2,383 research outputs found
Security Awareness for Public Bus Transportation: Case Studies of Attacks Against the Israeli Public Bus System, Research Report 11-07
This report presents 16 case studies of attacks planned or carried out against Israeli bus targets, along with statistical data on the number, frequency, and lethality of attacks against bus targets that have taken place in Israel since 1970 and during the Second Intifada, which occurred between September 2000 and the end of 2006. The statistical data come from MTIâs Database on Terrorist and Serious Criminal Attacks Against Public Surface Transportation. The report also includes an analysis of the effectiveness of different improvised explosive devices and methods of delivering them and raises questions for future discussion. The case studies of bus attacks were selected not because they are statistically representative, but because they provide a variety of interesting observations. They include both lethal and nonlethal attacks, attacks in which security measures were effective or were not followed or were ineffective, and attacks in which the attackersâ tactics and/or devices were lethal or failed or reduced the lethality of the attack. It is hoped that the cases presented in this report and the accompanying analysis will increase understanding of what can happen and of what can deter, prevent, and/or mitigate the occurrence of terrorist attacks against public bus systems
Wi-Fi Finger-Printing Based Indoor Localization Using Nano-Scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Explosive growth in the number of mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches has escalated the demand for localization-based services, spurring development of numerous indoor localization techniques. Especially, widespread deployment of wireless LANs prompted ever increasing interests in WiFi-based indoor localization mechanisms. However, a critical shortcoming of such localization schemes is the intensive time and labor requirements for collecting and building the WiFi fingerprinting database, especially when the system needs to cover a large space. In this thesis, we propose to automate the WiFi fingerprint survey process using a group of nano-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (NAVs). The proposed system significantly reduces the efforts for collecting WiFi fingerprints. Furthermore, since these NAVs explore a 3D space, the WiFi fingerprints of a 3D space can be obtained increasing the localization accuracy. The proposed system is implemented on a commercially available miniature open-source quadcopter platform by integrating a contemporary WiFi - fingerprint - based localization system. Experimental results demonstrate that the localization error is about 2m, which exhibits only about 20cm of accuracy degradation compared with the manual WiFi fingerprint survey methods
Race, Australian Colonialism and Technologies of Mobility in Kalgoorlie
This article argues that the legal texts that record the death of Indigenous boy Elijah Doughty in a reserve in Kalgoorlie-Boulder in 2016 highlights the intersections of technologies of mobility within the Australian colonial project. Elijah died when the small motorcycle he was riding was run over by a large utility vehicle driven by the non-Indigenous assailant, âWSMâ. This occurred within a wider social media centred context of racist anxieties and hate speech directed towards Indigenous children being in public and mobile around Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Elijahâs death and the subsequent legal reactions, to Indigenous protests, to the endurance of social media racist hate speech directed to Kalgoorlie-Boulderâs Indigenous children, to determining the location of the trial and who can speak at the trial, to the concern and pity expressed towards âWSMâ, shows how technologies of mobility, reinstate and bolster colonial mobilities and their destructive effects on Indigenous people
Crowdsourcing geospatial data for Earth and human observations: a review
The transformation from authoritative to user-generated data landscapes has garnered considerable attention, notably with the proliferation of crowdsourced geospatial data. Facilitated by advancements in digital technology and high-speed communication, this paradigm shift has democratized data collection, obliterating traditional barriers between data producers and users. While previous literature has compartmentalized this subject into distinct platforms and application domains, this review offers a holistic examination of crowdsourced geospatial data. Employing a narrative review approach due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, we investigate both human and Earth observations through crowdsourced initiatives. This review categorizes the diverse applications of these data and rigorously examines specific platforms and paradigms pertinent to data collection. Furthermore, it addresses salient challenges, encompassing data quality, inherent biases, and ethical dimensions. We contend that this thorough analysis will serve as an invaluable scholarly resource, encapsulating the current state-of-the-art in crowdsourced geospatial data, and offering strategic directions for future interdisciplinary research and applications across various sectors
Sharing Economy â a Modern Phenomenon: The Emergence of Electric Scooters
Sharing economy has rapidly come into todayâs society. Although the concept of sharing is not new per se, the modern form of the sharing economy has only recently emerged. The main idea in the sharing economy is buying an access to use resources instead of owning themâit enables a more efficient use of the existing resources. Sharing economy has two primary business models: peer-to-peer and business-to-peer. As known services, such as Airbnb, are based on the former, the latter includes the popular shared mobility service, electric scooters. This form of mobility has been integrated in the landscape of major cities in Finland, initially in the capital Helsinki.
Given that the electric scooters have been present in news outlets due to the injuries related to their use, and also the variety of public opinions for and against, it is a relevant topic to conduct research on. The main purpose of the research is both to explore the earlier literature and create an appropriate framework to reflect the empirical research upon but also to investigate who participates in the sharing economy by using the electric scooters and why.
The methodological choice for the empirical research was to perform a qualitative study by interviewing eight people living in Helsinki to gain insight on their general perceptions of the sharing economy, and also to clarify what are the most common motives and deterrents for the use the of electric scooters. On a general level, the most relevant categories were given for both motives (economic, social, convenience, environmental) and deterrents (trust, efficacy, social, sustainability) in the general context of sharing economy. Consequently, the results of the interviews were mirrored to those categories.
The empirical results indicate that the interviewees perceive the concept of the sharing economy similarlyâthe fundamental purpose is positive, and the goal to use resources more effectively is welcomed. More specifically, users of the electric scooters mostly value the following attributes: they are a good alternative to public transportation, they save time, they are convenient, and they are widely available. In addition, the most common motives and deterrents are aligned with the main categories as for the sharing economy in general. Subsequently, the most frequently mentioned categories for the motives were convenience and environmental, whereas the most frequently mentioned categories for deterrents were trust
and sustainability
The role of crowdfunding in promoting entrepreneurship
Crowdfunding is a collaborative initiative, usually via internet, where people network to collectively raise funds in order to invest in and support projects delivered by other people or organizations.
Tools such as crowdfunding are born and thrive in a grassroots environment, with a strong potential to positively disrupt the entrepreneurial generation setting and grow to a position of significant relevance in society, namely at a time when alternatives to traditional forms of finance are welcome and the technology to deliver them is abundant.
Entrepreneurship is the act of transforming ideas and projects into economic products or services. Entrepreneurship related to starting new businesses is better known as startâup ventures. Entrepreneurs face a series of challenges, from idea conception and business plan design, to obtaining finance, promoting new products and services, generating revenues and profits and generally growing and sustaining a business for the longârun. These challenges can be overwhelming, namely in the startâup phase of a new venture, leaving several ideas on paper without them having a chance to âgrow legs and walkâ.
This paper and its analysis offer important insights about the contribution of crowdfunding to facilitate the attainment of critical factors for successful entrepreneurship. With extensive use of real practical examples, leveraging previous analytical studies of other crowdfunding implications and reviewing expert literature, by interviewing entrepreneurs, crowdfunding platform owners and by benefitting from hands on experience of working in such an organization, we intend to clarify the impact of crowdfunding in what we considered to be 7 key entrepreneurial requirements detailed further in the introduction section and later in the body of the paper.
The findings have implications for entrepreneurs, naturally, and for business generation theory, extending current entrepreneurial guidelines with innovative tools and methodologies capable of sustaining successful ventures in a newly highlighted cooperative world. We live in innovative times where the channels for the transfer of funds and resources suffer disruptive changes with the potential to significantly improve the ability to generate new initiatives for the wellâbeing of entrepreneurs and all related communities
Digital platforms and European Union law â challenges from a perspective of multilevel constitutionalism
Present economy and society are under a âdigital revolutionâ. Digital platforms connect service and product suppliers to recipients all around the world creating new businesses and changing business models in place. Old-fashioned informal gig-economy and sharing practices by using the new technology seem to change consumption and production patterns to more efficient and sustainable ones⊠or maybe not. This ânew economyâ also poses several challenges to law questioning the adequacy of concepts and regulations in force. Disputes with authorities and incumbent industries end up in violence or in courts, including the European Court of Justice. We intend to give an overview of those challenges, especially in light of European Union law and following a multilevel constitutionalist approach, which we believe is best suited to respond to the regulatory challenges of this ânew economyâ
Real time collision warning system in the context of vehicle-to-vehicle data exchange based on drivings behaviours analysis
Worldwide injuries in vehicle accidents have been on the rise in recent years, mainly
due to driver error regardless of technological innovations and advancements for
vehicle safety. Consequently, there is a need for a reliable-real time warning system
that can alert drivers of a potential collision. Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) is an extensive
area of ongoing research and development which has started to revolutionize the
driving experience. Driving behaviour is a subject of extensive research which gains
special attention due to the relationship between speeding behaviour and crashes as
drivers who engage in frequent and extreme speeding behaviour are overinvolved in
crashes. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) set guidelines on
how different vehicle automation levels may reduce vehicle crashes and how the use
of on-board short-range sensors coupled with V2V technologies can help facilitate
communication among vehicles. Based on the previous works, it can be seen that the
assessment of driversâ behaviours using their trajectory data is a fresh and open
research field. Most studies related to driving behaviours in terms of accelerationïżœdeceleration are evaluated at the laboratory scale using experimental results from
actual vehicles. Towards this end, a five-stage methodology for a new collision
warning system in the context of V2V based on driving behaviours has been designed.
Real-time V2V hardware for data collection purposes was developed. Driving
behaviour was analyzed in different timeframes prior obtained from actual driving
behaviour in an urban environment collected from OBD-II adapter and GPS data
logger of an instrumented vehicle. By measuring the in-vehicle accelerations, it is
possible to categorize the driving behaviour into four main classes based on real-time
experiments: safe drivers, normal, aggressive, and dangerous drivers. When the
vehicle is in a risk situation, the system based on NRF24L01+PA/LNA, GPS, and
OBD-II will pass a signal to the driver using a dedicated LCD and LED light signal.
The driver can instantly decide to make the vehicle in a safe mood, effectively avoid
the happening of vehicle accidents. The proposed solution provides two main functions: (1) the detection of the dangerous vehicles involved in the road, and (2) the display of
a message informing the driver if it is safe or unsafe to pass. System performance was
evaluated to ensure that it achieved the primary objective of improving road safety in
the extreme behaviour of the driver in question either the safest (or the least aggressive)
and the most unsafe (or the most aggressive). The proposed methodology has retained
some advantages for other literature studies because of the simultaneous use of speed,
acceleration, and vehicle location. The V2V based on driving behaviour experiments
shows the effectiveness of the selected approach predicts behaviour with an accuracy
of over 87% in sixty-four real-time scenarios presented its capability to detect
behaviour and provide a warning to nearby drivers. The system failed detection only
in few times when the receiving vehicle missed data due to high speed during the test
as well as the distances between the moving vehicles, the data was not received
correctly since the power transmitted, the frequency range of the signals, the antenna
relative positions, and the number of in-range vehicles are of interest for the V2V test
scenarios. The latter result supports the conclusion that warnings that efficiently and
quickly transmit their information may be better when driver are under stress or time
pressure
Mitigating Roadway Disasters in Extreme Flooding Events: A Critical Case Study of Flood Fatalities in Harris County, Texas
From 1959 â 2009, Texas has annually led the nation in the number of flood fatalities. On average the number of deaths in Texas was three times the amount of the second leading state (Sharif, Hossain, Jackson & Bin-Shafique, 2012). Quantitative studies have attempted to construct the definition of when, how and the likelihood that a person dies in a flood event, why they made the fatal decision to drive, and who is particularly vulnerable to making this decision. This dissertation used a qualitative approach to explore this occurrence in a deeper and more meaningful context. This dissertation includes four research questions. What factors govern driversâ decision-making during a flood? What social norms about driving and flooding contribute to the risk factor decision? What mitigation measures has the local government implemented to prevent driver fatalities during extreme flooding? What experiences from drivers are missing in current Flood Warning Systems (FWS)? This qualitative dissertation used a historical narrative approach to provide a critical case study of fatalities in Harris County, Texas. The selected storms were Great Flood of 1994, Tropical Storm Allison of 2001, Memorial Day Flood of 2015, Tax Day Flood of 2016, Hurricane Harvey of 2017, and Tropical Storm Imelda of 2019. Data was collected from live broadcasts, online and printed media sources, 97 semi-structured interviews, public government documents and reports as well as social media posts and comments from Twitter and Facebook. Street observations were conducted at the known locations where fatalities occurred for those that either died in their car or abandoned a car and died. This research resulted in the creation of a database of the victims demographics and reasons for driving as well as a database creation of street design characteristics at the fatality locations. All fatalities that occurred in Harris County were mapped, including non-vehicle related fatalities. This dissertation concludes that both driver error and road design error contribute to fatalities. Social norms influence the lack of adequate mitigation from local governments and better Flood Warning Systems could prevent deaths from occurring
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