6,932 research outputs found
Social Deprivation and Digital Exclusion in England
Issues of digital exclusion are now increasingly considered alongside those of material deprivation when formulating interventions in neighbourhood renewal and other local policy interventions in health, policing and education. In this context, this paper develops a cross classification of material deprivation and lack of digital engagement, at a far more spatially disaggregate level than has previously been attempted. This is achieved my matching the well known 2004 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) with a unique nationwide geodemographic classification of access and use of new information and communications technologies (ICTs), aggregated to the unit postcode scale. This âE-Societyâ classification makes it possible for the first time to identify small areas that are âdigitally unengagedâ, and our cross classification allows us to focus upon the extent to which the 2004 summary measure of material deprivation in England coincides with such lack of engagement. The results of the cross classification suggest that lack of digital engagement and material deprivation are linked, with high levels of material deprivation generally associated with low levels of engagement with ICTs and vice versa. However, some neighbourhoods are âdigitally unengagedâ but not materially deprived, and we investigate the extent to which this outcome may be linked to factors such as lack of confidence, skills or motivation. Our analysis suggests that approximately 5.61 million people in England are both materially deprived and digitally unengaged. As with material deprivation, there are distinctive regional and local geographies to digital unengagement that have implications for digital policy implementation
Virtual Geodemographics: Repositioning Area Classification for Online and Offline Spaces
Computer mediated communication and the Internet has fundamentally changed how consumers and producers connect and interact across both real space, and has also opened up new opportunities in virtual spaces. This paper describes how technologies capable of locating and sorting networked communities of geographically disparate individuals within virtual communities present a sea change in the conception, representation and analysis of socioeconomic distributions through geodemographic analysis. We argue that through virtual communities, social networks between individuals may subsume the role of neighbourhood areas as the most appropriate units of analysis, and as such, geodemographics needs to be repositioned in order to accommodate social similarities in virtual, as well as geographical, space. We end the paper by proposing a new model for geodemographics which spans both real and virtual geographies
Developing efficient web-based GIS applications
There is an increase in the number of web-based GIS applications over the recent years. This paper describes different mapping technologies, database standards, and web application development standards that are relevant to the development of web-based GIS applications. Different mapping technologies for displaying geo-referenced data are available and can be used in different situations. This paper also explains why Oracle is the system of choice for geospatial applications that need to handle large amounts of data. Wireframing and design patterns have been shown to be useful in making GIS web applications efficient, scalable and usable, and should be an important part of every web-based GIS application. A range of different development technologies are available, and their use in different operating environments has been discussed here in some detail
Temperature equilibration in a fully ionized plasma: electron-ion mass ratio effects
Brown, Preston, and Singleton (BPS) produced an analytic calculation for
energy exchange processes for a weakly to moderately coupled plasma: the
electron-ion temperature equilibration rate and the charged particle stopping
power. These precise calculations are accurate to leading and next-to-leading
order in the plasma coupling parameter, and to all orders for two-body quantum
scattering within the plasma. Classical molecular dynamics can provide another
approach that can be rigorously implemented. It is therefore useful to compare
the predictions from these two methods, particularly since the former is
theoretically based and the latter numerically. An agreement would provide both
confidence in our theoretical machinery and in the reliability of the computer
simulations. The comparisons can be made cleanly in the purely classical
regime, thereby avoiding the arbitrariness associated with constructing
effective potentials to mock up quantum effects. We present here the classical
limit of the general result for the temperature equilibration rate presented in
BPS. We examine the validity of the m_electron/m_ion --> 0 limit used in BPS to
obtain a very simple analytic evaluation of the long-distance, collective
effects in the background plasma.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, small change in titl
Collaborative Mapping of London Using Google Maps: The LondonProfiler
This paper begins by reviewing the ways in which the innovation of Google Maps has transformed our ability to reference and view geographically referenced data. We describe the ways in which the GMap Creator tool developed under the ESRC National Centre for E Social Science programme enables users to âmashupâ thematic choropleth maps using the Google API. We illustrate the application of GMap Creator using the example of www.londonprofiler.org, which makes it possible to view a range of health, education and other socioeconomic datasets against a backcloth of Google Maps data. Our conclusions address the ways in which Google Map mashups developed using GMap Creator facilitate online exploratory cartographic visualisation in a range of areas of policy concern
A statistical model for the intrinsically broad superconducting to normal transition in quasi-two-dimensional crystalline organic metals
Although quasi-two-dimensional organic superconductors such as
-(BEDT-TTF)Cu(NCS) seem to be very clean systems, with apparent
quasiparticle mean-free paths of several thousand \AA, the superconducting
transition is intrinsically broad (e.g K wide for K).
We propose that this is due to the extreme anisotropy of these materials, which
greatly exacerbates the statistical effects of spatial variations in the
potential experienced by the quasiparticles. Using a statistical model, we are
able to account for the experimental observations. A parameter , which
characterises the spatial potential variations, may be derived from
Shubnikov-de Haas oscillation experiments. Using this value, we are able to
predict a transition width which is in good agreement with that observed in MHz
penetration-depth measurements on the same sample.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Condens. Matte
The Possible Effect of Cypsela Morphology on Endemism in Solidago shortii
This project centers around the differences between the Solidago altissima and the S. shortii, or Common and Shortâs Goldenrods, respectively, and endeavors to provide an explanation for the narrow endemism of shortii, relative to that of altissima. The Common Goldenrod has a range spanning from Southern Canada to Northern Mexico, while the Shortâs is found only in two isolated locations in Kentucky and Indiana. They are rather similar to the untrained eye but further observation reveals drastic morphological differences between the seeds of the two species, with those of the Shortâs being far larger than those of the common goldenrod despite the two species having pappi, or parachute-like tufts of hair, of virtually identical size.
There is not a large body of academic work regarding the Shortâs goldenrod, and the majority of it focuses merely on describing the morphology and habitat of the species, rather than providing potential explanations as to why it is so rare. This project will primarily rely on data collected on the two species, in particular their cypselae, to attempt to provide a plausible explanation. Data collected shows that there is a very large difference in the size of the achenes of the two species but virtually none in the length of their pappi. Furthermore, the cypselae of S. shortii were demonstrated to have travelled approximately 12% farther and fall approximately 3 times as rapidly as those of the S. altissima under controlled laboratory conditions. This suggests that the morphology of the cypselae of the S. shortii are maladaptive to the anemochory upon which it must now rely to disperse its offspring
Persistence to high temperatures of interlayer coherence in an organic superconductor
The interlayer magnetoresistance of the organic metal \cuscn is
studied in fields of up to 45 T and at temperatures from 0.5 K to 30 K. The
peak in seen in in-plane fields, a definitive signature of
interlayer coherence, remains to s exceeding the Anderson criterion for
incoherent transport by a factor . Angle-dependent magnetoresistance
oscillations are modeled using an approach based on field-induced quasiparticle
paths on a 3D Fermi surface, to yield the dependence of the scattering rate
. The results suggest that does not vary strongly over
the Fermi surface, and that it has a dependence due to electron-electron
scattering
Uncertainty in the Analysis of Ethnicity Classifications: Issues of Extent and Aggregation of Ethnic Groups
Uncertainty is inherent in the conception and measurement of ethnicity, by both individuals themselves and those who seek to gather evidence of discrimination or inequalities in social and economic outcomes. These issues have received attention in the literature, yet rather little research has been carried out on the uncertainty subsequently created through the analysis of such measurements. We argue that, while general-purpose ethnicity classifications offer a method of standardising results, such groupings are inherently unstable, both in their upward aggregation and in their downward granulation. As such, the results of ethnicity analysis may possess no validity independent of the ethnicity classes upon which it is based. While this conclusion is intuitive, it nevertheless seems to pass unnoticed in the interpretation of research conducted in public policy applications such as education, health and residential segregation. In this paper we use examples based on the standard Census classification of ethnicity, alongside new rich ethnicity datasets from the education domain, in order to evaluate the sensitivity of results to the particular aggregation that is chosen. We use a case study to empirically illustrate the far-reaching consequences of this commonly overlooked source of uncertainty
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