Crowd-sourced Photographic Content for Urban Recreational Route Planning

Routing services are able to provide travel directions for users of all modes of transport. Most of them are focusing on functional journeys (i.e. journeys linking given origin and destination with minimum cost) while paying less attention to recreational trips, in particular leisure walks in an urban context. These walks are additionally predefined by time or distance and as their purpose is the process of walking itself, the attractiveness of areas that are passed by can be an important factor in route selection. This factor is hard to be formalised and requires a reliable source of information, covering the entire street network. Previous research shows that crowd-sourced data available from photo-sharing services has a potential for being a measure of space attractiveness, thus becoming a base for a routing system that suggests leisure walks, and ongoing PhD research aims to build such system. This paper demonstrates findings on four investigated data sources (Flickr, Panoramio, Picasa and Geograph) in Central London and discusses the requirements to the algorithm that is going to be implemented in the second half of this PhD research. Visual analytics was chosen as a method for understanding and comparing obtained datasets that contain hundreds of thousands records. Interactive software was developed to find a number of problems, as well as to estimate the suitability of the sources in general. It was concluded that Picasa and Geograph have problems making them less suitable for further research while Panoramio and Flickr require filtering to remove photographs that do not contribute to understanding of local attractiveness. Based on this analysis a number of filtering methods were proposed in order to improve the quality of datasets and thus provide a more reliable measure to support urban recreational routing

Keyword-aware Optimal Route Search

Identifying a preferable route is an important problem that finds applications in map services. When a user plans a trip within a city, the user may want to find "a most popular route such that it passes by shopping mall, restaurant, and pub, and the travel time to and from his hotel is within 4 hours." However, none of the algorithms in the existing work on route planning can be used to answer such queries. Motivated by this, we define the problem of keyword-aware optimal route query, denoted by KOR, which is to find an optimal route such that it covers a set of user-specified keywords, a specified budget constraint is satisfied, and an objective score of the route is optimal. The problem of answering KOR queries is NP-hard. We devise an approximation algorithm OSScaling with provable approximation bounds. Based on this algorithm, another more efficient approximation algorithm BucketBound is proposed. We also design a greedy approximation algorithm. Results of empirical studies show that all the proposed algorithms are capable of answering KOR queries efficiently, while the BucketBound and Greedy algorithms run faster. The empirical studies also offer insight into the accuracy of the proposed algorithms.Comment: VLDB201

The influence of the visual elements of cover design on the appeal of art and cultural magazines: case study is book fare in Oulu

Design of magazines - a complex and time-consuming process, often requiring custom solutions. Developers need to know what impact on the visual component of information influence on the audience. The purpose of this case is to gain an understanding of what kind of visual elements of paper media influence on the choice of viewer. As a particular type of magazine were chosen art and cultural magazine with a reason to narrow research and to get depth knowledge about this topic. The study is structured that in the first chapter the information about purpose and research questions is provided. Second chapter describes research materials and methodology that were used to collect data. The third chapter gives the literature review that focus subjects of the study. In the chapters four, the results of the research is analysed and conclusions are made. After all chapters made generalised conclusion using data from the literature review and data collected from the interviews

Feeds as Query Result Serializations

Many Web-based data sources and services are available as feeds, a model that provides consumers with a loosely coupled way of interacting with providers. The current feed model is limited in its capabilities, however. Though it is simple to implement and scales well, it cannot be transferred to a wider range of application scenarios. This paper conceptualizes feeds as a way to serialize query results, describes the current hardcoded query semantics of such a perspective, and surveys the ways in which extensions of this hardcoded model have been proposed or implemented. Our generalized view of feeds as query result serializations has implications for the applicability of feeds as a generic Web service for any collection that is providing access to individual information items. As one interesting and compelling class of applications, we describe a simple way in which a query-based approach to feeds can be used to support location-based services

Exporting Destruction: Export Credits, Illegal Logging and Deforestation

Analyzes case studies of the role of export credit agencies, which make government-subsidized loans to companies doing business in countries considered investment risks, in supporting illegal logging, corruption, and deforestation. Lists policy options

The Evaluation of Growth Performance of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea Batatas L.) Awassa Var. by Using Different Type of Vine Cuttings

Sweet potato is commonly grown from small tubers and vegetative by vine cutting is common phenomena to get good growth performance of it before planting. A study was conducted to evaluation of the growth performance of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatus L.) by using different types of vine cuttings in 2016 at Wolaita Sodo collage of Agriculture and Department of Horticulture. It was laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications and three treatments of vine cutngs of length (25cm) each were used. Data collected on growth parameters were analyzed using SAS version 9.2.The study objective was to find out the best vine cutting type for Awassa variety for production of sweet potato under Wolaita climatic condition. The growth parameters soft wood cuttings was preferable, early and late days of leave initiation (25.21, (11.58) recorded soft wood and hard wood cutting respectively. The investigation indicated that soft wood cutting of sweet potato vines were accelerate rate of leave initiation after planting than the other ones. There was very highly significance leaf number between all treatment according to analysis of variance. Highest (135.07) and lowest (68.28) number of leaves was observed in the treatment with soft and hard wood cuttings respectively. Leave diameter (8.02 and 4.98) at soft wood and hard wood vines cuttings respectively. With the same treatment the number of branches were affected the highest  and lowest number of primary branches (6.25 and 1.93)  soft and hard wood cuttings while the higher and lower(38.35 and 11.12) secondary branches was the same effect as the rest vine cuttings with soft wood and semi hard wood cuttings of sweet potatoes showed wider canopy (127.91 and 65.86) and hard wood cuttings showed narrower canopy(18.20).Analysis of  variance for branch number was indicated highly significantly different between treatment at probability level 50% The highest plant height (71.108) was obtained at the by soft wood cutting and highly significant from semi hard wood and hard wood cuttings. The calculated coefficient of variation (Cv%)  indicated there  was relatively high significant difference among all parameters (CV>10) except for the  days of leaf initiation. Number of leaves and leaf diameter (CV<10) on the other hand the shorts plant height (24.175) was observed from hard wood cuttings. The highest root volume (28.83) was observed at the soft wood cutting while the lowest canopy width (14.56)  was recorded at the third treatment of hard wood cuttings case plant circumference the highest (34.64) and 16.91) was recorded at soft and hard wood cuttings respectively. Keywords: Sweet Potato, Cuttings, Verities, Wolait

Potential role of remote sensing in disaster relief management

Baseline or predisaster data which would be useful to decision making in the immediate postdisaster period were suggested for the six areas of public health concern along with guidelines for organizing these data. Potential sources of these data are identified. In order to fully assess the impact of a disaster on an area, information about its predisaster status must be known. Aerial photography is one way of acquiring and recording such data