Stigmergy-based modeling to discover urban activity patterns from positioning data

Positioning data offer a remarkable source of information to analyze crowds urban dynamics. However, discovering urban activity patterns from the emergent behavior of crowds involves complex system modeling. An alternative approach is to adopt computational techniques belonging to the emergent paradigm, which enables self-organization of data and allows adaptive analysis. Specifically, our approach is based on stigmergy. By using stigmergy each sample position is associated with a digital pheromone deposit, which progressively evaporates and aggregates with other deposits according to their spatiotemporal proximity. Based on this principle, we exploit positioning data to identify high density areas (hotspots) and characterize their activity over time. This characterization allows the comparison of dynamics occurring in different days, providing a similarity measure exploitable by clustering techniques. Thus, we cluster days according to their activity behavior, discovering unexpected urban activity patterns. As a case study, we analyze taxi traces in New York City during 2015

17 Human-Car confluence: “Socially-Inspired driving mechanisms”

With self-driving vehicles announced for the 2020s, today’s challenges in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) lie in problems related to negotiation and decision making in (spontaneously formed) car collectives. Due to the close coupling and interconnectedness of the involved driver-vehicle entities, effects on the local level induced by cognitive capacities, behavioral patterns, and the social context of drivers, would directly cause changes on the macro scale. To illustrate, a driver’s fatigue or emotion can influence a local driver-vehicle feedback loop, which is directly translated into his or her driving style, and, in turn, can affect driving styles of all nearby drivers. These transitional, yet collective driver state and driving style changes raise global traffic phenomena like jams, collective aggressiveness, etc. To allow harmonic coexistence of autonomous and self-driven vehicles, we investigate in this chapter the effects of socially-inspired driving and discuss the potential and beneficial effects its application should have on collective traffic

Industrial strategy and the UK regions: Sectorally narrow and spatially blind

The UK government's new Industrial Strategy could have a significant impact on the country's regions and localities. However, this has received little attention to date. The analysis presented here examines the existing location of the sectors targeted by the first phase of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and the location of the R&D laboratories likely to be first in line for funding. In focusing on an extremely narrow range of sectors, the Fund is likely to have limited impact on the UK's persistent regional inequalities. The activities eligible for support account for relatively little of manufacturing or the rest of the economy and the basis of this targeting and its potential distributional consequences are spatially blind. As such, it runs the risk of widening regional divides in prosperity

Investigating autistic traits, sensory experiences and personality: a mixed methods approach

The relatively recent spectrum view of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with symptoms potentially varying from mild to severe, in combination with high rates of co-morbid conditions, has raised the issue of heterogeneity among individuals with ASD. This has consequent challenges for obtaining consistent research findings and for the diagnosis of those with less severe symptoms or high-functioning ASD. Since evidence has suggested the presence of non-clinical levels of autistic traits within the general population, this thesis aimed to explore these traits in relation to personality and sensory experiences via a mixed methods design, comprising two parts. Part I consisted of two studies aimed at exploring the lived experiences of individuals with ASD and their caregivers, in relation to sensory experiences, in order to inform the subsequent studies. The focus of Part II was to explore autistic traits in the broader population and consisted of three studies. In Part I, Study one comprised a systematic review of studies containing qualitative data from caregivers of individuals with ASD in relation to sensory experiences. Key sensory challenges reported related to: single senses (most commonly touch, taste, movement, and hearing), sensory issues embedded in certain situations, understanding the individual's sensory experiences, strategies to manage sensory issues, and the impacts of an individual’s sensory issues on the family. A discrepancy between caregiver reports of the benefits of sensory based interventions and existing empirical evidence was identified. Study two involved qualitative analyses of sensory experiences, as described by three individuals with a diagnosis of ASD. Three main themes were identified: dominant types of sensory experiences including visual experiences, sounds, tastes and food preferences, tactile experiences, and less dominant senses including smells and movement, and multi-sensory experiences; management of sensory challenges; and participants’ perceptions of change and difference. The first study of Part II, study three, investigated the psychometric properties of the short form of the Autism Quotient (AQ-10) based on two separate non-clinical samples (N1 = 194; N2 = 310), via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Results indicated a 7-item 3-factor solution for the AQ-10, with factors labelled social cues, intentions, and multi-tasking. Since the social cues factor accounted for the largest amount of variance (31%), and other factors together accounted for minimal explained variance (27%), only items comprising social cues were selected as a measure of autistic traits for subsequent analysis and studies. Structural equation modelling was conducted to analyse co-variate paths between social cues and selected personality traits, with findings indicating that social cue reading was not related to trait anger, introversion, or collecting. These results, therefore, challenged stereotypical associations between these constructs and ASD, and were consistent with existing evidence that social aspects of autistic traits are independent from repetitive behaviours, such as collecting. Study four extended these findings through exploration of social cue reading in relation to trait flexibility, anxiety, and sensory experiences. Consistent findings indicated positive associations between inflexibility, anxiety, and auditory and visual hypersensitivity, potentially suggesting that individuals with higher trait inflexibility and anxiety could experience greater sensory sensitivity or vice versa. Finally, study five involved a qualitative analysis of accounts of sensory experiences from a large combined sample (N = 504) of individuals from the general population. Content analysis of responses resulted in six main categories. Similar percentages of individuals scoring low and high on autistic traits (based on social cue reading difficulty) reported challenges relating to single senses (visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory), people and crowds, and unexpected or unfamiliar stimuli. Unexpectedly, more individuals with low levels of autistic traits reported specific fears and anxiety responses to sensory stimuli, raising questions as to whether those with poorer social cue reading ability are more prone to report generalised anxiety (in line with trait anxiety) or are less aware or avoid reporting responses to sensory stimuli. Overall, the role of trait flexibility is highlighted across Parts I and II as being a central feature in individuals reporting experiences of sensory sensitivities. The collective findings of this program of research have implications for the further development of both clinical interventions and theoretical understandings, in addition to accommodations for individuals with sensory sensitivities and ASD traits. Keywords: autism, autistic traits, ASD, social cues, sensory, inflexibility, trait anger, trait anxiety, collecting interests

Mechanical pleasures: The appeal of British amusement parks 1900-1914

This chapter was commissioned by the editor to complement a collection of 11 essays examining amusement parks in Australia, Turkey, Spain, the US and the UK as key sites of cultural history and intangible heritage. This edited volume is published as part of a Heritage, Culture and Identity series, which explores notions of heritage in relation to tourism, conservation and the built environment for a highly interdisciplinary readership. My contribution provides an early history of amusement parks in Britain. Taking the spatial and architectural design as my starting point, I use archive evidence to reconstruct the lived experiences and cultural meanings of early amusement parks. Using London’s first purpose-built park at White City (est. 1908) and Blackpool Pleasure Beach (est 1896) as case studies, I explore thrill-seeking as a shared response to the experience of urban modernity at the beginning of the twentieth century. The chapter argues that, rather than providing an escape from the urban spectacle, the amusement park offered a heightened version of its multi-sensory stimulation: speeding rides, repetitive mechanical noise, multi-coloured electric lights, transient crowds, uninhibited behaviour. Drawing on the work of pioneering sociologist Georg Simmel (1858-1918), photographs and plans of the parks, contemporary reports published in newspapers and journals, and more recent interpretations of cultures of modernity (such as the work of Bernhard Rieger and Lauren Rabinovitz), this chapter posits an alternative reading of the early amusement park experience, arguing that by the turn of the twentieth century, as the ‘shock’ of the modern city became rationalised and internalised, urban crowds were drawn to environments in which a purely emotional intensity might still be found