Fuzzy Recommendations in Marketing Campaigns

The population in Sweden is growing rapidly due to immigration. In this light, the issue of infrastructure upgrades to provide telecommunication services is of importance. New antennas can be installed at hot spots of user demand, which will require an investment, and/or the clientele expansion can be carried out in a planned manner to promote the exploitation of the infrastructure in the less loaded geographical zones. In this paper, we explore the second alternative. Informally speaking, the term Infrastructure-Stressing describes a user who stays in the zones of high demand, which are prone to produce service failures, if further loaded. We have studied the Infrastructure-Stressing population in the light of their correlation with geo-demographic segments. This is motivated by the fact that specific geo-demographic segments can be targeted via marketing campaigns. Fuzzy logic is applied to create an interface between big data, numeric methods for processing big data and a manager.Comment: conferenc

Residential Broadband Availability: Evidence from Kentucky and North Carolina

I analyze the determinants of county-level broadband availability to gauge the extent to which the rural-urban broadband gap has narrowed and the factors that underlie that narrowing. Using data that have been collected by organizations tracking and promoting broadband in Kentucky and North Carolina, I find that in both states the rural-urban availability gap has indeed narrowed substantially, although there appears to be a limit on the extent to which broadband service will extend into the least densely populated counties. Among rural counties, availability rates increase systematically with the size of the county’s urbanized population.broadband availability, digital divide, rural development, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

A Spatial and Regression Analysis of Social Media in the United States Counties

The locational distribution and socio-economic determinants of social media are analyzed for the United States counties in 2012. A theory of determinants is presented that is modified from the Spatially Aware Technology Utilization Model (SATUM). Socio- Economic factors including demography, economy, education, innovation, and social capital are posited to influence social media factors, while spatial analysis is conducted including exploratory analysis of geographic distribution and confirmatory screening for spatial randomness. The determinants are identified through OLS regression analysis. Findings for the nation indicate that the major determinants are demographic factors, service occupations, ethnicities, and urban location. Further subsample analysis is conducted for the U.S. metropolitan, micropolitan, and rural subsamples. The subsamples differ most evidently in effects of ethnicities and construction occupations, and there are inverse effects of social capital at the micropolitan and rural levels. The regression findings are discussed in terms of the literature mostly of larger geographic units, and the few nationwide studies at the county level. The exploratory spatial analysis generally indicates similar national geographic patterns of use. Among the results is that although Twitter users are more heavily concentrated in southern California and have strong presence in the lower Mississippi region, Facebook users are highly concentrated in Colorado, Utah and adjacent Rocky Mountain States. Social media usage is lowest in the Great Plains, lower Midwest, and South with the exceptions of Florida and the major southern cities such as Atlanta. The overall extent of spatial agglomeration is very high and is examined in detail for the nation and subsamples. The paper concludes by discussing the policy implications of the analysis at the county as well as the national levels

Despoblación de las regiones de bajos ingresos de la UE: ¿puede la digitalización a través del acceso de banda ancha reducirlo?

Depopulated rural or post-industrial areas, which are often low-income with fewer job opportunities, represent an open challenge for the European Union. Sharp demographic declines especially in Eastern and Southern Europe, due to the intra-EU migration of younger, skilled workers from these areas have become a serious obstacle to the sustainable development of many EU lowerincome regions. The European Parliament highlights the gap in ICT connectivity among other reasons. This paper aims to provide empirical evidence, by applying Panel Data Analysis, that digitalisation of European NUTS-2 regions with lower incomes via Broadband Access may contribute to reversing negative demographic trends.Las zonas rurales despobladas o postindustriales, que suelen ser de bajos ingresos y con menos oportunidades laborales, representan un desafío abierto para la Unión Europea. Las fuertes caídas demográficas, especialmente en Europa del Este y del Sur, debido a la migración dentro de la UE de trabajadores más jóvenes y calificados de estas áreas, se han convertido en un serio obstáculo para el desarrollo sostenible de muchas regiones de la UE con bajos ingresos. El Parlamento Europeo destaca la brecha en la conectividad de las TIC, entre otras razones. Este artículo tiene como objetivo proporcionar evidencia empírica, mediante la aplicación de análisis de datos de panel, de que la digitalización de las regiones europeas NUTS-2 con ingresos más bajos a través del acceso de banda ancha puede contribuir a revertir las tendencias demográficas negativas

The Impact of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) on Firm Location

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Geography, 2010Recent innovations in information and communications technologies (ICTs), particularly those related to the Internet, have fundamentally changed the environment in which businesses and regions compete around the globe. Despite widespread recognition of this change, several aspects of the manner in which ICTs have impacted business location and regional development remain unexplored. The papers that comprise this dissertation seek to provide some initial quantitative insights about ICTs, firm location, and regional development, to a literature that remains largely theoretical and speculative. The first paper explores the utility of short and mid-range broadband forecasts as potential tools for local economic development officials to flag problematic areas where broadband provision via traditional market mechanisms is doubtful. The piece finds short and mid-range spatial forecasts of broadband provision offer improved results over aspatial forecasts, which is especially important for ICT studies, given the historical lack of available data for use in empirical work. Forecasts can also be used by economic development officials to craft proactive rather than reactive intervention strategies to rollout broadband in unserved areas. The second paper examines similarities in the spatial distribution of broadband provision and firms in a variety of industries. Results indicate the relationship between the location of broadband and the location of firms varies by firm size and industry. This suggests firm size and industry membership are critical considerations when evaluating the impact of ICTs on firm location decisions. The third and final paper examines the challenges associated with benchmarking regional development given the pervasive and related technological and industrial changes in the U.S over the past thirty years. Findings suggest multivariate approaches for benchmarking regional development are preferred over univariate approaches given the demonstrated divergence in univariate indicators in recent years. In sum, these three studies provide important information regarding the measurement of regional competitiveness in the global information economy, as well as information about the spatial relationship between firm location and broadband provision; which is likely to be a critical locational consideration for firm in specific sectors of the U.S economy

Broadband ecosystem elements in techno-economic modelling and analysing of broadband access solutions for rural areas

S obzirom na postojeće razvojne inicijative i strategije čiji je cilj smanjenje postojećeg digitalnog jaza između europskih ruralnih i urbanih područja do 2020. godine, u radu je provedena analiza trenutnog stanja na tržištu širokopojasnog Interneta na primjeru hrvatskih ruralnih područja te su navedene mogućnosti daljnje implementacije širokopojasnih pristupnih rješenja u ruralna područja u kontekstu analize elemenata širokopojasnog ekosustava. Nadalje, u cilju rješavanja postojećeg problema digitalnog jaza, pri analizama načina implementacije širokopojasnih pristupnih rješenja u ruralnim područjima predložena je primjena proširenog tehno-ekonomskog modeliranja. Navedeno proširenje nadograđuje standardne modele, a omogućuje detaljniju analizu specifičnosti različitih pristupnih rješenja za ruralna područja. U posljednjem dijelu rada prikazana je mogućnost primjene predloženog modela pri odabiru najboljih poslovnih strategija za različita fiksna i mobilna, žična te bežična širokopojasna pristupna rješenja za ruralna područja.Encouraged by broadband development initiatives and strategies that aim at the reduction of the existing digital divide between rural and urban European areas by the year 2020, the current situation in the case study of Croatian rural broadband market is analysed, and the possibilities for further broadband Internet access implementation in rural areas are highlighted in the paper within the context of broadband ecosystem elements analysis. Furthermore, in order to address the exisiting digital divide problem, an extended techno-economic modelling process for rural broadband Internet access implementation analyses is proposed. The proposed additional part of model serves as an upgrade for the standard techno-economic models and allows a detailed analysis of the specificities of different rural areas, based on the available data. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed model’s application when choosing the best business strategies for different fixed and mobile, wired and wireless broadband access solutions in rural areas is presented

Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCL’s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was “Global Challenges”, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

Modeling health related behaviours using geodemographics: applications in social marketing and preventative health.

The increased incidence of lifestyle related diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, across the western world is now an established fact, and presents many challenges to researchers trying to understand the determinants of poor health. Measurement of health needs and health outcomes is a fundamental component of evidence-based policy, strategy and delivery of health care services and interventions at scales from the local to the national. A central contention of this thesis is that health outcome indicators should be cognisant of factors such as personal behaviour, lifestyles, community influences, living and working conditions, accessibility to services and educational attainment which all impact upon the health of the individual and the wider community. It is therefore sensible to explore these differences by understanding both the social space comprising of different population sub-groups and the geographical within which they live. Good quality data underlie the functioning of evidence-based decisions. Data provide the building blocks for understanding the nature and composition of neighbourhoods, together with the expected health outcomes of their residents. But within the health arena there are many complicated data issues. Existing operational health data sets are often incomplete or not up-to-date and accessibility is often limited by data protection and medical confidentiality policies. They are derived from disparate sources: GP registers, Hospital Episode statistics (people who are admitted to hospital), Child Registry and Accident and Emergency records, all adhering to different data collection and storage standards and systems that vary between organisations. Cross-referencing between these datasets is technically difficult because of these issues. Frequent quality issues of operational health data limit the extent of analysis that can be carried out with confidence. Furthermore, health survey data are released at coarse geographical scales where the ecological fallacy limits the potential for exploring local variability. Given these limiting factors, the theme of this research is to extend the health inequalities research and its associated data framework to explore variability in the spatial and social domain This enables the identification of social facts relating to health harming lifestyle choices and behaviours that contribute to 'diseases of comfort'. This is carried out by developing and exploring the usefulness of geodemographics for analysing health inequalities, thereby adding the social and spatial context to our understanding of causes of health inequalities. This thesis presents a more straightforward yet effective alternative to exploring the measurement of health impacting behaviours and predicting health outcomes using operational health data, national health surveys and a geodemographic classification. Geodemographic analysis of health outcomes can capture different lifestyle behaviours, and has already proven useful not only in improving customer segmentation in the commercial sector, but also to better target public services (Harris et al., 2005). By applying geodemographic classifications to national health surveys and NHS operational datasets at postcode level, interesting conclusions can be drawn in terms of different health harming lifestyle behaviours at very fine scales. Furthermore it is common practice that academic research projects occur in isolation, and exploitation of research findings and best practices in local government sectors is often beset by many obstacles. Consequently, within local government the adoption of new innovative techniques and tools may often be slow. An inner London Primary Care Trust (PCT) is used as a test bed for disseminating and evaluating the geodemographic framework and indicators. The concluding sections of the thesis discuss the practicalities of embedding geodemographics in particular and geography in general into a professional environment where these technologies are new and innovative