Measurement error in the estimation of intake from herbage patches by non-fistulated heifers on apparently uniform swards

International audienc

The Digital Life of Walkable Streets

Walkability has many health, environmental, and economic benefits. That is why web and mobile services have been offering ways of computing walkability scores of individual street segments. Those scores are generally computed from survey data and manual counting (of even trees). However, that is costly, owing to the high time, effort, and financial costs. To partly automate the computation of those scores, we explore the possibility of using the social media data of Flickr and Foursquare to automatically identify safe and walkable streets. We find that unsafe streets tend to be photographed during the day, while walkable streets are tagged with walkability-related keywords. These results open up practical opportunities (for, e.g., room booking services, urban route recommenders, and real-estate sites) and have theoretical implications for researchers who might resort to the use social media data to tackle previously unanswered questions in the area of walkability.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, Proceedings of International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2015

Exploring the Pedestrians Realm: An overview of insights needed for developing a generative system approach to walkability

Walking is an essential form of human mobility. In policy making, however, pedestrians are largely neglected. This dissertation explores how the system for pedestrians works and what steps authorities can take to improve conditions for pedestrians, walking and sojourning in public space. It outlines an effective and fair approach by redefining the domain. Methorst combines, triangulates and advances available information, data and statistics.TRAIL Thesis Series no. T2021/6, the Netherlands Research School TRAILTransport and Logistic

Pedestrians' performance and satisfaction

In the framework of the PQN project, assessments have been carried out to arrive at real figures on the pedestrians’ performance and satisfaction. The results regarding key figures are: • About 50% of the pedestrians have limited abilities and about 10% of the population has severe difficulties walking and sojourning in public space. • Pedestrian mobility concerns door-to-door trips (mono-modal walking) and trips to and from other modes (multi-modal trips); time spent in traffic and distances covered are about the same. • The normal action radius of a pedestrian is about 1 kilometre; an average (European) citizen walks 250 door-to-door trips per year and 1,800 times to and from other modes. In total, pedestrians cover about 300 kilometres and spend about 100 hours per person per year on walking. • Sojourning in public space is an important indicator for quality of public space; it encourages all kinds of activities that humans need for their well-being. The average amount of time spent on sojourning is about 300 hours per person per year. • Hospital data and medical assistance data show that single pedestrian accidents (falls) induce three to nine time as many casualties as pedestrian-vehicle crashes. • The total number of victims for Europe amounts to at least 1.6 million injured pedestrians per year in Europe (equals more than 3,000 casualties per million inhabitants). • The total number of pedestrians killed varies from 9 fatalities per million inhabitants in the Netherlands to (more than) 46 in Poland. In the Netherland the number of vehicle related fatalities per million inhabitants is 6; the number of fatalities from falls is 3. • The total incidence of pedestrian injuries is 320 per million inhabitants (over 175,000 severely injured Europeans). Of this, 250 per million casualties result from falls (135,000 Europeans) and 75 per million from pedestrian-vehicle collisions (27,000 Europeans). The elderly run extreme risk. • For security, the number of incidents is less normative than the fear and emotions it evokes. Compared to traffic accidents and falls, the actual risk of getting injured or killed in a criminal incident is low; the real number of criminal acts in public space is stable over the years. • Satisfaction is related to the fulfilment of one’s wishes, expectations, or needs, and it reflects the pleasure derived from this. There is little research carried out on pedestrian satisfaction. Major issues for policy making with regard to the pedestrian performance and satisfaction are: • Large numbers of people have real trouble performing ‘walking and sojourning’ tasks. Because of ageing of the population the numbers will increase substantially. • With regard to safety, particularly the prevention of falls is important; this is also an age related problem. • There is too little awareness that without walking transportation is not possible. • The vicious circle of no data – no awareness – no priority - no research – no data, needs to be broken. The lack of data/information on walking and sojourning is imminent; some crucial concepts and statistical units need to be redefined and internationally applied

Ekopluim nieuwsbrief nummer 9 - april 2005

Nummer 9 behandelt: proef 100% biologisch voer; studieclubs Ekopluim; bedrijfsbezoek in Duitsland; Droevendaalse veldhoenders; Hoe milieuvriendelijk is een kippenuitloop en electronisch huisarrest voor kippen

Drivers for differences in dairy farmers perceptions of farm development strategies in an area with nature and landscape as protected public goods

Nature and landscape are increasingly appreciated as public goods and community assets in need of protection. Policy schemes aiming to protect vulnerable nature and landscape assets affect options for farm development and thus the opportunities for farm income strategies. Farmers as small business owners need to counter an ongoing income squeeze in their strategic decision. Farmers’ perception of the options affects strategic decision making. In a case study with dairy farmers operating in a highly comparable biophysical and socio-economic context, farmers differed in the perception leading to three main income strategies: ‘maximising’ or ‘ending’ of milk production and ‘diversification of farm business’ with the most dominant strategy being ‘maximising’. Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the significance of seven drivers for the differences between farmers’ perception of farm development options. The ‘personal views and preference’ is the most significant explanatory driver for all three income strategies. ‘View on markets’ is of less significance and ‘view on urban-rural relation’ is not significant in explaining differences between farmers. ‘Maximising’ and ‘diversifying’ are opposites in their drivers. To increase the effectiveness of policy schemes and support programmes, personal views and preferences of farmers need to be taken into account

Bedrijfsovername, een expeditie over veel verschillende terreinen!

Het doel van deze whitepaper is bewustzijn vergroten van de complexiteit van het bedrijfsoverdrachtsproces binnen de agrarische sector. Zowel het aantal vraagstukken als het grote aantal betrokkenen met verschillende perspectieven maken het ingewikkeld. Het bedrijfsovernameproces kent veel vergelijkbare onderdelen, het doorlopen ervan kent echter geenroutine want alle overnames zijn uniek

Pedestrian Falls: A review of the literature and future research directions

Introduction Pedestrian falls (PFs) – falls in public spaces without collisions with other road users – are a significant cause of serious transport-related injuries, amounting to three-quarters of all pedestrians admitted to hospital. Methods This scoping review examined peer-reviewed research on PFs published between 1995 and 2015. Electronic databases (Scopus, SafetyLit, and PubMed) were used to find studies identifying PFs or outdoor falls (the latter also including falls in gardens). Results We identified only 28 studies reporting relevant information on PFs (i.e., 15 prospective, 10 retrospective, and 3 intervention studies). The results show that more walking is related to a lower risk of PFs. Older people, especially older women, have a higher risk of (injurious) PFs. Outdoor fall victims have equally good or better health characteristics and scores on balance tests compared to those who have not experienced such falls. Road factors such as uneven surfaces, busy junctions, stairs, and slippery surfaces seem to play an important role in PFs, but much of the research on these factors is of a qualitative nature. Conclusions PF victims are generally in good health (apart from normal age-related problems) but at risk due to road factors. Practical applications We recommend to adopt a human factors approach. The road system should be adapted to human capabilities and limitations including those of pedestrians. Measures such as preventing uneven surfaces and good winter maintenance seem to be effective. However, we advise more quantitative research on road factors to inform design guidelines and standards for public space authorities given the qualitative nature of current research on road factors

Single unprotected road user crashes : Europe we have a problem !

Unprotected Road Users (URU) are a subset of Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) who are not protected in their vehicles: pedestrians, cyclists and powered two-wheelers. EU statistics for 2014 show that their share in road traffic fatalities was 22% for pedestrians, 8% for cyclists and 18% for Powered Two-Wheelers, in total 47% of the fatalities. From explorative studies regarding injured road traffic casualties it is found that about two thirds of the transportation casualties are Unprotected Road Users, of which two thirds are single accidents, i.e. crashes where no other road user is involved. Most of these single crashes are not (yet) detected in the standard police reported accident statistics, but do represent costs to society that probably exceed crash costs of car related crashes. It can be expected that the shares of URU fatal and injury crashes will increase, particularly because of the ageing of the population, urbanization and despite ICT/ITS developments. Some of these crashes can be prevented by relatively simple measures, others need more investments e.g. infrastructure, legislation or enforcement. From a policy point of view it will be wise to address this issue, not only for road safety reasons, but also because the elderly are getting more numerous and a serious economic and political factor. (Author/publisher