Search results for: urban conservation methodology

Authors: Sergio Paez Moncaleano, Alvaro Mauricio Montenegro

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This paper presents a novel statistical methodology for measuring and founding constructs in Latent Regression Analysis. This approach uses the qualities of Factor Analysis in binary data with interpretations on Item Response Theory (IRT). In addition, based on the fundamentals of submodel theory and with a convergence of many ideas of IRT, we propose an algorithm not just to solve the dimensionality problem (nowadays an open discussion) but a new research field that promises more fear and realistic qualifications for examiners and a revolution on IRT and educational research. In the end, the methodology is applied to a set of real data set presenting impressive results for the coherence, speed and precision. Acknowledgments: This research was financed by Colciencias through the project: 'Multidimensional Item Response Theory Models for Practical Application in Large Test Designed to Measure Multiple Constructs' and both authors belong to SICS Research Group from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Keywords: item response theory, dimensionality, submodel theory, factorial analysis

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Authors: Prateek Rastogi

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Medical teaching in present era concentrates not only on teaching but on effective teaching. For effective teaching a combination of effective carefully designed curriculum, an educated educator, competent learner and fool proof evaluation system is required. Keeping these parameters in mind and study was undertaken at Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore among medical students. In this study, evaluation of Forensic Medicine syllabus along with its teaching and evaluation methodology was done using 20 different parameters. This questionnaire based study was done over a period of two years i.e. 2013 and 2014. Batch of students who just passed the forensic medicine subject was included for study. Carefully designed questionnaire contained questions related to course content, teaching methodology and evaluation system along with provisions to mention merits and demerits of subject. The feedbacks in first round were analyzed and suggestions were implemented before conducting the second round of study. Overall evaluation of course was done as well as it was compared with other subjects of second MBBS. It was noted that Scores improved in 2nd survey thus stressing the importance of course evaluation and student feedback in teaching improvement.

Keywords: teaching methodology, system of evaluation, course content, bioinformatics, biomedicine

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Authors: Shravanth Vasisht M., Balachandra P., Dasappa S.

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Electric mobility (e-mob) is one of the significant actions proposed for sustainable urban transport in India. The current efforts are aimed at reducing the carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions and environmental pollution through a smooth transition from fossil-fueled mobility (f-mob) to e-mob. The study summarizes the e-mob landscape in India, its roadmap, the expected challenges relevant to the consumer preferences and perceptions. In addition to the challenges of transition from f-mob to e-mob, the sustainability of e-mob is more crucial as it involves addressing challenges related to three dimensions, namely, environmental, economic, and social sustainability. The critical factors in each of these dimensions are analyzed. The recommendations for attaining sustainability are suggested to enable a successful transition from f-mob to e-mob. The specific objectives of the research include a detailed synthesis of urban mobility landscape, analyses of various stakeholders' behaviors, drivers, and barriers influencing the transition, measures to boost the drivers and mitigate the barriers. The study also aims to arrive at policy recommendations and strategies for a successful and sustainable transition from f-mob to e-mob, reducing the carbon footprint due to transportation.

Keywords: electricmobility, urbanmobility, transportation, consumerbehaviour, carbonemission

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Authors: Neda Nabid

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Friction-based supplemental devices have been extensively used for seismic protection and strengthening of structures, however, the conventional use of these dampers may not necessarily lead to an efficient structural performance. Conventionally designed friction dampers follow a uniform height-wise distribution pattern of slip load values for more practical simplicity. This can lead to localizing structural damage in certain story levels, while the other stories accommodate a negligible amount of relative displacement demand. A practical performance-based optimization methodology is developed to tackle with structural damage localization of RC frame buildings with friction energy dissipation devices under severe earthquakes. The proposed methodology is based on the concept of uniform damage distribution theory. According to this theory, the slip load values of the friction dampers redistribute and shift from stories with lower relative displacement demand to the stories with higher inter-story drifts to narrow down the discrepancy between the structural damage levels in different stories. In this study, the efficacy of the proposed design methodology is evaluated through the seismic performance of five different low to high-rise RC frames equipped with friction wall dampers under six real spectrum-compatible design earthquakes. The results indicate that compared to the conventional design, using the suggested methodology to design friction wall systems can lead to, by average, up to 40% reduction of maximum inter-story drift; and incredibly more uniform height-wise distribution of relative displacement demands under the design earthquakes.

Keywords: friction damper, nonlinear dynamic analysis, RC structures, seismic performance, structural damage

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Authors: Majed Sanan, Mohammad Rammal, Wassim Rammal

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Today, security is a major concern. Intrusion Detection, Prevention Systems and Honeypot can be used to moderate attacks. Many researchers have proposed to use many IDSs ((Intrusion Detection System) time to time. Some of these IDS’s combine their features of two or more IDSs which are called Hybrid Intrusion Detection Systems. Most of the researchers combine the features of Signature based detection methodology and Anomaly based detection methodology. For a signature based IDS, if an attacker attacks slowly and in organized way, the attack may go undetected through the IDS, as signatures include factors based on duration of the events but the actions of attacker do not match. Sometimes, for an unknown attack there is no signature updated or an attacker attack in the mean time when the database is updating. Thus, signature-based IDS fail to detect unknown attacks. Anomaly based IDS suffer from many false-positive readings. So there is a need to hybridize those IDS which can overcome the shortcomings of each other. In this paper we propose a new approach to IDS (Intrusion Detection System) which is more efficient than the traditional IDS (Intrusion Detection System). The IDS is based on Honeypot Technology and Anomaly based Detection Methodology. We have designed Architecture for the IDS in a packet tracer and then implemented it in real time. We have discussed experimental results performed: both the Honeypot and Anomaly based IDS have some shortcomings but if we hybridized these two technologies, the newly proposed Hybrid Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) is capable enough to overcome these shortcomings with much enhanced performance. In this paper, we present a modified Hybrid Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) that combines the positive features of two different detection methodologies - Honeypot methodology and anomaly based intrusion detection methodology. In the experiment, we ran both the Intrusion Detection System individually first and then together and recorded the data from time to time. From the data we can conclude that the resulting IDS are much better in detecting intrusions from the existing IDSs.

Keywords: security, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, honeypot, anomaly-based detection, signature-based detection, cloud computing, kfsensor

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Authors: Rosa Nadine Danenberg

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In recent years, bottom-up urban development has started growing as an alternative to conventional top-down planning. In large proportions, citizens and communities initiate small-scale interventions; suddenly seeming to form a trend. As a result, more and more cities are witnessing not only the growth of but also an interest in these initiatives, as they bear the potential to reshape urban spaces. Such alternative city-making efforts cause new dynamics in urban governance, with inevitable consequences for the controlled city planning and its administration. The emergence of enabling relationships between top-down and bottom-up actors signals an increasingly common urban practice. Various case studies show that an enabling relationship is possible, yet, how it can be optimally realized stays rather underexamined. Therefore, the seemingly growing worldwide phenomenon of ‘municipal bottom-up urban development’ necessitates an adequate governance structure. As such, the aim of this research is to contribute knowledge to how municipalities can enable citizen-led urban initiatives from a governance innovation perspective. Empirical case-study research in Stockholm and Istanbul, derived from interviews with founders of four citizen-led urban initiatives and one municipal representative in each city, provided valuable insights to possibilities and constraints for enabling practices. On the one hand, diverging outcomes emphasize the extreme oppositional features of both cases (Stockholm and Istanbul). Firstly, both cities’ characteristics are drastically different. Secondly, the ideologies and motifs for the initiatives to emerge vary widely. Thirdly, the major constraints for citizen-led urban initiatives to relate to the municipality are considerably different. Two types of municipality’s organizational structures produce different underlying mechanisms which demonstrate the constraints. The first municipal organizational structure is steered by bureaucracy (Stockholm). It produces an administrative division that brings up constraints such as the lack of responsibility, transparency and continuity by municipal representatives. The second structure is dominated by municipal politics and governmental hierarchy (Istanbul). It produces informality, lack of transparency and a fragmented civil society. In order to cope with the constraints produced by both types of organizational structures, the initiatives have adjusted their organization to the municipality’s underlying structures. On the other hand, this paper has in fact also come to a rather unifying conclusion. Interestingly, the suggested possibilities for an enabling relationship underline converging new urban governance arrangements. This could imply that for the two varying types of municipality’s organizational structures there is an accurate governance structure. Namely, the combination of a neighborhood council with a municipal guide, with allowance for the initiatives to adopt a politicizing attitude is found as coinciding. Especially its combination appears key to redeem varying constraints. A municipal guide steers the initiatives through bureaucratic struggles, is supported by coproduction methods, while it balances out municipal politics. Next, a neighborhood council, that is politically neutral and run by local citizens, can function as an umbrella for citizen-led urban initiatives. What is crucial is that it should cater for a more entangled relationship between municipalities and initiatives with enhanced involvement of the initiatives in decision-making processes and limited involvement of prevailing constraints pointed out in this research.

Keywords: bottom-up urban development, governance innovation, Istanbul, Stockholm

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Authors: Eleni Stefania Kalapoda

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The current fossil-fuel based urbanization pattern and the estimated human population growth are increasing the environmental footprint on our planet’s precious resources. To mitigate the estimated skyrocketing in greenhouse gas emissions associated with the construction of new cities and infrastructure over the next 50 years, we need a radical rethink in our approach to construction to deliver a net zero built environment. This paper assesses the carbon footprint of a mass-timber, a steel, and a concrete structural alternative for peri-urban densification in the Hudson Valley's urban fringe, along with examining the updated policy and the building code adjustments that support synergies between timber construction in city making and sustainable management of timber forests. By quantifying the carbon footprint of a structural prototype for four different material assemblies—a concrete (post-tensioned), a mass timber, a steel (composite), and a hybrid (timber/steel/concrete) assembly applicable to the three updated building typologies of the IBC 2021 (Type IV-A, Type IV-B, Type IV-C) that range between a nine to eighteen-story structure alternative—and scaling-up that structural prototype to the size of a neighborhood district, the paper presents a quantitative and a qualitative approach for a forest-based construction economy as well as a resilient and a more just supply chain framework that ensures the wellbeing of both the forest and its inhabitants.

Keywords: mass-timber innovation, concrete structure, carbon footprint, densification

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Authors: Sabyasachi Mukhopadhyay, Joseph Ogutu, Hans-Peter Piepho

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We aim to model dynamics of wildlife or pastoral livestock population for understanding of their population change and hence for wildlife conservation and promoting human welfare. The study is motivated by an age-sex structured population counts in different regions of Serengeti-Mara during the period 1989-2003. Developing reliable and realistic models for population dynamics of large herbivore population can be a very complex and challenging exercise. However, the Bayesian statistical domain offers some flexible computational methods that enable the development and efficient implementation of complex population dynamics models. In this work, we have used a novel Bayesian state-space model to analyse the dynamics of topi and hartebeest populations in the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem of East Africa. The state-space model involves survival probabilities of the animals which further depend on various factors like monthly rainfall, size of habitat, etc. that cause recent declines in numbers of the herbivore populations and potentially threaten their future population viability in the ecosystem. Our study shows that seasonal rainfall is the most important factors shaping the population size of animals and indicates the age-class which most severely affected by any change in weather conditions.

Keywords: bayesian state-space model, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, population dynamics, conservation

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Authors: Alazar G. Ejigu

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Cities have traditionally been designed for and by men. Despite positive changes in this regard, contemporary cities appear to offer limited options and experiences to women in their everyday life. There are differences regarding the quality of space. Distressed or disadvantaged areas often have less access to urban qualities, such as services, parks, and public places, than more privileged ones. The most attractive meeting-places are located centrally, whereas many suburban areas lack these elements. By focusing on young women living in multi-ethnic working-class suburban areas in Stockholm - a group generally ignored and disadvantaged; the study aims to examine various forms of inequality or equality in three selected neighborhoods. Spatial data was collected through walk-along with the young girls, inventory of the places, and geodata made available by Statistics Sweden (SCB). The combined data was analyzed with the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In line with Crenshaw - one of the forerunners of intersectional thinking – the project departs from the idea that if we address the needs of those who are disadvantaged and restructure urban space accordingly, then others will benefit too. Thus, working our way towards a more equal city.

Keywords: GIS, segregation, gender equality, urban planning

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Authors: Jaime Carpio-García, Elena Blanco-Fernández, Javier González-Fernández, Daniel Castro-Fresno

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Sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) are more often used in order to prevent floods, water treatment, fight against pollution, urban heat island effect, and global warming in applications like green roofs, permeable pavements, and others. Furthermore, geosynthetics are also worldwide used as a part of drainage systems in road construction. Geotextiles are an essential part of both, and one of the main geotextile properties in those applications is permeability, whose behavior is not well established along its service life. In this paper, clogging reduction design factors for an estimated service life of 25 years are experimentally obtained for five different geotextiles used in SUDS and roads combined with two different soils and with two pollutants, motor oil, and lime, in order to evaluate chemical clogging, too. The effect of characteristic opening size and other characteristics of the geosynthetics are also discussed in order to give civil engineers, together with the clogging reduction factors, a better long-time design of geotextiles used in their SUDS and roads.

Keywords: geotextiles, drainage, clogging, reduction factor

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Authors: M. Azharul Islam, M. Russel Sarker, M. Shahadat Hossen

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Air pollution is one of the major environmental problems that have gained importance in all over the world. Air pollution is a problem for all of us. The present study was conducted to explore the people’s perception level and awareness of air pollution in selected areas of Mymensingh in Bangladesh. Health impacts of air pollution also studied through personal interview and structured questionnaire. The relationship of independent variables (age, educational qualification, family size, residence and communication exposure) with the respondent’s perception level and awareness of air pollution (dependent variable) was studied to achieve the objectives of the study. About 600 respondents were selected randomly from six sites for collecting data during the period of July 2016 to June 2017. Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficients were computed to examine the relationship between the concerned variables. The results revealed that about half (46.67%) of the respondents had a medium level of perception and awareness about air pollution in their areas where 31.67 percent had low, and 21.67 percent had a high level. In rural areas of the study sites, 43.33 percent respondents had low, 50 percent had medium, and only 6.67 percent had high perception and awareness on air pollution. In case of urban areas, 20 percent respondents had low, 43.33 percent had medium, and 36.67 percent had a high level of awareness and perception on air pollution. The majority of the respondents (93.33 percent) were lacking of proper awareness about air pollution in rural areas while 63.33 percent in urban areas. Out of five independent variables, three variables such as- educational qualification, residence status and communication exposure had positive and significant relationship. Age of respondents had negative and significant relationship with their awareness of air pollution where family size of the respondents had no significant relationship with their perception and awareness of air pollution. Thousands of people live in urban areas where urban smog, particle pollution, and toxic pollutants pose serious health concerns. But most of the respondents of the urban sites are not familiarize about the real causes of air pollution. Respondents exposed higher level of experience for air pollutants, such as- irritation of the eyes, coughing, tightness of chest and many health difficulties. But respondents of both rural and urban area hugely suffered such health problems and the tendency of certain difficulties increased day by day. In this study, most of the respondents had lack of knowledge on the causes of such health difficulties due to their lower perception level. Proper attempts should be taken to raise literacy level, communication exposure to increase the perception and awareness of air pollution among the respondents of the study areas. Extra care with above concerned fields should be taken to increase perception and awareness of air pollution in rural areas.

Keywords: air pollution, awareness, health impacts, perception of people

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Authors: Ioanna Skoufali

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The present study is directed towards adaptation to climate change closely related to the phenomenon of the urban heat island (UHI). This issue is widespread and common to different urban realities, but particularly in Mediterranean cities that are characterized by dense urban. The attention of this work of redevelopment of the open space is focused on mitigation techniques aiming to solve local problems such as microclimatic parameters and the conditions of thermal comfort in summer, related to urban morphology. This quantitative analysis, evaluation, and verification survey involves the methodological elaboration applied in a real study case by Serres, through the experimental support of the ENVImet Pro V4.1 and BioMet software developed: i) in two phases concerning the anteoperam (phase a1 # 2013) and the post-operam (phase a2 # 2016); ii) in scenario A (+ 25% of green # 2017). The first study tends to identify the main intervention strategies, namely: the application of cool pavements, the increase of green surfaces, the creation of water surface and external fans; moreover, it obtains the minimum results achieved by the National Program 'Bioclimatic improvement project for public open space', EPPERAA (ESPA 2007-2013) related to the four environmental parameters illustrated below: the TAir = 1.5 o C, the TSurface = 6.5 o C, CDH = 30% and PET = 20%. In addition, the second study proposes a greater potential for improvement than postoperam intervention by increasing the vegetation within the district towards the SW/SE. The final objective of this in-depth design is to be transferable in homogeneous cases of urban regeneration processes with obvious effects on the efficiency of microclimatic mitigation and thermal comfort.

Keywords: cool pavements, microclimate parameters (TAir, Tsurface, Tmrt, CDH), mitigation strategies, outdoor thermal comfort (PET & UTCI)

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Authors: Vipan Kumar Sohpal

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Temperature effect on the adsorption of crystal violet dye (CVD) was investigated using a castor leaf powder (CLP) that was prepared from the mature leaves of castor trees, through chemical reaction. The optimum values of pH (8), adsorbent dose (10g/L), initial dye concentration (10g/L), time (2hrs), and stirrer speed (120 rpm) were fixed to investigate the influence of temperature on adsorption capacity, percentage of removal of dye and free energy. A central composite design (CCD) was successfully employed for experimental design and analysis of the results. The combined effect of temperature, absorbance, and concentration on the dye adsorption was studied and optimized using response surface methodology. The optimum values of adsorption capacity, percentage of removal of dye and free energy were found to be 0.965(mg/g), 93.38 %, -8202.7(J/mol) at temperature 55.97 °C having desirability > 90% for removal of crystal violet dye respectively. The experimental values were in good agreement with predicted values.

Keywords: crystal violet dye, CVD, castor leaf powder, CLP, response surface methodology, temperature, optimization

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Authors: Benaissa Fatima, Alkama Rezak, Annesi-Maesano Isabella

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To assess the health impact of the air pollution on the population of Béjaia, we carried out a descriptive epidemiologic inquiry near the medical establishments of three areas. From the registers of hospital admissions, we collected data on the hospital mortality and admissions relating to the various cardiorespiratory pathologies generated by this type of pollution. In parallel, data on the automobile fleet of Bejaia and other measurements were exploited to show that the concentrations of the pollutants are strongly correlated with the concentration the urban traffic. This study revealed that the whole of the population is touched, but the sensitivity to pollution can show variations according to the age, the sex and the place of residence. So the under population of the town of Bejaia marked the most raised death and morbidity rates, followed that of Kherrata. Weak rates are recorded for under rural population of Feraoun. This approach enables us to conclude that the population of Béjaia could not escape the urban pollution generated by her old automobile fleet. To install a monitoring and measuring site of the air pollution in this city could provide a beneficial tool to protect its inhabitants by them informing on quality from the air that they breathe and measurements to follow to minimize the impacts on their health and by alerting the authorities during the critical situations.

Keywords: air, urban pollution, health, impacts

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Authors: Remy Kulagowski, Tobias Sturm, Audrey Leopold, Aurelie Metay, Josephine Peigne, Alexis Thoumazeau, Alain Brauman, Bruno Fogliani, Florent Tivet

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A major challenge for agriculture is to enhance productivity while limiting the impact on the environment. Conservation agriculture (CA) is one strategy whereby both sustainability and productivity can be achieved by preserving and improving the soil quality. Soils provide and regulate a large number of ecosystem services (ES) such as agricultural productivity and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The aim of this study is to assess the impacts of contrasted CA crop management on soil functions for maize (Zea mays L.) cultivation in an eight years field experiment (2010-2018). The study included two CA practices: direct seeding in dead mulch (DM) and living mulch (LM), and conventional plough-based tillage (CT) practices on a fluvisol in New Caledonia (French Archipelago in the South Pacific). In 2018, soil quality of the cropping systems were evaluated with the Biofunctool® set of indicators, that consists in twelve integrative, in-field, and low-tech indicators assessing the biological, physical and chemical properties of soils. Main soil functions were evaluated including (i) carbon transformation, (ii) structure maintenance, and (iii) nutrient cycling in the ten first soil centimeters. The results showed significant higher score for soil structure maintenance (e.g., aggregate stability, water infiltration) and carbon transformation function (e.g., soil respiration, labile carbon) under CA in DM and LM when compared with CT. Score of carbon transformation index was higher in DM compared with LM. However, no significant effect of cropping systems was observed on nutrient cycling (i.e., nitrogen and phosphorus). In conclusion, the aggregated synthetic scores of soil multi-functions evaluated with Biofunctool® demonstrate that CA cropping systems lead to a better soil functioning. Further analysis of the results with agronomic performance of the soil-crop systems would allow to better understand the links between soil functioning and production ES of CA.

Keywords: conservation agriculture, cropping systems, ecosystem services, soil functions

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Authors: Ashok Kumar Lonavath, V. Sathish Kumar

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Urban sprawl is the uncontrolled and uncoordinated outgrowth of towns and cities. The process of urban sprawl can be described by change in pattern over time, like proportional increase in built-up surface to population leading to rapid urban spatial expansion. Significant economic and livelihood opportunities in the urban areas results in lack of basic amenities due to the unplanned growth The patterns, processes, dynamic causes and consequences of sprawl can be explored and designed with the help of spatial planning support system. In India context the urban area is defined as the population more than 5000, density more than 400 persons per sq. km and 75% of the population is involved in non-agricultural occupations. India’s urban population is increasing at the rate of 2.35% pa. The class I town’s population of India according to 2011 census is 18.8% that accounts for 60.4% of total unban population. Similarly in Erstwhile Andhra Pradesh it is 22.9% which accounts for 68.8% of total urban population. Suryapet town has historical recognition as ‘Gate Way of Telangana’ in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. The Municipality was constituted in 1952 as Grade-III, later upgraded into Grade-II in 1984 and to Grade-I in 1998. The area is 35 Sq.kms. Three major tanks located in three different directions and Musi River is flowing from a distance of 8 kms. The average ground water table is about 50m below ground. It is a fast growing town with a population of 1, 06,805 and 25,448 households. Density is 3051pp sq km, It is a Class I city as per population census. It secured the ISO 14001-2004 certificate for establishing and maintaining an environment-friendly system for solid waste disposal. It is the first municipality in the country to receive such a certificate. It won HUDCO award under environment management, award of appreciation and cash from Ministry of Housing and Poverty Elevation from Government of India and undivided Andhra Pradesh under UN Human Settlement Programme, Greentech Excellance award, Supreme Courts appreciation for solid waste management. Foreign delegates from different countries and also from various other states of India visited Suryapet municipality for study tour and training programs as part of their official visit Suryapet is located at 17°5’ North Latitude and 79°37’ East Longitude. The average elevation is 266m, annual mean temperature is 36°C and average rainfall is 821.0 mm. The people of this town are engaged in Commercial and agriculture activities hence the town has become a centre for marketing and stocking agricultural produce. It is also educational centre in this region. The present paper on urban sprawl is a theoretical framework to analyze the interaction of planning and governance on the extent of outgrowth and level of services. The GIS techniques, SOI Toposheet, satellite imageries and image analysis techniques are extensively used to explore the sprawl and measure the urban land-use. This paper concludes outlining the challenges in addressing urban sprawl while ensuring adequate level of services that planning and governance have to ensure towards achieving sustainable urbanization.

Keywords: remote sensing, GIS, urban sprawl, urbanization

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Authors: B. Karabuluter, O. Karaduman

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Traffic management and traffic planning are important issues, especially in big cities. Due to the increase of personal vehicles and the physical constraints of urban roads, the problem of transportation especially in crowded cities over time is revealed. This situation reduces the living standards, and it can put human life at risk because the vehicles such as ambulance, fire department are prevented from reaching their targets. Even if the city planners take these problems into account, emergency planning and traffic management are needed to avoid cases such as traffic congestion, intersections, traffic jams caused by traffic accidents or roadworks. In this study, in smart traffic management issues, proposed solutions using intelligent vehicles acting in cooperation with urban roads are examined. Traffic management is becoming more difficult due to factors such as fatigue, carelessness, sleeplessness, social behavior patterns, and lack of education. However, autonomous vehicles, which remove the problems caused by human weaknesses by providing driving control, are increasing the success of practicing the algorithms developed in city traffic management. Such intelligent vehicles have become an important solution in urban life by using 'swarm intelligence' algorithms and cooperative driving methods to provide traffic flow, prevent traffic accidents, and increase living standards. In this study, studies conducted in this area have been dealt with in terms of traffic jam, intersections, regulation of traffic flow, signaling, prevention of traffic accidents, cooperation and communication techniques of vehicles, fleet management, transportation of emergency vehicles. From these concepts, some taxonomies were made out of the way. This work helps to develop new solutions and algorithms for cities where intelligent vehicles that can perform cooperative driving can take place, and at the same time emphasize the trend in this area.

Keywords: intelligent traffic management, cooperative driving, smart driving, urban road, swarm intelligence, connected vehicles

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Authors: Fiona Curran-Cournane

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Soil quality monitoring is a science-based soil management tool that assesses soil ecosystem health. A soil monitoring program in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, extends from 1995 to the present. The objective of this study was to firstly determine changes in soil parameters (basic soil properties and heavy metals) that were assessed from rural land in 1995-2000 and repeated in 2008-2012. The second objective was to determine differences in soil parameters across various land uses including native bush, rural (horticulture, pasture and plantation forestry) and urban land uses using soil data collected in more recent years (2009-2013). Across rural land, mean concentrations of Olsen P had significantly increased in the second sampling period and was identified as the indicator of most concern, followed by soil macroporosity, particularly for horticultural and pastoral land. Mean concentrations of Cd were also greatest for pastoral and horticultural land and a positive correlation existed between these two parameters, which highlights the importance of analysing basic soil parameters in conjunction with heavy metals. In contrast, mean concentrations of As, Cr, Pb, Ni and Zn were greatest for urban sites. Native bush sites had the lowest concentrations of heavy metals and were used to calculate a ‘pollution index’ (PI). The mean PI was classified as high (PI > 3) for Cd and Ni and moderate for Pb, Zn, Cr, Cu, As, and Hg, indicating high levels of heavy metal pollution across both rural and urban soils. From a land use perspective, the mean ‘integrated pollution index’ was highest for urban sites at 2.9 followed by pasture, horticulture and plantation forests at 2.7, 2.6, and 0.9, respectively. It is recommended that soil sampling continues over time because a longer spanning record will allow further identification of where soil problems exist and where resources need to be targeted in the future. Findings from this study will also inform policy and science direction in regional councils.

Keywords: heavy metals, pollution index, rural and urban land use, soil quality

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Authors: Guilherme Reis Ranieri, Guilherme Leite Gaudereto, Michele Toledo, Luis Fernando Amato-Lourenco, Thais Mauad

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Given the importance to urban sustainability and the growing relevance of the term ‘community garden’, this paper aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the term. Using SCOPUS as database, we analyzed 105 articles that contained the keywords ‘community garden’, and conducted a cluster analysis with the associated keywords. As results, we found 205 articles and 404 different keywords. Among the keywords, 334 are not repeated anytime, 44 are repeated 2 times and 9 appear 3 times. The most frequent keywords are: community food systems (74), urban activism (14), Communities of practice (6), food production (6) and public rethoric (5). Within the areas, which contains more articles are: social sciences (74), environmental science (29) and agricultural and biological sciences (24).The three main countries that concentrated the papers are United States (54), Canada (15) and Australia (12). The main journal with these keywords is Local Environment (10). The first publication was in 1999, and by 2010 concentrated 30,5% of the publications. The other 69,5% occurred 2010 to 2015, indicating an increase in frequency. We can conclude that the papers, based on the distribution of the keywords, are still scattered in various research topics and presents high variability between subjects.

Keywords: bibliometrics, community garden, metrics, urban agriculture

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Authors: Eduard Fosch-Villaronga

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This paper pioneers Care Robot Impact Assessment (CRIA), a methodology used to identify, analyze, mitigate and eliminate the risks posed by the insertion of non-medical personal care robots (PCR) in medical care facilities. Its precedent instruments (Privacy and Surveillance Impact Assessment (PIA and SIA)) fall behind in coping with robots. Indeed, personal care robots change dramatically how care is delivered. The paper presents a specific risk-sector methodology, identifies which robots are under its scope and presents some of the challenges introduced by these robots.

Keywords: ethics, impact assessment, law, personal care robots

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Authors: Nina Berding

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Migration and the ensuing diversity are integral parts of urban societies. However, engaging with the urban society and its diversification is rarely perceived as something trivial but rather as a difficult task and a major challenge. A central aspect of the discourse is the current migration of refugees from countries of the southern hemisphere to Europe and the resulting challenges for cities, their municipalities and the civil society as a whole. Based on exploratory field research in a German inner-city neighborhood, it is aimed to show that the discourses about migration and diversity are completely contrary to the everyday life actions of the urban society. Processes of migration that include leaving one’s hometown and moving to other places, searching for ‘safe’ environments or better opportunities are, historically speaking, not a new phenomenon. The urban dwellers have a large repertoire of strategies in managing processes of difference in everyday life situations, guided them well for centuries and also in these contemporary processes with an increased mobility and diversity. So there is obviously a considerable discrepancy between what is practically lived in everyday life, and how it is talked about. The results of the study demonstrate that the current discourse about the challenges of migration seems to legitimize interventions beyond humanist approaches where migrants serve as collective scapegoats for social problems and affected by different discrimination and criminalization processes. On the one hand, everyone takes advantage of the super-mobility and super-diversity in their daily lives and on the other hand, powerful stakeholders and designated authorities operate a sort of retro- nationalism and identity collectivism. Political players, the municipalities and other stakeholders then follow an urban public policy that takes actions (increasing police presence, concepts and activities for special groups, exclusion from active social life, preventing participation etc.) towards different ‘groups’ of residents, produced along ‘ethnic’ lines. The results also show that, despite the obstacles and adversities placed in their way, the excluded residents perpetually relocate and re-position themselves and attempt to empower themselves by redefining their identities in their neighborhood.

Keywords: coexistence, everyday life, migration and diversity regimes, urban policy

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Authors: Maha E. Ibrahim, Mona Abdel Aziz

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Background: Chronic low back pain (CLBP) in urban communities represents a challenge to healthcare systems worldwide. The traditional biomedical approach to back pain has been particularly inadequate. Failure of the biomedical model to explain the poor correlation between pain and disability on the one hand, and biological and physical factors that explain those symptoms on the other has led to the adoption of the biopsychosocial model, to recognize the reciprocal influence of physical, social and psychological factors implicated in CLBP, a condition that shows higher prevalence among women residing in urban areas. Urban design of the built community has been shown to exert a significant influence on physical and psychological health. However, little research has investigated the relationship between elements of the built environment, and the level of pain and disability of women with CLBP. As Egypt embarks on building a new capital city, and new settlements proliferate, better understanding of this relationship could greatly reduce the economic and human costs of this widespread medical problem for women. Methods: This study was designed as an exploratory mixed qualitative and quantitative study. Twenty-Six women with CLBP living in two neighborhoods in Cairo, different in their urban structure, but adjacent in their locations (Old Maadi and New Maadi) were interviewed using semi-structured interviews (8 from Old Maadi and 18 from New Maadi). Located in the South of Cairo, New Maadi is a neighborhood with the characteristic modern urban style (narrow streets and tall, adjacent buildings), while Old Maadi is known for being greener, quieter and more relaxed than the usual urban districts of Cairo. The interviews examined their perceptions of the built environment, including building shapes and colors and street light, as well as their sense of safety and comfort, and how it affects their physical and psychological health in general, and their back condition in particular. In addition, they were asked to rate their level of pain and to fill the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) to rate their level of disability and psychological status, respectively. Results: Women in both districts had moderate to severe pain and moderate disability with no significant differences between the two districts. However, those living in New Maadi had significantly worse scores on the GHQ-12 than those living in Old Maadi. Most women did not feel that specific elements of the built environment affected their back pain, however, they expressed distress of the elements that were ugly, distorted or damaged, especially where there were no ways of avoiding or fixing them. Furthermore, most women affirmed that the unsightly and uncomfortable elements of their neighborhoods affected their mood states and were a constant source of stress. Conclusion: This exploratory study concludes that elements of the urban built environment do not exert a direct effect on CLBP. However, the perception of women regarding these elements does affect their mood states, and their levels of stress, making them a possible indirect cause of increased suffering in these women.

Keywords: built environment, chronic back pain, disability, urban Cairo

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Authors: Al-Juhaishi Mohammed, Mikael Motelica-Heino, Fabrice Muller, Audrey Guirimand-Dufour, Christian Défarge

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This study aims at improving the urban hydrological cycle of the Orléans agglomeration (France) and understanding the relationship between physical and chemical parameters of urban surface runoff and the hydrological conditions. In particular water quality parameters such as pH, conductivity, total dissolved solids, major dissolved cations and anions, and chemical and biological oxygen demands were monitored for three types of urban water discharges (wastewater treatment plant output (WWTP), storm overflow and stormwater outfall) under two hydrologic scenarii (dry and wet weather). The first results were obtained over a period of five months.Each investigated (Ormes and l’Egoutier) outfall represents an urban runoff source that receives water from runoff roads, gutters, the irrigation of gardens and other sources of flow over the Earth’s surface that drains in its catchments and carries it to the Loire River. In wet weather conditions there is rain water runoff and an additional input from the roof gutters that have entered the stormwater system during rainfall. For the comparison the results La Chilesse is a storm overflow that was selected in our study as a potential source of waste water which is located before the (WWTP).The comparison of the physical-chemical parameters (total dissolved solids, turbidity, pH, conductivity, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), concentration of major cations and anions) together with the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD) helped to characterize sources of runoff waters in the different watersheds. It also helped to highlight the infiltration of wastewater in some stormwater systems that reject directly in the Loire River. The values of the conductivity measured in the outflow of Ormes were always higher than those measured in the other two outlets. The results showed a temporal variation for the Ormes outfall of conductivity from 1465 µS cm-1 in the dry weather flow to 650 µS cm-1 in the wet weather flow and also a spatial variation in the wet weather flow from 650 µS cm-1 in the Ormes outfall to 281 μS cm-1 in L’Egouttier outfall. The ultimate BOD (BOD28) showed a significant decrease in La Corne outfall from 210 mg L-1 in the wet weather flow to 75 mg L-1 in the dry weather flow because of the nutrient load that was transported by the runoff.

Keywords: BOD, COD, the Loire River, urban hydrology, urban dry and wet weather discharges, macronutrients

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Authors: Shuwen Hu, Yuancheng Lou, Dongxu Ji

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Photovoltaic (PV) power generation, as one of the most commercialized methods to utilize solar power, can only convert a limited range of solar spectrum into electricity, whereas the majority of the solar energy is dissipated as heat. To address this problem, thermoelectric (TE) module is often integrated with the concentrated PV module for waste heat recovery and regeneration. In this research, a feasibility analysis is conducted for the tandem concentrated photovoltaic-thermoelectric (CPV-TE) hybrid system considering various operational parameters as well as TE material properties. Furthermore, the power output density of the CPV-TE hybrid system is maximized by selecting the optimal TE material with application of a systematic assessment methodology. In the feasibility analysis, CPV-TE is found to be more advantageous than sole CPV system except under high optical concentration ratio with low cold side convective coefficient. It is also shown that the effects of the TE material properties, including Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, and electrical resistivity, on the feasibility of CPV-TE are interacted with each other and might have opposite effect on the system performance under different operational conditions. In addition, the optimal TE material selected by the proposed assessment methodology can improve the system power output density by 227 W/m2 under highly concentrated solar irradiance hence broaden the feasible range of CPV-TE considering optical concentration ratio.

Keywords: feasibility analysis, material assessment methodology, photovoltaic waste heat recovery, tandem photovoltaic-thermoelectric

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Authors: Francesca Croce

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Governmental development strategies aimed at entrepreneurship as a major resource for economic development and poverty reduction of indigenous people. As initiatives and programs are local based, there is a need to better understand the contextual factors of indigenous entrepreneurial models. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to analyze and integrated the indigenous entrepreneurship literature in order to identify the main models of indigenous entrepreneurship. To answer this need, a systematic literature review was conducted. Relevant articles were identified in selected electronic databases (ABI/Inform Global, Business Source Premier, Web of Science; International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, Academic Search, Sociological Abstract, Entrepreneurial Studies Sources and Bibliography of Native North America) and in selected electronic review. Beginning to 1st January 1995 (first International Day of the World’s Indigenous People), 59 academic articles were selected from 1411. Through systematic analysis of the cultural, social and organizational variables, the paper highlights that a typology of indigenous entrepreneurial models is possible thought the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystem, which includes the geographical position and the environment of the indigenous communities. The results show three models of indigenous entrepreneurship: the urban indigenous entrepreneurship, the semi-urban indigenous entrepreneurship, and rural indigenous entrepreneurship. After the introduction, the paper is organized as follows. In the first part theoretical and practical needs of a systematic literature review on indigenous entrepreneurship are provided. In the second part, the methodology, the selection process and evaluation of the articles are explained. In the third part, findings are presented and each indigenous entrepreneurial model characteristics are discussed. The results of this study bring a new theorization about indigenous entrepreneurship and may be useful for scientists in the field in search of overcoming the cognitive border of Indigenous business models still too little known. Also, the study is addressed to policy makers in charge of indigenous entrepreneurial development strategies more focused on contextual factors studies.

Keywords: community development, entrepreneurial ecosystem, indigenous entrepreneurship model, indigenous people, systematic literature review

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Authors: Chen Wang, Qiuxiao Chen

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With the advent of the information age and the era of big data, urban planning research is no longer satisfied with the analysis and application of traditional data. Because of the limitations of traditional urban commercial center system research, big data provides new opportunities for urban research. Therefore, based on the quantitative evaluation method of big data, the commercial center system of the main city of Hangzhou is analyzed and evaluated, and the scale and hierarchical structure characteristics of the urban commercial center system are studied. In order to make up for the shortcomings of the existing POI extraction method, it proposes a POI extraction method based on adaptive adjustment of search window, which can accurately and efficiently extract the POI data of commercial business in the main city of Hangzhou. Through the visualization and nuclear density analysis of the extracted Point of Interest (POI) data, the current situation of the commercial center system in the main city of Hangzhou is evaluated. Then it compares with the commercial center system structure of 'Hangzhou City Master Plan (2001-2020)', analyzes the problems existing in the planned urban commercial center system, and provides corresponding suggestions and optimization strategy for the optimization of the planning of Hangzhou commercial center system. Then get the following conclusions: The status quo of the commercial center system in the main city of Hangzhou presents a first-level main center, a two-level main center, three third-level sub-centers, and multiple community-level business centers. Generally speaking, the construction of the main center in the commercial center system is basically up to standard, and there is still a big gap in the construction of the sub-center and the regional-level commercial center, further construction is needed. Therefore, it proposes an optimized hierarchical functional system, organizes commercial centers in an orderly manner; strengthens the central radiation to drive surrounding areas; implements the construction guidance of the center, effectively promotes the development of group formation and further improves the commercial center system structure of the main city of Hangzhou.

Keywords: business center system, business format, main city of Hangzhou, POI extraction method

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Authors: N. Porzionato, M. Mantiñan, E. Bussi, S. Grinberg, R. Gutierrez, G. Curutchet

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This work sets out to debate the tensions involved in the processes of contamination and self-purification in the urban space, particularly in the streams that run through the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. For much of their course, those streams are piped; their waters do not come into contact with the outdoors until they have reached deeply impoverished urban areas with high levels of environmental contamination. These are peripheral zones that, until thirty years ago, were marshlands and fields. They are now densely populated areas largely lacking in urban infrastructure. The Cárcova neighborhood, where this project is underway, is in the José León Suárez section of General San Martín country, Buenos Aires province. A stretch of José León Suarez canal crosses the neighborhood. Starting upstream, this canal carries pollutants due to the sewage and industrial waste released into it. Further downstream, in the neighborhood, domestic drainage is poured into the stream. In this paper, we formulate a hypothesis diametrical to the one that holds that these neighborhoods are the primary source of contamination, suggesting instead that in the stretch of the canal that runs through the neighborhood the stream’s waters are actually cleaned and the sediments accumulate pollutants. Indeed, the stretches of water that runs through these neighborhoods act as water processing plants for the metropolis. This project has studied the different organic-load polluting contributions to the water in a certain stretch of the canal, the reduction of that load over the course of the canal, and the incorporation of pollutants into the sediments. We have found that the surface water has considerable ability to self-purify, mostly due to processes of sedimentation and adsorption. The polluting load is accumulated in the sediments where that load stabilizes slowly by means of anaerobic processes. In this study, we also investigated the risks of sediment management and the use of the processes studied here in controlled conditions as tools of environmental restoration.

Keywords: bioremediation, pollutants, sediments, urban streams

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Authors: Yibei Ye, Lei Xu, Zhenyu Cao

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Ancient town is a unique carrier of urban culture, maintaining the core culture of a region and continuing the urban context. Fengqiao, a nearly 2000-year-old town was on the brink of dilapidation in the past few decades. The town faced such problems as poor construction quality, environmental degeneration, inadequate open space, cultural characteristics and industry vitality. Therefore, the research upholds the principle of ‘organic renewal’ and puts forward three practical updated strategies which are ‘Repair Old as Ever,' ‘Activate Function’ and ‘Fill in with The New’. Also as a participant in updating the design, the author aims to ‘keep the memory of the history and see the development of the present’ as the goal of updating the design and regards the process of town renewal as the experimental venue for realizing this purpose. The research will sum up innovations on the designing process and the engineering progress in the past two years, and find out the innovation experiment and the effect of its implementation on the methodological level of the organic renewal design in Fengqiao ancient town. From here, we can also enjoy the very characteristic development trend presented by China in the design practice of the organic renewal in the ancient town.

Keywords: characteristic town, Fengqiao, organic renewal, urban memory

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Authors: J. Banski

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Regardless of residence place, the type of business and the social system, an individual or groups of people use the accumulated knowledge and continuously deepen and expand its scope. Knowledge is needed by human beings to carry out certain tasks, achieve desired goals or make decisions. Knowledge is an attribute of the people of a region and is identified with the total experience and information that its residents and institutions possess, including the ability to use it. It is subject to constant development, which is the result of both the deepening and exchange of knowledge among the residents of a particular area, as well as the influx of knowledge with newly arriving residents. A good example of the aforementioned processes is in rural areas, where we are dealing with two basic groups of people between whom knowledge transfer takes place. The first group is made up of people who have lived in the village for a long time, while the second group is made up of people who migrate temporarily or permanently to the countryside. The English-language literature uses the terms oldtimers and newcomers for these groups, respectively. Newcomers, usually possessing different life experiences, cultural patterns and competencies, can be rich sources of knowledge for villagers. At the same time, the latter, with different knowledge and experience, along with knowledge of local conditions and customs, can also be an important source of knowledge for incomers to the countryside. The countryside is a particularly interesting environment for studying social interactions and the accompanying transfer of knowledge. This is because it is characterized by a high intensity of neighborly contact and a high level of trust in the private sphere. As a result of the migratory influx of new residents, the social and cultural image of the countryside is changing due to the interpenetration of urban and rural life patterns. Research on rural-urban knowledge transfer is both an opportunity to halt negative trends in the social and economic development of rural areas and support the establishment of a basis for rural renewal. This paper discusses the results of research on urban-rural knowledge transfer based on case studies carried out in a dozen villages from different regions of Poland. Their purpose was to answer three basic research questions: 1) what types of knowledge are transferred between urban and rural residents? 2) what are the main directions and intensity in knowledge transfer? And 3) what are the consequences of knowledge transfer between urban and rural residents?

Keywords: rural areas, villages, newcomers, knowledge transfer, Poland

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Authors: Elise Machline

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In the late 1980’s, sustainable urban development emerged in Europe. Sustainable neighborhoods are one attempt to implement sustainable urban energy planning in the city. So, for twenty years, projects of sustainable neighborhoods (or ‘eco-neighborhoods’) have emerged in Europe. Debates about sustainability no longer restrict it to environmental concerns (to limit greenhouse gas emissions), but rather extend to the economic and social dimensions. A growing number of empirical studies demonstrate that sustainable urbanism yield rental/sale premia, as well as higher occupancy rates and thus higher asset values. For example, European eco neighborhood projects usually focus on the middle to upper classes, given the costs involved in renting or buying the dwellings built in such projects. As a result sustainable residential buildings are not affordable and their construction tends to have a gentrifying effect. An increasing number of countries are institutionalizing green strategies for affordable housing. In France, the sustainable neighborhoods ‘ecoquartier’ must meet environmental performance criteria, have a potential for economic development and, provide social and functional diversity. The issue of social diversity trough the provision of affordable housing has emerged as a dimension of public housing policies. Thus, the ecoquartier residential buildings must be both energy efficient and affordable. Through the Parisian example our study considers how the concept of social diversity and other elements of sustainability are illustrated in the ecoquartiers and whether the authorities have been able to avoid gentrification when implementing a sustainable urban policy.

Keywords: sustainable neighborhoods, social diversity, social housing policies, green buildings

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