City Block Research Articles

The design of intensive urban block form structure

Abstract On the basis of elaborating the connotation of intensive city block, it is pointed out that the intensive structure organization is the key to realize intensive city block. The order complexity of the block structure is formed by the close connection, overlapping of elements, the depth difference and their compound association. This paper constructs the basic pedigree of block structure design from three levels of street configuration, plot organization and building layout, and forms the derivation and comprehensive application strategy of pedigree from the organic linkage and compound of each other.

Applications of Genetic Distances on Blood-group Gene Frequencies and their Statistical Genetic Similarities

This paper studied the applications of genetic distances on Blood-group gene frequencies and their Statistical genetic similarities characterizing four populations, for data from Eakimo, Bantu, English and Korea. The study compared the following distances: Euclidean, squared Euclidean, Minkowski, Chebychev and City Block on the above mentioned data for the outlined countries. Correlation analysis was applied to evaluate the relationships between these countries on their blood group gene frequencies. Similarity check was also conducted to know the countries that have similar blood-group gene frequency. It was observed that Euclidean distance and Minkowski distance had equal distances. This means that the two distances are more similar in this particular data set than the other studied distances. The study revealed that Chebychev distance had the smallest neighbor distance as compared to other distances studied while City Block had the highest distance. It has been stated in literature that Chebychev and Minkowski distances are concentric circle shape, this suggests the reason behind their equality of distance. It is therefore proposed that the data may be a concentric circle data.

Health-Related Disparities in the Metropolitan Region Ruhr: Large-Scale Spatial Model of Local Asthma Prevalence, Accessibility of Health Facilities, and Socioeconomic and Environmental Factors

This paper investigates the area of the Metropole Ruhr in terms of spatial distributions of environmental factors that can prevent or cause a significantly lower or higher rate of respiratory diseases such as asthma. Environmental factors can have negative impact, like air pollution, and positive, like the access to urban green areas. In the second part of the analysis, the accessibility of pharmacies, hospitals, and medical facilities that offer a special treatment for people with respiratory diseases will be spatially analysed and associated to those detected urban areas of higher and lower prevalence. The results of both approaches are spatially blended with socioeconomic and socio-demographic values of the respective residents. With this it is possible to point out whether accessibility of health facilities is a suitable and equitable for all people diagnosed with asthma regardless of their educational or migration background, their employment rate, salary or age. Consequently, all values will be disaggregated from large spatial units, such as city districts municipalities or neighbourhoods, to small city blocks, to assess large-scale spatial variability. This provides the opportunity of a point-by-point investigation and statistical analysis with a high level of detail that significantly exceeds previous study results. In the sociological context of environmental justice this highly interdisciplinary study contributes to the assessment of fair health conditions for people in densely populated conurbations.

Review: Cuzco: Incas, Spaniards, and the Making of a Colonial City

Review: <i>Cuzco: Incas, Spaniards, and the Making of a Colonial City</i>

가로주택정비사업 시행절차의 문제점 및 개선방안

The housing improvement project in a city block can be carried out quickly by simplifying the project promotion procedure. It is suitable as an alternative to large-scale maintenance projects as it can increase the settlement rate of indigenous peoples. However, in reality, there are few cases in which a housing improvement project in a city block are carried out. The large-scale maintenance project was delayed and had many side effects. In addition, conflicts between residents intensified and the maintenance area became more slum. The government tried to solve the problems of the maintenance project by releasing the maintenance zone. Residential environment improvement was necessary for the area where the maintenance area was released. In order to improve the residential environment, the Urban and Residential Environment Reorganization Act was amended in 2012 to introduce the housing improvement project in a city block. The housing improvement project in a city block has the advantage of being able to proceed quickly with the simplification of the project promotion procedure. However, since there is no constituent part of the promotion committee, it is possible to establish a cooperative if the consent rate is met. In some cases, it is not possible to reflect the opinions of the residents. Some members agree without even knowing the details, so disputes are frequent. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately present guidelines and guidelines on the consent rate when establishing a cooperative. There is also the problem of adjusting the floor area ratio. In order to solve this problem, public support is needed in the selection of a contractor. In order to revitalize the establishment of cooperatives for housing improvement project in a city block, it is necessary to relax the resident consent rate (80%) under the current law, and to hold a business briefing session to hear the opinions of union members. Rather than the privately-led project of the housing improvement project in a city block, we prefer the method of carrying out joint projects with LH. is highly preferred. It's because they don't trust the private sector. In order to revitalize the privately-led projects of the housing improvement project in a city block, the public guarantee system for private projects should be prioritized. In order to increase the consent rate for the establishment of a housing improvement project in a city block, a resident-centered promotion body is needed to lead the project. In order to activate the cooperative establishment of housing improvement project in a city block, public procedures such as approval for establishment of the promotion committee, which were operated in the existing maintenance project procedure, need to be operated in a complementary manner. In addition, since self-payments have a significant effect on the agreement rate for cooperative establishment in the housing improvement project in a city block, it is necessary to expand financial support for self-payments and develop various financial products to activate cooperative establishment.

Evaluation of the Street Canyon Level Air Pollution Distribution Pattern in a Typical City Block in Baoding, China.

Urban traffic pollution, which is strongly influenced by the complex urban morphology, has posed a great threat to human health. In this study, we performed a high-resolution simulation of traffic pollution in a typical city block in Baoding, China, based on the Parallelized Large-eddy simulation Model (PALM), to examine the distribution patterns of traffic-related pollutants and explore their relationship with urban morphology. Based on the model results, we conducted a multi-linear regression (MLR) analysis and found that the distribution of air pollutants inside the city block was dominated by both traffic emissions and urban morphology, which explained about 70% of the total variance in spatial distribution of air pollutants. Excluding the contribution of emissions, over 50% of the total variance can still be explained by the urban morphology. Among these urban morphological factors, the key factors determining the spatial distribution of air pollution are “Distance from the road” (DR), “Building Coverage Ratio” (BCR) and “Aspect Ratio” (H/W) of the street canyon. Specifically, urban areas with lower Aspect Ratio, lower BCR and larger DR are less affected by traffic pollution. Compiling these individual factors, we developed a complex Urban Morphology Pollution Index (UMPI). Each unit increase in UMPI is associated with a one percent increase of nearby traffic pollution contribution. This index can help urban planners to semi-quantitatively evaluate building groups which tend to trap or ventilate traffic pollution and thus help to reduce human exposure to street canyon level pollution through either traffic emission control or urban morphology amelioration.

Congested sidewalks: The effects of the built environment on e-scooter parking compliance

With the proliferation of electric scooters (e-scooters) in cities across the world, concerns continue to arise about their parking spots on sidewalks and other public spaces. Research has looked at e-scooter parking compliance and compared compliance to other mobility devices, but research has not yet examined the impacts of the built environment on parking compliance. Using a field observation dataset in Portland, Oregon, and novel GIS data, we attempt to understand the spatial distribution of e-scooter parking and the impact of built features on parking compliance, offering recommendations for policymakers and future research. The results of our study show that 76% of e-scooters observed fail at least one of the Portland’s parking compliance requirements and 59% fail at least two criteria. However, compliance varies spatially and by violation type, indicating that parking compliance (or non-compliance) is dependent on features of the built environment. Parking compliance is significantly higher on blocks with designated e-scooter parking than blocks without designated e-scooter parking. A statistically significant relationship is observed between the amount of legally parkable area on a city block and parking compliance. Parking compliance increases with larger percentages of legally parkable area. This finding can help policymakers prioritize dedicated e-scooter parking for blocks with limited legally parkable area.

Klasifikasi Down Syndrome Menggunakan Tekstur LBP dengan Tiga Variasi Distance Classifiers

Down syndrome is the most easily identified and most common genetic disorder. Down syndrome variation of trisomy 21 has characteristics that are common to people with Down syndrome. But, children with this Down syndrome variation have slight differences in the mouth and appearance because they tend to have similar oral features with their parents and siblings so that distinguishing them is quite complex. Therefore, it is important to know in more details the special characteristics of children with Down syndrome. This study aims to create an innovative image processing-based system so that it is more practical to classify people with down syndrome and normal people. The method that can be used is the Local Binary Pattern (LBP) method. This study used 2400 mouth frames of children with Down syndrome and normal children for data training. Then, it also uses 3600 mouth frames for children with Down syndrome and normal children for testing data. The results obtained are the threshold value which gives a good classification of 0.1-0.2 for the three variations of the distance calculation method. The Euclidean and Chebychev methods have an accuracy quality of 100% while the City block method at the threshold of 0.1-0.2 has an accuracy of 91.6. So, it can be said that the most accurate method in this research is the Chebychev, Euclidean, then City Block method.

Review: MOVE: An American Religion, by Richard Kent Evans

Review: <i>MOVE: An American Religion</i>, by Richard Kent Evans

Smellscape of a Pompeian neighborhood

AbstractSmelling and other sensations that are often considered solely physiological phenomena are in fact deeply influenced by culture and history, and without understanding the ancient sensory landscape, our knowledge of the past inevitably remains limited. This paper explores the olfactory nuisances in one Pompeian city block (IX,3) and its immediate neighbors. I examine the area's stenches by tracing and mapping the sources of smells, focusing on those that in previous scholarship have been considered to render ancient towns foul smelling. The analysis contests the views of malodorous Roman urban space presented in previous studies and suggests that the smellscape of urban Pompeii was not a constant reek but milder and manageable. However, the analysis also reveals that social hierarchies and power relations played a part in Pompeian odor control, and the olfactory landscape was not the same for all inhabitants.

Urban avifauna diversity in Stellenbosch, South Africa, during the COVID-19 lockdown and observations of inner-city foraging behaviour

In times of isolation or confinement, making regular natural history observations can not only represent a source of enjoyment, but generates insights into local avian ecology. Here we present an account of the urban bird diversity of Stellenbosch, South Africa, derived from daily observations of species presence collected during the initial two stages of the country’s nationwide COVID-19 lockdown period (66 days). A total of 38 bird species were observed during this time, including sightings of urban hunting behavior for birds of prey and greenspace foraging in general. The most commonly seen taxa were typical human-commensal species, including sparrows and doves. Many species were encountered far less frequently, with 21 of the 38 species being observed on less than 10 days. This was most notable for birds of prey (n = 6 species from Accipitriformes and Falconiformes) or African swifts (n = 2 species from Apodiformes), which were recorded only a few times for any given species. Our account provides some relatively niche information regarding the presence of birds from a single city block in South Africa and notes interesting observations of urban foraging behaviour, but also underscores the value of birdwatching during times of uncertainty.

The Plat of Zion and Urban Development in Salt Lake City

The Plat of Zion and Urban Development in Salt Lake City

Investigating the Impact of Min-Max Data Normalization on the Regression Performance of K-Nearest Neighbor with Different Similarity Measurements

K-nearest neighbor (KNN) is a lazy supervised learning algorithm, which depends on computing the similarity between the target and the closest neighbor(s). On the other hand, min-max normalization has been reported as a useful method for eliminating the impact of inconsistent ranges among attributes on the efficiency of some machine learning models. The impact of min-max normalization on the performance of KNN models is still not clear, and it needs more investigation. Therefore, this research examines the impacts of the min-max normalization method on the regression performance of KNN models utilizing eight different similarity measures, which are City block, Euclidean, Chebychev, Cosine, Correlation, Hamming, Jaccard, and Mahalanobis. Five benchmark datasets have been used to test the accuracy of the KNN models with the original dataset and the normalized dataset. Mean squared error (MSE) has been utilized as a performance indicator to compare the results. It’s been concluded that the impact of min-max normalization on the KNN models utilizing City block, Euclidean, Chebychev, Cosine, and Correlation depends on the nature of the dataset itself, therefore, testing models on both original and normalized datasets are recommended. The performance of KNN models utilizing Hamming, Jaccard, and Mahalanobis makes no difference by adopting min-max normalization because of their ratio nature, and dataset covariance involvement in the similarity calculations. Results showed that Mahalanobis outperformed the other seven similarity measures. This research is better than its peers in terms of reliability, and quality because it depended on testing different datasets from different application fields.

Urban Acupuncture as a Method of Open Space Regeneration in Greek Ex-Refugee Areas. The Case of Nikea, Piraeus

The paper explores the potential of implementing the principles of urban acupuncture in a selected Greek case study, taking into account international experience in the field. The research includes literature review and field work. The area of study is Nikea, an ex-refugee urban area in the Attica metropolitan region. It was founded during the 1930s to host refugees from Asia Minor. The initial Hippodamian grid offers beneficial intermediate communal spaces inside each city block and there are also larger green spaces in proximity. However, the area suffers from urban blight owed largely to the poor quality of preservation of the old refugee housing estates. A mixture of factors contributes to the complex contemporary situation characterized by opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, there is great potential for regenerating the existing intermediate communal spaces and on the other decaying refugee houses and vulnerable households intricate the already convoluted situation. The paper provides cartographic depiction and categorization of the existing open spaces highlighting also contemporary socio-spatial challenges and market driven limitations. The research describes the obstacles that hinder the activation of “urban sensitive points” in terms of urban acupuncture, also advocating for possible solutions. The paper opens dialogue on the Greek case study in terms of urban acupuncture with the view to suggest strategies to foster socio-spatial cohesion in degraded ex -refugee urban areas. This is a pilot case study with further application in other post-refugee urban areas in Greece that share common socio-spatial attributes. Thus, the topic of the paper may have a greater impact within the Greek urban context.

Integrating heritage assets in large commercial complexes: de-contextualization and re-signification of memory in Shanghai

Since early this century, multiple large-scale commercial projects in Shanghai and other Chinese cities incorporate heritage assets for the creation of new identities after de-contextualisation trough demolition of complete city blocks. This tabula rasa approach resulted in a discontinuity of the meaning and use that local communities gave to these heritage buildings and a re-appropriation by new users in a context of consumerism. This paper studies two cases in Shanghai city center: Jing An Kerry Centre and Greenland Bund Centre, where heritage buildings related to the memories of Communism, trading societies and Christianity are incorporated into high-density high-end commercial redevelopment. As we argue, the study of heritage conservation methods and urban design approaches reveals profound discontinuities in the position and meaning of heritage assets, which respond to important political and economic performance requirements. This paper puts forward two main arguments. Firstly, that the choice of heritage conservation methods and design approaches aligns with the new official narrative of the desired image of Shanghai as a prosperous global city rooted in Communism. Secondly, that the de-contextualisation of heritage assets within a new corporate urban context motivates specific heritage-related landscape, urban and architectural design responses, that contribute to their re-contextualisation in a new sanitized urban environment.

Can restoring vacant lots help reduce crime? An examination of a program in Baltimore, MD

Urban green spaces have previously been linked to reduction in crime and improvements in neighborhood environments. This study considered if the Care-A-Lot (CAL) program in Baltimore City, which incentivizes local community groups to maintain and green vacant lots, reduces violent and property crime. Compared to a 2016–2017 baseline, city block groups with CAL programs saw a significantly larger decrease in crime compared to matched block groups with no CAL programs both in 2018 and 2019. These results were found to be robust through a series of sensitivity analyses and add to the literature stressing the positive social impact of green spaces.

Chest Radiographs Images Retrieval Using Deep Learning Networks

Chest diseases are among the most common diseases today. More than one million people with pneumonia enter the hospital, and about 50,000 people die annually in the U.S. alone. Also, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a risky disease that threatens the health by affecting the lungs of many people around the world. Chest X-ray and CT-scan images are the radiological imaging that can be helpful to detect COVID-19. A radiologist would need to compare a patient's image with the most similar images. Content-based image retrieval in terms of medical images offers such a facility based on visual feature descriptor and similarity measurements. In this paper, a retrieval algorithm was developed to tackle such challenges based on deep convolutional neural networks (e.g., ResNet-50, AlexNet, and GoogleNet) to produce an effective feature descriptor. Also, similarity measures such as City block and Cosine were employed to compare two images. Chest X-ray and CT-scan datasets used to evaluate the proposed algorithms with a highest performance applying ResNet -50 (99% COVID-19 (+) and 98% COVID-19 (–)) and GoogleNet (84% COVID-19 (+) and 81% COVID-19 (–)) for X-ray and CT-scan respectively. The percentage increased about 1-4% when voting was used by a k-nearest neighbor classifier

Burg power spectral density-based characterization of Doppler blood flow sound during hemorrhoidal artery ligation

Hemorrhoidal artery ligation (HAL) has become universally accepted minimally invasive treatment of hemorrhoids disease. HAL involves precise identification of the superior rectal arteries supplying hemorrhoidal tissues using ultrasonic Doppler principles. During this process, at least there are three distinct sounds may be encountered by the surgeon. Only the pulsing Doppler sound is useful as it indicates the presence of hemorrhoidal artery. The accuracy based on traditional auscultation is commonly affected by surgeon’s hearing sensitivity and clinical experience. Therefore, automatic Doppler blood flow sound will be a great help in locating hemorrhoidal arteries. In this paper, a method based on the center frequency and kurtosis features extracted from Burg’s power spectral density (PSD) to distinguish three different types of Doppler blood flow sound signal during HAL procedure is proposed. Separability measurement was carried out using K– means clustering with the city block distance and three clusters corresponding to different sound types are successfully formed. In terms of arterial sound detection, an accuracy of 94.11% can be achieved. This result suggests that centre frequency, kurtosis, and maybe some other statistical features extracted from Burg PSD have the potential to be utilized as a means in automatic Doppler blood flow sound recognition.

Groundwater Flow May Contribute to Submarine Permafrost Thaw

New, detailed surveys from the Beaufort Sea reveal a seafloor depression the size of a city block associated with permafrost thaw and likely influenced by the movement of groundwater below.

Does High Spatial Density Imply High Population Density? Spatial Mechanism of Population Density Distribution Based on Population–Space Imbalance

Numerous studies have suggested a positive correlation between spatial and population densities. However, few have systematically conducted quantitative analysis and deciphered the detailed correlation in block scale. Here, we construct a population–space correlation algorithm to quantify and compare the correlation between mobile phone signalling data and vector spatial data and identify blocks with uneven population density. We analyse the influences of various urban spatial characteristics on population density and the distribution characteristics of the identified city blocks. Changzhou City, China, was selected as the study case. The results indicate that (1) population density distribution is unbalanced only when spatial density exceeds a critical value, reflecting the level and sphere of influence of blocks with varying spatial densities; (2) low population density distribution is concentrated in the zonal space, along the boundary between primary and secondary urban centres; (3) spatial characteristics affecting population density distribution vary with the type of block, and the green landscape’s attractiveness is reduced. Our study provides a novel perspective on quantifying the link between urban form and population distribution. It can help decision-makers and planners in accurately recommending urban intervention in population density distribution by adjusting the spatial morphology and promoting rational use of urban public resources.