Mobility Trends Research Articles

Network security in multiple threats: A critical study

Any organization nowadays needs a secure network. High-speed wireless networks and internet services are becoming increasingly unsafe as a result of the daily rise in security threats. Threats to information security come from within the company, in close to 80% of cases. With the latest trend of mobility (portable devices such as laptops and smartphones etc.), ubiquitous 3G connectivity and this trend increases but as more web-based applications are manufactured and available over the Internet, the instances of insider threats have been rising at an alarming rate. Current or former workers, contractors, or business partners who have permission to access the organization's network and servers are typically the source of insider threats. Confidential information is frequently stolen for monetary gain or wellful harm. Access to hacking tools via the Internet, USB drives, and wireless connectivity make break-ins simple. Here, Millions of dollars in losses in the event of IP theft, and customer / individual information theft are yet too considered. This article provides insight into Insider dangers, attackers, and their rationales and recommendations for organizational-level mitigation methods.

Risk assessment of a Brazilian urban population due to the exposure to pyrethroid insecticides during the COVID-19 pandemic using wastewater-based epidemiology

Pyrethroids are synthetic insecticides commonly used in agriculture and homes due to their low toxicity to mammals and effectiveness at low doses. However, exposure to pyrethroids can cause various symptoms, depending on the route of exposure. To measure human exposure to pyrethroids, researchers used wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) with polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) sampling. This approach is a cost-effective and efficient way to assess exposure to pyrethroids. The study aimed to evaluate the exposure of an urban population in Brazil to pyrethroids during the COVID-19 pandemic using WBE with POCIS sampling. Researchers analyzed 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA) in wastewater using passive sampling with POCIS, which was extracted with methanol and analyzed using UPLC-MS/MS. The range of CTWA concentrations of 3-PBA in wastewater was 24.3–298.2 ng L−1, with a mean value of 134 ± 76.5 ng L−1. The values were used to estimate the exposure of the population to pyrethroid insecticides. Three different conversion factors were applied to determine the range of exposure to at least 20 different pyrethroid insecticides. The exposure values ranged from 18.08 to 1441.49 mg day−1 per 1000 inhabitants. The toxicological risk posed to the exposed population was evaluated by calculating the WBE toxicological level (WBE-TL). Lambda-cyhalothrin was used as a reference for risk assessment, and the WBE-TL values for lambda-cyhalothrin ranged from 0.5 to 8.29 (considering the high CF). We compared mobility trends to 3-PBA exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study highlighted the effectiveness of POCIS sampling in WBE and provided useful information for policymakers and regulatory agencies. POCIS sampling has practical advantages, including analyte pre-concentration, low operational cost, and ease of use. Overall, the study shows the importance of monitoring and understanding the exposure of the population to pyrethroid insecticides, especially during the pandemic when people may be spending more time at home.

Economic vulnerabilities and pandemic mobilities: Mobility of low-income populations in İstanbul during the Covid-19 pandemic

This paper explores the everyday mobilities of low-income populations during the Covid-19 pandemic through a mixed-methods study in İstanbul. It shows how additional economic burdens brought by the Covid-19 pandemic interplay with low-income residents’ attitudes towards using different transport modes, mobility levels, and concerns over public transport use based on socioeconomic and demographic differences. It suggests that household structures, social networks and perceived mobility restrictions tend to be associated with mobility patterns and practices. The paper argues that changes and continuities in mobility trends and practices due to the pandemic should be considered with broader social and economic dynamics at the household and community level. It draws key lessons learned concerning the pandemic mobilities to be transferred to future transport policy and mobility governance so that intragenerational inequalities could be mainstreamed in these policy domains.

Born in a tour guide’s family: how can tourism employment fuel intergenerational social mobility?

ABSTRACT Studying social mobility can help understand societal development and changes, but it is lacking in nowadays tourism research. Focusing on tour guides, the present paper concerns how tourism employment affects intergenerational social mobility. We interviewed 22 tour guide families in Wulingyuan, China, where tourism has been the main economic driver for over 40 years. Drawing on the concept of capital with thematic analysis, we found that tour guide as a job (1) enables household economic growth (2) enlarges household social capital with networks of tourism associates and valuable customers, (3) cultivates individual cultural capital growth through at-work knowledge acquisition, skill development, and vision expansion, and (4) jointly improves individual symbolic capital in mianzi accumulation (higher social status). Some of the capital can be transferred to their offspring, which fosters an upward intergenerational social mobile trend. The key to successful transfer is parenting. The present study contributes to studies of tourism development and societal growth, highlights the advantages of frontline tourism jobs in promoting long-term growth for both the practitioners and their families, and pinpoints critical factors behind such long-term growth. Theoretical, practical and policy implications are accordingly discussed.

A nationwide lockdown and deaths due to COVID-19 in the Indian subcontinent

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of nationwide lockdowns on health outcomes have been widely studied in Western, developed countries. However, the effects of lockdowns in emerging and developing countries are largely unknown. We used data from India and Bangladesh to study the effect of nationwide restrictions on public movement in Bangladesh in April 2021 on health outcomes, specifically COVID-19 incidence and mortality. India and Bangladesh had nearly identical development of the COVID-19 Delta wave the weeks before the lockdown. We leveraged longitudinal data from the pre- and post-intervention period in both countries in a structural causal model, suggesting that the reported deaths in Bangladesh due to COVID-19 would have been ∼117% higher (95% PI: 72%–170%) in April 2021 had there been fewer restrictions. Further, we used population mobility data from Google to study behavioural changes in the two countries, supporting the hypothesis that the intervention had substantial effects on the mobility trends of the Bangladeshi population, which in turn reduced the number of COVID-19 deaths.

Length-squared L-function for identifying clustering pattern of network-constrained flows

ABSTRACTThe network-constrained flow is defined as the movement between two locations along road networks, such as the residence-workplace flow of city dwellers. Among flow patterns, clustering (i.e. the origins and destinations are aggregated simultaneously) is one of the cities’ most common and vital patterns, which assists in uncovering fundamental mobility trends. The existing methods for detecting the clustering pattern of network-constrained flows do not consider the impact of road network topology complexity on detection results. They may underestimate the flow clustering between networks of simple topology (roads with simpler shapes and fewer links, e.g. straight roads) but with high network intensity (i.e. flow number per network flow space), and determining the actual scale of an observed pattern remains challenging. This study develops a novel method, the length-squared L-function, to identify clustering patterns of network-constrained flows. We first use the L-function and its derivative to examine the clustering scales. Further, we calculate the local L-function to ascertain the locations of the clustering patterns. In synthetic and practical experiments, our method can identify flow clustering patterns of high intensities and reveal the residents’ main travel behavior trends with taxi OD flows, providing more reasonable suggestions for urban planning.

Open space dynamics during coronavirus disease-2019

Although numerous studies have been carried out to examine the general trend of urban mobility during coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), there is not enough research on changes in pedestrian behavioural characteristics and crowd dynamics in public spaces. Understanding and monitoring such changes are critical for the better management and design of public open space in case of future outbreaks of infectious diseases. To fill this gap, pedestrian movements are tracked and analysed with deep learning-based video analytics based on anonymised video footage along a major promenade in Hong Kong before and during COVID-19. Specifically, comparisons were made on pedestrian-flow characteristics, pedestrian activities and social distancing. Then, this study examines the dynamics of pedestrian crowding under different scenarios, using agent-based simulation. Model results suggest that the public space was characterised by fewer visitors, a higher average walking speed, a higher percentage of people exercising and a lower percentage of people carrying out stationary activities during COVID-19. In addition, a higher level of voluntary social distancing was observed. Several hot spots for pedestrian crowding were also identified. Learning from the above, it is suggested that multifunctional public space should be designed; and data-driven visitor management systems should be established to prepare for different scenarios in future cities.

Distribution and Mobility of Amines Confined in Porous Silica Supports Assessed via Neutron Scattering, NMR, and MD Simulations: Impacts on CO2 Sorption Kinetics and Capacities.

ConspectusSolid-supported amines are a promising class of CO2 sorbents capable of selectively capturing CO2 from diverse sources. The chemical interactions between the amine groups and CO2 give rise to the formation of strong CO2 adducts, such as alkylammonium carbamates, carbamic acids, and bicarbonates, which enable CO2 capture even at low driving force, such as with ultradilute CO2 streams. Among various solid-supported amine sorbents, oligomeric amines infused into oxide solid supports (noncovalently supported) are widely studied due to their ease of synthesis and low cost. This method allows for the construction of amine-rich sorbents while minimizing problems, such as leaching or evaporation, that occur with supported molecular amines.Researchers have pursued improved sorbents by tuning the physical and chemical properties of solid supports and amine phases. In terms of CO2 uptake, the amine efficiency, or the moles of sorbed CO2 per mole of amine sites, and uptake rate (CO2 capture per unit time) are the most critical factors determining the effectiveness of the material. While structure-property relationships have been developed for different porous oxide supports, the interaction(s) of the amine phase with the solid support, the structure and distribution of the organic phase within the pores, and the mobility of the amine phase within the pores are not well understood. These factors are important, because the kinetics of CO2 sorption, particularly when using the prototypical amine oligomer branched poly(ethylenimine) (PEI), follow an unconventional trend, with rapid initial uptake followed by a very slow, asymptotic approach to equilibrium. This suggests that the uptake of CO2 within such solid-supported amines is mass transfer-limited. Therefore, improving sorption performance can be facilitated by better understanding the amine structure and distribution within the pores.In this context, model solid-supported amine sorbents were constructed from a highly ordered, mesoporous silica SBA-15 support, and an array of techniques was used to probe the soft matter domains within these hybrid materials. The choice of SBA-15 as the model support was based on its ordered arrangement of mesopores with tunable physical and chemical properties, including pore size, particle lengths, and surface chemistries. Branched PEI─the most common amine phase used in solid CO2 sorbents─and its linear, low molecular weight analogue, tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA), were deployed as the amine phases. Neutron scattering (NS), including small angle neutron scattering (SANS) and quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS), alongside solid-state NMR (ssNMR) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, was used to elucidate the structure and mobility of the amine phases within the pores of the support. Together, these tools, which have previously not been applied to such materials, provided new information regarding how the amine phases filled the support pores as the loading increased and the mobility of those amine phases. Varying pore surface-amine interactions led to unique trends for amine distributions and mobility; for instance, hydrophilic walls (i.e., attractive to amines) resulted in hampered motions with more intimate coordination to the walls, while amines around hydrophobic walls or walls with grafted chains that interrupt amine-wall coordination showed recovered mobility, with amines being more liberated from the walls. By correlating the structural and dynamic properties with CO2 sorption properties, novel relationships were identified, shedding light on the performance of the amine sorbents, and providing valuable guidance for the design of more effective supported amine sorbents.

Intragenerational wage mobility and social disadvantage: A comparative study of West Germany and the United States

This article studies wage mobility during the early career in West Germany and the United States. We examine the extent of intragenerational wage fluctuations, whether they structure into upward mobility trends or remain volatile variations, and whether mobility aligns with classical stratification dimensions (gender, social origin, and education). We highlight three main findings. First, intragenerational wage fluctuations are stronger in the United States than in West Germany. Second, wage fluctuations translate into steeper trends of upward mobility, lower trend heterogeneity, and lower year-to-year volatility in West Germany than in the United States. Last, there is persistent intragenerational wage inequality by gender, social origin, and education but no striking differences between the patterns in the two countries. These results point toward the idea that higher wage fluctuations in the United States do not reflect opportunities for upward mobility but, rather, uncertainty around the prospects of wage progression.

Using Connected Vehicle Data to Evaluate National Trip Trends

The National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), conducted by the Federal Highway Administration, has historically been used for documenting personal mobility trends. Current techniques using surveys to collect this data are labor-intensive and difficult to scale. Emerging connected vehicle (CV) data can provide an alternative data source to potentially provide a more scalable method to measure the temporal and spatial usage of passenger vehicles in near real-time. With an impending shift in the automobile industry towards alternative fuel vehicles (AFV), agile monitoring of trip trends is important to help guide state and national investments in AFV infrastructure. This study presents methodologies and visualizations summarizing observed trip characteristics using a sample of more than 500 billion CV records and nearly 1 billion CV trips for December 2022 in the United States. The analysis found very close agreement between trip lengths for internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) for CVs and those reported by the 2017 NHTS. Mean trip lengths and trip durations from CVs and NHTS for ICEVs are within 7.8% and 6.6% of each other. The 85th percentile comparison was similarly close, within 0.7% and 8.3%. A comparison of trip trends among states for ICEVs and AFVs as well as US census places and temporal trends for a selection of states, including Indiana, Texas, Wyoming, and California, is provided. The paper concludes that CV data is an important source to monitor trip characteristics across ICEVs and AFVs in near real-time, which will be particularly important to track during the anticipated change to AFVs.

Mobility Energy Productivity and Equity: E-Bike Impacts for Low-Income Essential Workers in Denver

New mobility technologies such as electrified and shared mobility, combined with polices and incentive programs, are emerging to help address sustainability and equity issues in transportation planning. However, it can be difficult to understand the impacts of novel mobility trends and emerging modes on energy-efficient access. This is owing to a lack of (1) open-source tools enabling rapid data collection, and (2) open-source metrics that consider multimodal, multiactivity access and mobility within the contexts of sustainability and equity. This paper addresses the topic of improving evaluation of transportation modes and incentive programs by integrating an open-source platform for tracking human travel data—the Open Platform for Agile Trip Heuristics (OpenPATH)—with a mobility metric that quantifies the efficiency of a region’s transportation system: Mobility Energy Productivity (MEP). Integration is demonstrated in the context of pilot programs in Colorado, where low-income essential workers were provided with electric bikes (e-bikes). OpenPATH-informed MEP calculations showed that several locations in downtown Denver provided comparable time-, cost-, and energy-efficient access to opportunities using e-bikes compared with driving. Additionally, providing e-bikes to low-income essential workers was found to be meaningful, as they utilized e-bikes the most to commute, despite driving still being their most utilized mode and the mode with highest MEP scores in Denver. We show how data collected from open-source tools coupled with robust metrics such as MEP can help evaluate the impacts of emerging mobility options. This could support developing policies to incentivize novel modes to achieve greater levels of sustainable, equitable, and efficient access.

Econometrics Modelling Approach to Examine the Effect of STEM Policy Changes on Asian Student’s Enrollment Decision in USA

Academic research has shown significant interest in international student mobility, with previous literature primarily focusing on the migration industry from a political and public policy perspective. For many countries, international student mobility plays a crucial role in bolstering their economies through financial gains and attracting skilled immigrants. While previous studies have explored the determinants of mobility and country economic policies, only a few have examined the impact of policy changes on mobility trends. In this study, the researchers investigate the influence of immigration policy changes, particularly the optional practical training (OPT) extension on STEM programs, on Asian students' preference for enrolling in STEM majors at universities. The study utilizes observational data and employs a quasi-experimental design, analysing the information using the difference-in-difference technique. The findings of the research indicate that the implementation of the STEM extension policy in 2008 has a significant effect on Asian students' decisions to enroll in a STEM major. Additionally, the study highlights the noteworthy role of individual factors such as the specific STEM major, terminal degree pursued, and gender in influencing Asian students' enrollment decisions.

Trends in Intergenerational Education Mobility in Bangladesh

When children are able to progress beyond their parents’ education level, that is, when there is upward intergenerational education mobility—they are more likely to have better opportunities and access than their parents in terms of jobs and income. For any nation, it is important to understand the trajectory of intergenerational education mobility and ask: Has it been increasing? In the case of Bangladesh, our study is the first to use nationally representative household survey data to explore the trend of intergenerational education mobility. We compute intergenerational education mobility separately for three different years—2005, 2010 and 2016, and find that intergenerational education mobility has, from 2005 to 2016, significantly decreased in terms of fathers’ education. This is surprising given that the expansion of education has been a target both policy-wise and action-wise—for Bangladesh over the last few decades. The finding in terms of mothers’ education—that intergenerational education mobility has significantly increased from 2005 to 2016—makes more sense given the focus on female education expansion in Bangladesh over the years. Moreover, our results indicate that daughters, in general, have been progressing better compared to sons in terms of intergenerational (father–child) education mobility and that children of fathers with higher education levels progressed better than children of fathers with lower education levels. We suggest policies accordingly and emphasize the need to investigate the reasons behind the father–child education immobility over time in Bangladesh.

On the Relationship Between Crowdsourced Sentiments and Mobility Trends During COVID-19: A Case Study of Kyoto

On the Relationship Between Crowdsourced Sentiments and Mobility Trends During COVID-19: A Case Study of Kyoto

Growth and mobility characterization of N-polar AlGaN channel high electron mobility transistors

All-AlGaN based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are promising for increasing the power density in both RF and power devices, improving overall efficiency. Nitrogen (N) polar GaN/AlGaN HEMTs offer lower contact resistance compared to its metal-polar counterpart. In this work, we report the metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD)-based growth of N-polar AlGaN channel HEMT structures with a varying Al mole fraction in the AlxGa1−xN channel (x = 20%, 30%, 59%, and 73%). We confirmed the high-quality morphology and the Al composition of the grown structures using atomic force microscopy and x-ray diffraction spectra, respectively. We measured a mobility of ∼160 cm2/(V.s) in our N-polar AlGaN HEMT stack (20% Al in the channel) structure and found an alloy-scattering dominated transport with increasing Al mole fraction, further supported by our simulations that consider both alloy-scattering and optical phonon-scattering mechanisms. From 20% to 59% Al composition, we found a decreasing trend in mobility while for 59%–73% Al composition in the channel, both the simulated and the experimental mobility showed a nearly saturating trend. The structures were then fabricated into HEMTs with Al0.20Ga0.80N (channel)/Al0.59Ga0.41N (barrier), showing 320 mA/mm drain current for a 4 μm long-channel device.

Changes in international immigration and internal native mobility after COVID-19 in the USA

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic produced a significant decline in international immigration to the USA between 2020 and 2021. This paper documents the timing, characteristics, and heterogeneity of the change in immigration across states and economic sectors. Additionally, we describe the trends in internal native mobility in the USA prior to and after the pandemic, investigating whether natives responded to the decrease in immigration by relocating either geographically or across sectors. Despite the substantial drop in international migration, we do not observe any significant changes in native internal mobility. Employing a panel regression and a shift-share IV, we study the effect of foreign immigration, the emergence of remote-work, and changes in labor demand on cross-state native mobility. Our results indicate that the decline in immigration following COVID-19 and the differential availability of remote-work opportunities across sectors and states did not drive changes in natives’ cross- state or cross-sector mobility.

Fine scale human mobility changes within 26 US cities in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with distance and income.

Human mobility patterns changed greatly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite many analyses investigating general mobility trends, there has been less work characterising changes in mobility on a fine spatial scale and developing frameworks to model these changes. We analyse zip code-level within-city mobility data from 26 US cities between February 2 -August 31, 2020. We use Bayesian models to characterise the initial decrease in mobility and mobility patterns between June-August at this fine spatial scale. There were similar temporal trends across cities but large variations in the magnitude of mobility reductions. Long-distance routes and higher-income subscribers, but not age, were associated with greater mobility reductions. At the city level, mobility rates around early April, when mobility was lowest, and over summer showed little association with non-pharmaceutical interventions or case rates. Changes in mobility patterns lasted until the end of the study period, despite overall numbers of trips recovering to near baseline levels in many cities.

Understanding Patterns and Trends in Income Mobility through Multiverse Analysis

Rising inequalities in rich countries have led to concerns that the economic ladder is getting harder to climb. Yet, research on trends in intergenerational income mobility finds conflicting results. To better understand this variation, we adopt a multiverse approach that estimates trends over 82,944 different definitions of income mobility, varying how and for whom income is measured. Our analysis draws on comprehensive register data for Swedish cohorts born 1958 to 1977 and their parents. We find that income mobility has declined, but for reasons neglected by previous research: improved gender equality in the labor market raises intergenerational persistence in women’s earnings and the household incomes of both men and women. Dominant theories that focus on childhood investments have blinded researchers to this development. Methodologically, we show how multiverse analysis can be used with abduction—inference to the best explanation—to improve theory-building in social science.

Regional and ethnic inequalities in Malaysian poverty dynamics

Abstract This study employs a synthetic panel approach based on nationally-representative micro-level data to track poverty and income mobility in Malaysia in the period 2004–2016. On aggregate we observe large reductions in chronic poverty and increases in persistent economic security, but note that those who remain poor in 2016 are increasingly likely to be poor in a structural sense. Further, we find that poverty and income dynamics differ notably across geographic dimensions. Such disparities are most striking when we contrast affluent urban Peninsular Malaysia with poorer rural East Malaysia. Although there are important differences in welfare levels between the main ethnic groups in Malaysia, we observe that mobility trends generally point in the same direction. While our findings show that there is still scope for poverty reduction through the reduction of inter-ethnic inequalities, we underscore the importance of taking regional inequalities into greater account when it comes to ensuring a fairer distribution of socioeconomic opportunities for poor and vulnerable Malaysians. Hence, addressing chronic poverty is likely to require additional attention to less developed geographic areas, as a complement to the largely ethnicity-based policies that have historically played a dominant role.

Analysis of social mobility in times of war

The article examines the peculiarities of social mobility under martial law, which consist in increasing imbalances in the labour market in terms of labour supply and demand, requirements for the level of qualification of employees and the actual level of education, qualifications of applicants and their existing profession, gender and age paradoxes in the structure of the employed population. The dynamics and causes of social mobility during the military escalation are analysed, among which the mobilisation of men and the departure of a significant part of the working-age female population outside the country, the outflow of highly qualified specialists and young people take a prominent place. The author examines the trends of social mobility in the labour market as a result of the devastating impact of the war, namely, the growing differences in employment opportunities, depending on the place of residence and qualifications. The author establishes a meaningful relationship between the interpretation of the concept of «social mobility» by domestic and foreign scholars, in particular, the coverage of this concept through the prism of intergenerational mobility, and also examines the role of the state and higher education institutions in enhancing social mobility.