scholarly journals A MULTIDISCIPLINARY ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR STUDYING ACTIVE MOBILITY PATTERNS

Author(s):  
D. Orellana ◽  
C. Hermida ◽  
P. Osorio

Intermediate cities are urged to change and adapt their mobility systems from a high energy-demanding motorized model to a sustainable low-motorized model. In order to accomplish such a model, city administrations need to better understand active mobility patterns and their links to socio-demographic and cultural aspects of the population. During the last decade, researchers have demonstrated the potential of geo-location technologies and mobile devices to gather massive amounts of data for mobility studies. However, the analysis and interpretation of this data has been carried out by specialized research groups with relatively narrow approaches from different disciplines. Consequently, broader questions remain less explored, mainly those relating to spatial behaviour of individuals and populations with their geographic environment and the motivations and perceptions shaping such behaviour. Understanding sustainable mobility and exploring new research paths require an interdisciplinary approach given the complex nature of mobility systems and their social, economic and environmental impacts. Here, we introduce the elements for a multidisciplinary analytical framework for studying active mobility patterns comprised of three components: a) Methodological, b) Behavioural, and c) Perceptual. We demonstrate the applicability of the framework by analysing mobility patterns of cyclists and pedestrians in an intermediate city integrating a range of techniques, including: GPS tracking, spatial analysis, auto-ethnography, and perceptual mapping. The results demonstrated the existence of non-evident spatial behaviours and how perceptual features affect mobility. This knowledge is useful for developing policies and practices for sustainable mobility planning.

Author(s):  
D. Orellana ◽  
C. Hermida ◽  
P. Osorio

Intermediate cities are urged to change and adapt their mobility systems from a high energy-demanding motorized model to a sustainable low-motorized model. In order to accomplish such a model, city administrations need to better understand active mobility patterns and their links to socio-demographic and cultural aspects of the population. During the last decade, researchers have demonstrated the potential of geo-location technologies and mobile devices to gather massive amounts of data for mobility studies. However, the analysis and interpretation of this data has been carried out by specialized research groups with relatively narrow approaches from different disciplines. Consequently, broader questions remain less explored, mainly those relating to spatial behaviour of individuals and populations with their geographic environment and the motivations and perceptions shaping such behaviour. Understanding sustainable mobility and exploring new research paths require an interdisciplinary approach given the complex nature of mobility systems and their social, economic and environmental impacts. Here, we introduce the elements for a multidisciplinary analytical framework for studying active mobility patterns comprised of three components: a) Methodological, b) Behavioural, and c) Perceptual. We demonstrate the applicability of the framework by analysing mobility patterns of cyclists and pedestrians in an intermediate city integrating a range of techniques, including: GPS tracking, spatial analysis, auto-ethnography, and perceptual mapping. The results demonstrated the existence of non-evident spatial behaviours and how perceptual features affect mobility. This knowledge is useful for developing policies and practices for sustainable mobility planning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 10910
Author(s):  
Xavier Ros-Roca ◽  
Lídia Montero ◽  
Jaume Barceló

The estimation of the network traffic state, its likely short-term evolution, the prediction of the expected travel times in a network, and the role that mobility patterns play in transport modeling is usually based on dynamic traffic models, whose main input is a dynamic origin–destination (OD) matrix that describes the time dependencies of travel patterns; this is one of the reasons that have fostered large amounts of research on the topic of estimating OD matrices from the available traffic information. The complexity of the problem, its underdetermination, and the many alternatives that it offers are other reasons that make it an appealing research topic. The availability of new traffic data measurements that were prompted by the pervasive penetration of information and communications technology (ICT) applications offers new research opportunities. This study focused on GPS tracking data and explored two alternative modeling approaches regarding how to account for this new information to solve the dynamic origin–destination matrix estimation (DODME) problem, either including it as an additional term in the formulation model or using it in a data-driven modeling method to propose new model formulations. Complementarily, independently of the approach used, a key aspect is the quality of the estimated OD, which, as recent research has made evident, is not well measured by the conventional indicators. This study also explored this problem for the proposed approaches by conducting synthetic computational experiments to control and understand the process.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 9-18
Author(s):  
Arvydas Pacevičius

The publication features information on research done during the Bibliotheca Lituana project. In particular the focus is on collections of memory institutions, new perspectives on library and other memory institution, i.e. archives, museums, research. Modern library history has adopted relevant theoretical perspectives from social and cultural theory. Currently these perspectives incorporate not only the activities and collections of the aforementioned institutions but also the more widely interpreted information infrastructure, that do not have libraries as their main frame of reference. Problems faced publishing archival sources are also examined. It was determined that insufficient attention is given to research and publication of old catalogues, inventories and book listings. On the other hand a unified system and methodology for publishing of the aforementioned sources does not exist. We come to a conclusion that through new research paradigms, an interdisciplinary approach and change of thought in the archival, librarian and museology communities, we can start systematic research of libraries and other memory institutions. Their results would complement the pages of the continued Bibliotheca Lituana publications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (11) ◽  
pp. 461-466
Author(s):  
Matthew Armstrong

Levels of physical activity tend to be reduced in people with COPD. Matthew Armstrong discusses the benefits of improving activity levels in this group of patients It is well acknowledged that levels of physical activity in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are considerably lower than healthy-age matched individuals, with physical inactivity recognised as a key predictor of hospitalisation and mortality. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) has become a major tool for managing symptoms of COPD and the associated extra-pulmonary effects. However, inconsistencies surrounding its effectiveness in terms of improving physical activity remain due to the complex nature of physical activity. To overcome these inconsistencies, both pharmacological and behavioural interventions have been documented to aid improvements in physical activity, with behavioural interventions alongside PR found to be the most effective tool to promote levels of physical activity. Health professionals must therefore look to incorporate an interdisciplinary approach in order to best achieve improvements in physical activity levels in patients with COPD.


Author(s):  
Thanh Quy Ngo Thi ◽  
◽  
Hong Minh Nguyen Thi ◽  

Proverbs are important data depicting the traditional culture of each nation. Vietnamese proverbs, dated thousands of years ago, are an immense valuable treasure of experience which the Vietnamese people desire to pass to the younger generations. This paper aims to explore the unique and diversified world of intelligence and spirits of the Vietnamese through a condensed and special literary genre, as well as a traditional value of the nation (Nguyen Xuan Kinh 2013, Tran Ngoc Them 1996, Le Chi Que and Ngo Thi Thanh Quy 2014). Through an interdisciplinary approach, from an anthropological point of view, approaching proverbs we will open up a vast treasure of knowledge and culture of all Vietnamese generations. The study has examined over 16,000 Vietnamese proverbs and analysed three groups expressing Vietnamese people’s behaviors toward nature, society and their selves, and compared them with English and Japanese proverbs. The research has attempted to explore the beauty of Vietnamese language, cultural values and the souls and personalities of Vietnam. Approaching Vietnamese proverbs under the interdisciplinary perspective of language, culture and literature is a new research direction in the field of Social Sciences and Humanity in Vietnam. From these viewpoints, it is seen that proverbs have remarkably contributed to the language and culture of Vietnam as well as and constructed to the practice of language use in everyday life which is imaginary, meaningful and effective in communication. Furthermore, the study seeks to inspire the Vietnamese youth’s pride in national identity and to encourage their preservation and promotion for traditional values of the nation in the context of integration and globalisation. In the meantime, it would be favourable to introduce and market the beauty of Vietnamese language, culture and people to the world, encouraging the speakers of other languages to study, explore and understand Vietnam.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
NA Cradock-Henry ◽  
J Connolly ◽  
P Blackett ◽  
Judith Lawrence

New research is drawing attention to the potential for climate change to generate cascading impacts and implications across linked human-environment systems, requiring closer accounting of these interactions to anticipate the emergence of surprises and feedbacks. However, there is little practical guidance for those interested in characterising, identifying or assessing cascades, and few empirical examples. In this paper, we elaborate a systems-based methodology to identify and evaluate cascading climate change impacts and implications. We illustrate its application using the case of a participatory process with urban infrastructure managers, facing the legacy effects of damaging earthquakes and the prospect of future climate change. The results show the proposed approach and visualisation of cascades as causal diagrams provides a robust and flexible analytical framework. The use of systems thinking, visual aids, interactive discussion and expert elicitation generated valuable information about potential cascades, their interactions across domains of interest, and the implications for management. The process can provide a basis for further empirical application and advance methodological and conceptual development. Specifically, the systems methodology: • Identifies interdependencies and interconnections which may serve as transmission pathways for climate-related impacts; • Enhanced stakeholders’ understanding of multiple causes and effects of climate change; and • Produced a useful visual aid for stakeholders to explore cascading impacts and implications, and opportunities for intervention.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Stefan Gröschl

Using a case study approach, this article explores the role of the Jose Domingo de Obaldia maternity hospital in Western Panama, and its policies and practices for responding to the cultural differences between Panamanian hospital staff and pregnant Ngöble Buglé patients, and their different understanding of health and illness that has been shaped by principles of traditional medicine. Using a range of in-depth interviews with hospitality staff and management and intercultural interpreters, this study explores how cultural aspects and differences can be of a compound and complex nature, requiring strong intercultural understanding, awareness andcross-cultural dialogue. The case of the Ngöble Buglé illustrates how interculturalism can foster such cultural inclusiveness and cross-cultural dialogue, and how interculturalism can have implications for other Indigenous communities in Latin America, and for non-Indigenous communities facing increasingly cultural diverse environments and contexts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anning Hu ◽  
Zhipeng Zhou

The sociological analysis of the mobility tables enhances the examination of the circulation mobility and helps one reveal the nuanced morphological patterns of mobility. In contrast, the economic analysis based on the measure of elasticity provides a handy way of covariate conditioning and statistically testing the similarities of mobility patterns across groups. In this article, we argue that the distinct methodological merits of these two approaches can be equipped by adopting a more comprehensive analytical framework using the copula functions: (1) The copula functions concern the dependence structure that is independent from the margins, which enable scholars to focus on the relative mobility; (2) The copula density, estimated either parametrically or non-parametrically, reveals the nuanced morphological mobility patterns; (3) By residualizing the marginal variables, the detected mobility pattern can be interpreted in a stronger causal sense; and (4) the Cramér–von Mises Test offers an easy-to-use statistic to conduct intergroup comparison of mobility patterns. The copula-based framework is illustrated by investigating the income mobility between 1978 and 2017 in the U.S., using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79).


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-108
Author(s):  
Yael Parag

Traditional literature and policy approach to energy security focus on the security of energy supply. It is argued here that a supply-centric approach to energy security is too narrow to account for the complex nature of energy systems and tends to overlook energy users, their expectations from, interaction with and roles in future low carbon energy systems. From users’ point of view, be they households, businesses or governments, the supply of kWh or oil barrels is often meaningless. What matters is not the source of energy, but rather the services provided by it. Therefore, securing energy services seems to be the public and the government’s concern, and the security of supply is only one mean to achieving it. Stemming from science, technology and society studies, this discussion paper suggests that applying a multi-level socio-technical and user-oriented perspectives which focus on the energy services and considers also psychological, social and cultural aspects of energy consumption, could reveal new and overlooked actors, roles, means and strategies that may provide and contribute to energy services security.Keywords: energy security, energy services, socio-technical systems


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rieke Jordan

This special issue of New American Studies Journal: A Forum looks at nineteenth-century American literature and culture through the analytical lens of free time and leisure. This analytical framework affords a novel access point to American literary history—free time, as this special issue will explore, is a highly contested and politicized concept and resource of the nineteenth century, one that restructures temporalities and spaces. Nineteenth-century American culture and literature can be understood as an archive to explore free time as a significant social and economic innovation into the texture of individual life. The contributions to this special issue explore the rise of free time in the nineteenth century with particular attention toward temporal and spatial reconfigurations that free time afforded. Furthermore they explore the societal and cultural aspects of free time that grew around the logics and logistics of nineteenth-century capitalism—a social formation that made leisure, time off work, not merely possible, but that created entire industries and spaces for leisure and repose.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document