Actual Mobility Research Articles

Building relational capacities from institutional arrangements: lessons based on the construction of Salvador's subway system

This article aims to study the construction process of the subway system in the Brazilian cities of Salvador and Lauro de Freitas, investigating the constraints of state agencies to build this subway infrastructure. By examining the structures created to produce this urban infrastructure policy, this paper tries to explain how institutional arrangements of public policies condition state agency, in other words, how they enhance or undermine the formation of policy capacities to deliver subway infrastructure. The qualitative analysis of the data suggests that the design of institutional arrangements and their change influence the availability and mobilization of actors, resources, competences and policy instruments towards the promotion of efficacy and legitimacy in this policy.

Later-Life Migration in The Netherlands: Propensity to Move and Residential Mobility

As the populations age, there is a growing potential for later-life migration. In this study, the residential moving behavior of older adults in the Netherlands is examined. On the basis of pooled data from the Housing Research Netherlands (HRN) survey, we were able to reveal which factors are likely to influence considerations about moving and actual mobility. The results support the premise that residential mobility decreases with age. The strongest predictors of actual mobility were factors associated with the dwelling, while the neighborhood, particularly the extent of social cohesiveness, played a substantial role in explaining the older adults’ propensity to move.

Mobile device location data reveal human mobility response to state-level stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA.

One approach to delaying the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is to reduce human travel by imposing travel restriction policies. Understanding the actual human mobility response to such policies remains a challenge owing to the lack of an observed and large-scale dataset describing human mobility during the pandemic. This study uses an integrated dataset, consisting of anonymized and privacy-protected location data from over 150 million monthly active samples in the USA, COVID-19 case data and census population information, to uncover mobility changes during COVID-19 and under the stay-at-home state orders in the USA. The study successfully quantifies human mobility responses with three important metrics: daily average number of trips per person; daily average person-miles travelled; and daily percentage of residents staying at home. The data analytics reveal a spontaneous mobility reduction that occurred regardless of government actions and a ‘floor’ phenomenon, where human mobility reached a lower bound and stopped decreasing soon after each state announced the stay-at-home order. A set of longitudinal models is then developed and confirms that the states' stay-at-home policies have only led to about a 5% reduction in average daily human mobility. Lessons learned from the data analytics and longitudinal models offer valuable insights for government actions in preparation for another COVID-19 surge or another virus outbreak in the future.

Improved Method for the Seismic Design of Anchored Steel Sheet Pile Walls

This paper describes a new pseudostatic approach for an efficient seismic design of anchored steel sheet pile (ASSP) walls supported by shallow passive anchorages. As for other retaining structures, energy dissipation during strong earthquakes leading to reduced inertia forces can be achieved by allowing the activation of ductile plastic mechanisms. To this end, a robust method is required to identify all the possible yielding mechanisms and to guarantee the desired strength hierarchy. It is shown that dissipative mechanisms for ASSP walls correspond either to the local attainment of the soil shear strength in the supporting soil and around the anchor, or in the activation of a log-spiral global failure surface. A new limit equilibrium method is proposed to compute the critical acceleration of the system, corresponding to the actual mobilization of its strength, and the maximum internal forces in the structural members. Theoretical findings are validated against both existing dynamic centrifuge data and the results of original pseudostatic and fully dynamic numerical analyses.

Building relational capacities from institutional arrangements: lessons based on the construction of Salvador's subway system

This article aims to study the construction process of the subway system in the Brazilian cities of Salvador and Lauro de Freitas, investigating the constraints of state agencies to build this subway infrastructure. By examining the structures created to produce this urban infrastructure policy, this paper tries to explain how institutional arrangements of public policies condition state agency, in other words, how they enhance or undermine the formation of policy capacities to deliver subway infrastructure. The qualitative analysis of the data suggests that the design of institutional arrangements and their change influence the availability and mobilization of actors, resources, competences and policy instruments towards the promotion of efficacy and legitimacy in this policy.

Facilitating factors and challenges of the implementation of multisectoral nutrition programmes at the community level to improve optimal infant and young child feeding practices: a qualitative study in Burkina Faso.

To identify the drivers and challenges of successful nutrition programme implementation in a multisectoral, community-level approach to improve infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices in northern Burkina Faso. A qualitative study was conducted in 2019 through (i) individual interviews with key informants from five different sectors (health, agriculture, environment, livestock and education) and association staff, agents and community leaders and (ii) focus groups with mothers of children under the age of 2 years. Three health districts in the northern region of Burkina Faso implemented a multisectoral community nutrition programme to improve IYCF practices. Forty-seven implementing actors and twenty-four beneficiary mothers. Factors influencing successful implementation include community participation; sector commitment and involvement; the existence of nutrition champions; capacity building; the integration of interventions; micronutrient powder distribution; the introduction of nutrition-sensitive interventions, such as the promotion of the consumption of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes; improved food production and small livestock rearing and the effective coordination of actors and complementary funding. The main challenges of the implementation of multisectorality are low participation among nutrition-sensitive sectors, a tendency for siloed work among sectors, scheduling conflicts, high actor mobility, differences in the target population by sector, a lack of technical skills among community workers, insufficient financial resources, low geographic convergence and coverage of beneficiaries, a lack of a multisectoral monitoring mechanism and accountability and insecurity. Strengthening sector participation, identifying a common targeting strategy and mobilising financial resources have the potential to significantly reduce barriers and improve the quality of implementation.

An Introduction to Food Cooperatives in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon: Territorial Actors and Potential Levers to Local Development Through Culinary Heritage.

Economic development approaches are increasingly entailing local geographic scales and encouraging the mobilization and organization of territorial actors given local conditions and resources. Lebanon is a country facing frequent uncertainty with recent economic and social difficulties. Its popular cuisine may play a key role in its development and that of its rural space. In fact, that cuisine incorporates a traditional cultural practice called “Mouneh” which consists of preserved pantry foods, historically used to ensure household nutrition. Today, rural food cooperatives are engaging in that practice using agricultural produce from local farmers and are employing women. Despite strong internal and external challenges, they remain attractive actors as their principles of collective benefit, participation and democracy form a strong link with sustainable development goals. This study transversally analyzes the status of food cooperatives in a major agricultural region in Lebanon, the Bekaa valley. Findings mainly quantified size and production and provided a mapped representation of the spatial dependencies on local farmers versus urban markets for trade. With 75% women members and firm reputation in authenticity, food cooperatives in the Bekaa specifically and Lebanon generally are also extensively supported by donors but are being labeled as donor-dependent. Yet, cooperatives are localized in a largely agricultural territory with sufficient evidence of differentiation that could potentially be valorized. Hence, with optimal framing, regulation and networking of cooperatives, one can assume a protection of culinary heritage is possible with scalable contribution to food security and needed local development given major recent setbacks.

Le Maroc à l’heure de la clusterisation. Un projet d’innovation pour une ville en déclin industriel

The new imperatives of globalization have imposed new challenges for international competitiveness, innovation, and territorial attractiveness. They tend to permeate the content of the industrial policies adopted by countries. This same trend seems to have affected Morocco starting from the 2000s with the adoption of its new industrial policy, Plan Emergence. Such a policy has made the promotion and the realization of clusters one if its main spearheads. As part of this contribution, the cluster approach is questioned in both its process of elaboration and its modes of governance. This is based on the case study of Atlantic Free Zone project in Kenitra, a city in industrial decline. The process certainly provides information on the role of central authorities in identifying the location and the conceptualization of the project; it also attests the importance of the instrumentation of cognitive frameworks and symbolic aspects of public action, in order to ensure the mobilization of local actors.

Analyzing Zone-Based Registration Using a Three Zone System: A Semi-Markov Process Approach

The location of user equipment (UE) should always be maintained in order to connect any incoming calls within a mobile network. While several methods of location registration have been proposed, most mobile networks have adopted zone-based registration due to its superior performance. Even though recommendations from research on these zone-based systems state that multiple zones can be stored in a zone-based registration system, actual current mobile networks only employ a zone-based registration system that stores a single zone. Therefore, some studies have been conducted on zone-based registration using multiple zones. However, most of these studies consider only two zones. In this study, through the development of a semi-Markov process approach, we present a simple but accurate mathematical model for zone-based registration using three zones. In addition, our research results in zone-based registration systems where one, two and three zones are used to suggest the optimal management scheme for zone-based registration. Given that most mobile networks have already adopted some kind of zone-based registration, these results are able to directly enhance the performance of the actual mobile network in the near future with the minimum of effort required for implementation.

Anonymised and aggregated crowd level mobility data from mobile phones suggests that initial compliance with COVID-19 social distancing interventions was high and geographically consistent across the UK

Background: Since early March 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic across the United Kingdom has led to a range of social distancing policies, which have resulted in reduced mobility across different regions. Crowd level data on mobile phone usage can be used as a proxy for actual population mobility patterns and provide a way of quantifying the impact of social distancing measures on changes in mobility. Methods: Here, we use two mobile phone-based datasets (anonymised and aggregated crowd level data from O2 and from the Facebook app on mobile phones) to assess changes in average mobility, both overall and broken down into high and low population density areas, and changes in the distribution of journey lengths. Results: We show that there was a substantial overall reduction in mobility, with the most rapid decline on the 24th March 2020, the day after the Prime Minister’s announcement of an enforced lockdown. The reduction in mobility was highly synchronized across the UK. Although mobility has remained low since 26th March 2020, we detect a gradual increase since that time. We also show that the two different datasets produce similar trends, albeit with some location-specific differences. We see slightly larger reductions in average mobility in high-density areas than in low-density areas, with greater variation in mobility in the high-density areas: some high-density areas eliminated almost all mobility. Conclusions: These analyses form a baseline from which to observe changes in behaviour in the UK as social distancing is eased and inform policy towards the future control of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK.

Sustainable Urban Mobility in Poznan and Oslo-Actual State and Development Perspectives

The main goal of this paper is to present and analyze approaches for sustainable urban mobility in Poznan and Oslo. The topic of sustainable urban transport as well as green mobility is currently important from formal perspectives, due to European regulations, and because of ecological conditions and resulting climate changes. The research methodology implemented includes analysis of the literature on the research subject; analysis of EU documents and national policies with respect to financing and development of sustainable urban transport (SUT); development of a questionnaire on SUT in Oslo and Poznan, using the questionnaire to collect opinions on SUTs in Oslo and Poznan, and analyzing respondents’ answers, defining recommendations concerning future activities for urban sustainability in the surveyed cities. The authors provide a review of the actual sustainable urban mobility situations in Oslo and Poznan, compare government support and sources of funding, identify gaps in terms of EU requirements, and try to compare the residents’ expectations with the city’s activities in the field of sustainable transport development. The research group includes students residing in both cities. The group constitutes 10–20% of the total number of inhabitants in cities being the subject of research. The empirical part investigates what their preferences are regarding the use of public transport in the context of sustainable development. On the basis of the conducted research, it can be stated that a sustainable urban mobility is one of the key development directions in Poland and Norway. The respondents see opportunities for developing green mobility in their cities as well as municipalities and the national government encouraging a sustainable urban transport. The implementation of the principles of sustainable development and reconstruction of city development strategy can be achieved by the cooperation of all stakeholders (namely: national government, municipalities, public transport providers, city residents).

Residential mobility of couples around family formation in the Netherlands: Stated and revealed preferences

AbstractDespite ongoing debates on urban resurgence and suggestions that cities have become more popular as a location to raise children, empirical evidence on the extent to which families with children tend to stay in cities is scarce. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by analysing intentions to move and the actual mobility behaviour of young families in the Netherlands. First, and based on administrative data from Statistics Netherlands (2008–2016), it provides a detailed geographical analysis of couples' actual moving behaviour around the life event of first childbirth in a wide array of settlement types. Results demonstrate that the transition to parenthood still triggers couples to move down the urban hierarchy: urban couples, especially those in high‐density neighbourhoods, tend to leave the city, whereas couples in smaller municipalities outside the city tend to adjust their housing situation by local moves. However, lower density neighbourhoods in inner cities are relatively successful in retaining couples around family formation. Second, and based on the Netherlands' Housing Survey linked to administrative data, this paper examines geographical variations in families' stated intentions to move and analyses the likelihood that these moving intentions are realised. Results suggest that patterns of family migration cannot merely be interpreted as revealed preferences for suburban or rural environments. Whereas urban families are more likely than non‐urban families to have intentions to leave, they are also most likely to intend to move within their settlement. However, Amsterdam families in particular are unlikely to fulfil their intentions to make a local move, probably because of housing market constraints.

Anonymised and aggregated crowd level mobility data from mobile phones suggests that initial compliance with COVID-19 social distancing interventions was high and geographically consistent across the UK.

Background: Since early March 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic across the United Kingdom has led to a range of social distancing policies, which have resulted in reduced mobility across different regions. Crowd level data on mobile phone usage can be used as a proxy for actual population mobility patterns and provide a way of quantifying the impact of social distancing measures on changes in mobility. Methods: Here, we use two mobile phone-based datasets (anonymised and aggregated crowd level data from O2 and from the Facebook app on mobile phones) to assess changes in average mobility, both overall and broken down into high and low population density areas, and changes in the distribution of journey lengths. Results: We show that there was a substantial overall reduction in mobility, with the most rapid decline on the 24th March 2020, the day after the Prime Minister's announcement of an enforced lockdown. The reduction in mobility was highly synchronized across the UK. Although mobility has remained low since 26th March 2020, we detect a gradual increase since that time. We also show that the two different datasets produce similar trends, albeit with some location-specific differences. We see slightly larger reductions in average mobility in high-density areas than in low-density areas, with greater variation in mobility in the high-density areas: some high-density areas eliminated almost all mobility. Conclusions: These analyses form a baseline from which to observe changes in behaviour in the UK as social distancing is eased and inform policy towards the future control of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK.

Intervenções de enfermagem junto à pessoa com estoma intestinal de eliminação: tendência da produção científica

Objetivo: Identificar a tendência da produção científica brasileira em teses e dissertações acerca das intervenções de enfermagem direcionadas ao cuidado das pessoas com estoma intestinal de eliminação. Metodologia: Trata-se de uma revisão narrativa realizada no catálogo de teses e dissertações da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, sem recorte temporal. Critério de inclusão: dissertações e teses oriundos de estudos primários acerca da temática de interesse e que convergiam com o objetivo desta revisão. Os critérios de exclusão foram: dissertações e teses que abordavam outros tipos de estoma; estudos de revisão e os que tinham por objetivo desenvolver e validar instrumento para implementação de intervenções de enfermagem. O corpus de análise foi composto por sete estudos, os quais foram analisados na íntegra. Resultados: O público-alvo das ações de intervenção foram estudantes de graduação em enfermagem, profissionais de enfermagem, famílias de pessoas com colostomia por câncer colorretale pessoas com estoma, sendo a modalidade de intervenção educativa a mais implementada. As estratégias utilizadas foram mediadas pela utilização do ambiente virtual de aprendizagem, pela mobilização de atores para formar apoiador local, pelo uso de vídeo educativo e por contato telefônico. Foi possível constatar que todas intervenções implementadas foram válidas e construtivas à medida que possibilitaram ampliar os conhecimentos sobre os estomas intestinais. Conclusão do estudo: A tendência da produção está relacionada a implementação de intervenções do tipo educativa, direcionadas a profissionais e acadêmicos de enfermagem.

United we stand in metaphors: EU authority and incomplete politicisation of the crisis in Ukraine

ABSTRACT This article analyses the dynamics of the politicisation and depoliticisation of the EU response to the 2014 crisis in Ukraine through the perspective of metaphorical framing. This crisis constituted an unquestioned priority in EU foreign policy, requiring the mobilisation of many actors articulating divergent positions, but the EU adopted a robust response to the crisis. This paper explains how early polarization of EU member states’ positions about response to the Ukrainian crisis has been neutralised and depoliticised through the adoption of collective EU positions towards Ukraine and Russia in 2014, in the ENP Review in 2015 and European Union Global Strategy in 2016. This paper attributes the neutralisation of politicisation moves to the consistency of metaphorical frames employed in the EU response to the crisis in Ukraine with the overall framing of the European Neighbourhood Policy.

Language policies and internationalization of higher education

ABSTRACT In the context of education for the global world, internationalization is a strategy and a goal of higher education (HE). In many cases, the conditions for carrying out internationalization are neglected in detriment of its economic and financial impact. The definition of appropriate language policies and their relation to the organization and functioning of institutions at all levels (teaching, research, transfer, governance, etc.) are constitutive aspects of internationalization. This definition considers the need to promote mobility and inclusion of different actors in HE and the need for competitive affirmation at local, national and international levels. Not only the conception of language policies must be clear, but the concept of language must be revisited within its relation to acquisition, construction and dissemination of knowledge in an ecological perspective of multilingual practices in HE, emphasizing that there is no science without languages and without linguistic diversity. In a contextually anchored complexity management framework, the relationship between language policies (or lack thereof) and pedagogical and methodological innovations is referred. This text emphasizes that language policies are essential in internationalization of HE. To achieve this purpose, a new concept of language and an integrated approach of language and knowledge/science are needed.

Data assessment and prioritization in mobile networks for real-time prediction of spatial information using machine learning

A new framework of data assessment and prioritization for real-time prediction of spatial information is presented. The real-time prediction of spatial information is promising for next-generation mobile networks. Recent developments in machine learning technology have enabled prediction of spatial information, which will be quite useful for smart mobility services including navigation, driving assistance, and self-driving. Other key enablers for forming spatial information are image sensors in mobile devices like smartphones and tablets and in vehicles such as cars and drones and real-time cognitive computing like automatic number/license plate recognition systems and object recognition systems. However, since image data collected by mobile devices and vehicles need to be delivered to the server in real time to extract input data for real-time prediction, the uplink transmission speed of mobile networks is a major impediment. This paper proposes a framework of data assessment and prioritization that reduces the uplink traffic volume while maintaining the prediction accuracy of spatial information. In our framework, machine learning is used to estimate the importance of each data element and to predict spatial information under the limitation of available data. A numerical evaluation using an actual vehicle mobility dataset demonstrated the validity of the proposed framework. Two extension schemes in our framework, which use the ensemble of importance scores obtained from multiple feature selection methods, are also presented to improve its robustness against various machine learning and feature selection methods. We discuss the performance of those schemes through numerical evaluation.

Hybrid, public and private environmental governance: the case of sustainable coastal zone management in Quintana Roo, Mexico

ABSTRACT Coastal zones (CZ) are social-ecological systems where rapid forms of economic development are disrupting the existing patterns of relationships, raising challenges for governance. Institutional flexibility, broad participation, multilevel governance, and adaptability have been identified as critical conditions for the governance of social-ecological systems. While the importance of agency, through the substantive participation of private actors in rulemaking, has been researched, there is a need to examine the dynamics involved in, and consequence of, hybrid governance arrangements. An empirical study is presented of hybrid governance, involving federal and local government and locally based private actors from civil society organizations, environmental non-government organizations and local business interest associations, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The CZ of Quintana Roo is facing pressures from economic development, mainly tourism, with consequences for water pollution and fisheries. Through qualitative, mixed methods, we found that a thick network of private actors has mobilized to play an important role in environmental management and to act in collaboration with the State. Multiple rationales account for this development, including high levels of environmental awareness, particularly with respect to water pollution, while the lack of institutional capacity also motivates state actors to seek partnerships. While private governance is emerging, our data reveal a complex case, where private actor mobilization seeks to promote better regulations, to share data and resources, and to improve implementation capacity within the public administration. Hybrid governance contributes to effective environmental governance of the CZ. However, this can also risk state retreat from its public responsibilities.

Be prepared for the unexpected: The gap between (im)mobility intentions and subsequent behaviour of recent higher education graduates

AbstractResearch on the relationship between mobility intentions and actual mobility behaviour is scarce. This study analyses the factors explaining the gap between (im)mobility intentions and behaviour of recent higher education graduates in the Euregio Meuse‐Rhine, a cross‐border region spanning the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. The analysis is based on mixed methods, including survey data collected in 2015 and 2017 as well as semistructured interviews to find out more about respondents' personal mobility trajectories and the extent to which their behaviour reflects their actual (im)mobility preferences. The findings indicate that location‐specific capital impacts the probability to realise one's (im)mobility intention, as do other forms of capital, such as previous mobility experience and an internship during the study. Furthermore, personality traits and unexpected events, such as a change in relationship status, influence if respondents realise their initial (im)mobility intention.

Diaspora, Home-State Governance and Transnational Political Mobilisation: A Comparative Case Analysis of Ethiopia and Kenya’s State Policy Towards their Diaspora

Aligned to studies that have established that state-diaspora engagement policies consist of a diversity of measures associated with different aims, this study provides a novel approach to such research. It involves investigating how leadership (through diaspora policies) is structured using language to ensure that the objectives of state-diaspora policies are persuasive enough to draw consensual support from the diaspora. Adopting a rhetorical analysis of multi-case data, this paper compares how the notion of diaspora is used within Ethiopia and Kenya’s state-diaspora policy documents and how their understanding of their diaspora shapes the actual political mobilisation of it. The paper demonstrates that by selecting certain themes and by treating diaspora as a powerful strategy, either by segregating it from or including it in the political activities of a nation, domestic governments can strongly influence the political narrative. Results further show that when the diaspora faces state power not all categories of it are equally accepted or offered the same political rights.