Experimental Study on Variation Strategies for Complex Social Pedestrian Groups in Conflict Conditions

The paper concentrates on an experimental study of the variation strategies of complex social pedestrian groups in conflict conditions. We tracked the trajectories of group members and analysed the configuration of both the complex group and its subgroups when the groups walked through a narrowing passage, passed by an obstacle or faced counter flows. We summarized the variation strategies of complex groups when they faced these conflict conditions. The effect of groups on the crowd was also studied. It was found that groups could have significant effect on self-organization of the crowd. The results in the paper could be applied in modelling pedestrian group decision and behaviour and analysing crowd dynamics

Pedestrian Group Behaviour Analysis under Different Density Conditions

AbstractWe recently introduced a potential to describe pedestrian interaction in walking groups. The potential was used to derive the spatial distribution and velocity of small groups under scarce density conditions and its predictions are in good agreement with observations. In the present work we apply the same method to a new data set regarding pedestrians moving in an indoor facility under different density conditions. To describe the variation of the group structure with changing density we introduce an “effective potential” term that assesses the average effect of the external environment on the group dynamics

Modélisation et simulation du comportement de groupes sociaux de piétons avec des relations sociales hétérogènes

International audienceThe nature of the social relationship within a pedestrian group influences the group's structure and behavior and thus its entitativity (i.e. the perception of a group as a unit by other pedestrians). However, existing crowd models ignore the diversity of social relationships and have limitations in reproducing group avoidance behaviors. The proposed model is an adaptation of the social force model that addresses group social relationships. The approach is calibrated by comparing the distances and angles between members of the simulated groups with observations in real crowds. Results show that intra-group distances are a key factor in collision avoidance behavior. Simulation of collision avoidance shows that group members behavior fits better with empirical data than the original model and that individuals avoid splitting groups. By simply tuning the distribution of social relationships in the simulated crowd, the model can be used to reproduce crowd behaviors in several contexts

Intrinsic group behaviour: dependence of pedestrian dyad dynamics on principal social and personal features

Being determined by human social behaviour, pedestrian group dynamics depends on "intrinsic properties" of the group such as the purpose of the pedestrians, their personal relation, their gender, age, and body size. In this work we quantitatively study the dynamical properties of pedestrian dyads by analysing a large data set of automatically tracked pedestrian trajectories in an unconstrained "ecological" setting (a shopping mall), whose relational group properties have been coded by three different human observers. We observed that females walk slower and closer than males, that workers walk faster, at a larger distance and more abreast than leisure oriented people, and that inter group relation has a strong effect on group structure, with couples walking very close and abreast, colleagues walking at a larger distance, and friends walking more abreast than family members. Pedestrian height (obtained automatically through our tracking system) influences velocity and abreast distance, both growing functions of the average group height. Results regarding pedestrian age show as expected that elderly people walk slowly, while active age adults walk at the maximum velocity. Groups with children have a strong tendency to walk in a non abreast formation, with a large distance (despite a low abreast distance). A cross-analysis of the interplay between these intrinsic features, taking in account also the effect of extrinsic crowd density, confirms these major effects but reveals also a richer structure. An interesting and unexpected result, for example, is that the velocity of groups with children {\it increases} with density, at least in the low-medium density range found under normal conditions in shopping malls. Children also appear to behave differently according to the gender of the parent

AXMEDIS 2008

The AXMEDIS International Conference series aims to explore all subjects and topics related to cross-media and digital-media content production, processing, management, standards, representation, sharing, protection and rights management, to address the latest developments and future trends of the technologies and their applications, impacts and exploitation. The AXMEDIS events offer venues for exchanging concepts, requirements, prototypes, research ideas, and findings which could contribute to academic research and also benefit business and industrial communities. In the Internet as well as in the digital era, cross-media production and distribution represent key developments and innovations that are fostered by emergent technologies to ensure better value for money while optimising productivity and market coverage

The Clothes of Extraversion. Circulation, Consumption and Power in Equatorial Guinea

[eng] This thesis is about grassroots strategies of material and political extraversion. It is an ethnography of the provisioning of clothing goods in Equatorial Guinea and it bridges the everyday lives of ordinary people with issues related to political economy and power configurations. Based on more than twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, mainly localised at Malabo’s principal marketplace but also complementarily carried out in Spain, it describes the strategies Guineans engage with in order to generate livelihoods but also to be able to make material statements about their self-worth in a context of uncertainty and precariousness. The exploitation of off-shore oil wells in the mid-nineties has provided an injection of resources to a regime that has been able to consolidate its power and an outside-oriented economy. While the extraversion strategies of the political elite are known and described in the political economic analyses of the country’s contemporary situation, studies about how ordinary Guineans deal and engage with this extravert system, an intended contribution of this thesis, are practically non-existent. The protagonists of my ethnography are market women, who have made from clothing provisioning both their source of livelihood and also their mechanism for social inclusion and political participation. The argument begins with a historical account, showing how rentist capitalism and extraversion strategies are not a recent phenomenon related to oil exploitation but have a longer trajectory in Equatorial Guinea. This process has signified the production of specific idioms for wealth and power that are deeply gendered and that make comment upon differential access to foreign rents and goods. These understandings of wealth and power are also associated with particular ideas about space that draw upon specific substantial and imagined geographies. These geographies are reproduced in the provisioning and valuation of foreign goods, but also by keeping trading routes and networks, which I describe for the two main categories of clothing goods consumed in Equatorial Guinea. By accessing valuable geographies and managing rents, market women manage to contest gender roles, reach certain levels of public participation and generate political debates. This participation, however, is co- opted by the elite and more specifically by the first lady who, through a non-profit organisation, offers her protection to female petty traders in exchange for political support. The ethnography of the everyday of these women reveals how, by engaging with rent managing strategies and by connecting with the powerful elite market, women are able to source their households. However, their capacity to generate income, to make political claims, and to gain access to certain levels of power is limited by a hierarchy that is ultimately maintained by such extraversion strategies. The dissertation contributes to debates within economic and political anthropology surrounding rentist capitalism and extraversion, but also about markets and consumption. While it questions extraversion as totalizing theory, and as a particularity of African states and elites, it recovers it as a concept useful to explain processes of active material and political dependency.[spa] Esta tesis presenta una etnografía del aprovisionamiento de productos textiles en Guinea Ecuatorial, vincula la vida cotidiana de la gente común con cuestiones relacionadas con la economía política y las configuraciones de poder. Basada en más de doce meses de trabajo de campo etnográfico localizado en el mercado principal de Malabo, pero también complementario en España (Madrid y Elche), describe estrategias ingeniadas por las guineanas para generar medios de vida, pero también para hacer declaraciones materiales sobre su valía personal en un contexto de incertidumbre y precariedad. La explotación de pozos petrolíferos off-shore a mediados de los noventa ha proporcionado una inyección de recursos a un régimen que ha podido consolidar su poder y una economía orientada hacia el exterior. Mientras que las estrategias de extraversión de la élite política son conocidas y descritas en los análisis político-económicos de la situación contemporánea del país, prácticamente no existen estudios sobre cómo las guineanas corrientes se relacionan con este sistema extravertido. Las protagonistas de mi etnografía son las mujeres del mercado, que han hecho de la provisión de ropa su fuente de sustento, pero también su mecanismo para la inclusión social y la participación política. El argumento comienza con un relato histórico que muestra cómo el capitalismo y las estrategias de extraversión rentistas no son un fenómeno reciente relacionado con la explotación petrolera sino que tienen una trayectoria más larga en Guinea Ecuatorial. Este recorrido histórico ha generado ideas particulares sobre el poder y la riqueza que tienen un componente de género importante y que dibujan unas geografías tanto imaginadas como sustanciales. Estas geografías se reproducen en el aprovisionamiento y valoración de mercancías extranjeras, pero también mediante el mantenimiento de rutas y redes comerciales, que describo para las dos principales categorías de artículos de prendas de vestir consumidos en Guinea Ecuatorial. Al acceder a geografías valiosas y gestionar rentas, las mujeres del mercado logran impugnar los papeles de género, alcanzar ciertos niveles de participación pública y generar debates políticos. Esta participación, sin embargo, es cooptada por la élite y más específicamente por la primera dama que, a través de una organización sin fines de lucro, ofrece su protección a las pequeñas comerciantes a cambio de apoyo político. La etnografía de la vida cotidiana de estas mujeres revela cómo al comprometerse con las estrategias de gestión de rentas y al conectarse con la poderosa élite las mujeres son capaces de abastecer a sus hogares. Sin embargo, su capacidad para generar ingresos, hacer reivindicaciones políticas y acceder a ciertas cotas de poder está limitada por una jerarquía que las estrategias de extraversión sólo ayudan a mantener. La tesis contribuye a los debates de antropología económica y política sobre el capitalismo y la extraversión rentistas, pero también sobre los mercados y el consumo. Si bien cuestiona la extraversión como teoría totalizadora y como particularidad de los estados y élites africanos, la recupera como un concepto útil para explicar los procesos de dependencia política y material

Culture in the Borderlands: "Stories" of Southeast Asian Domestic Workers in Taiwan

Migration and mobility is not a new phenomenon in human society. Historically, people have moved from one place to another either for reasons of survival or due to force in terms of slavery. Compared to the past centuries, migration in recent years has increased in dimension for both the sending and the receiving communities. The increase in economic disparities, the internationalization of the market and increasing numbers of individuals seeking employment outside their own countries, and demographic developments all promote this trend. In Taiwan, migrant women are the primary source of paid domestic labor. Taiwan is becoming a land of dreams and also a land of tears for these migrant women. I interviewed and spent time with dozens of Southeast Asian domestics working in and around Taipei as well as some of their Taiwanese employers. On the basis of these data I collected, I Interweave my analysis with the women's individual stories, and also demonstrate how economic factors, immigration policies, the intermediaries, ethnicity, and gender intersect in the relationship between migrant women and the Taiwanese people