Glossary

Active positioning data

data generated by positioning the mobile subscriber through device- or network-centric methods, as well as via satellite (i.e. GPS). Active positioning locates the owner of the phone in real-time and requires the owner's consent.

Anchor points

are locations where people regularly stay. Regular cells are referred to as anchors when the model gives meaning (home, work-time, multifunctional) to them.

Country of usual residence

a person's country of usual residence is that in which the person lives, that is to say, the country in which the person has a place to live where he or she normally spends the daily period of rest.

Cross border workers

include all persons who are not the residents of the country of measurement but have been engaged in economic activities on a repeated basis in that country provided they depart at regular and short intervals (daily or weekly) from the country.

Day-time population

might be identified based on the activities of the person traced from 07:00 a.m. to 06:59 p.m.

Home anchor point

an everyday anchor point which, based on the model, is the probable location of the person's home.

Home location

a place where the person spends most of the night-time and weekends.

Internal migrants

persons who are usually resident in a particular geographical area and who have previously been resident in another geographical area in the country of enumeration.

Internal migration (or domestic migration)

is human migration within a country. Internal migrants are broadly defined as persons who change their place of residence within the country in a given year.

International migrant

according to UN recommendations, an international migrant is defined as a person who has changed his or her country of residence and established a new residence in the country within a given year.

International migration

is a subset of international mobility and includes all movements resulting in a change in the country of residence within a given year.

International mobility

includes all movements that cross international borders within a given year.

International temporary mobility

refers to all movements that cross international border that do not result in a change in the country of residence.

Meaningful places (or meaningful locations)

are defined as regularly visited places that have meaning for individuals. Technically, they are similar to personal anchor points; home and work anchors are the most common among them.

Multifunctional anchor point

an everyday anchor point in which the home and work-time anchor points are located in the same network cell and cannot be separately identified.

Night-time population

might be identified based on activities of the person traced from 07:00 p.m. to 06:59 a.m.

Passive positioning data

do not require personal contact with the people involved and yield a large amount of anonymous data. Passive probes monitor data flows between different network entities, extracted data represents information about historical locations of the phones from the log files of MNOs.

Resident population

consists of individuals who either (a) have lived most of the last 12 months within a given year or have intentions to stay (or granted to stay) for at least six months; or (b) have lived at least 12 months within a given year or intentions to stay (or granted to stay) for at least 12 months, not including temporary absence for holidays or work assignments.

Seasonal mobility

is characterized by changes in place of stay which last for more than one and less than twelve months and are repeated on a similar basis each year

Seasonal workers

include all persons who are not the residents of the country of employment, whose work by its character is dependent on seasonal conditions and is performed during part of the year.

Signalling data

generally refers to directly obtaining transmission signals from the radio network and storing it in a database.

Skipping

is defined as a phenomenon in which for some reason (such as a change in the strength of the signal, etc.) a stationary cellular phone switches antenna by which it is positioned and the cellular phone is identified in a new location, which might be affected by the strength of the radio coverage, the number of users or the "visibility" of mobile towers.

Tossing

means that even if the person is actually in one place, his/her phone may connect to different antennas and swap (toss) them automatically, depending on the antennas' workloads.

Transnationalism

means operating actively in two or more countries.

Usual environment

can be defined with the precision of country of reference, region, municipality or some other geographical areas or administrative units.

Work-time anchor point

an everyday anchor point which, based on the model, is the person's probable work-time location. The anchor is called a work-time location because it is not possible to differentiate between work, school and other activities in the place where a person regularly and most often spends time in business hours during a month.