Contraction hierarchies are a simple hierarchical routing technique that has proved extremely efficient for static road networks. We explain how to generalize them to networks with time-dependent edge weights. This is the first hierarchical speedup technique for timedependent routing that allows bidirectional query algorithms. For large realistic networks with considerable time-dependence (Germ...

While some communities of animals living in groups may develop systems of cooperation or mutual altruism, many other animal societies are characterised by dominance hierarchies. This thesis is concerned with describing the development of cooperation and dominance hierarchies amongst animal groups. By using a game-theoretic framework, I develop and investigate simple models to describe social in...

We describe an algorithmic framework for lossless compression of route descriptions. This is useful for hybrid route planning where routes are computed by a server and then transmitted to a client device in a car using some mobile radio communication where bandwidth may be low. Compressed routes are represented by only a few via nodes which are the connection points when the route is decomposed...

When you drive to somewhere ‘far away’, you will leave your current location via one of only a few ‘important’ traffic junctions. Starting from this informal observation, we develop an algorithmic approach—transit node routing— that allows us to reduce quickest-path queries in road networks to a small number of table lookups. We present two implementations of this idea, one based on a simple gr...

We study two speedup techniques for route planning in road networks: highway hierarchies (HH) and goal directed search using landmarks (ALT). It turns out that there are several interesting synergies. Highway hierarchies yield a way to implement landmark selection more efficiently and to store landmark information more space efficiently than before. ALT gives queries in highway hierarchies an e...

Articles 7 What Makes an Early Adopter? Transforming Landscapes One Farmer at a Time by Alicia Calle, MESc 2008 15 Ignorance or Exclusion? Forest Knowledge and Social Hierarchies in Community-Level Conservation in the Petén, Guatemala by Micha Rahder, MESc 2008 21 Conservation in Flux: Pursuing Social Resilience in Mozambique and Peru by James Leslie, joint MESc-MBA 2008 28 Understanding Stakeh...

The Virtual Reality Gorilla Exhibit is a system for teaching users about gorilla behaviors and social interactions. The system includes an accurate model of the Zoo Atlanta gorilla habitats and anthropometrically correct gorilla models and behaviors. In the virtual environment the user assumes the persona of an adolescent gorilla. By exploring the habitat and interacting with other gorillas, th...

Objective: To test the applicability of the BIAS FREE Framework in African settings. Participants: Researchers from the Tanzanian National Institute for Medical Research, university and community-based researchers from Tanzania, the Gambia and South Africa. Setting: National Institute for Medical Research, Dar es Salaam Tanzania. Intervention: An intensive two-day workshop to examine the applic...

Sexist attitudes do not exist in a limbo; they are embedded in larger belief systems associated with specific hierarchies of values. In particular, manifestations of benevolent sexism (Glick and Fiske 1996, 1997, 2001) can be perceived as a social boon, not a social ill, both because they are experienced as positive, and because they reward behaviors that maintain social stability. One of the s...