The Impacts of a COVID-19 Related Lockdown (and Reopening Phases) on Time Use and Mobility for Activities in Austria—Results from a Multi-Wave Combined Survey

Advance Monitoring of COVID-19 Incidence Based on Taxi Mobility: The Infection Ratio Measure

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on various aspects of our lives, affecting personal, occupational, economic, and social spheres. Much has been learned since the early 2020s, which will be very useful when the next pandemic emerges. In general, mobility and virus spread are strongly related. However, most studies analyze the impact of COVID-19 on mobility, but not much research has focused on analyzing the impact of mobility on virus transmission, especially from the point of view of monitoring virus incidence, which is extremely important for making sound decisions to control any epidemiological threat to public health. As a result of a thorough analysis of COVID-19 and mobility data, this work introduces a novel measure, the Infection Ratio (IR), which is not sensitive to underestimation of positive cases and is very effective in monitoring the pandemic's upward or downward evolution when it appears to be more stable, thus anticipating possible risk situations. For a bounded spatial context, we can infer that there is a significant threshold in the restriction of mobility that determines a change of trend in the number of infections that, if maintained for a minimum period, would notably increase the chances of keeping the spread of disease under control. Results show that IR is a reliable indicator of the intensity of infection, and an effective measure for early monitoring and decision making in smart cities.

Measurement data on the window opening behavior and climate in a strongly daylit office building

The long-term measurement data presented in this article result were collected in a strongly daylit office building under real working conditions and include temperature and wind speed of the outdoor situation as well as climatic variables of the indoor space, such as temperature and relative humidity. In addition to the measurement of environmental variables, the window opening behavior was also logged. The entire data acquisition was implemented via the building control system and was performed with a one-minute resolution. An exception to this is the recording of the window openings, which were logged on change of state. The measurement data obtained can be combined with other measurement data to provide an improved data basis for energy building simulations, prediction models and energy potential assessments.