Interplay between telecommunications and face-to-face interactions - a study using mobile phone data

In this study we analyze one year of anonymized telecommunications data for over one million customers from a large European cellphone operator, and we investigate the relationship between people's calls and their physical location. We discover that more than 90% of users who have called each other have also shared the same space (cell tower), even if they live far apart. Moreover, we find that close to 70% of users who call each other frequently (at least once per month on average) have shared the same space at the same time - an instance that we call co-location. Co-locations appear indicative of coordination calls, which occur just before face-to-face meetings. Their number is highly predictable based on the amount of calls between two users and the distance between their home locations - suggesting a new way to quantify the interplay between telecommunications and face-to-face interactions

Analyzing Users' Activity in On-line Social Networks over Time through a Multi-Agent Framework

[EN] The number of people and organizations using online social networks as a new way of communication is continually increasing. Messages that users write in networks and their interactions with other users leave a digital trace that is recorded. In order to understand what is going on in these virtual environments, it is necessary systems that collect, process, and analyze the information generated. The majority of existing tools analyze information related to an online event once it has finished or in a specific point of time (i.e., without considering an in-depth analysis of the evolution of users activity during the event). They focus on an analysis based on statistics about the quantity of information generated in an event. In this article, we present a multi-agent system that automates the process of gathering data from users activity in social networks and performs an in-depth analysis of the evolution of social behavior at different levels of granularity in online events based on network theory metrics. We evaluated its functionality analyzing users activity in events on Twitter.This work is partially supported by the PROME-TEOII/2013/019, TIN2014-55206-R, TIN2015-65515-C4-1-R, H2020-ICT-2015-688095.Del Val Noguera, E.; Martínez, C.; Botti, V. (2016). Analyzing Users' Activity in On-line Social Networks over Time through a Multi-Agent Framework. Soft Computing. 20(11):4331-4345. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-016-2301-0S433143452011Ahn Y-Y, Han S, Kwak H, Moon S, Jeong H (2007) Analysis of topological characteristics of huge online social networking services. 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Correlated dynamics in egocentric communication networks

We investigate the communication sequences of millions of people through two different channels and analyze the fine grained temporal structure of correlated event trains induced by single individuals. By focusing on correlations between the heterogeneous dynamics and the topology of egocentric networks we find that the bursty trains usually evolve for pairs of individuals rather than for the ego and his/her several neighbors thus burstiness is a property of the links rather than of the nodes. We compare the directional balance of calls and short messages within bursty trains to the average on the actual link and show that for the trains of voice calls the imbalance is significantly enhanced, while for short messages the balance within the trains increases. These effects can be partly traced back to the technological constrains (for short messages) and partly to the human behavioral features (voice calls). We define a model that is able to reproduce the empirical results and may help us to understand better the mechanisms driving technology mediated human communication dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Mapping the beach beneath the street:digital cartography for the playable city

Maps are an important component within many of the playful and gameful experiences designed to turn cities into a playable infrastructures. They take advantage of the fact that the technology used for obtaining accurate spatial information, such as GPS receivers and magnetometers (digital compasses), are now so wide-spread that they are considered as ‘standard’ sensors on mobile phones, which are themselves ubiquitous. Interactive digital maps, therefore, are are widely used by the general public for a variety of purposes. However, despite the rich design history of cartography digital maps typically exhibit a dominant aesthetic that has been de-signed to serve the usability and utility requirements of turn-by-turn urban navigation, which is itself driven by the proliferation of in-car and personal navigation services. The navigation aesthetic is now widespread across almost all spatial applications, even where a be-spoke cartographic product would be better suited. In this chapter we seek to challenge this by exploring novel neo-cartographic ap-proaches to making maps for use within playful and gameful experi-ences designed for the cities. We will examine the potential of de-sign approaches that can producte not only more aesthetically pleasing maps, but also offer the potential for influencing user be-haviour, which can be used to promote emotional engagement and exploration in playable city experiences

Locative Media and Sociability:Using Location-Based Social Networks to Coordinate Everyday Life

Foursquare was a mobile social networking application that enabled people to share location with friends in the form of “check-ins.” The visualization of surrounding known social connections as well as unknown others has the potential to impact how people coordinate social encounters and forge new social ties. While many studies have explored mobile phones and sociability, there is a lack of empirical research examining location-based social network’s (LSBNs) from a sociability perspective. Drawing on a dataset of original qualitative research with a range of Foursquare users, the paper examines the application in the context of social coordination and sociability in three ways. First, the paper explores if Foursquare is used to organize certain social encounters, and if so, why. Second, the paper examines the visualization of surrounding social connections and whether this leads to “serendipitous encounters.” Lastly, the paper examines whether the use of Foursquare can produce new social relationships

Toward an Identification of Resources Influencing Habitat Use in a Multi-Specific Context

Interactions between animal behaviour and the environment are both shaping observed habitat use. Despite the importance of inter-specific interactions on the habitat use performed by individuals, most previous analyses have focused on case studies of single species. By focusing on two sympatric populations of large herbivores with contrasting body size, we went one step beyond by studying variation in home range size and identifying the factors involved in such variation, to define how habitat features such as resource heterogeneity, resource quality, and openness created by hurricane or forest managers, and constraints may influence habitat use at the individual level. We found a large variability among individual's home range size in both species, particularly in summer. Season appeared as the most important factor accounting for observed variation in home range size. Regarding habitat features, we found that (i) the proportion of area damaged by the hurricane was the only habitat component that inversely influenced roe deer home range size, (ii) this habitat type also influenced both diurnal and nocturnal red deer home range sizes, (iii) home range size of red deer during the day was inversely influenced by the biomass of their preferred plants, as were both diurnal and nocturnal core areas of the red deer home range, and (iv) we do not find any effect of resource heterogeneity on home range size in any case. Our results suggest that a particular habitat type (i.e. areas damaged by hurricane) can be used by individuals of sympatric species because it brings both protected and dietary resources. Thus, it is necessary to maintain the openness of these areas and to keep animal density quite low as observed in these hunted populations to limit competition between these sympatric populations of herbivores

Mobile Phones and Social Signal Processing for Analysis and Understanding of Dyadic Conversations

Social Signal Processing is the domain aimed at bridging the social intelligence gap between humans and machines via modeling, analysis and synthesis of nonverbal behavior in social interactions. One of the main challenges of the domain is to sense unobtrusively the behavior of social interaction participants, one of the key conditions to preserve the spontaneity and naturalness of the interactions under exam. In this respect, mobile devices offer a major opportunity because they are equipped with a wide array of sensors that, while capturing the behavior of their users with an unprecedented depth, are still invisible. This is particularly important because mobile devices are part of the everyday life of a large number of individuals and, hence, they can be used to investigate and sense natural and spontaneous scenarios

Efeitos da terapia ultrassônica de baixa intensidade sobre o infarto agudo do miocárdio em ratos

Introdução. O infarto agudo do miocárdio (IAM) é considerado importante causa de morbidade e mortalidade no mundo e no Brasil. Novas intervenções terapêuticas estão sendo testadas isoladas ou em associação com as já existentes com o intuito de impedir a progressão ou atenuar o remodelamento no coração infartado. Dentre elas destaca-se a aplicação do Ultra-som (US) conjunto com agentes trombolíticos. Entretanto, na aplicação da energia ultrassônica como terapêutica pós-infarto é avaliado somente o seu possível efeito como agente trombolítico, não sendo investigado a sua possível implicação no processo de cicatrização da área infartada e parâmetros funcionais cardíacos. Objetivos. Diante dessas informações, nós objetivamos avaliar os efeitos da terapia ultrassônica transtorácica não-invasiva de baixa intensidade (NITUS) sobre a morfologia e função do músculo cardíaco de ratos infartados cirurgicamente após o 5° e 30° dia. Metodologia. Ratos machos Wistar (200-250g) foram pesados e divididos aleatoriamente em oito grupos com oito animais em cada grupo. Quatro grupos de animais foram submetidos à indução do IAM através da oclusão permanente da artéria coronária descendente anterior esquerda, sendo que dois destes grupos foram sacrificados no 5° dia após o IAM e as cinco aplicações da terapia ultrassônica e os outros dois grupos foram sacrificados no 30° dia após o IAM e as 5 aplicações da terapia ultrassônica. Quatro grupos de animais foram submetidos à cirurgia fictícia (Sham), sendo que dois destes grupos foram sacrificados no 5° dia após a cirurgia fictícia e as 5 aplicações da terapia ultrassônica e os outros dois grupos foram sacrificados no 30° dia após a cirurgia fictícia e as 5 aplicações da terapia ultrassônica. Os parâmetros da terapia ultrassônica foram freqüência de 1MHz, potência de 1W/cm2, modo pulsado e tempo de aplicação de 5 minutos. Para avaliação dos parâmetros funcionais foi realizado registros hemodinâmicos de todos os grupos e após a coleta dos registros os corações foram retirados para análise morfométrica a fim de avaliar a área da cicatriz do infarto. Os corações foram cortados em 4 fatias sendo retirados 3 cortes com espessura de 8 micrômetros da terceira fatia do ápice para a base, e estes foram corados com picrosírius. Foi utilizada uma câmera de vídeo para capturar uma área que contivesse todo o corte. A imagem era capturada com a utilização do programa AMCap e após a captura, esta era arquivada. A imagem arquivada era transferida para o programa ImageJ 1.42q/java no qual era marcada a área da cicatriz. De modo semelhante, era marcada toda a área da parede ventricular, para se obter a relação entre a área da cicatriz e a área total da parede ventricular. Resultados. No que concerne aos parâmetros hemodinâmicos, observamos que 30 dias após o IAM houve redução na pressão diastólica final (PDF) (mmHg) do grupo IAM+US quando comparado com grupo IAM (15±1.9 e 26±1.4; p<0.01 respectivamente). Não houve diferença significativa na área da cicatriz do infarto entre os grupos IAM e IAM+US no 5º. dia após infarto (31.6%±3.1% e 34.5%±1.6, respectivamente). Houve redução da área da cicatriz do infarto no grupo IAM+US quando comparado ao grupo IAM (21.5%±1.4% e 26.2%±1.7%; p<0.05, respectivamente) no 30º dia após IAM. Conclusão. A terapia com US dentro dos parâmetros estabelecidos, reduziu a área da cicatriz do infarto no grupo IAM+US (30 dias) bem como manteve a PDF dentro de valores fisiológicos, provavelmente por exercer influência nas fases inflamatória, proliferativa e de remodelamento, o que favorece um aumento na velocidade da resposta inflamatória por meio da mobilização de células inflamatórias como neutrófilos, macrófagos, ao mesmo tempo em que estimulou à degranulação dos mastócitos, bem como interferiu na mobilização leucocitária