A knowledge-based method for generating summaries of spatial movement in geographic areas

In this article we describe a method for automatically generating text summaries of data corresponding to traces of spatial movement in geographical areas. The method can help humans to understand large data streams, such as the amounts of GPS data recorded by a variety of sensors in mobile phones, cars, etc. We describe the knowledge representations we designed for our method and the main components of our method for generating the summaries: a discourse planner, an abstraction module and a text generator. We also present evaluation results that show the ability of our method to generate certain types of geospatial and temporal descriptions.

‘This square is our home!’: the organisation of urban space in the spanish 15M movement

Why should a progressive planner/urbanist pay attention to the Spanish 15M movement? From a disciplinary standpoint, its most complex and interesting aspect, which could hypothetically be transferred to other contexts (as in fact happened in the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London movements), is its 'spatiality'. This article analyses the spatial practices of the so called #spanishrevolution, one of the 2011 social movements that showed the possibility for a new collective appropriation and self-management (autogestion) of urban public space. Although the political goals of the movement were vague at the time of its inception, the practices and spatial imaginaries deployed by it have become consolidated and proven to be yet another of its more successful facets in promoting the spreading and organisation of the protest, making it a phenomenon that calls for reflection on the part of urban thinkers and planners.

New PV self-orientating roof based on a balanced movement

New PV self-orientating roof based on a balanced movement

Análisis de la influencia de la estimulación con vibraciones en la respuesta neuromuscular en competidores de esgrima

La esgrima es un deporte de combate en el que todas las acciones están dirigidas a conseguir el objetivo de la competición, que es el de tocar al contrario sin ser tocado, y para ello los tiradores/as se sirven de todas las herramientas, técnicas, tácticas y de condición física posibles a su alcance. La calidad de las acciones de los esgrimistas en competición dependerá fundamentalmente de dos de los sistemas involucrados en el proceso. Por un lado, la activación del sistema nervioso, y por otro lado la respuesta del sistema muscular. Una de las herramientas utilizadas en los últimos años para estimular el sistema neuromuscular, y que ha reportado en muchas investigaciones resultados positivos, ha sido la plataforma de vibraciones vertical. Por esto, decidimos llevar a cabo un estudio con deportistas de esgrima de competición con un protocolo de exposición aguda a las vibraciones, y medir el efecto producido por esta herramienta sobre el sistema neuromuscular a través del estudio de los cambios experimentados en los tiempos de reacción simple, tiempos de respuesta electiva y tiempos de movimiento, así como los efectos en la eficacia del tocado de esgrima analizados antes y después de recibir el estímulo vibratorio. El estudio se desarrolló con tiradores/as de competición de nivel nacional y pertenecientes al Centro de Tecnificación de la Federación de Esgrima de Castilla y León (n=38; Edad: 22 ±9,08). La muestra estaba compuesta por 12 mujeres y 26 hombres, de categorías, cadetes (13), júnior (12), y absolutos (13). El protocolo elegido fue realizado por cada participante en tres ocasiones, una inicial, otra tras pasar por una carga de estimulación en la plataforma de vibraciones, y una fase final, pasado un tiempo de recuperación de 10 minutos para comprobar el grado de disipación del efecto vibratorio. El estímulo elegido para la estimulación sobre la plataforma de vibraciones fue de una frecuencia de 50 Hz, durante un periodo de 60 segundos y con una amplitud de 4 mm. Los resultados se analizaron en función de las variables dependientes tiempo de reacción, tiempo de respuesta electiva, tiempo de movimiento, y precisión y eficacia. Estos datos se cruzaron con las variables independientes sexo, categoría, nivel deportivo y años de experiencia. El propósito del presente estudio fue el de analizar los efectos producidos por una intervención de estimulación neuromuscular mecánica en fase aguda en un grupo de tiradores/as de esgrima de competición. Los resultados mostraron que la carga de estimulación neuromuscular mecánica (ENM) aplicada en nuestro estudio provocó un discreto efecto en la respuesta neuromuscular de los tiradores participantes en la investigación. Se encontraron efectos significativos provocados por el estímulo vibratorio en las siguientes variables: en el tiempo de reacción simple se registró una mejora del 8,1%, en el tiempo de respuesta electiva a pie parado un 10%, en la precisión a pie parado un 7%, y en la eficacia a pie parado un 18,5%. Igualmente se observaron ligeras diferencias por sexos, encontrando un efecto de mayor tamaño en el grupo femenino. Es necesario resaltar que las características particulares de la muestra parecen haber influido en los resultados encontrados de forma importante. Por último, debemos destacar que el efecto residual producido por la estimulación aplicada en nuestra investigación en algún caso superó los diez minutos, ya que se hallaron efectos positivos de la estimulación neuromuscular mecánica en varios de los registros finales como hemos visto. ABSTRACT Fencing is a combat sport in which all actions are aimed at achieving the objective of the competition, which is that of touching the opponent without being touched and for this the fencers make use of all the tools, techniques, tactics and physical condition possible at their disposal. The quality of the fencers´ actions in competition will depend primarily on two of the systems involved in the process: on the one hand, the activation of the nervous system and, on the other, the response of the muscular system. One of the tools recently used to stimulate the neuromuscular system, and which has produced positive results in many research studies, has been the vertical vibration platform. Therefore, we decided to conduct a study with competition fencers with a protocol of acute exposure to vibration and to measure the effect produced by this tool on the neuromuscular system by means of the study of changes experienced in simple reaction times, the elective response times and movement times, as well as the effects on the efficacy of the fencing touch analyzed before and after receiving the vibratory stimulus. The study was conducted with fencers in national competitions and belonging to the Technification Center of the Fencing Federation of Castilla y León (n = 38), with a mean age of 22 years (SD 9.08). The sample was composed of 12 women and 26 men, by categories cadets (13), juniors (12), and seniors (13). The protocol chosen was performed by each participant on three occasions: an initial one, another after going through a stimulation load on the vibration platform, and a final phase, after a 10 minute recovery time to assess the degree of dissipation of the vibratory effect. The stimulus chosen on the vibration platform was a frequency of 50 Hz, for a period of 60 seconds and an amplitude of 4 mm. The results were analyzed according to the following dependent variables: the reaction time, the response time, the accuracy and the efficiency. This data was crossed with the independent variables: gender, category, sporting level and the years of experience. The purpose of this study was analyze the effects of neuromuscular stimulation intervention in a group of fencing competition shooters. The results showed that the mechanical neuromuscular stimulation (MNS) load applied in our study led to a modest effect on the neuromuscular response of the fencers involved in the research. Significant effects were found caused by the vibratory stimulus on the simple reaction time 8,1%, elective response time 10%, as well as the accuracy 7%, and efficiency 18,5%. We should also point out that slight differences by gender were observed, finding a greater effect in females. It should be emphasized that the specific characteristics of the sample appear to have significantly influenced the results. Finally, we should note that the residual effect produced by the stimulation applied in our research in some cases exceeded ten minutes, given that positive effects of the mechanical neuromuscular stimulation were found in several of the final scores.

Modelling Human Displacement through Movement Surfaces.

This paper introduces a new approach for predicting people displacement by means of movementsurfaces. These surfaces can allow the simulation of a person?s movement through the use of semanticmovement concepts such as those making up the environment, the people who are moving, eventsthat describe a human activity, and time of occurrences. In order to represent this movement we havetransformed the trajectory of a person or group of persons into a raindrop path over a surface. As araindrop flows over a surface looking for the maximum slopes, people flow over the landscapelooking for the maximum utility. The movement surfaces are the response to a chained succession of events describing the way a person moves from one destination to another passing through the mostaffine trajectory to his interest. The three construction phases of this modelling approach (exploration,reasoning and prediction) are presented in this paper. The model was implemented in Protégé and aJava application was developed to generate the movement surface based on a recreational scenario.The results had shown the opportunity to apply our approach to optimise the accessibility of recreational areas according to the preferences of the users of that location.

Development of a human movement monitoring system based on wearable devices

It is essential to remotely and continuously monitor the movements of individuals in many social areas, for example, taking care of aging people, physical therapy, athletic training etc. Many methods have been used, such as video record, motion analysis or sensor-based methods. Due to the limitations in remote communication, power consumption, portability and so on, most of them are not able to fulfill the requirements. The development of wearable technology and cloud computing provides a new efficient way to achieve this goal. This paper presents an intelligent human movement monitoring system based on a smartwatch, an Android smartphone and a distributed data management engine. This system includes advantages of wide adaptability, remote and long-term monitoring capacity, high portability and flexibility. The structure of the system and its principle are introduced. Four experiments are designed to prove the feasibility of the system. The results of the experiments demonstrate the system is able to detect different actions of individuals with adequate accuracy.