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Autonomous transit on demand are increasingly considered to become a viable substitute for taxi services. AVs can be managed through a centralized controlling system, targeting system optimization rather than user optimality. This centralized control can enable a more efficient, strictly-adhered-to parking strategy to reduce inefficient empty traveling. In this project, four different parking strategies are implemented in the AV extension of MATSim (Multi-agent transport simulation), namely demand-based roaming, parking on the street, parking in depots and a mixed strategy of parking on the street and in depots. The influence of different PT demand levels on the different parking strategies was explored, showing that the shared system is robust to varying levels of demand, and that the different parking strategies trade off user convenience for operational cost. The road parking strategy appears to be the best for consolidating rides into larger vehicles, especially for the increased demand scenario., Procedia Computer Science, 151, ISSN:1877-0509

My oogmerk is om mediatiseringsteorie in teenstelling tot effekteorie en die effekparadigma in medianavorsing as ʼn ontwikkeling en uitvloeisel van die nuwe digitale medialandskap te bespreek. Sewe generiese kenmerke van die nuwe medialandskap word geïdentifiseer en in breë trekke geskets: die diversiteit van ʼn eindelose stroom van inhoud, vorm en aanbieding, ʼn geïntegreerde en gekonvergeerde media-industrie, ʼn geïntegreerde regulatoriese model, meer en verbeterde toegang tot die media, die verskuiwing van massakommunikasie na netwerkkommunikasie, die vervanging van die media-ontvanger met die mediagebruiker en medevervaardiger, en ʼn kenmerkende "aanlyn" kommunikasiestyl. Ek probeer in hierdie artikel aantoon hoe mediatiseringsteorie van ander teorieë oor die mag en effek van die media verskil, deur die klem van kousaliteit te verskuif na hoe die media as ʼn proses van mediatisering al die domeine van die samelewing en die daaglikse lewe van die mediagebruiker infiltreer. Die ontologiese uitgangspunt is dat die media naas taal en persepsie dié instrument vir menslike kognisie geword het (vir die verstaan van die wêreld, mense, dinge, gebeure, ensovoorts.) Tweedens word die verskil tussen mediatiseringsteorie en effekteorie geïdentifiseer deur te wys op mediatiseringsteorie se klem op die media as ʼn transformasieproses soortgelyk aan die sosiale prosesse van globalisering, individualisering en kommersialisering in die ná-industriële samelewing. Samevattend word geargumenteer dat die klem in mediatiseringsteorie verskuif van media en die samelewing na media in die samelewing. Ten slotte word aangetoon hoe mediatiseringsteorie aanleiding gee tot die kritiek dat normatiewe mediateorie in die nuwe digitale medialandskap heuristiese waarde as die basis van media-etiek verloor het. Op grond hiervan word aanbeveel dat kommunikasie-etiek, wat meer omvattend as beroepsgeoriënteerde media-etiek is, as uitgangspunt vir nuwe normatiewe mediateorie ondersoek word.

In this article it is postulated that normative media theory has lost its heuristic value in the new digital media landscape with its ensuing mediatisation of life, society and the world. The reaso...

Smart cities are rapidly developing in the world. Their sustainability needs to be achieved based on transformative urban systems design from system of systems perspective. Especially, to conduct evidence-based assessments, our new approach will use big data and analytics tools to support urban planner's decisions. The use of data science, analytics, and visualization will play important role to codesign urban systems with local stakeholders. This chapter outlines performance-based urban systems design. The modeling involves the use of metrics through analytical tools to evaluate sustainability of urban systems. Both qualitative (e.g., comfort level) and quantitative (e.g., CO2 emission) properties are modeled focusing on factors such as performance, experiential, and people's flow. Performance metrics are used as tools for evaluating current and predict potential future of different urban forms to support decision-makings.

New Big Data sources such as mobile phone call data records, smart card data and geo-coded social media records allow to observe and understand mobility behaviour on an unprecedented level of detail. Despite the availability of such new Big Data sources, transport demand models used in planning practice still, almost exclusively, are based on conventional data such as travel diary surveys and population census. This literature review brings together recent advances in harnessing Big Data sources to understand travel behaviour and inform travel demand models that allow transport planners to compute what-if scenarios. From trip identification to activity inference, we review and analyse the existing data-mining methods that enable these opportunistically collected mobility traces inform transport demand models. We identify that future research should tap on the potential of probabilistic models and machine learning techniques as commonly used in data science. Those data-mining approaches are designe...

Die "beeld" wat die media van 'n samelewing oordra word dikwels blameer vir die foute en mislukkings van 'n samelewing. Die antwoord wat in hierdie artikel gegee word, is dat die "beeld" slegs 'n representasie is. Die kernvraag in hierdie artikel is: Wat is hierdie "beeld" en hoe word dit gekommunikeer? Die media word gesitueer as 'n sentrale struktuur in die postmoderne samelewing. Kenmerke van die postmoderne samelewing wat van belang is vir die aard van hedendaagse media-kommunikasie, asook kenmerke van die postmoderne medialandskap en die rol van inligting- en kommunikasietegnologie daarin, word geskets. Die klem val op aspekte soos 'n nuwe soort publiek, publieke opinie, publieke sfeer, en hoe inligting- en kommunikasietegnologie 'n verskuiwing van massakommunikasie na netwerkkommunikasie bewerkstellig het. Die "beeld" wat die media skep, word as 'n geïdeologiseerde en gestereotipeerde representasie van die werklikheid beskryf. Hierdie representasies bestaan uit gestruktureerde afbeeldings en uitbeeldings van sosiale werklikhede. In terme van netwerkkommunikasie word interaktiwiteit uitgesonder as een van die sentrale kenmerke van netwerkkommunikasie. In die artikel word geargumenteer dat interaktiwiteit verantwoordelik is vir die oorwegende aanhitsende, aktivistiese, herhalende, fragmentariese, ritualistiese en aanmatigende styl van hedendaagse mediarepresentasies. Vanuit 'n semiologiese perspektief word tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat geïdeologiseerde, gestereotipeerde en interaktiewe mediarepresentasie altyd 'n abstraksie van die werklikheid is. In dié verband word aansluiting gevind by Jean Baudrillard (1983; 1985) se beskouing van die media as 'n simulakrum van die werklikheid. Mediarepresentasies kan dus nooit objektief en "volledig" wees nie. Dít is waarskynlik die rede vir die alomteenwoordige spanning tussen regering, media en die publiek. Niemand is ooit heeltemal tevrede met die "beeld" van iets of iemand wat deur die media gegee word nie. Ten slotte word geargumenteer dat daar nie veel aan die semiologiese (betekenisgewende) aard van mediarepresentasie gedoen kan word nie. Dit sal altyd deur ideologie en lewens-, wêrelden mensbeskouings onderlê word. Wat wel in gedagte gehou moet word, is dat betekenis en die prosesse van betekenisgewing altyd op menslike keuses berus en daardeur bepaal word. 'n Pleidooi word dan gelewer vir 'n groter semiologiese bewussyn en mediageletterdheid onder mediamakers en mediagebruikers. Dit is 'n bewussyn en 'n sin van verantwoordelikheid vir hoe mediabetekenis, en in die proses 'n "beeld", in mediakommunikasie geskep word.

Although new available big data sources have revealed themselves to be extraordinarily useful for transport demand modelling, they have not come into widespread use due to the justifiable privacy concerns of data stewards. In this study, we step back and re-evaluate the way in which mobile phone telco data can be introduced for the task of transport and land-use policy evaluation, travel demand forecasting and transport infrastructure testing through large-scale transportation simulations. We investigated that question by deploying a multi-agent transport simulation driven primarily by hourly-aggregated telco Origin-Destination (OD) matrices. We address the principal four challenges: spatial and temporal disaggregation, mode imputation and route choice. For temporal disaggregation, we propose a convolution with an exponential kernel method. As for transport mode imputation, a supervised-learning framework is designed. The simulation results are compared against traffic count data and public transport smart card transactions, showing accurate patterns for private cars but overestimated public transport demand in the morning peak. Lastly, we set the future steps for the improvement of simulations driven by aggregated mobile phone data., Procedia Computer Science, 130, ISSN:1877-0509

Autonomous transit on demand (ATOD) is a potential future public transit mode, which appeals to a lot of researchers and policymakers. In the project, ATOD is simulated in MATSim to explore the optimal fleet size and deployment strategy to help policymakers to decide how to introduce the new transport system in the future. The simulation enables the system to explore the optimization automatically under specific constraints with the MATSim evolutionary algorithm., Procedia Computer Science, 130, ISSN:1877-0509

This article identifies and discusses six underlying socio-cultural and political themes in South African journalism education. The themes are apartheid and race, gender, development, freedom of expression, indigenization and the impact of the new media on journalism. The argument is that although South African journalism education is skills and career-oriented, the treatment of the themes and the issues related to them form the theoretical and intellectual foundation of South African journalism education. The underlying, theoretical point of departure is that journalism is a representation of reality or an aspect thereof. As such, journalism reflects society, which in the case of South Africa is a dichotomous one. South African journalism education is embedded in this society.

A multimodeling approach to large-scale, activity-based, multiagent simulation of travel demand is introduced. MATSIM is a full activity-based transport simulation. Its greatest current performance limitation is the network loading simulation, currently a queue simulation (QSim). QSim is iteratively executed for the entire agent population for evaluating the effects of random mutations on the activity plans of a fraction of the population. After each QSim, poorly performing plans are discarded, good plans are kept, and the agents slowly learn what works best for their individual activity needs. In the application presented, the system periodically replaces QSim for a number of iterations with a simplified pseudosimulation that runs approximately two orders of magnitude faster. The pseudosimulation uses travel time information from the preceding QSim iteration to estimate how well an agent day plan might perform. Repeated iterations of the pseudosimulation produce better-performing plans in a short time. These plans are passed to the QSim for updating of network travel time information, and the process repeats. The technique is tested in a scenario for Zurich, Switzerland, and incorporates mode choice, road pricing, secondary activity location choice, activity timing adjustment, and dynamic routing. The technique dramatically improves convergence rates for such complex, large-scale simulations and fully exploits modern multicore computer architectures., Transportation Research Record, 2343, ISSN:0361-1981, ISSN:2169-4052

The Multi-Agent Transport Simulation MATSim, ISBN:978-1-909188-77-8, ISBN:978-1-909188-75-4, ISBN:978-1-909188-78-5, ISBN:978-1-909188-76-1

The article explores and questions the dynamics which daily play out between the donor community and aid recipients. It interrogates the assumption that these relations are cooperative and balanced. Instead, the authors argue that the contestation of power defines the impulse for development. This contest is played out within the complex communicative exchanges between the two sides. Although based on a single case study, the purpose of this discussion is to provoke debates around the intricacies of donor/receiver relations, so as to further deepen an understanding of the changes taking place in southern Africa, more especially since the end of the Cold War in 1989.

This article seeks to establish the relevance of Mikhail Bakhtin's (1895–1975) theory of dialogue/carnival to the shifting realities of talk radio in the United States (US). Scholars have used Bakhtin's ideas as they apply to the media since the mid-1980s, but these applications are either too general or fragmentary. The theory of dialogue/carnival in its holistic format, presented by Bakhtin in a variety of works, can be fruitfully explored in communication studies. The intimate connection between Bakhtin's two major ideas, dialogue and carnival, are incarnated in talk radio, demonstrating that carnival with its unrestricted freedom serves as a prerequisite for meaningful dialogue. This article estimates the value of talk radio for society as a relatively safe place where ideas can be tested before they are fully introduced to the larger society, and where the individuals involved form their ideological and ontological selves.

In view of the Brazil–South Africa Journalism Research Initiative, the purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to some of the main themes and topics in South African (SA) journalism research, and to contribute to the further theoretical conceptualisation of the initiative against the background of the opinion raised in this article about the nature of SA journalism research. The article is structured around four arguments: how the legacy of apartheid has guided, if not dictated, SA journalism research and continues to do so; how the dichotomy of SA society, being both a Third and a First World, affects SA journalism research; how being primarily quantitative, empirical research has produced a mainly self-reflexive and self-indulgent body of journalism research and has obstructed the way for a more phenomenological approach to SA journalism, as being first and foremost a communication phenomenon and a part of cultural production and the production of the SA semiosphere of mediated me...

This article emphasises the importance of context in mass communication and media research. A brief summary is offered of some of the main characteristics of postmodern society and the new media landscape, and explained as the impetus for the postmodern and postcolonial paradigms in mass communication and media research. From these paradigms ‘new’ theories have developed, such as ‘chaos theory’ and ‘practice theory’, with their emphasis on diversity, the pervasiveness and the anchoring role of the media. Given these new paradigms and theories, many of the tenets and basic assumptions of the positivist and critical paradigms need to be revised, as does normative theory, which is still dominated by Western conceptualisations. With the above as background and an argument for the study and research of the media as a semiosphere of meaning, four research priorities for future South African mass communication and media research are introduced: (1) fundamental research about the new media; (2) (media) d...

This article is based on research done for a doctoral thesis titled Indigenous language programming and citizen participation in Ugandan broadcasting: An exploratory study (Chibita, 2006). The purpose of the thesis was to investigate and show the importance of first-language media for the participation of citizens in democratic processes. The thesis covered a wide range of topics including linguistic perspectives on language and participation, the history, structure and operation of the media in Uganda, the regulatory environment for linguistic diversity in Uganda's broadcast media, debates about indigenous language broadcasting in Uganda, and policy recommendations. In this article, the emphasis is on one of the topics dealt with in the thesis, namely key political, economic and cultural factors in Uganda's history and how these factors, including the right to the use of indigenous languages, have had an important impact on citizens' capacity to participate in public debate through the media (es...

In this article the need to revisit South African normative media theory and communication policy against the background of fundamental audience research is emphasised. This is done in view of the postmodemist argument that ‘classic’ normative media theory is no longer suitable as a yardstick for the measurement of media performance, quality and ethics in postmodern societies, in a changing media landscape. Bearing in mind that South Africa cannot be fully characterised as a postmodernist and advanced capitalist society, but based on the nature of its First World media system functioning in a multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic society, the tendency to see ubuntuism as a point of departure for such revision is questioned. This is done in favour of an approach in which difference and diversity are acknowledged, including the different roles the media can play and the different forms in which it can (and do) contribute to social responsibility. As far as policy research ...

Journalism trainers and educators (with the emphasis on education) should take the criticism against journalism seriously, including the deep-rooted mistrust of journalism, and use it as a point of departure in their curriculum development. This article paraphrases the early criticism against journalism, after which the two main streams of contemporary criticism, namely critical political economy and professional criticism are briefly discussed. Pierre Bourdieu's views about the structural limitations of journalism and the fact that these limitations are not questioned by journalists, as well as Kenneth Minogue's views about journalistic ideology and how it has become transparent and forms the basis of the public's mistrust of the media, are emphasised. Against this background, it is argued that, to raise the quality of journalism, journalism studies should adopt a more fundamental approach to the understanding of journalism and the journalist's work. Instead of focussing predominantly on professional ski...

This article, which is based on a focused synthesis of a range of historical, political, policy, regulatory and other factors, proposes a normative policy model for community radio broadcasting in Zambia. It starts with a historical analysis of the factors that have influenced the development of community radio broadcasting in the country, particularly in the period before and after 1991. It is argued that community radio broadcasting in Zambia is largely reflective of the state-centric policy-making regime. This policy-making regime is itself a legacy of British colonialism. The policy proposal put forward in this article is informed by the assumptions of the group and organised anarchy models of policy-making and seeks to promote community radio broadcasting in terms of its vision, regulatory structures, funding, training, technology, production of local content and research.

In this article it is argued that should the South African public service broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), be expected to play a development and nation-building role in the South African society, as it is mandated to do, then policy makers should return to the basic principles underlying the philosophy of public service broadcasting. This needs to be done in a changed media environment characterised by privatisation, internationalisation and digitisation, all leading to increased competition and commercialisation. The argument is developed against the background of a discussion on (1) the reasons for the decline of public service broadcasting, (2) the ways in which public service broadcasters are responding, (3) an overview of the state of public service broadcasting in South Africa at the time of writing (April 2003), (4) a motivation for why South Africa needs a strong public service broadcaster and (5) what can be done to secure the future of public service broad...

A recent approach for generating populations of synthetic individuals through simulation is extended to produce households of grouped individuals. The contingency tables of the generated populations match external controls on the individual and household levels while exhibiting far greater variety in composition than existing approaches can offer. The method involves a two-step approach. The first consists of a procedure based on Gibbs sampling, which has only recently been applied to population generation in transportation modeling and is generically called Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). For this work, the model was generalized, and an extension was developed, hierarchical MCMC, which was able to generate a hierarchical structure. The second step, a postprocessing step, uses generalized raking (GR), which reweights the output from hierarchical MCMC to perfectly satisfy known marginal control totals on the individual and household levels. The application input data—a demographic sample and some known marginals from Singapore—added further complexities to the problem, which had not yet been explored in the current literature. Despite data challenges, consecutively applying the methods above produced realistic synthetic populations. Results confirm their goodness of fit and their generated hierarchical structures., Transportation Research Record, 2493, ISSN:0361-1981, ISSN:2169-4052

(1994). Post apartheid South African media and development. Communicatio: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 46-54.

SUMMARY In this article the author argues that the ongoing process of redefining public broadcasting can be related to the nature of the technopological society of the late twentieth century and the existing postmodern condition. In this society the emphasis moved away from television as a cultural product to television as a consumer product or commodity. Based on Neil Postman's work he briefly discusses the nature of the technopological society and its influence on public communication. He relates this to postmodernism and briefly discusses the so-called postmodern condition and how it is reflected (and even created) by and through television.

Transportation Research Record, 2168 (1), ISSN:0361-1981, ISSN:2169-4052, ISBN:978-0-309-16037-7

SUMMARY In this article the author situates discourse analysis/discourse and the applicability thereof for the social sciences within the context of critical theory and the so-called hermeneutics of suspicion. He distinguishes between discourse analysis as linguistic text analysis and the analysis of discursive practices. He argues that text analysis defines context too narrow for the purpose of the critical social sciences. With reference to Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault he argues in favor of the analysis of discursive practices which, like critical theory has as its aim the to get beneath the surface of appearances in order to reveal the nature of oppressive mechanisms, also in media reporting.

SUMMARY In this article it is argued that in spite of politicians and the media's efforts to create a new South Africa, they still mainly communicate in the discourse of apartheid. In order to reach and persuade their publics they use metaphors which embody existing stereotypes and myths of apartheid. The nature of metaphor, myth and stereotype, and the dilemma with which it confronts the media in its daily reporting of South African realities, are briefly discussed. The above is set within the context of a sociological and political theory of language, namely that interpretations of reality within a specific language community is set within the nature of the language as such, and that a language cannot be separated from ideology. In this article the emphasis is on Afrikaans.

SUMMARY Up to now mass communication research has been done under the influence of a dominant effect paradigm. This has led to a microscopic study of the media. The media's relationship with and to the broader society has been overlooked, as well as the media's social, political, cultural and economic latency. As a guideline for the study of the “new” media this article argues that the media should be seen as a creator, mirror and interpreter of the 20th century culture. Such an approach will also lead to a more human definition of mass communication. Human in the sense that the “new” media will be studied in terms of its role in the human being's mutual search for the truth. The communicologist's role will then be to interpret and to evaluate the content and form of the “new” media. In so doing he will assist man in his search for truth. Hermeneutics and the semiological structuralism are suggested as the methods for this kind of interpretative analysis.

(1985). Rolprentkommunikasie: mimetiese refleksie of kritiese interpretasie van die werklikheid? de arte: Vol. 20, No. 32, pp. 10-19.

SUMMARY The purpose of this article is to describe two main paradigms in media research preliminary and synoptically, namely the empirical or administrative paradigm and the critical paradigm. In d...

N-(4-(n-butyl)-acetanilide)iminodiacetic acid (BIDA), N-(2,6-diisopropylacetanilide)iminodiacetic acid (DISIDA), diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) and methylene diphosphonic acid (MDP) are used in labelling kits. The contents of BIDA, DISIDA or MDP of the 99mTc-labelled compounds can be determined (indirectly) spectrophotometrically with copper, eriochrome cyaanine R (ECC) and dodecylethyldimethylammonium bromide (DEDA) in a sodium barbital buffered system at pH 8.5. The calibration curves obey Beer's Law from 0 to 40 micrograms/25 mL for BIDA and DISIDA, 0 to 60 micrograms/25 mL for DTPA and 0 to 100 micrograms/10 mL for MDP.