Lowland Cities Research Articles

Interaction of activity involvement and recreational location selection behavior in Lowland City: A case study of public parks in Saga City, Japan

Public parks provide many benefits to the community as the representatives of green area. The allocation of public places plays an extremely important role in the daily lives of inhabitants especially for recreational use that could enhance the quality of life of residents in the vicinity. To understand park users' behavior is one of the most important prerequisites for as- sessing the participation in public service from the park users' point of view. The pattern of park utilization on location and activity selection are important elements in behavioral study, while the public parks topograph may also influence the typical user's be- havior. Questionnaire survey on park utilization was used to investigate the interaction between activity involvement and recrea- tional location with the use of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) model. The study found that public park users' behavior is influenced not only by social characteristics but also by the recreational activities and their specific location characteristics. We found that about 45 percent of park visitors are local residents living within a radius of 3 km preferred travel to parks near their residential area. This implies that location selection behavior is correlated with travel distance, travel time and travel cost. Visit frequencies and on site expenditures reflect the recreation behavior for different type of activities. The overall information can be usefully applied by decision makers to launch appropriate public policy in consistence with the useful results of this study.

Effects of altitude versus economic status on birth weight and body shape at birth.

The compelling evidence linking small size at birth with later cardiovascular disease has renewed and amplified a clinical and scientific interest in the determinants of fetal growth. Although the effects of maternal nutrition on fetal growth have been extensively studied, comparatively little is known about the effects of maternofetal hypoxia. This study tested the hypothesis that in highland regions, high altitude rather than maternal economic status is associated with reduced and altered fetal growth by investigating the effects of high altitude versus economic status on birth weight and body shape at birth in Bolivia. Bolivia is geographically and socioeconomically unique. It contains several highland (>3500 m above sea level) and lowland (<500 m) cities that are inhabited by very economically divergent populations. Birth weight, body length, and head circumference were compared between a high- (n = 100) and low- (n = 100) income region of La Paz (3649 m; largest high-altitude city) and a high- (n = 100) and low- (n = 100) income region of Santa Cruz (437 m; largest low-altitude city). In addition, the frequency distribution across the continuum of birth weights was plotted for babies born from high- and low-income families in La Paz and Santa Cruz. Mean birth weights were lower in babies from La Paz than in babies from Santa Cruz in both high- and low-income groups. The cumulative frequency curve across all compiled birth weights was shifted to the left in babies from La Paz compared with those from Santa Cruz, regardless of economic status. The frequency of low birth weight (<2500 g) was higher in babies from La Paz than from Santa Cruz in both high- and low-income groups. In addition, at high altitude but not at low altitude, high income was associated with an increase in the head circumference:birth weight ratio. These findings suggest that high altitude rather than economic status is associated with low birth weight and altered body shape at birth in babies from Bolivia.

Highland clubs and chapels: Glasgow's Gaelic community in the eighteenth century

Abstract The temporary migration of Highlanders to the Lowlands was common during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During the 1700s, many Highlanders settled permanently in the larger Lowland towns and cities. The paper examines the origins, size, and occupational structure of Glasgow's Gaelic community during the eighteenth century and looks at the relationships within the Gaelic community and the focus provided by Gaelic chapels and the Glasgow Highland Society.

The Balance of Trade in Southwestern Asia in the Mid-Third Millennium B.C. [and Comments and Reply

Trade frequently is considered an important and distinct subsystem that is integrated within a prehistoric cultural system. This paper rejects this interpretation and attempts a structural analysis of a specific trading network that existed in southwestern Asia in the mid-3d millennium B.C. in order to uncover the motivational factors and contradictions operative in trading relationships. An ideal dichotomy between sparsely populated, resource-rich highland centers and densely settled lowland cities is proposed, and the evolutionary significance of the relationship that developed between these areas is discussed.

County Cork in the Eighteenth Century

STUDENTS of the population and economy of Ireland have generally considered either the phase of demographic expansion, which reached a peak in the 1840's, or the prolonged phase of depopulation that followed. Scant attention has yet been paid in historical geography or in other fields to conditions prior to the economic and demographic growth of the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a neglect that may reasonably be ascribed in large part to a virtual lack of numerical data. The present paper demonstrates the possibility of delineating some basic attributes of the economic and population geographies of this early period despite the paucity of statistics. The main source of factual information has been the descriptive literature of the period, supplemented by retrospective passages in later writings. A minor but valuable contribution has come from a limited number of estate maps that have survived.1 County Cork, a large county by Irish standards, serves as the arena of the study, which, as a result, must consider both coastal and interior lands, both mountain and lowland districts, and both city and rural populations. Attention is focused on the period between 1750 and 1775. The foremost concern is with the qualitative dimensions of the situation, but certain tentative quantitative assessments are also offered.