Abstract.-There is little knowledge available on the spatial behaviour of urban tourists, and yet tourists generate an enormous quantity of data (Big Data) when they visit cities. These data sources can be used to track their presence through their activities. The aim of this paper is to analyse the digital footprint of urban tourists through Big Data. Unlike other papers that use a single data source, this article examines three sources of data to reflect different tourism activities in cities: Panoramio (sightseeing), Foursquare (consumption), and Twitter (being connected). Tourist density in the three data sources is compared via maps, correlation analysis (OLS) and spatial self-correlation analysis (Global Moran's I statistic and LISA). Finally the data are integrated using cluster analysis and combining the spatial clusters identified in the LISA analysis in the different data sources. The results show that the data from the three activities are partly spatially redundant and partly complementary, and allow the characterisation of multifunction tourist spaces (with several activities) and spaces specialising in one or various activities (for example, sightseeing and consumption). The case study analysed (Madrid) reveals a significant presence of tourists in the city centre, and increasing specialisation from the centre outwards towards the periphery. The main conclusion of the paper is that it is not sufficient to use one data source to analyse the presence of tourists in cities; several must be used in a complementary manner.
Background
The COVID-19 crisis has meant a significant change in the lifestyle of millions of people worldwide. With a lockdown that lasted almost three months and an impulse to new normality, transport demand has suffered a considerable impact in the Spanish case. It is mandatory to explore the effect of the pandemic on changes in travel behaviour in post-COVID-19 times.
Methodology
A nationwide survey was carried out during the lockdown in Spring 2020 to overview the recent changes. The survey collected both stated preferences (socio-demographic characteristics and mobility-related attributes), and revealed preferences (individuals’ habits, especially in the frequency of the trips according to the trip purpose, and opinions regarding the willingness and acceptability of these changes, and which actors would have to drive them, and how) of individuals. This paper aims to study and understand the willingness to adopt a set of measures to improve the safety conditions of public transport and shared mobility services against possible contagion from COVID-19 and the willingness to pay for them.
Results
The results obtained show that some measures, such as the increase of supply and vehicle disinfection, result in a greater willingness to use public transport in post-COVID-19 times. Similarly, the provision of covers for handlebars and steering wheels also significantly increases individuals’ willingness to use sharing services. However, respondents expect that these measures and improvements would be implemented but maintaining the same pre-COVID-19 prices. The results of this research might help operators deploy strategies to adopt their services and retain users.
Accessibility is essentially a dynamic concept. However, most studies on urban accessibility take a static approach, overlooking the fact that accessibility conditions change dramatically throughout the day. Due to their high spatial and temporal resolution, the new data sources (Big Data) offer new possibilities for the study of accessibility. The aim of this paper is to analyse urban accessibility considering its two components -the performance of the transport network and the attractiveness of the destinations-using a dynamic approach using data from TomTom and Twitter respectively. This allows us to obtain profiles that highlight the daily variations in accessibility in the city of Madrid, and identify the influence of congestion and the changes in location of the population. These profiles reveal significant variations according to transport zones. Each transport zone has its own accessibility profile, and thus its own specific problems, which require solutions that are also specific.
The promising applications of quercetin as a functional additive in food and pharmaceutical products are hindered by the low bioavailability of this compound. The formulation of quercetin by encapsulation in a surfactant polymer capable of forming micelles in aqueous media can help improve the dissolution of quercetin in water and thus facilitate the assimilation of this compound by organisms. In this work, quercetin was encapsulated in Pluronic F127 poloxamers by the supercritical antisolvent (SAS) technique. The structure and morphology of the product were characterized by SEM, DSC, XRD, and FTIR spectroscopy. The results indicated that, through SAS processing, a significant reduction in particle size was achieved. With appropriate polymer/active compound mass ratios, quercetin was homogeneously dispersed in an amorphous polymer matrix, and no segregated crystalline particles of quercetin were observed. These structural and morphological variations enabled an improved dissolution behavior of quercetin in simulated gastric and intestinal fluids.
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