Enabling pervasive computing with smart phones

The authors discuss their experience with a number of mobile telephony projects carried out in the context of the European Union Information Society Technologies research program, which aims to develop mobile information services. They identify areas where use of smart phones can enable pervasive computing and offer practical advice in terms of lessons learned. To this end, they first look at the mobile telephone as * the end point of a mobile information service,* the control device for ubiquitous systems management and configuration,* the networking hub for personal and body area networks, and* identification tokens.They conclude with a discussion of business and practical issues that play a significant role in deploying research systems in realistic situations

Film in the city: a report on the film & video sub-Sector in London

The movie business, and the distribution of films through the associated cinema and home video sectors is a truly global phenomenon. In terms of both production and distribution, Hollywood has traditionally dominated international markets, however, with radical innovations in information and digital technologies and the spread of the Internet, it has become increasingly easier to make and distribute films around the world . Coupled with this is the ‘runaway production’ concept, whereby Hollywood productions are no longer tied to site-specific studios and can choose to shoot and edit their (usually high-budget) movies in locations around the globe. This has created an international market where cities, such as Vancouver, Sydney, Brisbane, Prague, Cape Town, London and many more, compete for big movie business. London has a thriving film and video sub-sector and a highly competitive infrastructure, nurtured by a host of supporting institutions, which together create a powerful creative network of players capable of competing at a global scale. The physical geography of the city also matters to the film industry, not only in terms of shooting locations, but also in determining where to locate, pitch or exhibit the final creative product. Consequently, the location and interconnected value chain of producers, post-production, financiers, sales agents and distributors, cinemas and theatres, as well as the myriad of specialised and highly skilled workforce is key to the industry’s success. The co-location and clustering tendencies of individuals and institutions located at close proximity in London and highlighted in this report are evidence of the intense social networking that characterises the industry

Combating Trafficking in Persons: A directory of organisations

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.ASI_2003_HT_UK_Combating_Trafficking.pdf: 445 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

A Report on the Design Sub-Sector in London

Housed in the School of Creative Enterprise at the London College of Communication (University of the Arts), the Creative Industries Observatory (CIO) is a leading contributor to academic research and analysis within the creative industries, and a source of information for the increasingly influential group of sub-sectors that characterise the modern knowledge economy. The CIO was set up in conjunction with ‘Creative Capital World City’ (CCWC) – a project funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) aimed at supporting the creative industries in key world markets, including THE UK, India and China. The CIO is an international and multi-disciplinary team with a range of expertise and experience across academic disciplines and industry sub-sectors. We focus on strategic, structural and definitional issues relevant to the creative industries. This report is one in a series designed to give policy makers, business leaders, practitioners and researchers a comprehensive overview and in-depth analysis of the core activities and key characteristics across thirteen creative sub-sectors in developed and emerging global cities. The report is designed to allow you to identify information that is relevant to your needs quickly and effectively, as well as cross-reference between topics and creative sub-sectors. CIO reports are designed to provide a snapshot of each sub-sector in each city. This report focuses on the design sub-sector in London

African Water: Supporting African involvement in the EU Framework Programme.

Water researchers in developing countries have yet to take full advantage of the funding and collaborative research opportunities presented by the EU Framework Programme. There are a variety of reasons for this, such as insufficient information and a lack of previous experience. The African Water initiative aims to increase the involvement of African water researchers through a range of activities including communication and dissemination, capacity building and development, and complementary initiatives. The project has demonstrated that there is a demand for such sector-specific support activities. However, African Water is a small component of a much larger process of partnership between the developed and the less-developed countries of the world, involving many different European and African organisations working across political, institutional and technical domains, and complementing the wide range of actions already being undertaken

Healthcare PANs: Personal Area Networks for trauma care and home care

The first hour following the trauma is of crucial importance in trauma care. The sooner treatment begins, the better the ultimate outcome for the patient. Generally the initial treatment is handled by paramedical personnel arriving at the site of the accident with an ambulance. There is evidence to show that if the expertise of the on-site paramedic team can be supported by immediate and continuous access to and communication with the expert medical team at the hospital, patient outcomes can be improved. After care also influences the ultimate recovery of the patient. After-treatment follow up often occurs in-hospital in spite of the fact that care at home can offer more advantages and can accelerate recovery. Based on emerging and future wireless communication technologies, in a previous paper [1] we presented an initial vision of two future healthcare settings, supported by applications which we call Virtual Trauma Team and Virtual Homecare Team. The Virtual Trauma Team application involves high quality wireless multimedia communications between ambulance paramedics and the hospital facilitated by paramedic Body Area Networks (BANs) [2] and an ambulance-based Vehicle Area Network (VAN). The VAN supports bi-directional streaming audio and video communication between the ambulance and the hospital even when moving at speed. The clinical motivation for Virtual Trauma Team is to increase survival rates in trauma care. The Virtual Homecare Team application enables homecare coordinated by home nursing services and supported by the patient's PAN which consists of a patient BAN in combination with an ambient intelligent home environment. The homecare PAN provides intelligent monitoring and support functions and the possibility to ad hoc network to the visiting health professionals’ own BANs as well as high quality multimedia communication links to remote members of the virtual team. The motivation for Virtual Homecare Team is to improve quality of life and independence for patients by supporting care at home; the economic motivation is to replace expensive hospital-based care with homecare by virtual teams using wireless technology to support the patient and the carers. In this paper we develop the vision further and focus in particular on the concepts of personal and body area networks

LIFE [instrument for environment and climate action]. Third country projects 2005

The European Commission has selected 15 projects situated in Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Russia, Tunisia, Turkey and the West Bank and Gaza, for funding through the LIFE-Third Countries programme. These projects aim to improve the environment and achieve sustainable development by creating or strengthening the relevant institutions, policies, monitoring tools, training facilities, networks and data bases

A cloud-based tool for sentiment analysis in reviews about restaurants on TripAdvisor

The tourism industry has been promoting its products and services based on the reviews that people often write on travel websites like TripAdvisor.com, Booking.com and other platforms like these. These reviews have a profound effect on the decision making process when evaluating which places to visit, such as which restaurants to book, etc. In this contribution is presented a cloud based software tool for the massive analysis of this social media data (TripAdvisor.com). The main characteristics of the tool developed are: i) the ability to aggregate data obtained from social media; ii) the possibility of carrying out combined analyses of both people and comments; iii) the ability to detect the sense (positive, negative or neutral) in which the comments rotate, quantifying the degree to which they are positive or negative, as well as predicting behaviour patterns from this information; and iv) the ease of doing everything in the same application (data downloading, pre-processing, analysis and visualisation). As a test and validation case, more than 33.500 revisions written in English on restaurants in the Province of Granada (Spain) were analyse