Estimating Personal Physical Activity from Transport

A substantial and growing proportion of people in developed countries are overweight or obese. Personal physical activity protects against weight gain and obesity. Personal physical inactivity has been linked to a number of common and increasing prevalent health problems such as cardiovascular disease and a number of chronic diseases such as cancer (colon and breast), diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis and depression. Accelerometers can be used to objectively measure a person‟s incidental, intermittent physical activity such as short walks. They also enable movement to be monitored inside buildings that is often not recorded and is difficult using other technologies such as Global Position Systems (GPS). Accelerometers allow comprehensive analysis of physical activity bouts. They also have low subject burden, not having to rely on the memory of individuals and are unobtrusive, and allow recording over multiple days. However, accelerometers do not accurately record physical activity associated with cycling. GPS can be used to estimate personal energy expenditure from cycling since the speed and duration of movement is logged. However, GPS does not provide data at some locations such as inside buildings, urban canyons, or tunnels due to weak signals from satellites. Transport is a major activity type and common form of personal physical activity. This paper describes procedures for integrating GPS and accelerometers to estimate personal physical activity arising from transport. It provides experimental evidence using data from one subject and suggests that this method has potential for further investigation

Costs of hauling bulk milk from farm to plant

Also available online.Digitized 2007 AES

340 years of atmospheric circulation characteristics reconstructed from an eastern Antarctic Peninsula ice core

Copyright @ 2006 American Geophysical Union (AGU)Precipitation delivery mechanisms for Dolleman Island (DI), located off the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, are investigated using reanalysis and back trajectory data. The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and ENSO are both shown to influence precipitation delivery and event size. Precipitation delivery variability is compared against the interannual variation of chemical data from two DI ice cores. Nitrate concentration in the cores is strongly linked with the ratio of easterly to westerly back trajectories arriving at DI, as described by a Cross-Peninsula Index (CPI) defined in this paper. This CPI is used subsequently to reconstruct the atmospheric circulation characteristics for the 340-year ice core record. The analysis highlights a period of increased easterlies during 1720–1780 and an increase in westerlies for 1950–1980, the latter concomitant with a positive SAM trend and western Peninsula warming. The reconstruction also reveals periods when polynyas may have been present in the Weddell Sea

Recent Trends and Innovations in Modelling City Logistics

AbstractThere are many challenges associated with moving goods within cities as urban areas become larger and elderly residents require more healthcare in their homes. Air quality is also impacted by urban freight vehicles. This paper presents a review of recent trends and innovations in modelling city logistics. New techniques for modelling city logistics developed in the areas of emissions, healthcare and mega-cities are outlined. This paper describes the formulation, solution methodologies and applications of these models

Komunikasi Budaya Kesenian Tari Keling Guno Joyo di Dukuh Mojo Desa Singgahan Kecamatan Pulung Kabupaten Ponorogo

Kesenian Tari Keling Guno Joyo merupakan kesenian tradisional masyarakat dukuh Mojo. Rumusan masalah yang hendak dikaji adalah “Bagaimana Komunikasi Budaya yang ditampilkan dalam Kesenian Tari Keling Guno Joyo di Dukuh Mojo Desa Singgahan Kec. Pulung Kab. Ponorogo?” Untuk mengungkap persoalan tersebut secara menyeluruh dan mendalam, dalam penelitian ini digunakan metode penelitian kualitatif dengn pendekatan Deskriptif. kemudian data tersebut dianalisis menggunakan model Miles dan Huberman dan dikritisi melalui teori persepsi. Dari hasil penelitian ini ditemukan bahwa komunikasi budaya dalam pementasan kesenian Tari Keling Guno Joyo dilakukan dengan cara komunikasi verbal dan nonverbal yakni melalui candra, tembang dan nyanyian-nyanyian keling dan alat musik pengiring tari (gamelan). Dalam pementasan terdapat pesan yang disampaikan sehingga kesenian tari keling dapat digunakan sebagai media komunikasi tradisional. Beberapa saran yang diperkirakan dapat dijadikan bahan pertimbangan bagi peningkatan kualitas kesenian tari Keling Guno Joyo ialah memperhatikan fenomena yang terjadi pada kesenian zaman sekarang khususnya kesenian Tari Keling Guno Joyo. Dan untuk peneliti berikutnya, perlu dikaji lebih dalam tentang seberapa besar manfaat kesenian Tari Keling untuk masyarakat sekitar, agar diperoleh hasil yang lebih komprehensif

Reduction of polymer surface tension by crystallized polymer nanoparticles

Copyright (2010) AIP Publishing. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. The following article appeared in Journal of Chemical Physics 133 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/10.1063/1.3493334Self-consistent field theory is applied to investigate the effects of crystallized polymer nanoparticles on polymer surface tension. It is predicted that the nanoparticles locate preferentially at the polymer surface and significantly reduce the surface tension, in agreement with experiment. In addition to the reduction of surface tension, the width of the polymer surface is found to narrow. The reduced width and surface tension are due to the smaller spatial extent of the nanoparticles compared to the polymer. This allows the interface to become less diffuse and so reduces the energies of interaction at the surface, which lowers the surface tension. The solubility of the surrounding solvent phase into the polymer melt is mostly unchanged, a very slight decrease being detectable. The solubility is constant because away from the interface, the system is homogeneous and the replacement of polymer with nanoparticles has little effect.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canad

Process validation of urban freight and logistics models

A number of innovative modelling approaches for the analysis of urban freight demand and its impact upon the built environment and transport infrastructure have been proposed over the past several years. These range from new and more robust synthetic models to tour-based formulations based on truck survey data to agent-based microsimulation models. As impressive as these contributions are, most have only included nominal validation efforts, typically limited to comparing the flow estimates to observed traffic counts. In many cases in both research and practice the quality and quantity of these counts are disappointing, and definitive conclusions about model validity and accuracy are difficult to draw from them. Fortunately, increasing the number of counts is far from the only option open to modellers. A far more expansive practice known as process validation can not only overcome the limitations of count data, but admit a far wider spectrum of information, data, and knowledge to the task. This paper illustrates how the process was applied to a tour-based microsimulation model of urban freight, and offers suggestions how it can be more widely applied to freight and logistics model

Measuring Accuracy of Automated Parsing and Categorization Tools and Processes in Digital Investigations

This work presents a method for the measurement of the accuracy of evidential artifact extraction and categorization tasks in digital forensic investigations. Instead of focusing on the measurement of accuracy and errors in the functions of digital forensic tools, this work proposes the application of information retrieval measurement techniques that allow the incorporation of errors introduced by tools and analysis processes. This method uses a `gold standard' that is the collection of evidential objects determined by a digital investigator from suspect data with an unknown ground truth. This work proposes that the accuracy of tools and investigation processes can be evaluated compared to the derived gold standard using common precision and recall values. Two example case studies are presented showing the measurement of the accuracy of automated analysis tools as compared to an in-depth analysis by an expert. It is shown that such measurement can allow investigators to determine changes in accuracy of their processes over time, and determine if such a change is caused by their tools or knowledge.Comment: 17 pages, 2 appendices, 1 figure, 5th International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime; Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime, pp. 147-169, 201