Intelligent crowd sensing pickpocketing group identification using remote sensing data for secure smart cities

As a public infrastructure service, remote sensing data provided by smart cities will go deep into the safety field and realize the comprehensive improvement of urban management and services. However, it is challenging to detect criminal individuals with abnormal features from massive sensing data and identify groups composed of criminal individuals with similar behavioral characteristics. To address this issue, we study two research aspects: pickpocketing individual detection and pickpocketing group identification. First, we propose an IForest-FD pickpocketing individual detection algorithm. The IForest algorithm filters the abnormal individuals of each feature extracted from ticketing and geographic information data. Through the filtered results, the factorization machines (FM) and deep neural network (DNN) (FD) algorithm learns the combination relationship between low-order and high-order features to improve the accuracy of identifying pickpockets composed of factorization machines and deep neural networks. Second, we propose a community relationship strength (CRS)-Louvain pickpocketing group identification algorithm. Based on crowdsensing, we measure the similarity of temporal, spatial, social and identity features among pickpocketing individuals. We then use the weighted combination similarity as an edge weight to construct the pickpocketing association graph. Furthermore, the CRS-Louvain algorithm improves the modularity of the Louvain algorithm to overcome the limitation that small-scale communities cannot be identified. The experimental results indicate that the IForest-FD algorithm has better detection results in Precision, Recall and F1score than similar algorithms. In addition, the normalized mutual information results of the group division effect obtained by the CRS-Louvain pickpocketing group identification algorithm are better than those of other representative methods

Temporal Variations in Activity Network Using Smart Card Data

This study explores temporal variations in activity networks for four million passengers, differentiated as workers and non-workers, using public transport based on a large-scale smart card dataset generated over 105 days in Beijing. We aim to capture their day-to-day transition and cumulative temporal expansion in activity network using transit over days, weeks, and months. Particularly, workers and non-workers are automatically identified based on their different daily routines, whose activity networks are characterized by six features concerning space coverage, distance coverage, and frequency coverage in two ways, namely, on a per-day transition and with an accumulation of days. The transition features of the networks are statistically analyzed and compared by time, while how the expansion features evolve with time are modeled. Results show that, on weekdays, workers are more likely to travel longer (have larger distance coverage), but cover less area (have smaller space coverage) than non- workers. While opposite patterns occur on weekends. Traveling in the ‘North-South’ direction is weakly correlated with traveling in the ‘East-West’ direction. Workers on weekdays, as well as non-workers on weekends, make longer ‘North-South’ trips. Manhattan distance, trip count, and perimeter present a ∩ shape in their probability density functions, while the remaining features decline dramatically, with probability density functions fit by the exponential distribution. The distance coverage expands faster than that of space coverage. Most passengers increase coverage of space and distance when time expands (obviously no one decreases coverage over time, but some don’t change). The research enables findings on temporal load-balancing, long-term cumulative expansion in travel demands of workers and non-workers, re-balancing the distribution of existing workplace and residential location opportunities, and constructing transit-oriented developments with mixed functions over time.Chinese Scholarship Council TransportLa

Designing to support impression management

This work investigates impression management and in particular impression management using ubiquitous technology. Generally impression management is the process through which people try to influence the impressions that others have about them. In particular, impression management focuses on the flow of information between a performer and his/her audience, with control over what is presented to whom being of the utmost importance when trying to create the appropriate impression. Ubiquitous technology has provided opportunities for individuals to present themselves to others. However, the disconnection between presenter and audience over both time and space can result in individuals being misrepresented. This thesis outlines two important areas when trying to control the impression one gives namely, hiding and revealing, and accountability. By exploring these two themes the continuous evolution and dynamic nature of controlling the impression one gives is explored. While this ongoing adaptation is recognised by designers they do not always create technology that is sufficiently dynamic to support this process. As a result, this work attempts to answer three research questions: RQ1: How do users of ubicomp systems appropriate recorded data from their everyday activity and make it into a resource for expressing themselves to others in ways that are dynamically tailored to their ongoing social context and audience? RQ2: What technology can be built to support ubicomp system developers to design and develop systems to support appropriation as a central part of a useful or enjoyable user experience? RQ3: What software architectures best suit this type of appropriated interaction and developers’ designing to support such interaction? Through a thorough review of existing literature, and the extensive study of several large ubicomp systems, the issues when presenting oneself through technology are identified. The main issues identified are hiding and revealing, and accountability. These are built into a framework that acts as a reference for designers wishing to support impression management. An architecture for supporting impression management has also been developed that conforms to this framework and its evolution is documented later in the thesis. A demonstration of this architecture in a multi-player mobile experience is subsequently presented

Constructing Roma Migrants

This open access book presents a cross-disciplinary insight and policy analysis into the effects of European legal and political frameworks on the life of ‘Roma migrants’ in Europe. It outlines the creation and implementation of Roma policies at the European level, provides a systematic understanding of identity-based exclusion and explores concrete case studies that reveal how integration and immigration policies work in practice. The book also shows how the Roma example might be employed in tackling the governance implications of our increasingly complex societies and assesses its potential and limitations for integration policies of vulnerable groups such as refugees and other discriminated minorities. As such the book will be of interest to academics, practitioners, policy-makers and a wider academic community working in migration, refugee, poverty and integration issues more broadly

Perceptions of crime among international leisure tourists to Cape Town and the marketing implications for tourist destinations

Thesis (MTech (Marketing))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019Growth in the tourism industry has been a global trend in the past decades. People are adopting a lifestyle of travel, which led South Africa and Cape Town to welcome many visitors as recorded in the background to the study. Amid the high figures of tourist arrivals to South Africa and the City of Cape Town, there has been a continuous rise in the crime rate in the country, including destination Cape Town over the same period. However, if this is to continuously remain unaddressed or unattended, the tourism figures are likely to be affected. Therefore, the primary research objective was seeking to determine tourist perceptions with regard to crime and its effect on visitors’ decision-making processes and the impact it concurrently has on destination marketing. The study was seeking to establish whether demographic factors have an influence on tourists’ perceptions on general safety and security safety information of the destination. Furthermore, the study was investigating how tourist perceived Cape Town crime prior (pre-visit), during and post-visiting stages including their willingness to revisit the destination given their experiences. Through conducting the study, it revealed the information sources that were used by tourists before travelling as well as those used during their stay within the destination. Lastly, the study aimed to find out if there are any significant differences between demographic factors and crime related factors. A post-positivist deductive research approach was used by conducting Individual Depth Interviews (IDIs) and surveys in Cape Town’s tourist attractions. A structured questionnaire was used for the surveys, while some interview schedules were used for IDIs both on the supply and demand side. A sample size of 140 tourists was issued with questionnaires to determine the participants’ perceptions of crime in Cape Town, while 15 additional in-depth interviews were also conducted. This sample size reflected an 8.1% margin of error at 95% level of confidence. The results of this study also reflected that prior to their visit, the visitors perceived the destination to have a higher crime rate. This resonates with some tourists who witnessed instances of criminal activities in the tourist attraction centres, while others became victims of crime. Importantly, most tourists indicated that they would not be deterred by crime to visit Cape Town as a destination in their future travel plans. Therefore, tourists’ perceptions of crime with regard to their destination appear to have little or no influence on their travelling decisions

Constructing Roma Migrants

This open access book presents a cross-disciplinary insight and policy analysis into the effects of European legal and political frameworks on the life of ‘Roma migrants’ in Europe. It outlines the creation and implementation of Roma policies at the European level, provides a systematic understanding of identity-based exclusion and explores concrete case studies that reveal how integration and immigration policies work in practice. The book also shows how the Roma example might be employed in tackling the governance implications of our increasingly complex societies and assesses its potential and limitations for integration policies of vulnerable groups such as refugees and other discriminated minorities. As such the book will be of interest to academics, practitioners, policy-makers and a wider academic community working in migration, refugee, poverty and integration issues more broadly