The impact and penetration of location-based services

Since the invention of digital technology, its development has followed an entrenched path ofminiaturisation and decentralisation with increasing focus on individual and niche applications. Computerhardware has moved from remote centres to desktop and hand held devices whilst being embedded invarious material infrastructures. Software has followed the same course. The entire process has convergedon a path where various analogue devices have become digital and are increasingly being embedded inmachines at the smallest scale. In a parallel but essential development, there has been a convergence ofcomputers with communications ensuring that the delivery and interaction mechanisms for computersoftware is now focused on networks of individuals, not simply through the desktop, but in mobilecontexts. Various inert media such as fixed television is becoming more flexible as computers and visualmedia are becoming one.With such massive convergence and miniaturisation, new software and new applications define the cuttingedge. As computers are being increasingly tailored to individual niches, then new digital services areemerging, many of which represent applications which hitherto did not exist or at best were rarely focusedon a mass market. Location based services form one such application and in this paper, we will bothspeculate on and make some initial predictions of the geographical extent to which such services willpenetrate different markets. We define such services in detail below but suffice it to say at this stage thatsuch functions involve the delivery of traditional services using digital media and telecommunications.High profile applications are now being focused on hand held devices, typically involving information onproduct location and entertainment but wider applications involve fixed installations on the desktop whereservices are delivered through traditional fixed infrastructure. Both wire and wireless applications definethis domain. The market for such services is inevitably volatile and unpredictable at this early stage but wewill attempt here to provide some rudimentary estimates of what might happen in the next five to tenyears.The ?network society? which has developed through this convergence, is, according to Castells (1989,2000) changing and re-structuring the material basis of society such that information has come todominate wealth creation in a way that information is both a raw material of production and an outcome ofproduction as a tradable commodity. This has been fuelled by the way technology has expanded followingMoore?s Law and by fundamental changes in the way telecommunications, finance, insurance, utilitiesand so on is being regulated. Location based services are becoming an integral part of this fabric and thesereflect yet another convergence between geographic information systems, global positioning systems, andsatellite remote sensing. The first geographical information system, CGIS, was developed as part of theCanada Land Inventory in 1965 and the acronym ?GIS? was introduced in 1970. 1971 saw the firstcommercial satellite, LANDSAT-1. The 1970s also saw prototypes of ISDN and mobile telephone and theintroduction of TCP/IP as the dominant network protocol. The 1980s saw the IBM XT (1982) and thebeginning of de-regulation in the US, Europe and Japan of key sectors within the economy. Finally in the 1990s, we saw the introduction of the World Wide Web and the ubiquitous pervasion of business andrecreation of networked PC?s, the Internet, mobile communications and the growing use of GPS forlocational positioning and GIS for the organisation and visualisation of spatial data. By the end of the 20thcentury, the number of mobile telephone users had reached 700 million worldwide. The increasingmobility of individuals, the anticipated availability of broadband communications for mobile devices andthe growing volumes of location specific information available in databases will inevitably lead to thedemand for services that will deliver location related information to individuals on the move. Suchlocation based services (LBS) although in a very early stage of development, are likely to play anincreasingly important part in the development of social structures and business in the coming decades.In this paper we begin by defining location based services within the context we have just sketched. Wethen develop a simple model of the market for location-based services developing the standard non-linearsaturation model of market penetration. We illustrate this for mobile devices, namely mobile phones in thefollowing sections and then we develop an analysis of different geographical regimes which arecharacterised by different growth rates and income levels worldwide. This leads us to speculate on theextent to which location based services are beginning to take off and penetrate the market. We concludewith scenarios for future growth through the analogy of GIS and mobile penetration

Random planar graphs and the London street network

In this paper we analyse the street network of London both in its primary and dual representation. To understand its properties, we consider three idealised models based on a grid, a static random planar graph and a growing random planar graph. Comparing the models and the street network, we find that the streets of London form a self-organising system whose growth is characterised by a strict interaction between the metrical and informational space. In particular, a principle of least effort appears to create a balance between the physical and the mental effort required to navigate the city

Ethics thesis : a living wage

In the present article, we shall consider, first of all, various definitions of a Living Wage; then the elements of a decent livelihood: then the grounds of the claim, wherein will be discussed the moral, religious and social basis of the claim, as well as the corresponding duties of the laborer and employer. This will be followed by a consideration of the claim in concrete, which will show computations based upon the special investigation of manufacturing establishments made by the American and Canadian Census taken in various years. Our conclusion will be some suggested remedies

Quantifying Retail Agglomeration using Diverse Spatial Data

Newly available data on the spatial distribution of retail activities in cities makes it possible to build models formalized at the level of the single retailer. Current models tackle consumer location choices at an aggregate level and the opportunity new data offers for modeling at the retail unit level lacks an appropriate theoretical framework. The model we present here helps to address these issues. Based on random utility theory, we have built it around the idea of quantifying the role of floor-space and agglomeration in retail location choice. We test this model on the inner area of Greater London. The results are consistent with a super linear scaling of a retailer's attractiveness with its floorspace, and with an agglomeration effect approximated as the total retail floorspace within a 300 m radius from each shop. Our model illustrates many of the issues involved in testing and validating urban simulation models involving spatial data and its aggregation to different spatial scales

Understanding the Underlying Principles of the Short Film

This chapter explores the types of story possible within short films, and how often there can be confusion and uncertainty, particularly amongst student filmmakers, about what a short film really is. In order to better understand this, this chapter outlines a series of underlying principles about short film story design that, we argue, are integral to the initial stages of conceiving such films. Before script development takes place, we argue that realistic thinking about what the short film can deliver in terms of story, characters, scope and dramatic question, will result in a screen work that is not only feasible for student filmmakers to produce, but is also more likely to increase an audience’s emotional engagement with the film. Drawing on a range of multi-award-winning contemporary short films to illustrate these principles, we discuss the relationship between content and form in this genre, leading to a better understanding of the parameters within which a student filmmaker might work. While not presenting these parameters as strict and unbreakable, we argue that knowing what has worked well for others, and what audiences expect from the short film form, provides a solid basis from which to begin conceptualising a short film

Diabetes, glycaemic control, and risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation: population-based, prospective cohort study

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to examine the prospective association of diabetes and glycaemic control with COVID-19 hospitalisation in a large community-based cohort study. METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN: Participants (N = 337,802, aged 56.4 ± 8.1 yr; 55.1% women) underwent biomedical assessments at baseline as part of the UK Biobank prospective cohort study. The outcome was cases of COVID-19 serious enough to warrant a hospital admission from 16-March-2020 to 26-April-2020. RESULTS: At follow up, 649 cases COVID-19 were recorded. In multivariable adjusted analyses, risk of COVID-19 was elevated in people with undiagnosed diabetes at baseline (A1C ≥ 6.5%) (risk ratio = 2.68; 95% confidence interval: 1.66, 4.33) and poorly controlled (A1C ≥ 8.6%) diagnosed diabetes (1.91;1.04, 3.52). There was a dose-dependent increase in risk of COVID-19 with increasing A1C, that persisted in multivariable adjusted models (per SD [0.9%]: 1.07; 1.03, 1.11; p[trend] < 0.001). CONCLUSION: In this large community-based sample, higher levels of A1C within the normal range was a risk factor for COVID-19. Glucose regulation may play a key role in immune responses to this infection. Undiagnosed cases of diabetes in the general community may present a particularly high risk

The envirome and the connectome: exploring the structural noise in the human brain associated with socioeconomic deprivation

Complex cognitive functions are widely recognized to be the result of a number of brain regions working together as large-scale networks. Recently, complex network analysis has been used to characterize various structural properties of the large scale network organization of the brain. For example, the human brain has been found to have a modular architecture i.e. regions within the network form communities (modules) with more connections between regions within the community compared to regions outside it. The aim of this study was to examine the modular and overlapping modular architecture of the brain networks using complex network analysis. We also examined the association between neighborhood level deprivation and brain network structure – modularity and grey nodes. We compared network structure derived from anatomical MRI scans of 42 middle-aged neurologically healthy men from the least (LD) and the most deprived (MD) neighborhoods of Glasgow with their corresponding random networks. Cortical morphological covariance networks were constructed from the cortical thickness derived from the MRI scans of the brain. For a given modularity threshold, networks derived from the MD group showed similar number of modules compared to their corresponding random networks, while networks derived from the LD group had more modules compared to their corresponding random networks. The MD group also had fewer grey nodes – a measure of overlapping modular structure. These results suggest that apparent structural difference in brain networks may be driven by differences in cortical thicknesses between groups. This demonstrates a structural organization that is consistent with a system that is less robust and less efficient in information processing. These findings provide some evidence of the relationship between socioeconomic deprivation and brain network topology

Life course psychological distress and total mortality by middle age: birth cohort study

Background: The onset of psychological distress most commonly occurs in adolescence and, in keeping with other exposures, is time-varying across the life course. Most studies of its association with mortality risk are, however, conducted in middle- and older-aged populations with a single baseline assessment. This may lead to an underestimation of the magnitude of distress–mortality relationship. Methods: We used data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, a prospective cohort study. Psychological distress and covariates were collected at ages 5, 10, and 26. Vital status was ascertained between ages 26 and 44 years. Results: Eighteen years of mortality surveillance of 5,901 individuals (3,221 women) gave rise to 74 deaths. After adjustment for a series of confounding factors which included early life socioeconomic status, birth characteristics, and cognition, relative to the unaffected group, distress in childhood only was associated with around a 50% elevation in mortality risk (hazard ratio = 1.45; 95% confidence interval = 0.84, 2.51), whereas distress in adulthood only was related to a doubling of risk (1.95; 0.90, 4.21). In study members with persistent distress symptoms (childhood and adulthood), there was a tripling of the death rate (3.10; 1.42, 6.74) (P value for trend across these categories: 0.002). Conclusion: The suggestion of a strong association between life-course distress and death warrants replication in a study with a greater number of events