Different Scales Of Space Research Articles

Developing a Data Model for an Omnidirectional Image-Based Multi-Scale Representation of Space

Abstract. One of the major challenges that existing spatial data is facing is the fragmentation of its representation of indoor and outdoor space. As studies in the use of omnidirectional images in representing space and providing Location-based Services (LBS) has been increasing, the representation of the different scales of space, both in indoors and outdoors, has yet to be addressed. This study aims to develop a data model for generating a multi-scale image-based representation of space using omnidirectional images based spatial relationships. This paper identifies the different scales of space that are represented in spatial data and extends previous approaches of using omnidirectional images in providing indoor LBS towards representing the other scales of space, particularly in outdoor space. Using a sample data, we present an experimental implementation to demonstrate the potential of the proposed data model. Results show that apart from the realistic visualization that image data provides, basic spatial functions can be performed on the image data constructed based on the proposed data model.

The Chain of Processes Forming Porphyry Copper Deposits—An Invited Paper

Abstract Porphyry-related mineral deposits are giant geochemical anomalies in the Earth’s crust with orders-of-magnitude differences in the content and proportion of the three main ore metals Cu, Au, and Mo. Deposit formation a few kilometers below surface is the product of a chain of geologic processes operating at different scales in space and time. This paper explores each process in this chain with regard to optimizing the chances of forming these rare anomalies. On the lithosphere scale, deposits with distinct metal ratios occur in provinces that formed during brief times of change in plate motions. Similar metal ratios of several deposits in such provinces compared with global rock reservoirs suggest preceding enrichment of Au or Mo in lithospheric regions giving rise to distinct ore provinces. The largest Cu-dominated deposits and provinces are traditionally explained by selective removal of Au during generation or subsequent evolution of mantle magmas, but the possibility of selective Cu pre-enrichment of lithosphere regions by long-term subduction cannot be dismissed, even though its mechanism remains speculative. Evolution of hydrous basaltic melts to fertile magmas forming porphyry Cu deposits requires fractionation toward more H2O-rich magmas in the lower crust, as shown by their adakite-like trace element composition. The prevailing interpretation that this fractionation leads to significant loss of chalcophile ore metals by saturation and removal of magmatic sulfide might be inverted to a metal enrichment step, if the saturating sulfides are physically entrained with the melt fraction of rapidly ascending magmas. Ascent of fertile magma delivers a large mass of H2O-rich ore fluid to the upper crust, along points of weakness in an overall compressive stress regime, within a limited duration as required by mass and heat balance constraints. Two mechanisms of rapid magma ascent are in debate: (1) wholesale emplacement of highly fractionated and volatile-rich granitic melt into a massive transcrustal channelway, from which fluids are exsolved by decompression starting in the lower crust, or (2) partly fractionated magmas filling a large upper crustal magma chamber, from which fluids are expelled by cooling and crystallization. Transfer of ore-forming components to a hydrothermal ore fluid is optimized if the first saturating fluid is dense and Cl rich. This can be achieved by fluid saturation at high pressure, or after a moderately H2O rich intermediate-composition melt further crystallizes in an upper crustal reservoir before reaching fluid saturation. In either case, metals and S (needed for later hydrothermal sulfide precipitation) are transferred to the fluid together, no matter whether ore components are extracted from the silicate melt or liberated to the ore fluid by decomposition of magmatic sulfides. Production and physical focusing of fluids in a crystallizing upper crustal magma chamber are controlled by the rate of heat loss to surrounding rocks. Fluid focusing, requiring large-scale lateral flow, spontaneously occurs in mushy magma because high water content and intermediate melt/crystal ratio support a network of interconnected tubes at the scale of mineral grains. Calculated cooling times of such fluid-producing magma reservoirs agree with the duration of hydrothermal ore formation measured by high-precision zircon geochronology, and both relate to the size of ore deposits. Ore mineral precipitation requires controlled flow of S- and metal-rich fluids through a vein network, as shown by fluid inclusion studies. The degree of hydrothermal metal enrichment is optimized by the balance between fluid advection and the efficiency of cooling of the magmatic fluid plume by heat loss to convecting meteoric water. The depth of fluid production below surface controls the pressure-temperature (P-T) evolution along the upflow path of magmatic fluids. Different evolution paths controlling density, salinity, and phase state of fluids contribute to selective metal precipitation: porphyry Au deposits can form at shallow subvolcanic levels from extremely saline brine or salt melt; high-grade Au-Cu coprecipitation from coexisting and possibly rehomogenizing brine and vapor is most efficient at a depth of a few kilometers; whereas fluids cooling at greater depth tend to precipitate Cu ± Mo but transport Au selectively to shallower epithermal levels. Exhumation and secondary oxidation and enrichment by groundwater finally determine the economics of a deposit, as well as the global potential of undiscovered metal resources available for future mining.

Flujo de agua subterránea y transporte en medios geológicos fracturados: una revisión

The groundwater flow and the transport of solutes and contaminants in fractured media play a very important role in various hydrogeological and geological processes. Fractures are discontinuities that occur in practically all types of rocks, consolidated and semi-consolidated sediments, in which it has interacted with the hydrological cycle at different scales of space and time. This article reviews 20 years of research in the CGEO of different selected examples in Mexico, from local to regional scales, associated with 1) Gravitational Groundwater Flow Systems, 2) The hydrogeochemical interaction of groundwater with fractured rocks through which it circulates, 3) Instrumentation and coupled numerical analysis of flow parameters and time-varying geomechanics, during consolidation associated with pumping, 4) Analysis of fracture generation with the development and application of coupled flow and geomechanical equations, 5) Formation of new minerals, 6) Sustenance of ecosystems, 7) Artificial fracturing of soils for their conservation and infiltration of rainwater improvement; and on the issue of transport in 8) Natural solute migration mechanisms, 9) Contaminants induced by pumping, 10) Spills of hydrocarbon derivatives in low permeability and double porosity media due to fracturing and 11) Heat. The results show the importance of fractured media in groundwater recharge in mountainous areas and flow towards granular media in quantity and quality, where residence times of a few years to thousands are involved, which implies modifying water and ecosystem management criteria, in the country; the complexity of these processes requires different methodologies for their evaluation, among them the instrumentation and calibration of numerical models from 1D to 3D for analysis, predictions and the proposal of restoration, sustainability and management solutions; they also help to prevent, control and mitigate the negative impacts on health and the environment caused by the induction of geogenic elements and by various types of pollutants; fractured media also support numerous terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and in the case of damaged agricultural soils, artificial fracturing allows increasing rainwater infiltration and improving productivity in adaptation to climate change and reducing the extraction in aquifers where safe capacity has been exceeded; unfortunately, excessive extraction in closed basins is causing fracturing of the aquitards, both hydraulic and due to differential settlement, which favors the migration of pore water rich in elements harmful to human health and the environment, whose natural function was its protection. All this requires designing mechanisms for the transfer of scientific knowledge to society and decision makers to propose novel restoration and sustainability strategies, under the new paradigm of Gravitational Groundwater Flow Systems.

Long-Term Analysis of Regional Vegetation Correlation with Climate and Phenology in the Midsection of Maowusu Sandland

It is essential to monitor the dynamics of vegetation at different scales in space and time to promote the sustainable development of terrestrial ecosystems. We used the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform to perform a comprehensive analysis of the changes in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) Mann-Kendall (MK) + Sen trend in the hinterland region of the Maowusu sandland in China over the last two decades. We performed bias-correlation studies using soil and climate data. Furthermore, we performed a partial Mantel test to analyze the spatial and temporal fluctuations of vegetation health-related indices. Additionally, we developed a logistic dual model of the phenology index using the Lenvenberg–Marquardt technique. The objective was to uncover the factors contributing to the regional shifts in vegetation dynamics. We provide a comprehensive analytic method designed to monitor vegetation over some time and forecast its future recovery. The findings indicate that over the past 20 years, more than 90% of the regional NDVI in the study area has exhibited a consistent and significant upward trend. This trend is primarily influenced by the adverse impact of temperature and the beneficial impact of precipitation. Additionally, long-term phenological indicators in the study area reveal that the vegetation’s growth cycle commences on the 125th day of the year and concludes on the 267th day of the year. This suggests that the shorter duration of the vegetation’s growth season may be attributed to the local climate and unfavorable groundwater depth conditions. levated temperatures throughout the next spring and autumn seasons would significantly affect the wellbeing of plants, with soil moisture being a crucial determinant of plant development in the examined region. This study presents a wide range of analytical tools for monitoring vegetation over a long period and predicting its future recovery. It considers factors such as vegetation health, phenology, and climatic influences. The study establishes a solid scientific foundation for understanding the reasons behind regional vegetation changes in the future.

Transformable architecture: An alternative for human communication in a post-pandemic world

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, people's lifestyles have been significantly changed. In a post-epidemic era, some of the existing social problems are magnified by the changes in lifestyle. Temporary isolation at home becomes commonplace and continuously makes people think more carefully and deeply about their houses' functionality, safety, and comfort. In addition, the emotional impact of the epidemic has also forced people to get more security and happiness from the outside environment. By summarizing the problems of the existing buildings during the epidemic, this paper collects and studies different types and characteristics of movable architecture to conclude how these transformable designs can help people deal with the problems exposed in functional space and mental needs arising from the epidemic era. The results of different transformable architecture techniques on spatial boundaries are summarized from transformable or movable buildings. The combination and penetration of transformable architecture with different scales of space are used as the entry point to propose that movable architecture can promote communication and exchange between people. The core value of movable architecture is to break the inherent boundary of architectural space and make more connections between the inside and outside space. Thus, it lays the foundation for having more face-to-face communication between people.

Research on a Knowledge Graph Embedding Method Based on Improved Convolutional Neural Networks for Hydraulic Engineering

In response to the shortcomings of existing knowledge graph embedding strategies, such as weak feature interaction and latent knowledge representation, a unique hydraulic knowledge graph embedding method is suggested. The proposed method incorporates spatial position features into the entity-relation embedding process, thereby enhancing the representation capability of latent knowledge. Furthermore, it utilizes a multi-layer convolutional neural network to fuse features at different levels, effectively capturing more abundant semantic information. Additionally, the method employs multi-scale dilated convolution kernels to capture rich explicit interaction features across different scales of space. In this study, the effectiveness of the proposed model was validated on the link prediction task. Experimental results demonstrated that, compared to the ConvE model, the proposed model achieved a significant improvement of 14.8% in terms of mean reciprocal rank (MRR) on public datasets. Additionally, the suggested model outperformed the ConvR model on the hydraulic dataset, leading to a 10.1% increase in MRR. The results indicate that the proposed approach exhibits good applicability and performance in the task of hydraulic knowledge graph complementation. This suggests that the method has the potential to offer significant assistance for knowledge discovery and application research in the field of hydraulics.

Synchronization of Alternative Models in a Supermodel and the Learning of Critical Behavior

Abstract “Supermodeling” climate by allowing different models to assimilate data from one another in run time has been shown to give results superior to those of any one model and superior to any weighted average of model outputs. The only free parameters, connection strengths between corresponding variables in each pair of models, are determined using some form of machine learning. It is demonstrated that supermodeling succeeds because near critical states, interscale interactions are important but unresolved processes cannot be effectively represented diagnostically in any single parameterization scheme. In two examples, a pair of toy quasigeostrophic (QG) channel models of the midlatitudes and a pair of ECHAM5 models of the tropical Pacific atmosphere with a common ocean, supermodels dynamically combine parameterization schemes so as to capture criticality, associated critical structures, and the supporting scale interactions. The QG supermodeling scheme extends a previous configuration in which two such models synchronize with intermodel connections only between medium-scale components of the flow; here the connections are trained against a third “real” model. Intermittent blocking patterns characterize the critical behavior thus obtained, even where such patterns are missing in the constituent models. In the ECHAM-based climate supermodel, the corresponding critical structure is the single ITCZ pattern, a pattern that occurs in neither of the constituent models. For supermodels of both types, power spectra indicate enhanced interscale interactions in frequency or energy ranges of physical interest, in agreement with observed data, and supporting a generalized form of the self-organized criticality hypothesis. Significance Statement In a “supermodel” of Earth’s climate, alternative models (climate simulations), which differ in the way they represent processes on the smallest scales, are trained to exchange information as they run, adjusting to one another much as weather prediction models adjust to new observations. They form a consensus, capturing atmospheric behaviors that have eluded all the separate models. We demonstrate that simplified supermodels succeed, where no single approach can, by correctly representing critical phenomena involving sudden qualitative transitions, such as occur in El Niño events, that depend on interactions among atmospheric processes on many different scales in space and time. The correct reproduction of critical phenomena is vital both for predicting weather and for projecting the effects of climate change.

Studies on the smoke dispersion when tear gas grenades exploded in different spaces

Tear gas is a widespread non-lethal weapon, but there is very little research on its non-lethal effectiveness at different scales of space, environment, and wind speed, which leads to no scientific guidance on the number of tear gas canisters to be used in practical applications. The effect of tear gas smoke released in different space sizes, environmental conditions, and obstacles was studied in this paper using fluent software. The results show that different spaces, media, and obstacles have different effects on smoke diffusion. Tear gas canisters in different spaces show that both are spread outward in the form of point sources. The smoke spreads outward on sunny days and spreads at a higher height on cloudy days. It has a particular guiding significance for tear gas canisters in practical applications.

FENet: feature enhancement network for land cover classification

ABSTRACT Extracting mask information of buildings and water areas from high resolution remote sensing images is beneficial to monitoring and management of urban development. However, due to different times, different geographical locations and different remote sensing acquisition angles, water areas and buildings will feed back different spectral information. Existing semantic segmentation methods do not pay enough attention to channel information, and the feature information extracted by downsampling is relatively abstract, which is easy to cause the loss of some details in high-resolution images under complex scenes, leading to the misjudgement of buildings and waters. To solve the existing problems, feature enhancement network (FENet) for high-resolution remote sensing image segmentation of buildings and water areas is proposed. By paying more attention to the characteristic information of the passage, the probability of misjudgement of buildings and waters can be reduced and their edge contour information can be enhanced. The self-attention feature module proposed in this paper encodes the context information and transmits it to the local features, and establishes the relationship between channels through the channel feature enhancement module to reduce the loss of channel feature information. The feature fusion module fuses feature information of different scales in space and outputs more detailed prediction images. Comparative experiments show that this model is superior to the existing classical semantic segmentation model. Compared with the existing models, the proposed method can achieve 2% improvement than PSPNet on the indicator MIoU, and the final MIoU reaches 82.85% for land cover dataset. This study demonstrates the advantages of our proposed method in land cover classification and detection.

A coupled 3D-1D multiscale Keller-Segel model of chemotaxis and its application to cancer invasion

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Many problems arising in biology display a complex system dynamics at different scales of space and time. For this reason, multiscale mathematical models have attracted a great attention as they enable to take into account phenomena evolving at several characteristic lengths. However, they require advanced model reduction techniques to reduce the computational cost of solving all the scales.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>In this work, we present a novel version of the Keller-Segel model of chemotaxis on embedded multiscale geometries, <i>i.e.</i>, one-dimensional networks embedded in three-dimensional bulk domains. Applying a model reduction technique based on spatial averaging for geometrical order reduction, we reduce a fully three-dimensional Keller-Segel system to a coupled 3D-1D multiscale model. In the reduced model, the dynamics of the cellular population evolves on a one-dimensional network and its migration is influenced by a three-dimensional chemical signal evolving in the bulk domain. We propose the multiscale version of the Keller-Segel model as a realistic approach to describe the invasion of malignant cancer cells along the collagen fibers that constitute the extracellular matrix. Performing several numerical simulations, we investigate how the invasive abilities of the cells are affected by the topology of the network (<i>i.e.</i>, matrix fibers orientation and alignment) as well as by three-dimensional spatial effects. We discuss these results in light of biological evidences.</p>

Relative importance of habitat mosaics for fish guilds in the northeastern coast of Brazil

The identification of patterns in habitat use by fish guilds may provide an integrated perspective of coastal mosaics. Thus, we used multivariate analyses to assess the relative importance of habitat types for fish guilds based on density and species composition throughout a seasonal event in the northeastern coast of Brazil. Our results showed a great variability of responses found for each functional group, with species composition of guilds that are estuarine-related being affected by habitat types (p=0.001) and seasons (p=0.008), whereas the facultative estuarine users showed no significant relationship with both variables (p=0.95). Specific habitat association patterns were not found for guilds, though solely estuarine species (p=0.041) and marine straggler fishes (p=0.027) were related to environmental conditions that varied greatly with seasonality (i.e., rainfall and salinity rates), indicating that temporal changes in the region allow species from different guilds to explore the whole coastal mosaic at different scales of space and time. For this reason, we highlight that the integrated protection of beaches, mangroves and seagrass compose an imperative strategy to sustain the complexity of inshore coastal areas that are highly productive for coastal fisheries and fundamental to maintain coastal livelihoods.

Mountain biogeography coming full circle: a new '3D' floristic approach provides units for reconstructing evolutionary trajectories.

This article is a Commentary on Li et al. (2021), 232: 1424–1435.

Combined impacts of climate and land use change and the future restructuring of Neotropical bat biodiversity

Forecasting the effects of global change on biodiversity is necessary to anticipate the threats operating at different scales in space and time. Climate change may create unsuitable environmental conditions, forcing species to move to persist. However, land-use changes create barriers that limit the access of some species to future available habitats. Here, we project the impacts of climate and land-use change on 228 Neotropical bat species by forecasting changes in environmental suitability, while accounting for the effect of habitat type specialization and simulating dispersal across suitable patches. We also identify the most vulnerable ecoregions and those that may offer future stable refugia. We further investigate potential functional changes by analysing the response of different trophic guilds. We found that the range contraction of habitat specialists, especially frugivores, was more frequent and stronger under all simulated scenarios. Projected changes differ markedly across ecoregions. While the Amazon region is likely to undergo high turnover rates in bat composition, the Andean grassland, Cerrado and Chaco might experience the greatest losses. The expansion of habitat generalists, which forage in open areas and commonly establish large colonies in manmade structures, coupled with the range contraction of habitat specialists is projected to homogenize bat communities across the Neotropics. Overall, dispersal will likely be the key for the future of Neotropical bat diversity. Therefore, safeguarding the refugia highlighted here, by expanding and connecting the existing network of protected areas, for example, may allow species to move in response to global change.

Artificial Intelligence Models for Crime Prediction in Urban Spaces

This work presents research based on evidence with neural networks for the development of predictive crime models, finding the data sets used are focused on historical crime data, crime classification, types of theft at different scales of space and time, counting crime and conflict points in urban areas. Among some results, 81% precision is observed in the prediction of the Neural Network algorithm and ranges in the prediction of crime occurrence at a space-time point between 75% and 90% using LSTM (Long-ShortSpace-Time). It is also observed in this review, that in the field of justice, systems based on intelligent technologies have been incorporated, to carry out activities such as legal advice, prediction and decisionmaking, national and international cooperation in the fight against crime, police and intelligence services, control systems with facial recognition, search and processing of legal information, predictive surveillance, the definition of criminal models under the criteria of criminal records, history of incidents in different regions of the city, location of the police force, established businesses, etc., that is, they make predictions in the urban context of public security and justice. Finally, the ethical considerations and principles related to predictive developments based on artificial intelligence are presented, which seek to guarantee aspects such as privacy, privacy and the impartiality of the algorithms, as well as avoid the processing of data under biases or distinctions. Therefore, it is concluded that the scenario for the development, research, and operation of predictive crime solutions with neural networks and artificial intelligence in urban contexts, is viable and necessary in Mexico, representing an innovative and effective alternative that contributes to the attention of insecurity, since according to the indices of intentional homicides, the crime rates of organized crime and violence with firearms, according to statistics from INEGI, the Global Peace Index and the Government of Mexico, remain in increase.

Climate Disruption of Plant-Microbe Interactions

Interactions between plants and microbes have important influences on evolutionary processes, population dynamics, community structure, and ecosystem function. We review the literature to document how climate change may disrupt these ecological interactions and develop a conceptual framework to integrate the pathways of plant-microbe responses to climate over different scales in space and time. We then create a blueprint to aid generalization that categorizes climate effects into changes in the context dependency of plant-microbe pairs, temporal mismatches and altered feedbacks over time, or spatial mismatches that accompany species range shifts. We pair a new graphical model of how plant-microbe interactions influence resistance to climate change with a statistical approach to predictthe consequences of increasing variability in climate. Finally, we suggest pathways through which plant-microbe interactions can affect resilience during recovery from climate disruption. Throughout, we take a forward-looking perspective, highlighting knowledge gaps and directions for future research.

Warfare-induced mammal population declines in Southwestern Africa are mediated by species life history, habitat type and hunter preferences

Civil wars often coincide with global biodiversity hotspots and have plagued the everyday reality of many countries throughout human history. However, how do civil wars affect wildlife populations? Are these impacts the same in savannah and forest environments? How persistent are the post-war consequences on wildlife populations within and outside conflict zones? Long-term monitoring programs in war zones, which could answer these questions, are virtually nonexistent, not least due to the risks researchers are exposed to. In this context, only a few methodologies can provide data on wild populations during war conflicts. We used local ecological knowledge to assess the main consequences of a prolonged civil war (1975–2002) in Southwestern Africa on forest and savannah mammals. The post-war abundance in 20 of 26 (77%) mammal species considered in this study was lower in open savannah compared to the closed-canopy forest environments, with some species experiencing a decline of up to 80% of their pre-war baseline abundance. Large-bodied mammals were preferred targets and had been overhunted, but as their populations became increasingly depleted, the size structure of prey species gradually shifted towards smaller-bodied species. Finally, we present a general flow diagram of how civil wars in low-governance countries can have both positive and negative impacts on native wildlife populations at different scales of space and time.

Community-based (rooted) research for regeneration: understanding benefits, barriers, and resources for Indigenous education and research

For researchers and educators working to engage Indigenous knowledges, colonial legacies, including assimilation-driven education curriculum, form challenging and complex pathways to navigate. To address such legacies and support Indigenous education efforts, we developed a participatory research model exploring benefits, barriers, and resources for engaging Indigenous knowledges in science education and research. This article details methods and findings from an inter-island knowledge exchange describing the experiences of seven Indigenous scholars and practitioners working in the Caribbean. We drew from Indigenous research methodologies, participatory action research, and constructivist grounded theory. Our research findings describe how individual experiences weave into a larger collective, intergenerational story of survival, adaptation, resilience, and regeneration. Findings from this study deepen understandings regarding how underlying socio-political challenges manifest at different scales of space and time, from immediate to intergenerational, and practitioner-identified resources to overcome them, such as Indigenous language, community action, and creating support systems.

Integrated Field Surveying and Land Surface Quantitative Analysis to Assess Landslide Proneness in the Conero Promontory Rocky Coast (Italy)

Rock slopes involved in extensive landslide processes are often characterized by complex morphodynamics acting at different scales of space and time, responsible for different evolutionary scenarios. Mass Rock Creep (MRC) is a critical process for long-term geomorphological evolution of slopes and can likewise characterize actively retreating coastal cliffs where, in addition, landslides of different typologies and size superimpose in space and time to marine processes. The rocky coast at the Conero promontory (central Adriatic Sea, Italy) offers a rare opportunity for better understanding the predisposing role of the morphostructural setting on coastal slope instability on a long-time scale. In fact, the area presents several landslides of different typologies and size and state of activity, together with a wide set of landforms and structural features effective for better comprehending the evolution mechanisms of slope instability processes. Different investigation methods were implemented; in particular, traditional geomorphological and structural field surveys were combined with land surface quantitative analysis based on a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with ground-resolution of 2 m. The results obtained demonstrate that MRC involves the entire coastal slope, which can be zoned in two distinct sectors as a function of a different morphostructural setting responsible for highly differentiated landslide processes. Therefore, at the long-time scale, two different morphodynamic styles can be depicted along the coastal slopes that correspond to specific evolutionary scenarios. The first scenario is characterized by MRC-driven, time-dependent slope processes involving the entire slope, whereas the second one includes force-driven slope processes acting at smaller space–time scales. The Conero promontory case study highlights that the relationships between slope shape and structural setting of the deforming areas are crucial for reaching critical volumes to induce generalized slope collapse as the final stage of the MRC process. The results from this study stress the importance of understanding the role of morphostructures as predisposing conditions for generalized slope failures along rocky coasts involved in MRC. The findings discussed here suggest the importance of the assessment of the slope instability at the long time scale for a better comprehension of the present-day slope dynamics and its major implications for landslide monitoring strategies and the hazard mitigation strategies.

Inns And Elite Mobility In Late Georgian Britain*

Abstract This paper considers the significance of the spaces and material culture of the ‘principal inn’ as the centre of a distinct world of elite mobility in eighteenth-century Britain. Inns were central to the expansion and improvement of the travel network that brought the British Isles closer together through the long eighteenth century. The turnpike system introduced improved surfaces to old and new roads while new coach-building technology allowed faster movement on those roads. However, it was the national network of inns, regularly and reliably punctuating Britain's roads, that made fast and efficient travel a practical, everyday reality from London to York, Bristol to Holyhead, Edinburgh to Inverness. On arrival the inn provided food and accommodation for travellers, hay and stables for horses and grease for carriage axles. From cross-country travel to crossing the inn-yard, finding a table in the parlour or climbing the stairs to bed, the inn served the traveller across different scales of space and mobility. Moreover, for the elite traveller, inns were not simply blank containers for travel-related activities; they were material constructs that gave those activities form and meaning. Within the principal inn refined interior spaces and well-made, fashionable things placed the elite traveller in a reassuringly familiar cultural space, a bubble of comfort, luxury and good taste which they did not leave from one inn to the next.

Gender geography: history of development and theory

There are four periods in the development of gender geography since its inception in the 1970s in the Anglo-American school of human geography to nowdays. It’s periods were changing with the development of the methodology of feminist and gender studies. Contemporary gender geography has moved beyond the Anglo-American school, because it has become an international subdiscipline, and beyond analyses of gender differences because in the direction of intersectionality it began to focus on intersection of gender with other differences (racial, ethnic, class, etc.). Russia has not yet formed its own school of gender geography, but this area is receiving increasing attention as well as by Russian geographers, as by anthropologists, sociologists and economists. Classical gender geography is based on gender and feminist theories and human geography. Gender, like place, is a social construction. At different scales of space, there are different mechanisms for constructing gender differences. The scales and objects of research in classical gender geography can be divided into traditional and specifi (new) ones for Russian socio-economic geography. Traditional scales include local, regional, and national scales, while objects include mobility and migration. Specifi (new) scales are the micro-levels of home, work, and public urban space, and the object is the human body. The article illustrates that gender geography occupies an important place in foreign socio-economic geography, and gender processes – in regional development, which, in turn, emphasizes the need to develop gender geography in Russia.