182,987 research outputs found
Pervasive Decentralisation of Digital Infrastructures: A Framework for Blockchain enabled System and Use Case Analysis
Technological innovation and consequential decentralisation are driving forces in the ongoing evolution and increasing openness of digital infrastructures and services. One of the most discussed and allegedly disruptive innovations is the distributed database technology referred to as blockchain. Although it is still in its technological infancy, experimental adoption and customization seem to be in full progress in various potential fields of application ranging from decentralized grids for computation and storage to global financial services. However, the technology and its path of development still entail a lot of common unknowns for practitioners and researchers alike. Especially regarding the question how the technology could amend or be incorporated into the existing landscape of digital services, processes and infrastructures. Hence, in this article we develop an ontology that (1) clearly delineates common terminology, core concepts and components, their relationships as well as innovative features of blockchain technology. It further (2) connects these insights with implications for relevant types of digital market models. Our framework is of high theoretical and practical value as it provides researchers and practitioners a common basis for communication and means for guided analysis of blockchain applicability
Review of current practices in recording road traffic incident data: with specific reference to spatial analysis and road policing policy
Road safety involves three major components: the road system, the human factor and the vehicle element.
These three elements are inter-linked through geo-referenced traffic events and provide the basis for road
safety analyses and attempts to reduce the number of road traffic incidents and improve road safety.
Although numbers of deaths and serious injuries are back to approximately the 1950s levels when there
were many fewer vehicles on the road, there are still over 100 fatalities or serious injuries every day, and
this is a considerable waste of human capital. It is widely acknowledged that the location perspective is the
most suitable methodology by which to analyse different traffic events, where by in this paper, I will
concentrating on the relationship between road traffic incidents and traffic policing. Other methods include
studying road and vehicle engineering and these will be discussed later. It is worth noting here that there is
some division within the literature concerning the definitions of âaccidentâ and âincidentâ. In this paper I
will use âincidentâ because it is important to acknowledge a vast majority of âroad accidentsâ are in fact
crimes. However I will use the term âaccidentâ where it is referred to in the literature or relevant reports. It
is important to mention here that a road traffic accident can be defined as âthe product of an unwelcome
interaction between two or more moving objects, or a fixed and moving objectâ (Whitelegg 1986). Road
safety and road incident reduction relates to many other fields of activity including education, driver
training, publicity campaigns, police enforcement, road traffic policing, the court system, the National
Health Service and Vehicle engineering.
Although the subject of using GIS to analyse road traffic incidents has not received much academic
attention, it lies in the field of crime mapping which is becoming increasingly important. It is clear that
studies have been attempted to analyse road traffic incidents using GIS are increasingly sophisticated in
terms of hypotheses and statistical technique (for example see Austin, Tight and Kirby 1997). However it is
also clear that there is considerable blurring of boundaries and the analysis of road accidents sits
uncomfortably in crime mapping. This is due to four main reasons:
- Road traffic incidents are associated with road engineering, which is concerned with generic
solutions while road traffic analysis is about sensitivity to particular contexts.
- Not all road traffic incidents are crimes
- It is not just the police who have an interest in reducing road traffic incidents, other partners
include local authorities, hospitals and vehicle manufacturers
- The management of road traffic incidents is not just confined to the police
GIS has been used for over thirty years however it has only been recently been used in the field of
transportation. The field of transportation has come to embrace Geographical Information Systems as a keytechnology to support its research and operational need. The acronym GIS-T is often employed to refer to
the application and adaptation of GIS to research, planning and management in transportation. GIS-T
covers a broad arena of disciplines of which road traffic incident detection is just one theme. Others include
in vehicle navigation systems.
Initially it was only used to ask simple accident enquiries such as depicting the relative incidence of
accidents in wet weather or when there is no street lighting, or to flag high absolute or relative incidences
of accidents (see Anderson 2002). Recently however there has been increased acknowledgement that there
is a requirement to go beyond these simple questions and to extend the analyses. It has been widely claimed
by academics and the police alike that knowing where road accidents occur must lead to better road
policing, in order to ensure that road policing becomes better integrated with other policing activities. This
paper will be used to explore issues surrounding the analysis of road traffic accidents and how GIS
analysts, police and policy makers can achieve a better understanding of road traffic incidents and how to
reduce them.
For the purpose of this study I will be trying to achieve a broader overview of the aspects concerning road
accident analysis with a strong emphasis on data quality and accuracy with concern to GIS analysis. Data
quality and accuracy are seen as playing a pivotal role in the road traffic management agenda because they assist the police and Local Authorities as to the specific location whereby management can be undertaken.
Part one will consider the introduction to road incidents and their relationship with geography and spatial
analysis and how this were initially applied to locating âhotspotsâ and the more recent theory of âaccident
migrationâ. Part two will address current data issues of the UK collection procedure. This section will pay
particular reference to geo-referencing and the implication of data quality on the procedure of analysing
road incidents using GIS. Part three addresses issues surrounding the spatial analysis of road traffic
incidents, including some techniques such as spatial autocorrelation, time-space geography and the
modifiable area unit problem. Finally part four looks at the role of effective road traffic policing and how
this can be achieved due to better understanding of the theory and issues arising from analysing road traffic
incidents. It will also look at the diffusion and use of GIS within the police and local authorities
The magnetic nature of disk accretion onto black holes
Although disk accretion onto compact objects - white dwarfs, neutron stars,
and black holes - is central to much of high energy astrophysics, the
mechanisms which enable this process have remained observationally elusive.
Accretion disks must transfer angular momentum for matter to travel radially
inward onto the compact object. Internal viscosity from magnetic processes and
disk winds can in principle both transfer angular momentum, but hitherto we
lacked evidence that either occurs. Here we report that an X-ray-absorbing wind
discovered in an observation of the stellar-mass black hole binary GRO J1655-40
must be powered by a magnetic process that can also drive accretion through the
disk. Detailed spectral analysis and modeling of the wind shows that it can
only be powered by pressure generated by magnetic viscosity internal to the
disk or magnetocentrifugal forces. This result demonstrates that disk accretion
onto black holes is a fundamentally magnetic process.Comment: 15 pages, 2 color figures, accepted for publication in Nature.
Supplemental materials may be obtained by clicking
http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~jonmm/nature1655.p
Computational Thermodynamics and Kinetics in Materials Modelling and Simulations
Over the past two decades, Computational Thermodynamics and Kinetics have been tremendously contributed to materials modeling and simulations and the demands on quantitative
conceptual design and processing of various advanced materials arisen from various industries and academic
institutions involved in materials manufacturing, engineering and applications are still rapidly increasing
Seagrass and Aquatic Habitat Assessment Workshop Summary
Seagrass communities are among the richest and most productive, photoautotrophic coastal systems in the world. They protect and improve water quality, provide shoreline
stabilization, and are important habitats for an array of fish, birds, and other wildlife. Hence, much can be gained by protecting and restoring these important living resources. Humanâs impact on these vital resources from population growth, pollution, and physical damage from boating and other activities can disrupt the growth of these seagrasses communities and have devastating
effects on their health and vitality. Inventory and monitoring are required to determine the dynamics of seagrasses and devise better protection and restoration for these rich resources.
The purpose of this seagrass workshop, sponsored by NOAAâs CSC , USGS, and FMRI, was to move toward greater objectivity and accuracy in seagrass mapping and monitoring. This workshop helped foster interaction and communication among seagrass professionals. In order to
begin the process of determining the best uniform mapping process for the biological research community. Increasing such awareness among the seagrass and management communities, it is hoped that an improved understanding of the monitoring and mapping process will lead to more
effective and efficient preservation os submerged aquatic vegetation. (PDF contains 20 pages
The DRIVE-SAFE project: signal processing and advanced information technologies for improving driving prudence and accidents
In this paper, we will talk about the Drivesafe project whose aim is creating conditions for prudent driving on highways and roadways with the purposes of reducing accidents caused by driver behavior. To achieve these primary goals, critical data is being collected from multimodal sensors (such as cameras, microphones, and other sensors) to build a unique databank on driver behavior. We are developing system and technologies for analyzing the data and automatically determining potentially dangerous situations (such as driver fatigue, distraction, etc.). Based on the findings from these studies, we will propose systems for warning the drivers and taking other precautionary measures to avoid accidents once a dangerous situation is detected. In order to address these issues a national consortium has been formed including Automotive Research Center (OTAM), Koç University, Istanbul Technical University, Sabancı University, Ford A.S., Renault A.S., and Fiat A. Ć
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