Towards a conceptualisation of smart tourists and their role within the smart destination scenario

‘Smart tourism’ and ‘smart destinations’ have been gaining attention as new frameworks within which to understand the impact the latest information and communication technologies (ICTs) have on the relationship between businesses, destinations and tourists. However, there is a crucial element of the smart tourism ecosystem that has been rather neglected in research hitherto: the tourists themselves. By acknowledging a shift in tourists’ behaviour due to the advent of disruptive factors, this paper conceptualises the recently emerged notion of ‘the smart tourist’. This new type of tourist is profiled through a description of their attitudes and behaviours, and their role within the smart destination scenario is depicted. By taking a consumer-centric perspective and framing the conceptualisation within the relevant theories, this paper contributes to the current body of knowledge on tourism in a highly technological context and facilitates bridging smart tourism theoretical foundations with empirical research. The observed transformation in tourists’ behaviour and its encapsulation in the smart tourist conceptualisation reveal critical managerial implications for both destination management organisations and businesses in the rapidly changing smart tourism ecosystem.Research carried out within the project ‘Analysis of planning processes applied to smart cities and smart tourism destinations. Balance and methodological proposal for tourist spaces: Smart Tourism Planning’ (CSO2017-82592-R) under the Spanish National R&D&I Plan and Grant no. BES-2015-073909, funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness

Experimental Evaluation of Indoor Navigation Devices

The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 59/1, December 2016 published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.Augmented reality (AR) interfaces for indoor navigation on handheld mobile devices seem to greatly enhance directional assistance and user engagement, but it is sometimes challenging for users to hold the device at specific position and orientation during navigation. Previous studies have not adequately explored wearable devices in this context. In the current study, we developed a prototype AR indoor navigation application in order to evaluate and compare handheld devices and wearable devices such as Google Glass, in terms of performance, workload, and perceived usability. The results showed that although the wearable device was perceived to have better accuracy, its overall navigation performance and workload were still similar to a handheld device. We also found that digital navigation aids were better than paper maps in terms of shorter task completion time and lower workload, but digital navigation aids also resulted in worse route/map retention.NSERC Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2015-04134

The Construction of Locative Situations: the Production of Agency in Locative Media Art Practice

This thesis is a practice led enquiry into Locative Media (LM) which argues that this emergent art practice has played an influential role in the shaping of locative technologies in their progression from new to everyday technologies. The research traces LM to its origins at the Karosta workshops, reviews the stated objectives of early practitioners and the ambitions of early projects, establishing it as a coherent art movement located within established traditions of technological art and of situated art practice. Based on a prescient analysis of the potential for ubiquitous networked location-awareness, LM developed an ambitious program aimed at repositioning emergent locative technologies as tools which enhance and augment space rather than surveil and control. Drawing on Krzysztof Ziarek\u27s treatment of avant-garde art and technology in The Force of Art , theories of technology drawn from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and software studies, the thesis builds an argument for the agency of Locative Media. LM is positioned as an interface layer which in connecting the user to the underlying functionality of locative technologies offers alternative interpretations, introduces new usage modes, and ultimately shifts the understanding and meaning of the technology. Building on the Situationist concept of the constructed situation, with reference to an ongoing body of practice, an experimental practice-based framework for LM art is advanced which accounts for its agency and, it is proposed, preserves this agency in a rapidly developing field

Preparation And Characterization Of Self-Assembled Monolayers And Mesoscale Protein Patterning

Bottom-up approach was used to develop self-assembled monolayers of octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) and undecenyltrichlorosilane(UTS) on Si(100) wafer. Undecenyltrichlorosilane monolayer was oxidized at the vinyl terminal to generate a carboxylic acid group. Lysozyme protein was immobilized on the polar carboxylic acid group. The developed protein patterns were investigated using fluorescence microscopy. Lysozyme has an isoelectronic point of 11.35. At a pH below this value the protein is positively charged making it a good candidate for electrostatic adsorption on the negatively charge -COO- group. Fluorescence images confirm formation of lysozyme across the silicon wafer. The patterned Si(100) wafer can be used as a biosensor against lysozyme antibodies. Another approach to develop varied surface properties was used to grow OTS on oxidized UTSox via chemical phase deposition (CVD). In this case we used polystyrene and silicon nanospheres as masking agents on the already developed and oxidized UTS. Fluorescence images revealed that OTS layers were formed on the interstitial spaces of the nanosphere masks. Varied protein can be immobilized on this surface due to different terminal groups on the surface

Dumb Cities: Spatial Media, Urban Communication, and the Right to the Smart City

A majority of the global population is now concentrated in cities, and the "smart city" model has emerged as the predominant paradigm for contemporary urban development. Employing networked infrastructures and big data for urban governance, the smart city promises innovative solutions for longstanding urban problems—using computer technologies to automate or monitor everything from traffic patterns to voting practices—while also posing new questions and dilemmas for city dwellers. The smart city model reworks traditional notions of urban rights, such as access to housing and public space, by implementing communication technologies that offer new possibilities for connection even as they create conditions for division and unequal access. How do the communication infrastructures deployed in smart city programs alter the communicative functions of urban spaces, and how might critical urban theory be updated in order to account for these emerging technologies? Focusing primarily on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this project addresses these questions by investigating policies, practices, and infrastructures mediating civic engagement and urban communication in technologically-driven urban development. I survey several salient examples of smart city approaches including the use of “big data” approaches for urban governance, networked transportation infrastructures, and media interfaces for visualizing and interacting with space. This work focuses especially on how notions of citizenship and civic engagement are constructed in "smart" urban imaginaries, as well as the role of emergent technologies in mediating experiences of space and place. I advance the rhetorical skill and cunning intelligence of mêtis as a conceptual lens for assessing and cultivating an engaged urban citizenship. I argue that rhetorics of “smart” urbanism discursively delegate ideals of civic engagement to technical infrastructures and processes, thereby occluding both longstanding and emergent disparities in urban communities

Seamless Positioning and Navigation in Urban Environment

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Mobility Data Science (Dagstuhl Seminar 22021)

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 22021 "Mobility Data Science". This seminar was held January 9-14, 2022, including 47 participants from industry and academia. The goal of this Dagstuhl Seminar was to create a new research community of mobility data science in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts by bringing together established leaders as well as promising young researchers from all fields related to mobility data science. Specifically, this report summarizes the main results of the seminar by (1) defining Mobility Data Science as a research domain, (2) by sketching its agenda in the coming years, and by (3) building a mobility data science community. (1) Mobility data science is defined as spatiotemporal data that additionally captures the behavior of moving entities (human, vehicle, animal, etc.). To understand, explain, and predict behavior, we note that a strong collaboration with research in behavioral and social sciences is needed. (2) Future research directions for mobility data science described in this report include a) mobility data acquisition and privacy, b) mobility data management and analysis, and c) applications of mobility data science. (3) We identify opportunities towards building a mobility data science community, towards collaborations between academic and industry, and towards a mobility data science curriculum