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. 2021 Oct 22;4:718351. doi: 10.3389/fdata.2021.718351

TABLE 4.

Spatial weight matrices comparison.

Spatial weight matrix Pro Con Interpretation/Contribution
Method 1 - Distance Simple to construct and understand Used often in literature Less realistic Convenient to use and easy to understand and interpret. Not realistic enough for real insight
Inadequate for clustering
Lacks temporal element
Method 2 - Mobile network High spatial resolution Large amounts generated passively by mobile device users Computationally expensive Captures strong spatial associations over relatively short distances. Allows for the identification of patterns potentially missed by other methods
Difficult to obtain
Not representative
Privacy concerns
Method 3 - Weighted Facebook data Freely available data Potentially more representative Low spatial resolution Captures association between focal points of human activity regardless of distance
Lacks specificity
Method 4 - Scaled Facebook data Simple to construct and understand. Freely available data Potentially more representative Lacks temporal elements Adds additional information to previously simplistic model. Additional information improves clustering
Low spatial resolution