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• Factors impacting user engagement in an actual traveler reward app are analyzed. • High initial enrollment among young, female, Asian, and highly-educated residents. • Low-income residents in dense urban areas sustain high engagement. • Denser transportation facilities near homes/jobs enhance program attractiveness. • Nonlinear relations are observed between user engagement and socio-spatial factors. Incentive-based travel demand management (IBTDM) has proven effective in mitigating traffic congestion. However, a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing user engagement in IBTDM is lacking due to limited empirical evidence from real-world applications. This study bridges this research gap by examining data from over 4,000 users in an actual IBTDM program, incenTrip, in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore region. Employing Poisson-Tweedie generalized additive models to account for excess zeros and nonlinear relations, the study examines how home and work-related factors influence users' enrollment and engagement, measured by the number of registrations, generated trips, and earned incentives at a census block group level. Results reveal that: 1) Urban areas with high population densities and low incomes attract more users and encourage more green travel. 2) Initial enrollment is higher among young, female, Asian, and highly-educated residents, although their subsequent engagement may not be sustained. 3) Workers in educational institutions and retail trades exhibit higher enrollment and maintain stronger engagement than other workers. 4) Well-developed transportation facilities and a higher density of points of interest near the users' homes or workplaces substantially enhance program attractiveness. 5) Nonlinearities, particularly threshold effects, are observed across various relations analyzed. These findings have valuable policy implications for optimizing ongoing IBTDM programs and informing future initiatives. Policy recommendations include implementing targeted and progressive incentives, adopting combined TDM strategies, prioritizing user-friendly designs, fostering collaboration with employers, and employing nuanced policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We introduce an argumentation approach for analysis of Reddit debates. • We map a Reddit debate to a weighted bipartite graph and we define its solution using ideal semantics. • We define graded measures to quantify the relevance of users in a debate. • We propose to use these measures to characterize different user profiles. • We test our approach with real Reddit debates identifying four main user profiles. Online debating forums are important social media for people to voice their opinions and engage in debates with each other. Measuring user relevance on these forums can be useful to identify different user profiles or behaviors in online debates, for example, users that tend to participate at the beginning of a debate and whose comments trigger participation, or users that post relevant comments but are not replied too much. To help users to distinguish such different user profiles, we propose graded measures based on users' influence, the controversy that they generate throughout the debates, their contribution to the polarization of the debates, and their social acceptance, that we extract by analyzing the debates in which the users participate. Our approach is based on an argumentation-based analysis that represents a debate as a valued argumentation framework, in which comments of a debate are arguments, the attack relation between arguments models disagreement between comments, and values for arguments represent the overall support of users for comments. Finally, we test our measures with a sample of users from Reddit debates, identifying four main groups of users, from users with almost no impact on the debate to very active ones with decisive comments for the outcome of the debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Compares non-users and three user groups (new, seasoned, lost) of mobile music streaming (MMS). • Analyzes users in terms of socio-demographic, device, contract and service utilization characteristics. • Draws on non-perceptual data of 3228 mobile network operator subscribers residing in Germany. • Non-users and users of MMS differ strongly in terms of age, data allowance and smartphone modernity. • Among MMS customers, new MMS users were more similar to seasoned than to lost MMS subscribers. Based on the ubiquitous availability of broadband networks, music streaming (MS) services have become increasingly popular in the recent past. This holds in particular for MS delivery over cellular mobile communication infrastructures. However, most prior research on MS service proliferation did not focus on mobile music streaming (MMS). MMS differs from MS consumption over fixed networks, among others, in terms of use contexts, devices and pricing schedules. Instead, earlier work typically explored perceptual and socio-demographic differences between (self-reported) non-users and users of MS services in general. Therefore, this study extends the literature by exploring differences between non-users and three distinct groups of users (new, seasoned, lost) of MMS services with regard to socio-demographic, device, contract and service utilization characteristics. The empirical analysis draws on non-perceptual profile data of 3228 mobile network operator (MNO) subscribers residing in Germany. Mean comparisons and discriminant analysis show that non-users are about 10 to 15 years older, live in non-urban areas, are equipped with a less modern smartphone, were not addressed with a special MMS promotion campaign and have a much lower data allowance in their rate plan than the various user groups. Within the MMS user groups, new adopters have more modern devices, are in rate plans with higher metered allowances (excluding MMS data consumption) and exploit their data allowance to a larger degree. Lost MMS users are more likely to be older females who were not eligible for a special promotion offer and have a lower data allowance. Implications of the findings are discussed for MNOs striving to promote sustainable MMS use and for future research in the field of innovative digital media and communication services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Refueling and charging behaviour of drivers is compared as a parameter setting for traffic models for infrastructure planning. • BEV users tend to recharge consumed quantities immediately; combustion engine users tend to empty the tank. • Critical filling levels are equal for both BEV and combustion engine users. • Socio-economy and vehicle utilization are biggest predictors for both filling processes. • Sociodemography and personality traits have little or no effect on the filling behaviour. Abstract The demand-oriented establishment of a charging infrastructure is crucial for the deep market penetration of electric vehicles. In order to identify specific optimal locations for charging stations, a deeper understanding of the users' charging behavior is required. For reliable simulations and forecasts, it is not only necessary to take the charging behavior of the current early-adopter group into account, but also to compare it with the current refueling behavior of those, who could switch to electric vehicles in the near and medium-term future. The study follows a two-stage research approach. First of all, qualitative interviews (N = 24) were conducted to identify refueling behavior in terms of behavioral patterns, refueling motives and conditions. The second step involves a quantitative comparison of the refueling and charging behavior with regard to conditions, frequencies and critical levels. A large-scale questionnaire study (N = 1021) with car drivers from Germany was carried out for this purpose. The results showed that the conditions for a refueling or charging decision only differ partially. While financial aspects play a minor role for e-vehicle users, for internal combustion engine users planning and habit are less important. There is no difference between the two groups regarding range-relevant factors. In particular, the filling level perceived as critical is identical for fuel tanks and batteries. In terms of behavior patterns, e-vehicle users tend to charge consumed quantities in a timely manner, while users of vehicles with combustion engines often run on empty and then refill the tank completely. Only a few predictors for both behaviors could be identified. While socio-demographic factors hardly play a role, socio-economy and vehicle utilization are the biggest predictors. The results are incorporated into the modeling of potential users when planning new charging infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to better understand how public transport users make their choice of route, in order to favor the use of public transport (henceforth PT) in large cities. Based on decision-making theories, a classical choice paradigm (Slovic, 1975), and recent findings in psychology (Chowdhury & Ceder, 2013; Grison et al., 2016) we developed a new method to investigate the effect of contextual and individual factors on PT route choices. We proposed to sixty PT users realistic forced choices between two PT routes that differed in affective (level of physical comfort) and instrumental (number of transport modes) attributes. We also varied the context of the decision (long or short route; route to go to work, to a leisure activity, etc.), and we recorded various individual characteristics (age, sex, attitude towards PT, habits, etc.). Our results highlight that: the comfort of the route is preferred to the number of transport modes, especially for long trips; the choice of the comfortable alternative or the one with only one transport mode depends on user characteristics; the length of the trip and habits are the most important variables in the decision, but attitudes also seem to play a major role. Our study furthers current knowledge about the psychological process of PT route choice in light with multi-attribute choices theories, and provides new insights that can contribute to improving current large city route-planning aids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current debates on students' use of information and communication technology (ICT) have brought to attention profiles and purposes of ICT use in either school-related or recreational contexts. Examining these two contexts at the same time, the present study seeks to identify student profiles of ICT use on the basis of the Norwegian International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) 2013 data ( N = 2426). In order to explore profiles of ICT use in schools and at home for different purposes such as recreation, study purposes, exchanging information, and social communication, we take a person-centered approach and apply latent profile analysis. These analyses revealed two independent user profiles and showed that background characteristics (i.e., gender, immigration status) and motivational constructs (i.e., self-efficacy, interest, and enjoyment in ICT) play a significant role in determining profile membership. Significant differences between the user profiles in students' computer and information literacy test performance did not exist. Given that the coverage of ICT at home and in schools has increased substantially over the last decades, the identification of user profiles informs teachers and parents about whether or not students exploit these opportunities to the same extent. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offices are transforming into multi-user, open space environments to stimulate interaction between people and optimize the usage of space. Due to design practices, lighting systems in these multi-user environments are implemented as a regular grid of luminaires that often does not match the furniture layout. Consequently, purely personal control over general lighting is not achievable in most cases. As a result, a single luminaire affects several neighbouring desks, creating shared lighting controls and conditions. Therefore, providing satisfying lighting conditions to everyone becomes a challenge. This paper proposes a first method for modelling lighting preference profiles of users based on their control behaviour and preference information. Based on objective measurements and subjective data obtained in two field studies, users can be profiled based on their control behaviour, regarding characteristics as activeness, dominance, lighting tolerance, and dimming level preference. The results show significant differences between lighting preference profiles of users. This paper also proposes a first method for discovering and triggering submissive users to express their preferences in order to derive their profiles as accurate as possible. This will help to secure users' comfort by offering satisfying lighting conditions to their preference. By knowing the lighting preference profiles of users, the probability of conflict between users can be predicted and minimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing public transport ridership while providing a service that better caters to individual travelers poses an important goal and challenge for society, particularly public transport authorities and operators. This study identifies and characterizes current and potential users of public transport in Sweden and identifies the most important determinants of travel satisfaction with Public Transport services for each segment of travelers. In addition, it investigates the changes over time of attribute importance among the different segments and the inter-segment geographical variation of overall satisfaction. The analysis is based on a dataset of almost half a million records. Travelers were clustered based on their socio-demographics, travel patterns and accessibility measures to enable the analysis of determinants of satisfaction for different market segments. The cluster analysis results with five segments of Swedish travelers include: (i) inactive travelers; (ii) long distance commuters; (iii) urban motorist commuters; (iv) rural motorist commuters and; (v) students. By contrasting satisfaction with the importance of each quality of service attribute, three key attributes that should be prioritized by stakeholders are identified: customer interface, operation, network and length of trip time . Interestingly, the results suggest an overall similarity in the importance of service attributes among traveler segments. Nevertheless, some noticeable differences could be observed. The quality of service attributes’ importance levels reveal overall changes in appreciations and consumption goals over time. The more frequent public transport user segments are more satisfied across the board and are characterized by a more balanced distribution of attribute importance while rural motorist commuters are markedly dissatisfied with service operation attributes. This work can help authorities to tailor their policies to specific traveler groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The building's energy demand for heating significantly depends on many parameters of the building, also on the climate zone. To determine this demand, the technical parameters of the building as well as functional parameters and the associated temperatures to be maintained inside the building are usually adopted. The article proposes a methodology for assessing both economic and ecological benefits resulting from changing the user profile and thermal insulation performance. The balances of ecological benefits were analysed in accordance with the idea of sustainable development by adopting model residential buildings, taking into account the year of construction of the building, the type of heat source and thermal insulation, and five types of room user profiles, considering technical and social requirements. The research on the impact of changing the user profile shows that lowering thermal comfort always brings economic and ecological benefits. In the case of thermal insulation, despite the reduction of the building's heat demand, the balance of benefits and costs is always positive only in the ecological aspect. For economic reasons, the balance does not have to be positive (in Polish conditions), due to the high economic costs of thermal insulation. Assuming that users are willing to accept lower thermal comfort, a user profile with a lower temperature can be recommended for economic and ecological benefits, or a profile reduction including the performance of thermal insulation. The above approach has a significant social dimension when rationalizing expenditure on thermal modernization of buildings, especially in energy and economic poverty areas. The suggestion, resulting from the study, of changing our habits to high temperatures in living quarters, can largely contribute to the improvement of the state of the environment, but also have a significant impact on the savings of energy resources. Lowering the temperature in the rooms from 23 °C to 17 °C reduces the energy demand for heating by up to about 40%. • Methodology for assessing benefits resulting from changing the user profile. • Economic and ecological benefits of thermal insulation and changing the user profile. • The year of construction of the building and the type of heat source were considered. • Five types of room user profiles are included. • The balance of benefits and costs is always positive only in the ecological aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the quality of service of the metropolitan Metro of Seville (Spain) across different user profiles, as determined through cluster analysis. Service quality evaluation is performed using a composite index that combines the user point of view with the service operator point of view. The combination of these two types of service quality measurement fulfils the need to provide a reliable measurement tool for transit performance. Six user profiles were identified, and it was ascertained that they have different opinions about the service, with heterogeneous gaps between the points of view among the six user profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing of products, information and services based on users׳ profiles has made recommender systems to be increasingly present, easing the selection and retention of users in services on the Web. However, optimizations must be performed in such systems mainly regarding the modeling of users׳ profiles. Preferences are generally modeled superficially, due to the scarcity of data collected, as notes or comments, or the inductive information susceptible to errors. This manuscript proposes a recommender tool with three ensemble approaches based on multimodal interactions that combines different types of users׳ feedback processed individually by traditional recommendation algorithms. The approaches have been developed to improve the quality of predictions in recommender systems, considering a large number of user information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People living with disabilities have been found to experience reduced participation during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to inform interventions to improve physical activity and social participation in stroke survivors, we created personas to inform the design and development of products targeting stroke patients during life-changing events such as pandemics after stroke Persona development methodology using qualitative interview data. The personas were developed by mapping participants to behavioural variables identified from coded transcripts. After identifying behaviour patterns, characteristics and goals were synthesized. Virtual-data collection via Zoom; community. Community-dwelling individuals who have had a stroke (n = 26) were recruited. We included participants 19 years of age or older and if they were able to communicate in English. Participants were excluded if they had moderate or severe cognitive impairment or aphasia. N/A. N/A. Our analysis identified 6 distinct personas that reflect participant behaviours and goals in regard to participation during COVID-19. 1) "The Community Provider" likes to feel involved and wants to engage in daily life. 2) "The Homebody" enjoys alone time but lacks a daily routine. This persona aims to feel motivated to accomplish personal goals. 3) "The Independent" seeks to be an active and integrated part of the community without physical or situational restrictions. 4) "The Lifestyle Person" wants to live the good life and do whatever they want, whenever they want. 5) "The Contributor" wants to feel needed and wants to be responsible for helping in the community. 6) "The Health-Literate Participator" wants to be on top of things and stay healthy for their family and themselves. The personas highlight behaviours and goals in stroke patients towards physical activity and social participation during COVID-19. The personas will help guide the development of interventions to improve physical activity and social participation. The interventions will be developed based on the behaviours and goals of those living with stroke. N/A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet technologies evolution, from Web 1.0 to web 2.0 and web 3.0, has led us towards the definition of new requirements to be considered in the design and development of new application. It is important to note that depending solely on the request to satisfy user need is not effective. Indeed, the emergence of many researches related to the study of user behaviour has enhanced the retrieval information effectiveness. Typically, the context and the user profile are the main elements to characterize the user. Hence, we aim through this contribution to build a rich profile and to provide him suitable services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes the implicit social networking as an innovative methodology for approaching consumers who possess information-rich user profiles based on aplethora of online services they use. An implicit social network is not explicitly built by consumers themselves, but implicitly calculated by third parties based on a level of a common interest between consumers (i.e., profile matchmaking). The analysis of aconsumer social network created in such a manner enables discovery of hidden roles, relationships and communities among consumers and represents a basis for provisioning of innovative services (e.g., personalized and/or context-aware services such as recommender systems). The implicit social networking methodology is evaluated through two pilot cases: (i) implicit social networking based on the SmartSocial platform; and (ii) implicit social networking of IPTV users. The generalizability of the implicit social networking is demonstrated through additional example aimed not at external company stakeholders (e.g., company consumers), but at internal stakeholders (i.e., company employees) through the implicit corporate social networking pilot case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommender systems can be used to assist users in the process of accessing to relevant information. In the literature we can find sundry approaches for generating personalized recommendations and all of them make use of different users’ and/or items’ features. Building accurate profiles plays an essential role in this context, so that the system's success depend to a large extent on the ability of the learned profiles to represent the user's preferences. An ontology works very well to characterize the users profiles. In this paper we develop an ontology to characterize the trust between users using the fuzzy linguistic modelling, this way in the recommendation generation process we do not take into account users with similar ratings history but users in which each user can trust. We present our ontology and provide a method to aggregate the trust information captured in the trust-ontology and to update the user profiles based on the feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We introduce a novel method for learning and modelling contextual user profiles. [•] We develop methods for inferring hidden semantic information from user profiles. [•] We introduce an approach to providing contextual recommendation services. [•] We present a domain-independent context-aware personalization system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Sina Weibo, the most popular microblogging service in China, plays a significance role in sharing and exchanging information on local and global level. Actually, part of the information are correlated with some events which may be local ones such as accident, protests or natural disasters to widely ones such as events concerning well-known people or political affairs. Our research interest is to detect the location where some events are occurring by analyzing only data from weibo information. In this paper, we de- note three kind of location for each weibo: (1) content-based location; (2) posting location; (3) registration location of author of weibo. There are two main contributions in our work: (a) detect event-aware location of each weibo; (b) estimate accurate event location based on sets of event-aware locations. In order to detect event-aware location, we model there kinds of location data of each weibo to tackle with detection challenge. After we obtained a set of event-aware locations, we use a hierarchical clustering to estimate the accurate event location. The result showed that our method could improve the accuracy of event location estimation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, we present a novel approach to perform similarity queries over medical images, maintaining the semantics of a given query posted by the user. Content-based image retrieval systems relying on relevance feedback techniques usually request the users to label relevant/irrelevant images. Thus, we present a highly effective strategy to survey user profiles, taking advantage of such labeling to implicitly gather the user perceptual similarity. The profiles maintain the settings desired for each user, allowing tuning of the similarity assessment, which encompasses the dynamic change of the distance function employed through an interactive process. Experiments on medical images show that the method is effective and can improve the decision making process during analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We describe a model to plan and manage greenspace as a functional green network. [•] Two profiles: a leisure user and a utilitarian user identify access to greenspace. [•] Conventional methods may substantially overestimate greenspace provision/access. [•] Outputs used by planners to target health inequalities and promote active travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As a model for knowledge description and formalization, ontologies are widely used to represent user profiles in personalized web information gathering. However, when representing user profiles, many models have utilized only knowledge from either a global knowledge base or user local information. A personalized search engine which is a hybrid system has been proposed for personalized search and reasoning over user profiles. The hybrid system contains both the global knowledge base and the user local information. User profiles are created for every users to gather their interest and relevance. This system also learns user profiles based on which the user is provided with candidates in Ontology Learning Environment (OLE) tool. The search results are personalized and have topic specificity. The efficiency of a search application is defined by the accuracy by which the search results match the user interests. The efficiency improvement in our application can be defined by the reduction in the number of pages which a particular user who searches for a string. This search engine is evaluated by getting feedback from three kinds of users. The results show that this ontology model is successful. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: News recommendation is a very active research field. The number of online journals has increased in recent years owing to the increasing popularity of the Internet. In this context, it is important to offer user tools that facilitate faster and more accurate access to articles of interest in digital newspapers. We present two probabilistic models based on latent variables that recommend relevant news to users according to profiles of their visits to the newspaper website. As input, the models consider news content and categories, according to a predefined classification, of those news previously accessed. The experimental results show good performance with respect to baseline models in a data set of news extracted from a digital journal edition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The difference between the actual and predicted energy consumption for heating in housing is thought to be partly attributable to the use of HVAC systems. More reliable data on energy consumption could help in determining the actual energy performance of dwellings and in the search for the most adequate design for housing and home amenities. Further reductions on energy consumption might also be achieved if energy-saving policy programmes were geared to different household groups. The aim of this paper is to statistically determine Behavioural Patterns associated with the energy spent on heating and to identify household and building characteristics that could contribute to the development of energy-User Profiles. This study had two outcomes: it identified Behavioural Patterns to be used in energy calculations and it discerned User Profiles with different behaviours. Five underlying groups of behavioural variables were found, which were used to define the Behavioural Patterns and User Profiles. The groups showed statistically significant differences in the scores for most of the behavioural factors. This study established clear relationships between occupant behaviour and household characteristics. However, it seems difficult to establish relationships between energy consumption and Behavioural Patterns and household groups. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: There are few formal studies on the contribution of botanical gardens as urban green spaces, particularly within developing countries. Therefore, this paper reports on an assessment of the use and appreciation of botanical gardens as urban green spaces in South Africa. Users and staff were surveyed in six national botanical gardens. The gardens provided numerous benefits in terms of conservation, education and recreation. However, the people using the gardens were not demographically representative of the general population of the surrounding city or town. Generally, most of the visitors were middle- to old-aged, well-educated professionals with medium to high incomes. Most were white and English was their home language. There was an even gender representation. Most visited only a few times per year. The majority of users visited the gardens for recreation and psychological reasons rather than educational ones. However, the staff of each garden placed emphasis on education in the gardens and amongst surrounding schools. Most visitors appreciated the conservation dimensions of botanical gardens, and felt that there was insufficient public green space in their town or city. Understanding how people perceive and use the botanical gardens of South Africa is important to inform future research and strategies regarding the conservation of urban green space within a developing country. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we study the recommendation problem as formed by two tasks: (i) to filter useful/interesting items, (ii) to guide the user to good recommendations. The first task has been widely studied in the field of recommender systems. In fact, the most common characterization of these systems is based on the algorithms that select (filter) the items to be recommended (e.g. collaborative filtering, content-based, etc.). Through this paper, we will focus on the second task: the task of guiding the user. We claim that this task needs a closer attention. In this paper, we report an experiment to provide evidence for this fact. Actually, the experiment shows that machine learning algorithms commonly applied to the first task become useless when applied to the task of guiding. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Web applications are designed to communicate for a diversity of purposes to a multiplicity of users with a variety of goals. Analysts have to manage this complexity by modelling user requirements and provide proper guidance to the web design activity. This paper introduces a framework based on user profiles, roles and goals for describing and analysing web user requirements. Project teams can use these conceptual tools for systematically envisioning salient user scenarios at a proper conceptual level. The information gathered through the analysis feeds into a goal-oriented requirements engineering method, which facilitates the transition from requirements to web design. Excerpts from the design of a real museum web site are discussed as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose a recommendation system that considers user's functionality levels regarding physical or psychological limitations. This paper describes a set of models and algorithms used under a tourism recommendation system based in users and points-of-interest (POI) profiles. Also, this proposal considers a different manner to classify POI including their accessibility levels, mapped with similar physical and psychological issues. In this study, based on the Design Science Research methodology, an architecture is proposed and a touristic recommendation system prototype where users are modelled with new types of information in addition to traditional approaches such as their levels of functionality regarding a set of physical and intellectual issues, is also presented. POIs are also modelled with the same information structure and maintain knowledge on their limitations against some health conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]