Big Urban Areas Research Articles

Seismic evaluation of Site-City interaction effects between city blocks

In urban environments, buildings are often seismically designed with their standalone response, such as isolated structures devoid of surrounding structures. Nonetheless, there is always a chance that a significant seismic interaction between nearby buildings through the underlying soil will occur in big urban areas with high building densities. This paper evaluates the Site-City interaction (SCI) between different city block arrangements under seismic excitation given different parameters of the buildings and centre-to-centre interbuilding distances. A database of strong ground motion records with Far-Field, Near-Field Without Pulse and Near-Field Pulse-Like characteristics are employed. The results suggest that the SCI effects were strongly influenced by the building properties and resonance effects of the soil stratum. Furthermore, as a mean for all the earthquakes considered here, the SCI can amplify or reduce the seismic response of the buildings, depending on the relative position between the city blocks.

Housing Market in Central European City during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Many aspects of the global economy changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, including the real estate market. This study examines the primary residential property market in Opole during the Covid-19 pandemic. It uses property transaction data from 2018 to 2021 to conduct statistical analyses and independent group tests and also takes into account the real-estate price trend from 2014 to 2020. The study finds that both property prices and preferences relating to the structure and location of housing changed during the pandemic. In the case of Opole, the number of transactions involving residential units in the primary market increased in 2020 compared to previous years. After adjusting the unit price value of residential properties for the trend in the pre-pandemic period, the study finds that there was also an increase in property transaction prices. The study confirms three important facts relating to phenomena that are occurring globally in cities today. First, local communities are more diverse in terms of the economic heterogeneity of real estate buyers. Second, unlike big urban areas, small cities may be more resistant to the process of citizens migrating to suburban areas, thereby limiting the negative phenomenon of urban sprawl. Third, the housing real estate market in small cities is considered a reliable form of investment of assets, as real estate prices increased during the Covid-19 pandemic.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY OPTIMIZATION OF LAST MILE SUPPLY SYSTEM WITH REVERSE LOGISTICS CONSIDERATION

Last mile supply system takes great importance in the designed supply chain management, especially in the big urban areas, where various goods delivery locations should be tackled. Transportation routes and vehicles play a critical share in the optimization of the energy spent in this system because it is considered a complicated case due to its high solutions possibilities. Also, part of these transport processes is considered reverse logistics, where the goods take the way back, starting from the customer. Using a metaheuristic optimization is usually a good way to increase operations efficiency and save time and energy, next to raising sustainability. Within this paper, the last mile supply system within urban areas focusing on the goods' delivery and collection tasks is presented. The model design is described, mathematical optimization modelling is detailed, and a case study to investigate the impact of using diesel and electric trucks on energy efficiency is solved. After an introduction and theoretical background that includes a brief literature review, the designed system and used methodology are described. The designed system incorporates cloud computing, real routes of vehicles, analysis of collected data, energy consumption optimization, and time windows. Also, a mathematical model is developed with the aim of optimizing the total energy consumption. Real thirty locations in Budapest in the VII district are described and used as a case study for finding the solutions of the optimized taken routes and energy consumption by the genetic algorithm for both diesel and electric trucks. In the end, the results are analyzed and compared against a random solution to clarify the presented optimization's effectiveness.

PALB2 germline mutations in a multi-gene panel testing cohort of 1905 breast-ovarian cancer patients in Argentina

PALB2 variants have been scarcely described in Argentinian and Latin-American reports. In this study, we describe molecular and clinical characteristics of PALB2 mutations found in multi-gene panels (MP) from breast-ovarian cancer (BOC) families in different institutions from Argentina. We retrospectively identified PALB2 pathogenic (PV) and likely pathogenic (LPV) variants from a cohort of 1905 MP results, provided by one local lab (Heritas) and SITHER (Hereditary Tumor Information System) public database. All patients met hereditary BOC clinical criteria for testing, according to current guidelines. The frequency of PALB2 mutations is 2.78% (53/1905). Forty-eight (90.5%) are PV and five (9.5%) are LPV. Most of the 18 different mutations (89%) are nonsense and frameshift types and 2 variants are novel. One high-rate recurrent PV (Y551*) is present in 43% (23/53) of the unrelated index cases. From the 53 affected carriers, 94% have BC diagnosis with 14% of bilateral cases. BC phenotype is mainly invasive ductal (78%) with 62% of hormone-receptor positive and 22% of triple negative tumors. Self-reported ethnic background of the cohort is West European (66%) and native Latin-American (20%) which is representative of Buenos Aires and other big urban areas of the country. This is the first report describing molecular and clinical characteristics of PALB2 carriers in Argentina. Frequency of PALB2 PV in Argentinian HBOC families is higher than in other reported populations. Y551* is a recurrent mutation that seems to be responsible for almost 50% of PALB2 cases.

The walking health: A route choice model to analyze the street factors enhancing active mobility

IntroductionThe promotion of walking for transportation is a promising strategy to address not only the traffic bottlenecks or environmental pollution but also to provide health benefits to the patrons. Nevertheless, as enhancing active modes of transportation, including trips to and from shops-is easier in small or medium cities, it is quite a complex task in big urban areas. MethodsIn the framework of the R + D + i DESPACIO project, in 2018, a street and online survey was carried out in the city of Madrid to gather information about different mobility habits, focusing on pedestrian mobility and on the respondents’ perceptions of issues related to mobility on foot. In order to promote more trips on foot, this study analyzed the factors influencing the walking route choice, other than distance. Some respondents also drew on a map the routes undertaken the previous day, indicating the trip purpose. Using the TransCAD software, the real factors that influenced the respondents when walking were obtained. ResultsThe key factors for selecting the walking routes were those linked to attractiveness (e.g., green areas, amenities, tourist attractions, etc.) and accessibility (e.g., obstacles, pavement width). The purpose of the trip did not change much the results, although they were accentuated when the trips were made for shopping. ConclusionsThe applied methodology confirms that pedestrian streets, with green areas or access facility —and, hence, less noisy and polluted — were those enhancing a walking habit, and they were also the ones preferred by the citizens, who appreciated those attributes above the more classic ones of distance and time. Therefore, the street design and the pedestrian routes were found to be the most suitable to achieve healthier cities and citizens.

A Spatially Highly Resolved Ground Mounted and Rooftop Potential Analysis for Photovoltaics in Austria

Austria aims to meet 100% of its electricity demand from domestic renewable sources by 2030 which means, that an additional 27 TWh/a of renewable electricity generation are required, thereof 11 TWh/a from photovoltaic. While some federal states and municipalities released a solar rooftop cadastre, there is lacking knowledge on the estimation of the potential of both, ground mounted installations and rooftop modules, on a national level with a high spatial resolution. As a first, in this work data on agricultural land-use is combined with highly resolved data on buildings on a national level. Our results show significant differences between urban and rural areas, as well as between the Alpine regions and the Prealpine- and Easter Plain areas. Rooftop potential concentrates in the big urban areas, but also in densely populated areas in Lower- and Upper Austria, Styria and the Rhine valley of Vorarlberg. The ground mounted photovoltaic potential is highest in Eastern Austria. This potential is geographically consistent with the demand and allows for a production close to the consumer. In theory, the goal of meeting 11 TWh/a in 2030 can be achieved solely with the rooftop PV potential. However, considering the necessary installation efforts, the associated costs of small and dispersed production units and finally the inherent uncertainty with respect to the willingness of tens of thousands of individual households to install PV systems, installing the necessary solar PV on buildings alone is constrained.

Integration of Free Floating Car Sharing Systems in Rail Stations: A Web Based Data Analysis

In the last decades, car sharing has been a tool for city planners to reduce private car traffic and pollution in big urban areas. The emergence of the ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), together with the development of the collaborative economy, has allowed for the birth of the new Free-Floating Carsharing (FFCS): A more flexible type of carsharing, in which electric cars can be used. Little research has been devoted using real FFCS flows data, to the FFCS impacts on user behavior and even on the public transport system thus far. Furthermore, in big metropolitan areas, central rail stations should promote modal interchanges, including new modes of electric FFCS systems. The aim of this paper is to design a web-based platform to collect and analyze FFCS demand on the surrounding areas of rail stations and makes a proposal to provide these systems with electrical recharging energy obtained from the regenerative braking of high-speed trains. This case study includes Atocha and Chamartín Central Stations in Madrid (Spain). Scientific evidence shows a high demand of FFCS cars at central rail stations and a trip profile with a short time duration linked to the closest districts of rail stations.

Advanced technology of municipal solid waste conversion for a circular economy

One of the most important environmental problems of the big urban areas is represented by the large volume of waste resulted from different human activities. In the last decades, different technologies have been developed to resolve this significant issue, and the most representative is the conversion of municipal solid waste (MSW) in different types of by-products. The first part of this paper presents the current state of plasma conversion technology that can be used for processing waste, and also, its potential in the construction sector which could be taken advantage of the by-products (syngas and slag) resulted from the plasma gasification of municipal solid waste (MSW), to enhance energy-efficiency in this domain. In the second part of the paper, there are analyzed different technologies for managing and processing municipal solid waste (MSW), which can be used nowadays, and the parameters, related to the costs, the period of use, the energy consumption and the environmental impact. All these aspects are compared with those of plasma conversion technology. The plasma conversion system can be commercialized successfully, and its costs can be reduced by generating income in the form of by-products and added-value in producing performant products in a circular economy.

Nuisance species in lake constance revealed through eDNA

Biological invasions are a global threat to biodiversity especially for aquatic resources. The distribution of alien species is associated with human activities; therefore, exotic species tend to accumulate near big urban areas through different invasion vectors such as ballast water, hull fouling, aquarium and pet releases. The Rhine River region is one of the most economically important in Europe. Around 60 million people live in the river basin that is connected with other large European rivers via the Rhine–Main–Danube shipping canal. The Alpine Rhine flows to Lake Constance, which is the second largest subalpine lake in Europe. Here, eDNA metabarcoding was employed to inventory aquatic species from water samples in six riverine and four lake localities within Lake Constance region. A 313 bp fragment within cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene was PCR amplified using generalist primers for metazoan and sequenced with MiSeq High-Throughput Sequencing platform. Seven invertebrate invasive species and the invasive fish Oncorhynchus mykiss were detected from eDNA. Species-specific primers were employed to confirm metabarcoded species. Most of the invasive species detected in this study correspond to samples from areas around lake ports, followed by other lake and degraded downstream river areas. Samples taken upstream of Lake Constance were free of invertebrate aliens. To establish common regulation and management actions regarding aquatic invasions in the three countries that share Lake Constance is recommended.

DO POST-SOCIALIST URBAN AREAS MAINTAIN THEIR SUSTAINABLE COMPACT FORM? ROMANIAN URBAN AREAS AS CASE STUDY

The compact city is regarded as an important concept in promoting sustainable development, especially within the European Union. The socialist urban planning system maintained a high compactness of the urban areas through almost exclusive predominance of the public sector in housing provision, and ideological nature of the planning strategies. After the 1990’s, the administrative decentralization allowed local authorities to adopt particular urban development strategies. However, development was directly influenced by the importance of the urban administrative centre. The aim of the paper is to determine if post-socialist urban areas maintained their compact urban form or they encountered different evolution trajectories. We determined the type of changes by calculating urban form indicators at two time moments: 1990 and 2006. Furthermore, the two-way repeated-measurement ANOVA was used to identify significant changes, and to assess the effect of the development level of the urban area on the variance of form indicators. The results show that Romanian post-socialist urban areas either shifted from the compact form, "inherited" after the collapse of socialism, to more dispersed patterns, either expanded in a compact manner. Moreover, as development level got higher, urban areas were more likely to be affected by suburbanization and periurbanization. In order to respond to these challenges, new instruments such as setting of metropolitan areas or spatial framework plans could be used. Furthermore, planning should be adapted to local circumstances and to the different development trajectories of big and mid-sized urban areas.

Methodological foundations of assessment of the impact of State construction supervision during reprofiling big urban areas

The stage of construction is one of the main compulsory periods of the life cycle in the formation of construction end-products – capital construction projects of various functional purposes. The compulsory assessment of conformity of buildings and structures, as well as design construction, installation, setting up and recycling (demolition) processes associated with buildings and structures is conducted in Russia in the form of state construction supervision. An assessment results in a document certifying conformity of the actual indicators with the requirements of design, normative (industrial) and legislative documents. Conformity is assessed in accordance with procedural rules depending on the functional purpose of the capital construction project. There are two conformity assessment forms that appear to be similar: “construction inspection” and “state construction supervision”. They both characterize an approach used to assess the conformity of activities of participants in the construction operations (customers, developers, contractors) on formation of construction end-products – capital construction projects. These terms differ in so far as the construction inspection implies control by the customer of operations of contractors. State construction supervision authorities undertake supervisory (including inspection) activities in order to identify and crack down on violations of the requirements of technological regulations or other normative legal acts and design documents, committed by the key players in the construction investment activities (customer, developer, contractors), with the involvement of state authorities.

Growth and Productivity Analysis of Micro Finance Sector: A Case Study of Pakistan

This study reviews the growth strategies and their effect on the efficiency and productivity of the microfinance sector of Pakistan. The sector needs to have adopted intensive growth strategy instead of extensive strategies of wide expansion in term of physical infrastructure and human resources, which had increased the financial sustainability risks for the credit constrain institutions. The sixdimension model of outreach used in this study also shows that the sector does not achieve the targets set forth for these micro finance institutes with respect to its active borrowers’ outreach. The sector has mainly focused the big cities and urban areas whereas the poverty levels are higher in rural areas. The government has also shown its interest by launching two different types of loan schemes. Among the three different types of institution, the microfinance banks dominate the sector.

A Brief Overview on Light Pollution

Rapid urbanisation across the globe has resulted to exponential population boomed inhabiting the big cities and urban areas. Unfortunately, this also means more people are now experiencing light pollution (LP) without ever realising it. Vigorous development and economic growth contributed to a sweeping increase in artificial light usage, which further deteriorate the natural dark sky. Altreration in the circadian rhythm of human, plants and animals and loss of naked-eye observable astronomical bodies, are only among the few of LP impacts. However, LP is considered newly recognised anthropogenic pollution where little initiatives have taken in addressing it. This study employs qualitative method of literatures review with using the 4W1H questions (i.e What, When, Which, Why and How) derived from an online search query data visualisation tool called “Answer The Public”. These keyword questions act as a guideline in providing general overview on LP issue while answering commonly asked questions by the Internet users. Furthermore, this paper attempts to foresee future directions in LP research.

The social representations of cycling practices: An analysis of symbolic, emotional, material and bodily components, and their implication for policies

Drawing on social representation theory and its connections with approaches to embodiment and social practice, the paper reports the result of a survey investigation (based on an on-line semi-structured questionnaire; N = 305) that studied the cognitive, emotional and sensorial components of the social representations of cycling. The general aim was to show how these theoretical frameworks can be used to identify the social-cultural barriers that might hamper the individual use of the bike for everyday purposes in addition to the mere infrastructural ones, and to assess possible variabilities in function of various factors of social-psychological (i.e. the perceived quality of the residential environment), experiential (i.e. linked to the individual daily practices), and geographical (i.e. big vs small urban areas of residence) nature. Results confirm the potentialities of these models to provide a deeper understanding of cycling practices, for example, suggesting, how, rather than being univocal and homogenous, people’s shared conceptions regarding the topic investigated can vary depending on many of the factors considered, among which those of experiential and geographical nature seem to play a prominent role. The paper also discusses the implications for policies directed to fostering the adoption of more sustainable forms of transport within and outside urban areas, as well as their ability to broaden the theoretical understanding of cycling behaviour within social sciences in general.

Determinants of credit card misuse among Gen Y consumers in urban Malaysia

PurposeThe concept of “buy now pay later” leads Malaysian Generation Y (Gen Y) to excessively use their credit cards for spending. To gauge the extent of this worrisome scenario, the purpose of this paper is to attempt to investigate the factors, including credit attitudes, knowledge on credit card, materialism, social norm and self-efficacy, that influence credit card misuse amongst Gen Y in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approachThe authors have collected responses from a total of 501 respondents in two urban areas in Malaysia and estimated six multiple regression models to test five hypotheses.FindingsThe results suggest that credit card knowledge and self-efficacy are negatively related to credit card misuse amongst Gen Y in Malaysia. In contrast, positive relationships were found to exist between credit card attitudes, materialism and social norm and the dependent variable.Research limitations/implicationsIn this study, the authors limit the data collection to the two biggest urban areas in Malaysia, namely, Klang Valley and Ipoh.Practical implicationsFor the regulator’s perspective, the results can be used to understand the alarming indebtedness behaviour amongst working members of Gen Y and outline appropriate and effective policies to reduce their serious indebtedness. Financial service providers, however, can collaborate with regulators to curb credit card misuse amongst Gen Y, so that the latter can avoid high bad debt from line of credit facilities and bankruptcy.Originality/valueThe study’s findings will further enrich the existing literature on the factors affecting the credit card misuse, especially for the unique Gen Y cohort in Malaysia.

THE ANTECEDENTS OF RELATIONAL BENEFITS EXPECTED BY SME’S TO THEIR BANK (A DEMOGRAPHIC FINDING)

The purpose of this research is to seek antecedent factors forming benefit expected by SME’s bank customers on having their credit services. The data were collected using questionnaires spread to 150 respondents in three different areas: big city, urban and sub urban. The data were then analyzed using factors analysis to seek factors determining relationship benefit that is expected by SME’s customer and if any determining variables can differentiate benefit expected between SME’s bank customers in big city, urban and rural areas. The limitations of this study are the models are tested only in East Java area banking sectors, with a big city is represented by Surabaya, an urban area is represented by Sidoarjo and Gresik, while sub-urban is represented by Mojokerto, Jombang, Kediri and some areas in Madura. The findings of this research showed that there were different factors determining benefit based on the area. The result of this study provides strategic options for the banking industry to develop their SME’s market share based on areas. The future researcher suggested to explores another factor determines relational benefit by SME’S customer and its bank. Expanding the area of research is also believed to improve the research so it could be more thoroughly.

Smart city: A system for measuring noise pollution

This paper deals with the development of Smart city services, with the focus on IoT services for measuring the noise pollution. Decreasing noise in the human environment can contribute to increasing the satisfaction of life in the big cities and urban areas where traffic jams are almost inevitable. The aim of this paper is to increase traffic noise awareness and to influence noise reduction through collecting and analyzing the environment data. We have designed, implemented and tested a system for measuring noise pollution, based on Internet of things, web and big data technologies. The system measures and analyses noise level and sends data to the server, where they are further stored, merged and prepared for visualization. As a support to the system, a web and mobile application have been developed. Mobile application enables us to collect large amounts of data from different parts of the city in a quick and efficient. Collection of data can be done by any citizen who has an Android device with installed application. The collected data are stored in the MongoDB. After analyzing data from different parts of the city, we have the ability to create noise maps that indicate the magnitude of the noise pollution for those city blocks. The analyzed data are compared with the legally defined norms and if the norms are not met, the competent authorities are alerted to solve the noise pollution problem.

System-technical fundamentals of the structure of state construction supervision in the re-profiling of big urban area

The stage of construction is one of the main compulsory periods of the life cycle in the formation of construction end-products – capital construction projects of various functional purposes. The compulsory assessment of conformity of buildings and structures, as well as design construction, installation, setting up and recycling (demolition) processes associated with buildings and structures is conducted in Russia in the form of state construction supervision. An assessment results in a document certifying conformity of the actual indicators with the requirements of design, normative (industrial) and legislative documents. Conformity is assessed in accordance with procedural rules depending on the functional purpose of the capital construction project. There are two conformity assessment forms that appear to be similar: “construction inspection” and “state construction supervision”. They both characterize an approach used to assess the conformity of activities of participants in the construction operations (customers, developers, contractors) on formation of construction end-products – capital construction projects. These terms differ in so far as the construction inspection implies control by the customer of operations of contractors. State construction supervision authorities undertake supervisory (including inspection) activities in order to identify and crack down on violations of the requirements of technological regulations or other normative legal acts and design documents, committed by the key players in the construction investment activities (customer, developer, contractors), with the involvement of state authorities.

Análisis elecciones senado y cámara para el Valle del Cauca. 2006

Este artículo reflexiona sobre el comportamiento electoral de los vallecaucanos en las elecciones a Congreso de la República, revisa la participación electoral de las distintas fuerzas a partir de la zonificación del departamento en cuatro grandes núcleos urbanos.Analiza la representación política de los movimientos y partidos que hacen vida política en el departamento y registra como fue su comportamiento en las elecciones de 2006, y finalmente, en las conclusiones, deja consignada una reflexión de la manera como La Ley de reforma política favoreció a los grandes partidos y movimientos políticos, demostrando el objeto para la cual fue creada.

Housing Resources and Needs in Light of Modern Urban Transformations: the Case of Poznan

Abstract Polish cities have been at the stage of a dynamic suburban development for over a decade (which has led to the phenomenon of urban sprawl beyond any control). The population of big urban areas, together with their agglomerations is continuously increasing; however, migration tendencies towards suburban areas are strong as well. In such a situation, the question arises regarding the possibilities and the methods of suppressing the outflow of people to the neighboring communities, and once again, making the city an attractive place to live. The attempt to explain such an issue requires research into both the housing infrastructure and its inhabitants. Poznan has been severely affected by suburbanization. The diagnosis and assessment of Poznan housing resources and the preferences of its inhabitants are the starting point for taking further steps in making the housing conditions more attractive. The article shows the initial results of widespread research regarding housing in the capital city of the Wielkopolska Province (comprising over 2,500 households). A similar study for the entire agglomeration (Poznan County) is due to be completed soon. It will allow for a comparative analysis and formulating recommendations regarding the conditions and the direction of changes on the real estate market which would increase the attractiveness of central cities suffering from suburbanization. In a wider context, the publication might be seen as an analysis of one of the elements of modern urban changes, such as either market driven, or free and spontaneous processes of urban sprawl, and conscious actions taken by local governments (together with developers) regarding the integrated urban revitalization policy.