Search results for: Urban households.

Authors: Claudia Carbajal, Jija Dutt, Smriti Pahwa, Sumukhi Vaid, Karishma Vats

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ASER Centre, the research and assessment arm of Pratham Education Foundation sees measurement as the first stage of action. ASER uses primary research to push and give empirical foundations to policy discussions at a multitude of levels. At a household level, common citizens use a simple assessment (a floor-level test) to measure learning across rural India. This paper presents the evidence on the applicability of an ASER approach to the health sector. A citizen-led assessment was designed and executed that collected information from young mothers with children up to a year of age. The pilot assessments were rolled-out in two different models: Paid surveyors and student volunteers. The survey covered three geographic areas: 1,239 children in the Jaipur District of Rajasthan, 2,086 in the Rae Bareli District of Uttar Pradesh, and 593 children in the Bhuj Block in Gujarat. The survey tool was designed to study knowledge of health-related issues, daily practices followed by young mothers and access to relevant services and programs. It provides insights on behaviors related to infant and young child feeding practices, child and maternal nutrition and supplementation, water and sanitation, and health services. Moreover, the survey studies the reasons behind behaviors giving policy-makers actionable pathways to improve implementation of social sector programs. Although data on health outcomes are available, this approach could provide a rapid annual assessment of health issues with indicators that are easy to understand and act upon so that measurements do not become an exclusive domain of experts. The results give many insights into early childhood health behaviors and challenges. Around 98% of children are breastfed, and approximately half are not exclusively breastfed (for the first 6 months). Government established diet diversity guidelines are met for less than 1 out of 10 children. Although most households are satisfied with the quality of drinking water, most tested households had contaminated water.

Keywords: Citizen-led assessment, infant and young children feeding, maternal nutrition, rapid health assessment supplementation, water and sanitation.

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Authors: H. Dujmic, V. Papic, H. Turic

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The article presents a new method for detection of artificial objects and materials from images of the environmental (non-urban) terrain. Our approach uses the hue and saturation (or Cb and Cr) components of the image as the input to the segmentation module that uses the mean shift method. The clusters obtained as the output of this stage have been processed by the decision-making module in order to find the regions of the image with the significant possibility of representing human. Although this method will detect various non-natural objects, it is primarily intended and optimized for detection of humans; i.e. for search and rescue purposes in non-urban terrain where, in normal circumstances, non-natural objects shouldn-t be present. Real world images are used for the evaluation of the method.

Keywords: Landscape surveillance, mean shift algorithm, image segmentation, target detection.

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Authors: Sophie Sturup

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Mega urban transport projects (MUTPs) are increasingly being used in urban environments to ameliorate the problem of congestion. However, a number of problems with regard to mega projects have been identified. In particular the seemingly institutionalised over estimation of economic benefits and persistent cost over runs, could mean that the wrong projects are selected, and that the projects that are selected cost more than they should. Studies to date have produced a number of solutions to these problems, perhaps most notably, the various methods for the inclusion of the private sector in project provision. However the problems have shown significant intractability in the face of these solutions. This paper provides a detailed examination of some of the problems facing mega projects and then examines Foucault-s theory of 'governmentality' as a possible frame of analysis which might shed light on the intractability of the problems that have been identified, through an identification of the art of government in which MUTPs occur.

Keywords: Michel Foucault, Governmentality, Mega projects, Transport.

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Authors: Denis Câprâroiu

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The city of Suceava, one of the most important medieval capital of Moldova, owes its urban genesis to the power center established in its territory at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Freed from the effective control exercised by the Emir Nogai through Alanians, the local center of power evolved as the main representative of the interests of indigenous people in relation to the Hungarian Angevin dinasty and to their representatives from Maramures. From this perspective, the political and military role of the settlement of Suceava was archeologically proved by the discovery of extensive fortifications, unrivaled in the first half of the XIVth century-s Moldavia. At the end of that century, voivod Peter I decides to move the capital of the state from Siret to Suceava. That option stimulated the development of the settlement on specific urban coordinates.

Keywords: Moldova, Suceava, voivod, capital.

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Authors: Ahmad Mansoor Stanikzai, Yoshitaka Kajita

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This research is a very essential towards transportation planning of Kabul New City. In this research, the travel demand of Kabul metropolitan area (Existing and Kabul New City) are evaluated for three different target years (2015, current, 2025, mid-term, 2040, long-term). The outcome of this study indicates that, though currently the vehicle volume is less the capacity of existing road networks, Kabul city is suffering from daily traffic congestions. This is mainly due to lack of transportation management, the absence of proper policies, improper public transportation system and violation of traffic rules and regulations by inhabitants. On the other hand, the observed result indicates that the current vehicle to capacity ratio (VCR) which is the most used index to judge traffic status in the city is around 0.79. This indicates the inappropriate traffic condition of the city. Moreover, by the growth of population in mid-term (2025) and long-term (2040) and in the case of no development in the road network and transportation system, the VCR value will dramatically increase to 1.40 (2025) and 2.5 (2040). This can be a critical situation for an urban area from an urban transportation perspective. Thus, by introducing high-capacity public transportation system and the development of road network in Kabul New City and integrating these links with the existing city road network, significant improvements were observed in the value of VCR.

Keywords: Afghanistan, Kabul New City, planning, policy, urban transportation.

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Authors: Bo Yang, Christopher Monterola

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Urban intersection control without the use of the traffic light has the potential to vastly improve the efficiency of the urban traffic flow. For most proposals in the literature, such lightless intersection control depends on the mass market commercialization of highly intelligent autonomous vehicles (AV), which limits the prospects of near future implementation. We present an efficient lightless intersection traffic control scheme that only requires Level 1 AV as defined by NHTSA. The technological barriers of such lightless intersection control are thus very low. Our algorithm can also accommodate a mixture of AVs and conventional vehicles. We also carry out large scale numerical analysis to illustrate the feasibility, safety and robustness, comfort level, and control efficiency of our intersection control scheme.

Keywords: Intersection control, autonomous vehicles, traffic modelling, intelligent transport system.

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Authors: Fujian Wang, Shubin Ruan, Meiwei Dai

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Speed dispersion has tight relation to traffic safety. In this paper, several kinds of indicating parameters (the standard speed deviation, the coefficient of variation, the deviation of V85 and V15, the mean speed deviations, and the difference between adjacent car speeds) are applied to investigate the characteristics of speed dispersion, where V85 and V15 are 85th and 15th percentile speed, respectively. Their relationships are into full investigations and the results show that: there exists a positive relation (linear) between mean speed and the deviation of V85 and V15; while a negative relation (quadratic) between traffic flow and standard speed deviation. The mean speed deviation grows exponentially with mean speed while the absolute speed deviation between adjacent cars grows linearly with the headway. The results provide some basic information for traffic management.

Keywords: Headway, indicating parameters, speed dispersion, urban expressway.

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Authors: Mildred Moreno Villanueva

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Public space is essential to strengthen the social and urban fabric and the social cohesion; there lies the importance of its study. Hence, the aim of this paper is to analyze the quality of public space in the XXI century in both quantitative and qualitative terms. In this article, the concept of public space includes open spaces such as parks, public squares and walking areas. To make this analysis, we take Mexico City as the case study. It has a population of nearly 9 million inhabitants and is composed of sixteen boroughs. For this analysis, we consider both existing public spaces and the government intervention for building and improving new and existent public spaces. Results show that on the one hand, quantitatively there is not an equitable distribution of public spaces due to both the growth of the city itself as well as due to the absence of political will to create public spaces. Another factor is the evolution of this city, which has been growing merely in a “patched pattern”, where public space has played no role at all with a total absence of urban design. On the other hand, qualitatively, even the boroughs with the most public spaces have not shown interest in making these spaces qualitatively inclusive and open to the general population aiming for integration. Therefore, urban projects that privatize public space seem to be the rule, rather than a rehabilitation effort of the existent public spaces. Hence, state intervention should reinforce its role as an agent of social change acting in benefit of the majority of the inhabitants with the promotion of more inclusive public spaces.

Keywords: Exclusion, inclusion, Mexico City, public space.

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Authors: Sivapan Choo-In

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The main objective of this study was to investigate particulate matter concentration on main and secondary roadsides in urban area and study the concentration of some heavy metals including lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu) and cadmium (Cd) in particulate matter in the Bangkok area.     

  The averaged particle concentration for main roadsides is higher than secondary roadsides. The particulate matter less than 10 micron concentration contribute the majority of the Total Suspended Particulate matter for main roads and zinc concentrations were higher than copper and lead for both sites.

Keywords: Air Pollution, Air Quality, Pollution and monitoring.

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Authors: R. Tamborrino, F. Rinaudo

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Digital technologies offer possibilities to effectively convert historical archives into instruments of knowledge able to provide a guide for the interpretation of historical phenomena. Digital conversion and management of those documents allow the possibility to add other sources in a unique and coherent model that permits the intersection of different data able to open new interpretations and understandings. Urban history uses, among other sources, the inventories that register human activities in a specific space (e.g. cadastres, censuses, etc.). The geographic localisation of that information inside cartographic supports allows for the comprehension and visualisation of specific relationships between different historical realities registering both the urban space and the peoples living there. These links that merge the different nature of data and documentation through a new organisation of the information can suggest a new interpretation of other related events. In all these kinds of analysis, the use of GIS platforms today represents the most appropriate answer. The design of the related databases is the key to realise the ad-hoc instrument to facilitate the analysis and the intersection of data of different origins. Moreover, GIS has become the digital platform where it is possible to add other kinds of data visualisation. This research deals with the industrial development of Turin at the beginning of the 20th century. A census of factories realized just prior to WWI provides the opportunity to test the potentialities of GIS platforms for the analysis of urban landscape modifications during the first industrial development of the town. The inventory includes data about location, activities, and people. GIS is shaped in a creative way linking different sources and digital systems aiming to create a new type of platform conceived as an interface integrating different kinds of data visualisation. The data processing allows linking this information to an urban space, and also visualising the growth of the city at that time. The sources, related to the urban landscape development in that period, are of a different nature. The emerging necessity to build, enlarge, modify and join different buildings to boost the industrial activities, according to their fast development, is recorded by different official permissions delivered by the municipality and now stored in the Historical Archive of the Municipality of Turin. Those documents, which are reports and drawings, contain numerous data on the buildings themselves, including the block where the plot is located, the district, and the people involved such as the owner, the investor, and the engineer or architect designing the industrial building. All these collected data offer the possibility to firstly re-build the process of change of the urban landscape by using GIS and 3D modelling technologies thanks to the access to the drawings (2D plans, sections and elevations) that show the previous and the planned situation. Furthermore, they access information for different queries of the linked dataset that could be useful for different research and targets such as economics, biographical, architectural, or demographical. By superimposing a layer of the present city, the past meets to the present-industrial heritage, and people meet urban history.

Keywords: Digital urban history, census, digitalisation, GIS, modelling, digital humanities.

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Authors: Wei Bin Shen

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Lou Gang world irrigation project heritage in Taihu Lake is a systematic irrigation project integrating water conservancy, ecology and culture. Through the methods of historical documents and field investigation, this paper deeply analyzes the formation history, connotation and value of Lou Gang polder system: Lou Gang heritage, describes in detail the relationship between Lou Gang polder system in Taihu Lake and the development and evolution of Huzhou City, and initially explores the protection and Utilization Strategies of Lou Gang water conservancy cultural heritage resources in Taihu Lake from the current situation.

Keywords: Lou Gang, protection strategy, urban evolution, water conservancy cultural heritage.

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Authors: Tianjie Zhang, Bingqian Cheng, Peng Zeng

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Engineering science and technology progress and innovation have become an important engine to promote social development. The reform exploration of "new engineering" in China has drawn extensive attention around the world, with its connotation as "to cultivate future diversified, innovative and outstanding engineering talents by taking ‘fostering character and civic virtue’ as the guide, responding to changes and shaping the future as the construction concept, and inheritance and innovation, crossover and fusion, coordination and sharing as the principal approach". In this context, Tianjin University, as a traditional Chinese university with advantages in engineering, further launched the CCII (Coherent-Collaborative-Interdisciplinary-Innovation) program, raising the cultivation idea of integrating new liberal arts education, multidisciplinary engineering education and personalized professional education. As urban planning practice in China has undergone the evolution of "physical planning -- comprehensive strategic planning -- resource management-oriented planning", planning education has also experienced the transmutation process of "building foundation -- urban scientific foundation -- multi-disciplinary integration". As a characteristic and advantageous discipline of Tianjin University, the major of Urban and Rural Planning, in accordance with the "CCII Program of Tianjin University", aims to build China's top and world-class major, and implements the following educational reform measures: 1. Adding corresponding English courses, such as advanced course on GIS Analysis, courses on comparative studies in international planning involving ecological resources and the sociology of the humanities, etc. 2. Holding "Academician Forum", inviting international academicians to give lectures or seminars to track international frontier scientific research issues. 3. Organizing "International Joint Workshop" to provide students with international exchange and design practice platform. 4. Setting up a business practice base, so that students can find problems from practice and solve them in an innovative way. Through these measures, the Urban and Rural Planning major of Tianjin University has formed a talent training system with multi-disciplinary cross integration and orienting to the future science and technology.

Keywords: China, higher education reform, innovation, new engineering education, rural and urban planning, Tianjin University.

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Authors: Sulaiman Yunus

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The need for modeling response to urban fire disaster cannot be over emphasized, as recurrent fire outbreaks have gutted most cities of the world. This necessitated the need for a prompt and efficient response system in order to mitigate the impact of the disaster. Promptness, as a function of time, is seen to be the fundamental determinant for efficiency of a response system and magnitude of a fire disaster. Delay, as a result of several factors, is one of the major determinants of promptgness of a response system and also the magnitude of a fire disaster. Response Delay Model (RDM) intends to bridge the gap in urban fire disaster response system through incorporating and synchronizing the delay moments in measuring the overall efficiency of a response system and determining the magnitude of a fire disaster. The model identified two delay moments (pre-notification and Intra-reflex sequence delay) that can be elastic and collectively plays a significant role in influencing the efficiency of a response system. Due to variation in the elasticity of the delay moments, the model provides for measuring the length of delays in order to arrive at a standard average delay moment for different parts of the world, putting into consideration geographic location, level of preparedness and awareness, technological advancement, socio-economic and environmental factors. It is recommended that participatory researches should be embarked on locally and globally to determine standard average delay moments within each phase of the system so as to enable determining the efficiency of response systems and predicting fire disaster magnitudes.

Keywords: Delay moment, fire disaster, reflex sequence, response, response delay moment.

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Authors: Hamzah Jusoh, Azmizam Abdul Rashid

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Malaysia has successfully applied economic planning to guide the development of the country from an economy of agriculture and mining to a largely industrialised one. Now, with its sights set on attaining the economic level of a fully developed nation by 2020, the planning system must be made even more efficient and focused. It must ensure that every investment made in the country, contribute towards creating the desirable objective of a strong, modern, internationally competitive, technologically advanced, post-industrial economy. Cities in Malaysia must also be fully aware of the enormous competition it faces in a region with rapidly expanding and modernising economies, all contending for the same pool of potential international investments. Efficiency of urban governance is also fundamental issue in development characterized by sustainability, subsidiarity, equity, transparency and accountability, civic engagement and citizenship, and security. As described above, city competitiveness is harnessed through 'city marketing and city management'. High technology and high skilled industries, together with finance, transportation, tourism, business, information and professional services shopping and other commercial activities, are the principal components of the nation-s economy, which must be developed to a level well beyond where it is now. In this respect, Kuala Lumpur being the premier city must play the leading role.

Keywords: Economic planning, sustainability, efficiency, urban governance and city competitiveness.

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Authors: Marwah Mohsin, Thomas Beach, Alan Kwan, Mahdi Ismail

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This paper describes the differences in views on sustainable development between the general public and experts in a developing country, Iraq. This paper will answer the question: How do the views of the public differ from the generally accepted view of experts in the context of sustainable urban development in Iraq? In order to answer this question, the views of both the public and the experts will be analysed. These results are taken from a public survey and a Delphi questionnaire. These will be analysed using statistical methods in order to identify the significant differences. This will enable investigation of the different perceptions between the public perceptions and the experts’ views towards urban sustainable development factors. This is important due to the fact that different viewpoints between policy-makers and the public will impact on the acceptance by the public of any future sustainable development work that is undertaken. The brief findings of the statistical analysis show that the views of both the public and the experts are considered different in most of the variables except six variables show no differences. Those variables are ‘The importance of establishing sustainable cities in Iraq’, ‘Mitigate traffic congestion’, ‘Waste recycling and separating’, ‘Use wastewater recycling’, ‘Parks and green spaces’, and ‘Promote investment’.

Keywords: Urban sustainable development, experts’ views, public views, statistical analysis.

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Authors: Dimitra Alexiou, Stefanos Katsavounis, Ria Kalfakakou

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In an urban area the determination of transportation routes should be planned so as to minimize the provoked pollution taking into account the cost of such routes. In the sequel these routes are cited as pollution routes.

The transportation network is expressed by a weighted graph G=(V,E,D,P) where every vertex represents a location to be served and E contains unordered pairs (edges) of elements in V that indicate a simple road. The distances / cost and a weight that depict the provoked air pollution by a vehicle transition at every road are assigned to each road as well. These are the items of set D and P respectively.

Furthermore the investigated pollution routes must not exceed predefined corresponding values concerning the route cost and the route pollution level during the vehicle transition.

In this paper we present an algorithm that generates such routes in order that the decision maker selects the most appropriate one. 

Keywords: bi-criteria, pollution, shortest paths.

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Authors: Stephanie Fabris Russo, Daiane Costa Guimarães, Jonas Pedro Fabris, Maria Emilia Camargo, Suzana Leitão Russo, José Augusto Andrade Filho

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Among renewable energy sources, solar energy is the one that has stood out. Solar radiation can be used as a thermal energy source and can also be converted into electricity by means of effects on certain materials, such as thermoelectric and photovoltaic panels. These panels are often used to generate energy in homes, buildings, arenas, etc., and have low pollution emissions. Thus, a technological prospecting was performed to find patents related to the use of photovoltaic plates in urban residences. The patent search was based on ESPACENET, associating the keywords photovoltaic and home, where we found 136 patent documents in the period of 1994-2015 in the fields title and abstract. Note that the years 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 had the highest number of applicants, with respectively, 11, 13, 23, 29, 15 and 21. Regarding the country that deposited about this technology, it is clear that China leads with 67 patent deposits, followed by Japan with 38 patents applications. It is important to note that most depositors, 50% are companies, 44% are individual inventors and only 6% are universities. On the International Patent classification (IPC) codes, we noted that the most present classification in results was H02J3/38, which represents provisions in parallel to feed a single network by two or more generators, converters or transformers. Among all categories, there is the H session, which means Electricity, with 70% of the patents.

Keywords: Prospecting, technology forecasting, photovoltaic, urban residences.

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Authors: Kaveh Shahi, Helmi Z. M. Shafri, Ebrahim Taherzadeh

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In remote sensing, shadow causes problems in many applications such as change detection and classification. It is caused by objects which are elevated, thus can directly affect the accuracy of information. For these reasons, it is very important to detect shadows particularly in urban high spatial resolution imagery which created a significant problem. This paper focuses on automatic shadow detection based on a new spectral index for multispectral imagery known as Shadow Detection Index (SDI). The new spectral index was tested on different areas of WorldView-2 images and the results demonstrated that the new spectral index has a massive potential to extract shadows with accuracy of 94% effectively and automatically. Furthermore, the new shadow detection index improved road extraction from 82% to 93%.

Keywords: Spectral index, shadow detection, remote sensing images, WorldView-2.

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Authors: Aïssa Rezzoug

Abstract:

This paper is aimed to bring new elements that demonstrate the tide caused the groundwater to rise in the shoreline band, on which the urban areas occurs, especially in the western coastal cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia like Jeddah. The reason for the last events of Jeddah inundation was the groundwater rise in the city coupled at the same time to a strong precipitation event. This paper will illustrate the tide participation in increasing the groundwater level significantly. It shows that the reason for internal groundwater recharge within the urban area is not only the excess of the water supply coming from surrounding areas, due to the human activity, with lack of sufficient and efficient sewage system, but also due to tide effect. The research study follows a quantitative method to assess groundwater level rise risks through many in-situ measurements and mathematical modelling. The proposed approach highlights groundwater level, in the urban areas of the city on the shoreline band, reaching the high tide level without considering any input from precipitation. Despite the small tide in the Red Sea compared to other oceanic coasts, the groundwater level is considerably enhanced by the tide from the seaside and by the freshwater table from the landside of the city. In these conditions, the groundwater level becomes high in the city and prevents the soil to evacuate quickly enough the surface flow caused by the storm event, as it was observed in the last historical flood catastrophe of Jeddah in 2009.

Keywords: Flood, groundwater rise, Jeddah, tide.

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Authors: Z. Liu, K. Cao

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Strategic spatial planning, which is taken as an effective and competitive way for the governors of the city to improve the development and management level of a city, has been blooming in recent years all over the world. In the context of globalization and informatization, strategic spatial planning must transfer its focus on three different levels: global, regional and urban. Internal and external changes in environmental conditions lead to new advances in strategic planning both theoretically and practically. However, such advances or changes respond differently to cities on account of different dynamic mechanisms. This article aims at two cities of Tianjin in China and Melbourne in Australia, through a comparative study on strategic planning, to explore the differentiation of mechanisms in urban planning making. By comparison and exploration, the purpose of this article is to exhibit two different planning worlds between western and Chinese in a new way nowadays.

Keywords: Differentiation, Tianjin China, Melbourne Australia, strategic planning.

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Authors: Marco Raciti Castelli, Ernesto Benini

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This work presents a comparison between the Annual Energy Output (AEO) of two commercial vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) for a low-wind urban site: both a drag-driven and a liftdriven concepts are examined in order to be installed on top of the new Via dei Giustinelli building, Trieste (Italy). The power-curves, taken from the product specification sheets, have been matched to the wind characteristics of the selected installation site. The influence of rotor swept area and rated power on the performance of the two proposed wind turbines have been examined in detail, achieving a correlation between rotor swept area, electrical generator size and wind distribution, to be used as a guideline for the calculation of the AEO.

Keywords: Annual Energy Output, micro-generationtechnology, urban environment, Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine

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Authors: Habibi Said Mustafa, Hiroko Ono

Abstract:

Since 2006, Afghanistan is dealing with one of the most dramatic trend of urban movement in its history, cities and towns are expanding in size and number. Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan and as well as the fast-growing city in the Asia. The influx of the returnees from neighbor countries and other provinces of Afghanistan caused high rate of artificial growth which slums increased. As an unwanted consequence of this growth, today informal settlements have covered a vast portion of the city. Land Readjustment (LR) has proved to be an important tool for developing informal settlements and reorganizing urban areas but its implementation always varies from country to country and region to region within the countries. Consequently, to successfully develop the informal settlements in Kabul, we need to define an Afghan model of LR specifically for Afghanistan which needs to incorporate all those factors related to the socio-economic condition of the country. For this purpose, a part of the old city of Kabul has selected as a study area which is located near the Central Business District (CBD). After the further analysis and incorporating all needed factors, the result shows a positive potential for the implementation of an adaptable Land Readjustment model for Kabul city which is more sustainable and socio-economically friendly. It will enhance quality of life and provide better urban services for the residents. Moreover, it will set a vision and criteria by which sustainable developments shall proceed in other similar informal settlements of Kabul.

Keywords: Adaptation, informal settlements, Kabul, land readjustment, preservation.

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Authors: A. Szabó Nagy, J. Szabó, Zs. Csanádi, J. Erdős

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In Hungary, the measurement of ambient PM10-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations is great importance for a number of reasons related to human health, the environment and compliance with European Union legislation. However, the monitoring of PAHs associated with PM2.5 aerosol fraction is still incomplete. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate the concentration levels of PAHs in PM2.5 urban aerosol fraction. PM2.5 and associated PAHs were monitored in November 2014 in an urban site of Győr (Northwest Hungary). The aerosol samples were collected every day for 24-hours over two weeks with a high volume air sampler provided with a PM2.5 cut-off inlet. The levels of 19 PAH compounds associated with PM2.5 aerosol fraction were quantified by a gas chromatographic method. Polluted air quality for PM2.5 (>25 g/m3) was indicated in 50% of the collected samples. The total PAHs concentrations ranged from 2.1 to 37.3 ng/m3 with the mean value of 12.4 ng/m3. Indeno(123-cd)pyrene (IND) and sum of three benzofluoranthene isomers were the most dominant PAH species followed by benzo(ghi)perylene and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). Using BaP-equivalent approach on the concentration data of carcinogenic PAH species, BaP, and IND contributed the highest carcinogenic exposure equivalent (1.50 and 0.24 ng/m3 on average). A selected number of concentration ratios of specific PAH compounds were calculated to evaluate the possible sources of PAH contamination. The ratios reflected that the major source of PAH compounds in the PM2.5 aerosol fraction of Győr during the study period was fossil fuel combustion from automobiles.

Keywords: Air, PM2.5, benzo(a)pyrene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon.

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Authors: Ari Istiany

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to analyze relationship between gender, BMI, and lifestyle with bone mineral density (BMD) of adolescent in urban areas . The place of this study in Jakarta State University, Indonesia. The number of samples involved as many as 200 people, consisting of 100 men and 100 women. BMD was measured using Quantitative Ultrasound Bone Densitometry. While the questionnaire used to collect data on age, gender, and lifestyle (calcium intake, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, tea, coffee, sports, and sun exposure). Mean age of men and women, respectively as much as 20.7 ± 2.18 years and 21 ± 1.61 years. Mean BMD values of men was 1.084 g/cm ² ± 0.11 while women was 0.976 g/cm ² ± 0.10. Men and women with normal BMD respectively as much as 46.7% and 16.7%. Men and women affected by osteopenia respectively as much as 50% and 80%. Men and women affected by osteoporosis respectively as much as 3.3% and 3.3%. Mean BMI of men and women, respectively as much as 21.4 ± 2.07 kg/m2 and 20.9 ± 2.06 kg/m2. Mean lifestyle score of men and women , respectively as much as 71.9 ± 5.84 and 70.1 ± 5.67 (maximum score 100). Based on Spearman and Pearson Correlation test, there were relationship significantly between gender and lifestyle with BMD.

Keywords: Adolescents, Body Mass Index (BMI), Bone Mineral Density (BMD), gender, and lifestyle.

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Authors: D. Onanena Adegono, P. Altinsoy, A. Schuster, P. Schäfer

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Autonomous vehicles look set to drastically alter the way we move people and goods, in urban as well as rural areas. However, little has been written about Africa with this regard. Moreover, in order for this new technology to be adopted, user acceptance is vital. The current research examines the user acceptance of autonomous minibus shuttles, as a solution for first/last mile public transport in Pretoria, South Africa. Of the respondents surveyed, only 2.31% perceived them as not useful. Respondents showed more interest in using these shuttles in combination with the bus rapid transit system (75.4%) as opposed to other modes of public transportation (40%). The significance of these findings is that they can help ensure that the implementation of autonomous public transport in South Africa is adapted to the local user. Furthermore, these findings could be adapted for other South African cities and other cities across the continent.

Keywords: Autonomous buses and shuttles, autonomous public transport, urban mobility, user acceptance.

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Authors: Encarnación Álvarez, Rosa M. García-Fernández, Francisco J. Blanco-Encomienda, Juan F. Muñoz

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The European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is a popular survey which provides information on income, poverty, social exclusion and living conditions of households and individuals in the European Union. The EU-SILC contains variables which may contain outliers. The presence of outliers can have an impact on the measures and indicators used by the EU-SILC. In this paper, we used data sets from various countries to analyze the presence of outliers. In addition, we obtain some indicators after removing these outliers, and a comparison between both situations can be observed. Finally, some conclusions are obtained.

Keywords: Headcount index, poverty line, risk of poverty, skewness coefficient.

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Authors: Valeria Tatano, Francesca Guidolin, Francesca Peltrera

Abstract:

The preservation of historical Italian heritage, at the urban and architectural scale, has to consider restrictions and requirements connected with conservation issues and usability needs, which are often at odds with historical heritage preservation. Recent decades have been marked by the search for increased accessibility not only of public and private buildings, but to the whole historical city, also for people with disability. Moreover, in the last years the concepts of Smart City and Healthy City seek to improve accessibility both in terms of mobility (independent or assisted) and fruition of goods and services, also for historical cities. The principles of Inclusive Design have introduced new criteria for the improvement of public urban space, between current regulations and best practices. Moreover, they have contributed to transforming “special needs” into an opportunity of social innovation. These considerations find a field of research and analysis in the historical city of Venice, which is at the same time a site of UNESCO world heritage, a mass tourism destination bringing in visitors from all over the world and a city inhabited by an aging population. Due to its conformation, Venetian urban fabric is only partially accessible: about four thousand bridges divide thousands of islands, making it almost impossible to move independently. These urban characteristics and difficulties were the base, in the last 20 years, for several researches, experimentations and solutions with the aim of eliminating architectural barriers, in particular for the usability of bridges. The Venetian Municipality with the EBA Office and some external consultants realized several devices (e.g. the “stepped ramp” and the new accessible ramps for the Venice Marathon) that should determine an innovation for the city, passing from the use of mechanical replicable devices to specific architectural projects in order to guarantee autonomy in use. This paper intends to present the state-of-the-art in bridges accessibility, through an analysis based on Inclusive Design principles and on the current national and regional regulation. The purpose is to evaluate some possible strategies that could improve performances, between limits and possibilities of interventions. The aim of the research is to lay the foundations for the development of a strategic program for the City of Venice that could successfully bring together both conservation and improvement requirements.

Keywords: Accessibility and inclusive design, historical heritage preservation, technological and social innovation.

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Authors: V. Boguslauskas, G. Jakstonyte, L. Giriunas

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Many foreign and Lithuanian scientists, analyzing the evaluation of the tax system in respect of the burden of taxation, agree that the latter, in principle, depends on how many individuals and what units of the residents constitute a household. Therefore, the aim of scientific research is to substantiate or to deny the significance of a household, but not a resident, as a statistical unit, during the evaluation of tax system, to be precise, determination of the value of the burden of taxation. A performed scientific research revealed that evaluation of the tax system in respect of a household, but not a resident, as a statistical unit, allows not only to evaluate the efficiency of the tax system more objectively, but also to forecast practicably existing poverty line, burden of taxation, and to capacitate the initiation of efficient decisions in social and tax fields creating the environment of existence.

Keywords: burden of taxation, household, tax systemevaluation.

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Authors: Alluri Swaroopa, Lakkakula Venkata Narasimha Prasad

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Alone with fast urbanization in world, traffic control became a big issue in urban construction. Having an efficient and reliable traffic control system is crucial to macro-traffic control. Traffic signal is used to manage conflicting requirement by allocating different sets of mutually compatible traffic movement during distinct time interval. Many approaches have been made proposed to solve this discrete stochastic problem. Recognizing the need to minimize right-of-way impacts while efficiently handling the anticipated high traffic volumes, the proposed alternative system gives effective design. This model allows for increased traffic capacity and reduces delays by eliminating a step in maneuvering through the freeway interchange. The concept proposed in this paper involves construction of bridges and ramps at intersection of four roads to control the vehicular congestion and to prevent traffic breakdown.

Keywords: Bridges, junctions, ramps, urban traffic control.

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Authors: Ebrahim Taherzadeh, Helmi Z. M. Shafri, Kaveh Shahi

Abstract:

One of the most important tasks in urban remote sensing is the detection of impervious surfaces (IS), such as roofs and roads. However, detection of IS in heterogeneous areas still remains one of the most challenging tasks. In this study, detection of concrete roof using an object-based approach was proposed. A new rule-based classification was developed to detect concrete roof tile. This proposed rule-based classification was applied to WorldView-2 image and results showed that the proposed rule has good potential to predict concrete roof material from WorldView-2 images, with 85% accuracy.

Keywords: Urban remote sensing, impervious surface, Object- Based, Roof Material, Concrete tile, WorldView-2.

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