Using media façades as a subcategory of urban computing, this paper contributes to the understanding of spatial interaction, sense-making, and social mediation as part of identifying key characteristics of interaction with media façades. Our research addresses in particular the open-ended but framed nature of interaction, which in conjunction with varying interpretations enables individual sens...

The focus on Universal Design (UD) has increased steadily over the last decades. Web content accessibility standards and guidelines have been created, and specific legislation is in place in several countries to further UD. However, there are limited insights into the actual practices regarding successful implementation of UD in ICT-projects. This study aims to provide such insights through an ...

The paper analyzes the ongoing urban transformation and delineates an underlying rationale which enables the comprehension of the current dual character of the Arab city with particular reference to the case of Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The re-reading of city form is mainly based on the critical interpretation of the mechanisms of urban morphology in relation to both global economic imp...

Urban configurations in developing countries have become the subject of urban design, with good design promoting economic benefits. Yet, the common practice of urban design lacks a principled scientific foundation. In this respect, cognitive neuroscience could provide a unique perspective and potential foundational insights regarding how embodied cognition links configuration with movement. Alt...

OBJECTIVE We examined the connections (1) between the design of the built environment and walking, (2) between the design of the built environment and obesity, and (3) between walking and obesity and income in urban settings in China. METHODS Six neighborhoods with different built environment characteristics, located in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou, were studied. Data on walkin...

The increasing popularity of wireless technologies and mobile computing devices has enabled new application areas and research. One of these new areas is pervasive systems in urban environments, because urban environments are characterized by high concentration of these technologies and devices. In this paper we will show the process of pervasive system design in urban environments, using as us...

Predicting where humans look in images has gained significant popularity in recent years. In this work, we present a novel method for learning top-down visual saliency, which is well-suited to locate objects of interest in complex scenes. During training, we jointly learn a superpixel based class-specific dictionary and a Conditional Random Field (CRF). While using such a discriminative diction...

Rural hospitals play a crucial role in providing healthcare to rural Americans, a vulnerable and underserved population; however, rural hospitals have faced threats to their financial viability and many have closed as a result. This paper examines the hospital characteristics that are associated with patients choosing rural hospitals, and sheds light on the types of patients who depend on rural...

Even though physical activity and sedentary behaviour are two distinct behaviours, their interdependent relationship needs to be studied in the same environment. This study examines the influence of urban design, neighbourhood built and social environment, and household and individual factors on the interdependent relationship between objectively measured physical activity and sedentary behavio...