Investigation of Travel Behaviour of Visitors to Scotland

Tourism in Scotland is both an important and extensive land use and a major contributor to Gross Domestic Product. In 2005, it is estimated that Scotland received around 10.5 million visitors from outside Scotland. Just over 76% of the visits originated in the rest of the United Kingdom, with the remainder having an international origin. Tourism relies heavily on passenger transport both to access the destination, but also to travel around within it. However, there has been a lack of attention to the internal accessibility of Scotland from the visitor perspective. Whilst some attempts have been suggested and prioritised for facilitating tourists' travel around Scotland, such efforts are mainly undertaken by tourism organisations throughout Scotland, whose ultimate power to enable changes to transport systems is largely limited to lobbying. Moreover, without a clear picture of how accessible Scotland is internally as a destination, or of the transport demands of visitors in terms of internal accessibility, any measures taken to enhance visitor transportation remain largely uninformed. How tourists travel around Scotland, the extent to which they are reliant on public transport and the importance of existing transport provision in their travel behaviour and experience of the destination, including the areas they ultimately visit, merits further clarification. To this end, this study was commissioned by the Transport Department of The Scottish Executive to provide an overview of existing research into the travel behaviour of visitors to Scotland. The principal aim of the study was to review and collate existing sources of information on the use of transport by those visiting Scotland for leisure, recreation and business purposes. In conjunction with the objectives of the Scottish Executive, a thorough review of the literature and secondary data sources pertaining to the use of transport by visitors to Scotland for leisure, tourism and business purposes was conducted

Applying theories of health behaviour and change to hearing health research: time for a new approach

Objective: In recent years, there has been an increase in the application of behavioural models, such as social cognition models, to the promotion of hearing health. Despite this, there exists a well-developed body of literature that suggests such models may fail to consistently explain reliable amounts of variability in human behaviours. Design: This paper provides a summary of this research across selected models of health-related behaviour, outlining the current state of the evidence. Results: Recent work in the field of behaviour change is presented together with commentary on the design and reporting of behaviour change interventions. Conclusions: We propose that attempts to use unreliable models to explain and predict hearing health behaviours should now be replaced by work which integrates the latest in behaviour change science, such as the Behaviour Change Wheel and Theoretical Domains Framework

Associations between access to recreational physical activity facilities and body mass index in Scottish adults.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this country-wide study was to link individual health and behavioural data with area-level spatial data to examine whether the body mass index (BMI) of adults was associated with access to recreational physical activity (PA) facilities by different modes of transport (bus, car, walking, cycling) and the extent to which any associations were mediated by PA participation. METHODS: Data on individual objectively-measured BMI, PA (number of days of (a) ≥20 min of moderate-to-vigorous PA, and (b) ≥15 min of sport or exercise, in previous 4 weeks), and socio-demographic characteristics were obtained from a nationally representative sample of 6365 adults. The number of accessible PA facilities per 1,000 individuals in each small area (data zones) was obtained by mapping a representative list of all fixed PA facilities throughout mainland Scotland. A novel transport network was developed for the whole country, and routes on foot, by bike, by car and by bus from the weighted population centroid of each data zone to each facility were calculated. Separate multilevel models were fitted to examine associations between BMI and each of the 24 measures of accessibility of PA facilities and BMI, adjusting for age, gender, longstanding illness, car availability, social class, dietary quality and urban/rural classification. RESULTS: We found associations (p < 0.05) between BMI and 7 of the 24 accessibility measures, with mean BMI decreasing with increasing accessibility of facilities-for example, an estimated decrease of 0.015 BMI units per additional facility within a 20-min walk (p = 0.02). None of these accessibility measures were found to be associated with PA participation. CONCLUSIONS: Our national study has shown that some measures of the accessibility of PA facilities by different modes of transport (particularly by walking and cycling) were associated with BMI; but PA participation, as measured here, did not appear to play a part in this relationship. Understanding the multi-factorial environmental influences upon obesity is key to developing effective interventions to reduce it

Dynamic accessibility : incorporating day-to-day travel time reliability into accessibility measurement

Travel times and hence accessibility in urban areas are susceptible to traffic disruption caused by events such as congestion, roadworks and traffic accidents. Being highly valued by travellers, travel time reliability affects their participation in activities and thus, plays a decisive role in accessibility. The aim of the study was to develop an approach to integrate travel time reliability into the measurement of accessibility. To achieve this, we extended a commonly-used accessibility indicator to include day-to-day variability in travel times. In a case study of the accessibility to the newly-built Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Glasgow, we used real-time travel times with high temporal resolution collected over a long period of time to demonstrate the applicability and the utility value of this approach compared to the standard accessibility measurement. Our results revealed that travel time reliability varied both temporally and spatially, and zones experienced relatively high levels of accessibility loss due to higher travel time variability. The proposed approach provides a more realistic representation of actual network performance, allows for assessing the effect of travel time reliability on accessibility throughout the day and will help transport planners to trace equity impacts on accessibility due to travel time unreliability

Understanding How Kurtosis Is Transferred from Input Acceleration to Stress Response and Its Influence on Fatigue Llife

High cycle fatigue of metals typically occurs through long term exposure to time varying loads which, although modest in amplitude, give rise to microscopic cracks that can ultimately propagate to failure. The fatigue life of a component is primarily dependent on the stress amplitude response at critical failure locations. For most vibration tests, it is common to assume a Gaussian distribution of both the input acceleration and stress response. In real life, however, it is common to experience non-Gaussian acceleration input, and this can cause the response to be non-Gaussian. Examples of non-Gaussian loads include road irregularities such as potholes in the automotive world or turbulent boundary layer pressure fluctuations for the aerospace sector or more generally wind, wave or high amplitude acoustic loads. The paper first reviews some of the methods used to generate non-Gaussian excitation signals with a given power spectral density and kurtosis. The kurtosis of the response is examined once the signal is passed through a linear time invariant system. Finally an algorithm is presented that determines the output kurtosis based upon the input kurtosis, the input power spectral density and the frequency response function of the system. The algorithm is validated using numerical simulations. Direct applications of these results include improved fatigue life estimations and a method to accelerate shaker tests by generating high kurtosis, non-Gaussian drive signals

Distribution of physical activity facilities in Scotland by small area measures of deprivation and urbanicity.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to examine the distribution of physical activity facilities by area-level deprivation in Scotland, adjusting for differences in urbanicity, and exploring differences between and within the four largest Scottish cities. METHODS: We obtained a list of all recreational physical activity facilities in Scotland. These were mapped and assigned to datazones. Poisson and negative binomial regression models were used to investigate associations between the number of physical activity facilities relative to population size and quintile of area-level deprivation. RESULTS: The results showed that prior to adjustment for urbanicity, the density of all facilities lessened with increasing deprivation from quintiles 2 to 5. After adjustment for urbanicity and local authority, the effect of deprivation remained significant but the pattern altered, with datazones in quintile 3 having the highest estimated mean density of facilities. Within-city associations were identified between the number of physical activity facilities and area-level deprivation in Aberdeen and Dundee, but not in Edinburgh or Glasgow. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, area-level deprivation appears to have a significant association with the density of physical activity facilities and although overall no clear pattern was observed, affluent areas had fewer publicly owned facilities than more deprived areas but a greater number of privately owned facilities.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Eigenvalue sensitivity minimisation for robust pole placement by the receptance method

The problem of robust pole placement in active structural vibration control by the method of receptance is considered in this paper. Expressions are derived for the eigenvalue sensitivities to parametric perturbations, which are subsequently minimised to improve performance robustness of the control of a dynamical system. The described approach has application to a vibrating system where variations are present due to manufacturing and material tolerances, damages and environment variabilities. The closed-loop eigenvalue sensitivities are expressed as a linear function of the velocity and displacement feedback gains, allowing their minimisation with carefully calculated feedback gains. The proposed algorithm involves curve fitting perturbed frequency response functions, FRFs, using the rational fraction polynomial method and implementation of a polynomial fit to the individual estimated rational fraction coefficients. This allows the eigenvalue sensitivity to be obtained entirely from structural FRFs, which is consistent with the receptance method. This avoids the need to evaluate the M,C,K matrices which are typically obtained through finite element modelling, that produces modelling uncertainty. It is also demonstrated that the sensitivity minimisation technique can work in conjunction with the pole placement and partial pole placement technique using the receptance method. To illustrate the working of the proposed algorithm, the controller is first implemented numerically and then experimentally

Sociospatial distribution of access to facilities for moderate and vigorous intensity physical activity in Scotland by different modes of transport.

BACKGROUND: People living in neighbourhoods of lower socioeconomic status have been shown to have higher rates of obesity and a lower likelihood of meeting physical activity recommendations than their more affluent counterparts. This study examines the sociospatial distribution of access to facilities for moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity in Scotland and whether such access differs by the mode of transport available and by Urban Rural Classification. METHODS: A database of all fixed physical activity facilities was obtained from the national agency for sport in Scotland. Facilities were categorised into light, moderate and vigorous intensity activity groupings before being mapped. Transport networks were created to assess the number of each type of facility accessible from the population weighted centroid of each small area in Scotland on foot, by bicycle, by car and by bus. Multilevel modelling was used to investigate the distribution of the number of accessible facilities by small area deprivation within urban, small town and rural areas separately, adjusting for population size and local authority. RESULTS: Prior to adjustment for Urban Rural Classification and local authority, the median number of accessible facilities for moderate or vigorous intensity activity increased with increasing deprivation from the most affluent or second most affluent quintile to the most deprived for all modes of transport. However, after adjustment, the modelling results suggest that those in more affluent areas have significantly higher access to moderate and vigorous intensity facilities by car than those living in more deprived areas. CONCLUSIONS: The sociospatial distributions of access to facilities for both moderate intensity and vigorous intensity physical activity were similar. However, the results suggest that those living in the most affluent neighbourhoods have poorer access to facilities of either type that can be reached on foot, by bicycle or by bus than those living in less affluent areas. This poorer access from the most affluent areas appears to be reversed for those with access to a car.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Inferring pandemic growth rates from sequence data

Using sequence data to infer population dynamics is playing an increasing role in the analysis of outbreaks. The most common methods in use, based on coalescent inference, have been widely used but not extensively tested against simulated epidemics. Here, we use simulated data to test the ability of both parametric and non-parametric methods for inference of effective population size (coded in the popular BEAST package) to reconstruct epidemic dynamics. We consider a range of simulations centred on scenarios considered plausible for pandemic influenza, but our conclusions are generic for any exponentially growing epidemic. We highlight systematic biases in non-parametric effective population size estimation. The most prominent such bias leads to the false inference of slowing of epidemic spread in the recent past even when the real epidemic is growing exponentially. We suggest some sampling strategies that could reduce (but not eliminate) some of the biases. Parametric methods can correct for these biases if the infected population size is large. We also explore how some poor sampling strategies (e.g. that over-represent epidemiologically linked clusters of cases) could dramatically exacerbate bias in an uncontrolled manner. Finally, we present a simple diagnostic indicator, based on coalescent density and which can easily be applied to reconstructed phylogenies, that identifies time-periods for which effective population size estimates are less likely to be biased. We illustrate this with an application to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic