London, the first of its kind in the UK and possibly in the world. In recognition of this notable event, the Board of the Marie Stopes Memorial Foundation, in conjunction with the University of York, has established a Marie Stopes Memorial Lecture to be given annually for a term of years. The first of the series was delivered on 12th March in the Department of Sociology, University of York, by Mr Laurie Taylor of that department. In introducing the speaker, Dr G. C. L. Bertram, the Chairman, emphasized the great contribution made by Marie Stopes to human welfare and gave a brief history of the clinic, which was soon moved to Whitfield Street. On Marie Stopes' death in 1958 the Memorial Foundation was set up to manage the clinic, still in Whitfield Street, and as a working monument to a great women.Mr Taylor's script is printed below as delivered and it will be seen that the lecture was a notable one. Not only that, but it was delivered with the verve of a Shakespearean actor and the members of the large and appreciative audience will not readily forget the occasion.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Gillespie ◽  
Hugh Mackay ◽  
Matilda Andersson

AbstractThis article presents research on two key BBC World Service websites, BBC Persian Online and BBC Arabic Online. It draws on in-house BBC data, supplemented by our own semi-structured interviews with online editors and other key World Service staff. It examines where users of the two sites are located, their demographic characteristics and their views on and uses of the sites. The data is analyzed in the context of debates about the politics of diasporic media and communication networks and changing collective identities, the UK government's Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) strategy of 'digital diplomacy' and the World Service's stated public purpose of fostering a 'global conversation.' Our research has shown how the majority of users of both BBC Arabic and Persian Online services reside outside the geographical areas that the BBC World Service targets and may be defined as diasporic. And these two websites are not exceptional. Diasporic groups make increasing use of the BBC's online foreign language news sites but these transnational communication networks are an unintended consequence of the BBC's activities. We highlight how the internet is changing configurations of audiences and users at the BBC World Service as geographically dispersed language groups can log on to the news services from anywhere in the world. We argue that the BBC World Service can no longer be seen as an international broadcaster pursuing the BBC's motto 'nation shall speak peace unto nation.' Rather, as one of the world's largest news providers, it is implicated in the formation of new kinds of transnational communities and communications which has as yet unforeseen consequences for national identifications and for strategies of public diplomacy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 410-423
Author(s):  
Konstantin Konstantinovich Kolin

The article analyzes the modern concept of human capital and its role in the socioeconomic development of society. The structure of human capital in Russia and the state of its main components have been studied. The necessity of creating mechanisms for significantly more effective use of the intellectual potential of scientific and educational institutions of the country, as well as of the formation of a national innovation system, is shown. It is demonstrated that according to the World Bank estimates, today the national human capital in developing countries accounts for more than half of their national wealth, and in the developed countries of the world – for about 70-80%. Thus, human capital is now considered as the most important economic category, the importance of which will significantly increase in the 21st century. The author believes that it is advisable to use the positive experience of the functioning of such a system in China.


Author(s):  
Tatiana Grebennikova ◽  
Abbie N Jones ◽  
Clint Alan Sharrad

Irradiated graphite waste management is one of the major challenges of nuclear power-plant decommissioning throughout the world and significantly in the UK, France and Russia where over 85 reactors employed...


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 169-173
Author(s):  
Linda Nazarko

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has claimed the lives of over 150 000 people in the UK ( UK Government, 2021 ). The UK has the third highest death rate in the world and the fourth highest obesity rate ( Lobstein, 2021 ). Although the UK is a developed nation, many people in the UK experience poor health, as a result of being overweight and inactive. Healthcare workers are not immune from these issues. This article, the first in a series, explores how readers can remain healthy and well by making lifestyle choices that promote health.


Studia BAS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (67) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Iustina Alina Boitan ◽  
Kamilla Marchewka-Bartkowiak

The aim of the article is to identify the main components of government overall liabilities based on the Fiscal Risk Matrix classification introduced by the World Bank in 1999, and to estimate the amount and structure of these liabilities in European Union countries (EU Fiscal Risk Matrix). The climate liabilities definition and methodology included in the EU Fiscal Risk Matrix is also a novelty of the research. The study covered EU member states in the period 2018–2019, taking into account available data from the Eurostat database. On this basis, the EU Fiscal Risk Matrix was developed with the estimated structure of the burden of government liabilities for individual countries and the EU as a whole. The article used statistical and comparative analysis. The major conclusion of our research involves the proposal to implement a unified European methodology of government overall liabilities classification based on the EU Fiscal Risk Matrix to assess the fiscal debt burden and transparency of fiscal policy.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document