Modeling Crowd Mobility and Communication in Wireless Networks

This dissertation presents contributions to the fields of mobility modeling, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with mobile sinks, and opportunistic communication in theme parks. The two main directions of our contributions are human mobility models and strategies for the mobile sink positioning and communication in wireless networks. The first direction of the dissertation is related to human mobility modeling. Modeling the movement of human subjects is important to improve the performance of wireless networks with human participants and the validation of such networks through simulations. The movements in areas such as theme parks follow specific patterns that are not taken into consideration by the general purpose mobility models. We develop two types of mobility models of theme park visitors. The first model represents the typical movement of visitors as they are visiting various attractions and landmarks of the park. The second model represents the movement of the visitors as they aim to evacuate the park after a natural or man-made disaster. The second direction focuses on the movement patterns of mobile sinks and their communication in responding to various events and incidents within the theme park. When an event occurs, the system needs to determine which mobile sink will respond to the event and its trajectory. The overall objective is to optimize the event coverage by minimizing the time needed for the chosen mobile sink to reach the incident area. We extend this work by considering the positioning problem of mobile sinks and preservation of the connected topology. We propose a new variant of p-center problem for optimal placement and communication of the mobile sinks. We provide a solution to this problem through collaborative event coverage of the WSNs with mobile sinks. Finally, we develop a network model with opportunistic communication for tracking the evacuation of theme park visitors during disasters. This model involves people with smartphones that store and carry messages. The mobile sinks are responsible for communicating with the smartphones and reaching out to the regions of the emergent events

Public space regeneration strategies: the case of Salou

Salou, which is one of the many highly specialized tourist resorts located on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, is a hundred kilometres south of Barcelona. Within its narrow boundaries of 1.481 ha, Salou hosts 7.4 million overnight stays per year and is home to 52 hotels. A ratio which ranks Salou amongst the tenth most visited municipalities in Spain. Distance from Salou’s historical town centre, the area of Carles Buigas Avenue (CB) emerges as being the heart of the municipality’s tourism and leisure industry. Salou developed, as did so many other Spanish coastal touristic locations, during the sixties and seventies as a consequence of the increasing demand for sun and beach destinations amongst the European and Spanish middle classes. Unfortunately, the “ageing” of this built up area clamours for close attention today. The visible physi-cal degradation of the property is becoming a cause for concern and preoccupation amongst the main property owners and investors: public administration, hotel managers, shopkeepers and neighbours. Hotels emerge as the key problem within the set physical boundaries of this study. They occupy approximately 50% of the total land surface, 28 out of a total of 52 hotels within the town being con-centrated in that area. This accumulation of hotels also breaks the particularity of the predominance of second residences which is so customary along the Spanish Coast. This paper delves into the data and proposals obtained from analysing the public space of the CB area. Similarly, as a consequence of the previous analysis, a set of proposals for intervention are also presented. The proposals are conceived to be developed within different time scales, in response to political and social willingness and economic capacity. The objective of the work is to induce an urban and tourism paradigm shift in the area, thus facilitating the emergence of a new tourism model. Solu-tions are urgently needed to provide specific answers to a particular scenario, which has similitudes to those of other Mediterranean Coastal Developments specialized in tourism activities, which too, after being operative for more than forty years, are suffering from deterioration or abandonment. Despite it still being an open process, the study understands that due to the complexity of the com-mitted task and the scale of the area, the goal will require the active commitment and collaboration of the property owners (administration, hotel managers, investors and neighbours).Postprint (published version

The contribution of leisure and entertainment to the evolving polycentric urban network on regional scale - towards a new research agenda

The urban landscape in advanced economies transforms from monocentric cities to polycentric urban networks on regional scale. The growing amount of research that is being devoted to this transformation sticks to classic activity systems like residential development, economic production and employment and commuting. Synchronous to this transformation, a 'new' activity system, outdoor leisure and entertainment, increasingly leaves its stamp on the economic performance and spatial organisation of urban areas in general. Due to tremendous dynamics of consumption, production, and urban politics with regard to this activity system, it is subject of a composite of spatial pressures for centralisation in inner-cites, de-concentration away form central cities and (re-)concentration in suburbs and exurban places. Notwithstanding this composite spatial dynamics, leisure and entertainment are not part of the research agenda on regional polycentric urban networks. Based on brief overviews of literature on both polycentric urban development and the dynamics of leisure and entertainment in urban areas, this paper presents a few basic research questions in order to initiate the research agenda on the contribution of the leisure activity system to the development of polycentric urban networks on regional scale.

Recreation, tourism and nature in a changing world : proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 2010

Proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 201

Theme parks, staycation practices, and COVID-19: opportunities and uncertainties

The effects of COVID-19 on the market transformation of the theme park industry has been significant in the short term because of travel restrictions. Challenges, impacts, responses, and strategies might vary from one region to another and even from one theme park to another. However, it can be assumed that domestic travel will continue to have an effect on the theme park industry during the months to come and likely beyond the pandemic. In this context, the “staycation” is becoming a booming trend in the leisure, entertainment, and tourism industry, creating new, current, and future unexpected economic winners and losers. Nevertheless, to what extent this reactive travel behavior under the pandemic will become permanent in the mid- and long-term is rather uncertain. In any case, the attraction of domestic visitors to theme parks as a staycation holidaying practice needs to be connected with the engagement of parks in the ongoing process of societal lifestyle changes shaping customers’ decision-making. Whether this strategy could be useful to a particular theme park remains relatively unknown. In any case, more research is needed on the long-term effects of the pandemic in the theme park industry considering the characteristics of specific theme parks and their locational, contextual, human agency, and path dependency issues

Paying Tribute : Migrant Memorial Walls and the 'Nation of Immigrants'

Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio