Detecting Stops from GPS Trajectories: A Comparison of Different GPS Indicators for Raster Sampling Methods

With the increasing prevalence of GPS tracking capabilities on smartphones, GPS trajectories have proven to be useful for an extensive range of research topics. Stop detection, which estimates activity locations, is fundamental for organizing GPS trajectories into semantically meaningful journeys. With previous methods overwhelmingly dependent on thresholds, contextual information or a pre-understanding of the GPS records, this paper addresses the challenge by contributing a ‘top-down’ raster sampling method which samples pre-calculated GPS indicators and clusters the raster cells with significantly different values as stops. We report a comparison of a set of precalculated GPS indicators with two baseline methods. By referencing a ground truth travel dairy, the raster sampling method demonstrates good and reliable capabilities on producing high accuracy, low redundancy and close proximity to the ground truth in three distinct travel use cases. This further indicates a good generic stop detection method

The role of young users in determining long term care expenditure in Norway

<i>Aims</i>: In Norway, it is the responsibility of the country's 429 municipalities to provide long term care (LTC) services to their residents. Recent years have seen a sharp rise in the number of LTC users under the age of 65. This paper aims to explore the effect of this rise on LTC expenditure. <i>Methods</i>: Panel data models are used on data from municipalities from 1986 to 2011. An instrumental variable approach is also utilised to account for possible endogeneity related to the number of young users. <i>Results</i>: The number of young users appears to have a strong effect on LTC expenditure. There is also evidence of municipalities exercising discretion in defining eligibility criteria for young users in order to limit expenditure. Conclusions: The rise in the number of young LTC users presents a long-term challenge to the sustainability of LTC financing. The current budgeting system does not appear to fully compensate municipalities for expenditure on young LTC users. This may put strain on the financing of services for older users

Data management of on-line partial discharge monitoring using wireless sensor nodes integrated with a multi-agent system

On-line partial discharge monitoring has been the subject of significant research in previous years but little work has been carried out with regard to the management of on-site data. To date, on-line partial discharge monitoring within a substation has only been concerned with single plant items, so the data management problem has been minimal. As the age of plant equipment increases, so does the need for condition monitoring to ensure maximum lifespan. This paper presents an approach to the management of partial discharge data through the use of embedded monitoring techniques running on wireless sensor nodes. This method is illustrated by a case study on partial discharge monitoring data from an ageing HVDC reactor

A standardised sampling protocol for robust assessment of reach-scale fish community diversity in wadeable New Zealand streams

The New Zealand fish fauna contains species that are affected not only by river system connectivity, but also by catchment and local-scale changes in landcover, water quality and habitat quality. Consequently, native fish have potential as multi-scale bioindicators of human pressure on stream ecosystems, yet no standardised, repeatable and scientifically defensible methods currently exist for effectively quantifying their abundance or diversity in New Zealand stream reaches. Here we report on the testing of a back-pack electrofishing method, modified from that used by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, on a wide variety of wadeable stream reaches throughout New Zealand. Seventy-three first- to third-order stream reaches were fished with a single pass over 150-345 m length. Time taken to sample a reach using single-pass electrofishing ranged from 1-8 h. Species accumulation curves indicated that, irrespective of location, continuous sampling of 150 stream metres is required to accurately describe reach-scale fish species richness using this approach. Additional species detection beyond 150 m was rare (<10%) with a single additional species detected at only two out of the 17 reaches sampled beyond this distance. A positive relationship was also evident between species detection and area fished, although stream length rather than area appeared to be the better predictor. The method tested provides a standardised and repeatable approach for regional and/or national reporting on the state of New Zealand's freshwater fish communities and trends in richness and abundance over time

Enhancing our understanding of short-term rental activity: a daily scrape-based approach for Airbnb listings

The growth of the online short-term rental market, facilitated by platforms such as Airbnb, has added to pressure on cities’ housing supply. Without detailed data on activity levels, it is difficult to design and evaluate appropriate policy interventions. Up until now, the data sources and methods used to derive activity measures have not provided the detail and rigour needed to robustly carry out these tasks. This paper demonstrates an approach based on daily scrapes of the calendars of Airbnb listings. We provide a systematic interpretation of types of calendar activity derived from these scrapes and define a set of indicators of listing activity levels. We exploit a unique period in short-term rental markets during the UK’s first COVID-19 lockdown to demonstrate the value of this approach

High precision differential abundance measurements in globular clusters: Chemical inhomogeneities in NGC 6752

We report on a strictly differential line-by-line analysis of high-quality UVES spectra of bright giants in the metal-poor globular cluster NGC 6752. We achieved high precision differential chemical abundance measurements for Fe, Na, Si, Ca, Ti, Cr, Ni,

The First Extrasolar Planet Discovered with a New Generation High Throughput Doppler Instrument

We report the detection of the first extrasolar planet, ET-1 (HD 102195b), using the Exoplanet Tracker (ET), a new generation Doppler instrument. The planet orbits HD 102195, a young star with solar metallicity that may be part of the local association. The planet imparts radial velocity variability to the star with a semiamplitude of $63.4\pm2.0$ m s$^{-1}$ and a period of 4.11 days. The planetary minimum mass ($m \sin i$) is $0.488\pm0.015$ $M_J$.Comment: 42 pages, 11 figures and 5 tables, Accepted for publication in Ap