40,744 research outputs found
Tracking urban activity growth globally with big location data.
In recent decades, the world has experienced rates of urban growth unparalleled in any other period of history and this growth is shaping the environment in which an increasing proportion of us live. In this paper, we use a longitudinal dataset from Foursquare, a location-based social network, to analyse urban growth across 100 major cities worldwide. Initially, we explore how urban growth differs in cities across the world. We show that there exists a strong spatial correlation, with nearby pairs of cities more likely to share similar growth profiles than remote pairs of cities. Subsequently, we investigate how growth varies inside cities and demonstrate that, given the existing local density of places, higher-than-expected growth is highly localized while lower-than-expected growth is more diffuse. Finally, we attempt to use the dataset to characterize competition between new and existing venues. By defining a measure based on the change in throughput of a venue before and after the opening of a new nearby venue, we demonstrate which venue types have a positive effect on venues of the same type and which have a negative effect. For example, our analysis confirms the hypothesis that there is large degree of competition between bookstores, in the sense that existing bookstores normally experience a notable drop in footfall after a new bookstore opens nearby. Other place types, such as museums, are shown to have a cooperative effect and their presence fosters higher traffic volumes to nearby places of the same type.This work was supported by EPSRC through Grant GALE (EP/K019392)
Launching the Grand Challenges for Ocean Conservation
The ten most pressing Grand Challenges in Oceans Conservation were identified at the Oceans Big Think and described in a detailed working document:A Blue Revolution for Oceans: Reengineering Aquaculture for SustainabilityEnding and Recovering from Marine DebrisTransparency and Traceability from Sea to Shore: Ending OverfishingProtecting Critical Ocean Habitats: New Tools for Marine ProtectionEngineering Ecological Resilience in Near Shore and Coastal AreasReducing the Ecological Footprint of Fishing through Smarter GearArresting the Alien Invasion: Combating Invasive SpeciesCombatting the Effects of Ocean AcidificationEnding Marine Wildlife TraffickingReviving Dead Zones: Combating Ocean Deoxygenation and Nutrient Runof
The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019
An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains
Job Creation Through Building the Field of Impact Sourcing
Provides an overview of the field of impact sourcing - using business process outsourcing to create sustainable jobs for the lowest-income populations. Offers case studies, examines models, outlines challenges, and presents an action agenda
Smart Computing and Sensing Technologies for Animal Welfare: A Systematic Review
Animals play a profoundly important and intricate role in our lives today.
Dogs have been human companions for thousands of years, but they now work
closely with us to assist the disabled, and in combat and search and rescue
situations. Farm animals are a critical part of the global food supply chain,
and there is increasing consumer interest in organically fed and humanely
raised livestock, and how it impacts our health and environmental footprint.
Wild animals are threatened with extinction by human induced factors, and
shrinking and compromised habitat. This review sets the goal to systematically
survey the existing literature in smart computing and sensing technologies for
domestic, farm and wild animal welfare. We use the notion of \emph{animal
welfare} in broad terms, to review the technologies for assessing whether
animals are healthy, free of pain and suffering, and also positively stimulated
in their environment. Also the notion of \emph{smart computing and sensing} is
used in broad terms, to refer to computing and sensing systems that are not
isolated but interconnected with communication networks, and capable of remote
data collection, processing, exchange and analysis. We review smart
technologies for domestic animals, indoor and outdoor animal farming, as well
as animals in the wild and zoos. The findings of this review are expected to
motivate future research and contribute to data, information and communication
management as well as policy for animal welfare
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