A location aware mobile tourist guide selecting and interpreting sights and services by context matching

Most tourists exploring a destination either join a guided tour or walk on their own using maps. Neither are their individual preferences nor the actual situation considered. These tours are strongly inflexible. The ideal is an intelligent guide taking care of the whole tour organisation and execution in time. This is the main objective of the Dynamic Tour Guide (DTG). The DTG is a mobile agent that selects attractions, plans an individual tour, provides navigational guidance and offers location based interpretation. This kind of ambient intelligence is based on the analysis of all available context information to support the tourist in any possible way with the help of a mobile device

A commonly used rumen-protected conjugated linoleic acid supplement marginally affects fatty acid distribution of body tissues and gene expression of mammary gland in heifers during early lactation

Background: Conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) in general, and in particular the trans-10, cis-12 (t10, c12-CLA) isomer are potent modulators of milk fat synthesis in dairy cows. Studies in rodents, such as mice, have revealed that t10, c12-CLA is responsible for hepatic lipodystrophy and decreased adipose tissue with subsequent changes in the fatty acid distribution. The present study aimed to investigate the fatty acid distribution of lipids in several body tissues compared to their distribution in milk fat in early lactating cows in response to CLA treatment. Effects in mammary gland are further analyzed at gene expression level. Methods: Twenty-five Holstein heifers were fed a diet supplemented with (CLA groups) or without (CON groups) a rumen-protected CLA supplement that provided 6 g/d of c9, t11-and t10, c12-CLA. Five groups of randomly assigned cows were analyzed according to experimental design based on feeding and time of slaughter. Cows in the first group received no CLA supplement and were slaughtered one day postpartum (CON0). Milk samples were taken from the remaining cows in CON and CLA groups until slaughter at 42 (period 1) and 105 (period 2) days in milk (DIM). Immediately after slaughter, tissue samples from liver, retroperitoneal fat, mammary gland and M. longissimus (13th rib) were obtained and analyzed for fatty acid distribution. Relevant genes involved in lipid metabolism of the mammary gland were analyzed using a custom-made microarray platform. Results: Both supplemented CLA isomers increased significantly in milk fat. Furthermore, preformed fatty acids increased at the expense of de novo-synthesized fatty acids. Total and single trans-octadecenoic acids (e. g., t10-18:1 and t11-18:1) also significantly increased. Fatty acid distribution of the mammary gland showed similar changes to those in milk fat, due mainly to residual milk but without affecting gene expression. Liver fatty acids were not altered except for trans-octadecenoic acids, which were increased. Adipose tissue and M. longissimus were only marginally affected by CLA supplementation. Conclusions: Daily supplementation with CLA led to typical alterations usually observed in milk fat depression (reduction of de novo-synthesized fatty acids) but only marginally affected tissue lipids. Gene expression of the mammary gland was not influenced by CLA supplementation

Using location-based tracking data to analyze the movements of city tourists

This article presents a methodology to analyze the spatial behavior of tourists based on tracking data. This method was applied during a field study in the city of Görlitz at the east border of Germany. Based on Global Positioning System (GPS) logs the spatial distribution of visitors in various areas is visualized and analyzed. Using the bimodality of the distribution of walking speeds, areas of slowdown are identified and subsequently clustered into activity areas. Using the activity areas, the amount of time tourists allocate to various activity categories is computed. Furthermore, a subsequent analysis of the activity behavior is used to identify the current visiting pattern of tourists and a network analysis of the identified activity areas is used to locate hubs. The network analysis highlights sequences of sights used very often and therefore identifies the beaten paths

Development and evaluation of a context-driven, mobile tourist guide

Abstract 1 – The behavior of tourists strongly depends on the availability and quality of information. A lack as well as a flood of information can be disorientating and forces many tourists to join the majority visiting major sights. This causes a few crowded places in contrast to many empty. The target of the Dynamic Tour Guide (DTG) is to improve the tourists ’ spatial behavior by means of pervasive computing based on the actual context which is defined by personal interests, location and schedule of a tourist. It enables a personalized, spontaneous and guided tour. After a review of the DTG architecture results of a field study are presented. In this field study the following question were analyzed: 1) Is it possible to seed interest profiles in the mobile context that allow the accurate prediction of actual rankings? 2) Are the interest profiles sufficiently diverse to base personalized tours on individual interest profiles instead of interest prototypes? 3) How do personalized tours affect the spatial behavior of tourist? Three methods to elicit the preferences of tourist in the mobile context are compared with actual rankings using Spearman’s rank order coefficient. The diversity of the interest profiles is analyzed in various ways leading to the conclusion that personalized interest profiles are necessary. For the gathered profiles tours are being computed and simulated in order to gain a first insight into the effect on the spatial behavior of tourists. Index Terms – context, mobile computing, dynamic tour guide, ontology, semantic matching, personalized tour I