Neighborhood Built Research Articles

Comparative assessment of simple and detailed energy performance models for urban energy modelling based on digital twin and statistical typology database for the renovation of existing building stock

The renovation wave calls for an integrated, participatory, and neighbourhood to neighbourhood approach tailored to the local environments. This can be hindered by the lack of geometric and performance input data about the existing building stock. A parametric digital urban building energy modelling (UBEM) tool was developed for local municipalities to automate calculations for comprehensive renovation strategies utilizing public databases specifically at the neighbourhood level. This article compares the accuracy of two energy performance calculation models (seasonal heat balance method and hourly resistance–capacitance method) used within the tool to detailed energy simulation software and measured energy consumption data of existing group of residential buildings in a same neighbourhood. The accuracy for estimating the total primary energy demand was roughly below 10 % for both simplified models. The seasonal calculation method showed consistent overestimation of space heating, depending on building characteristics. Solar and internal heat gains significantly affect the accuracy of simplified heat balance calculations, particularly in well-insulated buildings, while the more detailed 5R1C lumped capacitance hourly method provides improved accuracy for space heating demand. The comparison of uniform (proportional) and project based window area distribution used in the calculation models showed only marginal difference. The study validated simple seasonal and 5R1C hourly calculation methods using data from an apartment building neighbourhood with 22 apartment buildings. Despite larger deviations in the case of individual buildings, the average deviation from measured heating demand was only around 3 %, the seasonal method slightly overestimating and the 5R1C hourly method slightly underestimating the measured values. The primary energy demand including typical values of domestic hot water and household electricity was overestimated by both simplified methods due to lower electricity and water consumption in reality although the difference was below 7 % for the entire district. This concludes that pooling the building envelope heat loss calculation on a district level improves accuracy on average allowing better assessment of comparative renovation strategies.

External Spatial Morphology of Creative Industries Parks in the Industrial Heritage Category Based on Spatial Syntax: Taking Tianjin as an Example

Industrial heritage creative industrial parks are an organic component of historical neighborhood buildings. According to several field visits and surveys of creative industrial parks, it has been found that the external space of some creative industrial parks does not meet the needs of the people. This research primarily investigates the critical factors influencing the usability of external spaces in these revitalization projects. Spatial syntax, a field that has seen considerable advancement in recent years, offers a more scientific approach to understanding spatial relationships. Therefore, this paper employs spatial syntax as its principal methodology. It conducts a quantitative analysis of the external spatial morphology of four creative industrial parks of industrial heritage in Tianjin. The study critically evaluates the syntactic values and identifies issues in the external spatial morphology, including a dearth of cultural elements and limited environmental richness. Furthermore, it provides recommendations for the enhancement of these external spaces. The aim is to furnish data support and strategic insights to invigorate the revitalization efforts of Tianjin’s industrial heritage creative industrial parks.

Building a caring network of formal and informal help (offline and online) in a super-diverse neighbourhood

Several organisations (i-mens, Steunpunt Mantelzorg, Hoplr, city of Aalst, sickness funds, Eerstelijnszone regio Aalst, informal carers organisations...) came together for the project ‘Neighbourhood Building Blocks’ to create a caring neighbourhood in a super-diverse area in Aalst, a city close to Brussels, Belgium. It is an area with an older ‘Belgian’ population and a younger population with a migration background. People in this neighbourhood are generally less wealthy, less healthy and more socially isolated than in other areas in Flanders.
 The goal of the project is to ensure that people only must ask help once to get the appropriate answer or support at the right time. To achieve this, we are creating a virtual and physical network of informal and formal support in the neighbourhood, putting together several existing building blocks: capacities of neighbours, professional care, volunteers, support for informal carers, a digital platform of neighbours (Hoplr) and the building complex of i-mens – a care organisation, with an office building for their home care services, a day care and service flats. The underlying assumption is that everyone has something to contribute and something to gain from the network.
 We have 3 intervention axes: 1. Neighbourly help network 2. Empowerment of informal carers 3. Connecting the professional care network with the informal network. We have a neighbourhood concierge and connector. She connects the 3 axes of the project, and ensures that the project is driven by and embedded in the neighbourhood, together with the key partners.
 
 We start from the capacities of neighbours (ABCD-model) to create neighbourly help networks, both offline and online. We match people based on their capacities and needs, and track this through a dashboard (people matched – help provided – after care). To find capacities and needs we organise activities and informal contact at the gathering room of the service flats and the meeting rooms of i-mens. All activities have 3 functions: information in group on rights and possible support, conversation and encounters in group (social contact), and one-on-one questions and support with individual cases.
 Learning from the experience of previous caring neighbourhoods, we give specific attention to informal carers. We know that they find it more difficult to rely on help from neighbours and professional caregivers. Empowering and informing informal carers through specific interventions ensures their involvement and support from the network.
 We connect professional actors (care organisations, local traders, …) with each other and with the informal actors, tailored to the needs and capacities of the neighbourhood. We aim to make professional support and care more accessible to people in the neighbourhood. At the back-office side, we are developing a decision-making tree so we know which question for help can be resolved by which formal or informal actor. The dashboard to match neighbourly help will be expanded in order to track matches with formal actors.
 
 We will present the first results of the project, and share experiences of neigbhours, informal carers and profesionnal actors.

1854. Legionnaires’ Disease Case Exposure Classification Differs by Race and Ethnicity and Neighborhood Health — California, 2011–2021

Abstract Background Legionnaires’ disease (LD) is a severe pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria transmitted by inhalation of contaminated water droplets found in poorly maintained water systems. During 2012–2020, 53% of California LD patients were white and 14% were black; however, these groups account for only 39% and 6% of the population, respectively. Healthy Places Index (HPI) measures census tract health, which can affect risk for LD, by combining 23 indicators of social and environmental conditions. We assessed associations between race/ethnicity and neighborhood health, with LD case exposure classifications to establish priorities for decreasing LD disparities in California. Methods Using all California LD cases reported during 2011–2021 and six, individual modified Poisson regression models, we estimated incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations between race/ethnicity and neighborhood health (using HPI quartile) with three LD case exposure classifications (sporadic, healthcare-associated, or travel-associated). The most advantaged HPI quartile and non-Hispanic white race/ethnicity were the referent groups. All models controlled for birth sex, age, and year. Results Among 4,373 people with LD, 47% were white, 22% were Hispanic, 12% were black, and 22%–28% fell in each HPI quartile. Among cases, 78% were sporadic, 16% were travel-associated, and 5% were healthcare-associated. Black (IRR: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.87) and Hispanic (IRR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.52, 0.77) race/ethnicity were associated with decreased rates of travel-associated LD. Black (IRR: 1.06; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.11) and Hispanic (IRR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.07, 1.16) race/ethnicity, and living in the least advantaged quartile (IRR: 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.10) were associated with increased rates of sporadic LD. Healthcare-associated LD was not associated with race/ethnicity or HPI. Conclusion We found evidence of racial and neighborhood disparities in sporadic LD, racial disparities in travel-associated LD, and no evidence of disparities in healthcare-associated LD. Efforts to increase uptake of water management programs in buildings in disadvantaged neighborhoods and travel accommodations might lessen LD burden and disparities in California. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures

Study on the Influence of the Energy Intensity of Residential District Layout on Neighborhood Buildings

Numerous prior studies have substantiated the influence of residential layout on building energy consumption; however, their principal emphasis has predominantly been on urban and neighborhood contexts. Nevertheless, research conducted at the cluster scale has the potential to augment the well-being of neighboring communities and render the objective of a reduction in energy consumption more pertinent to residents’ daily lives. Furthermore, there is a shortage of more robust metrics capable of quantifying the degree of mutual shading among individual buildings within residential neighborhoods. This shading factor constitutes a pivotal element impacting the energy consumption of individual structures. This study utilizes the VirVil-HTB2 tool to calculate solar radiation intensity for individual buildings, serving as a shading metric. Correlation and linear regression analyses are employed to quantify the causal relationship, allowing us to investigate the impact of residential complex layouts on the energy efficiency of individual buildings. The findings of this study indicate that solar radiation serves as a precise metric for gauging shading intensity among buildings, and building energy consumption exhibits a distinct block-like distribution pattern within the residential complex. Furthermore, through an analysis of the level of inter-building shading and a judicious optimization of the layout, it is feasible to achieve a reduction of up to 4.03% in heating energy consumption and a maximum reduction of 4.39% in cooling energy consumption.

Elderly residents’ uses of fragmented outdoor spaces in public housing estates in Hong Kong——Decoding causality and heat-risk exposure

Well-designed open/semi-open spaces in public housing estates (PHEs) are important urban living rooms for urban residents to enhance well-beings, relieve from cramped homes, and cope with hotter climate. In order to understand the elderly residents' space use in light of space/neighbourhood attributes and microclimates, mobile field tests including physical measurement, passive observation, and questionnaire survey were carried out in 33 fragmented outdoor spaces (FOSs) in Choi Hung Estate (CHE) and Upper Ngau Tou Kok Estate (UNTKE) in Hong Kong from June to early October 2022. GIS application was adopted to map the vitality in association with microclimates. The ordered probit model and multilevel regression model were employed to explore the contributions of factors to the elderly's FOSs use. It is shown that the time of the day, microclimate (mPET—modified PET for hot-humid regions & wind speed), FOSs attributes (SVF, nature view, functionality, size), and neighbourhood attributes (accessibility & building density) significantly influence elderly attendance in FOSs. One degree increase in mPET is associated with around 4.7% decrease in the elderly's FOSs use. The elderly is likely exposed to unconscious heat risks under the compensatory effects of space and neighbourhood building attributes on the thermal environment of a FOS, and popular FOSs contribute to an increase in heat tolerance by approximately 5 °C in terms of mPET. A FOS that maintains mPET between 30.8 °C and 33.1 °C in summer, along with other favourable attributes (SVF, accessibility & functionality) may help mitigate the heat risks and increase overall usage rate.

Comparing the Impact of Urban Park Landscape Design Parameters on the Thermal Environment of Surrounding Low-Rise and High-Rise Neighborhoods

Scientific and reasonable planning of urban forests is crucial to mitigate the UHI effect and create a comfortable local climate. This study focused on maximizing the synergistic effect of landscape design parameters (i.e., Landscape Shape Index (LSI), Percentage of Green Area (PGA), Park Area (PA), and Percentage of Water Area (PWA)) through orthogonal experimental design and numerical simulation to improve the regulation of the thermal environment of urban parks in the surrounding blocks. For the neighborhood of low-rise buildings, the influence of PGA was the most significant in the morning with a contribution rate of 50.43%, while PWA was the most influential during midday and evening, with contribution rates of 73.02% and 52.30%, respectively. In contrast, PA was the most influential in the morning with a contribution rate of 62.11% for the high-rise building neighborhood, while the impact of PWA was the most significant in the midday with a contribution rate of 43.99%. In addition, the contribution of PA and PWA played vital roles at night. This study proposed combinations of landscape design parameters for urban parks that met the requirements of two types of neighborhoods, which would help guide the planning and construction of urban forests.

The Relationship between Rural Spatial Form and Carbon Emission—A Case Study of Suburban Integrated Villages in Hunan Province, China

With the implementation of China’s rural revitalization strategy, the societies and economies of villages have been comprehensively developed, but the carbon emissions in rural areas have also been increasing year by year. Therefore, low-carbon control of the rural spatial form has become an important element of rural revitalization. This paper takes 18 suburban integrated villages in the plain terrain within Hunan Province, China, as the research object, quantifies the spatial morphology indicators of the overall rural community and the neighborhood building groups, and investigates the relationship between rural spatial form and carbon emissions in plain terrain, aiming to clarify the content of low-carbon control in rural spatial planning. The main conclusions are as follows. (1) The correlation between spatial form and carbon emissions at different levels of suburban integrated villages is “total volume form > neighborhood building groups combination form > overall layout form > neighborhood connection form”. When the scale of the villages is fixed, the spatial layout of the neighborhood building groups has a more direct influence on the carbon emissions of the residents. (2) The building density in the overall spatial form of the village has the greatest influence on the carbon emissions of the suburban integrated villages, and it is positively correlated. (3) There is a negative correlation between the form of neighborhood building groups and carbon emissions within a certain range. When the distance between the front and back of a building is 8–12 m, the carbon emissions of the building decrease with the increase in the degree of aggregation on the building, but when the distance between the front and back of a building reaches 12 m or more, the influence of the group layout form on the carbon emissions of the building is weakened. (4) Finally, based on the principle of “macro-control quantity and meso-control shape”, this paper proposes new control content and indicators for Hunan’s rural territorial space planning, which can provide a reference for low-carbon control in rural space form planning with suburban integration.

A novel economic dispatch in the stand-alone system using improved butterfly optimization algorithm

Distributed renewable energy systems are now widely installed in many buildings, transforming the buildings into ‘electricity prosumers'. Additionally, managing shared energy usage and trade in smart buildings continues to be a significant difficulty. The main goal of solving such problems is to flatten the aggregate power consumption-generation curve and increase the local direct power trading among the participants as much as possible. This study provides a coordinated smart building energy-sharing concept for smart neighborhood buildings integrated with renewable energy sources and energy storage devices within the building itself. This neighborhood energy management model's primary objective is to reduce the total power cost of all customers of smart buildings in the neighborhood by increasing the use of locally produced renewable energy. In the first stage, a group of optimum consumption schedules for each HEMS is calculated by an Improved Butterfly Optimization Algorithm (IBOA). A neighborhood energy management system (NEMS) is established in the second stage based on a consensus algorithm. A group of four smart buildings is used as a test system to evaluate the effectiveness of the suggested neighborhood smart building energy management model. These buildings have varying load profiles and levels of integration of renewable energy. In this paper, the proposed framework is evaluated by comparing it with the Grey Wolf optimization (GWO) algorithm and W/O scheduling cases. With applying GWO, the total electricity cost, peak load, PAR, and waiting time are improved with 3873.723 cents, 21.6005 (kW), 7.162225 (kW), and 87 s respectively for ToU pricing and 11217.57 (cents), 18.0425(kW), 5.984825 (kW), and 98 s respectively for CPP tariff. However, using the IBOA Improves the total electricity cost, peak load, PAR, and waiting time by 3850.61 (cents), 20.1245 (kW), 6.7922 (kW), and 53 s respectively, for ToU and 10595.8 (cents), 17.6765(kW), 5.83255(kW), and 74 s for CPP tariff. Also, it is noted that the run time is improved using GWO and IBOA by 13% and 47%, respectively, for ToU and 2% and 26% for CPP. However, the number of iterations required to obtain the optimal solution is reduced using the GWO and IBOA by 60% and 81% for ToU and 55% and 80% for CPP tariffs. The results show significant improvements obtained by applying just intelligent programming and management.

A Practical Review to Support the Implementation of Smart Solutions within Neighbourhood Building Stock

The construction industry has witnessed an increase in the use of digital tools and smart solutions, particularly in the realm of building energy automation. While realising the potential benefits of smart cities, a broader scope of smart initiatives is required to support the transition from smart buildings towards smart neighbourhoods, which are considered critical urban development units. To support the interplay of smart solutions between buildings and neighbourhoods, this study aimed to collect and review all the smart solutions presented in existing scientific articles, the technical literature, and realised European projects. These solutions were classified into two main sections, buildings and neighbourhoods, which were investigated through five domains: building-energy-related uses, renewable energy sources, water, waste, and open space management. The quantitative outcomes demonstrated the potential benefits of implementing smart solutions in areas ranging from buildings to neighbourhoods. Moreover, this research concluded that the true enhancement of energy conservation goes beyond the building’s energy components and can be genuinely achieved by integrating intelligent neighbourhood elements owing to their strong interdependencies. Future research should assess the effectiveness of these solutions in resource conservation.

A Large Neighborhood Search Algorithm with Simulated Annealing and Time Decomposition Strategy for the Aircraft Runway Scheduling Problem

The runway system is more likely to be a bottleneck area for airport operations because it serves as a link between the air routes and airport ground traffic. As a key problem of air traffic flow management, the aircraft runway scheduling problem (ARSP) is of great significance to improve the utilization of runways and reduce aircraft delays. This paper proposes a large neighborhood search algorithm combined with simulated annealing and the receding horizon control strategy (RHC-SALNS) which is used to solve the ARSP. In the framework of simulated annealing, the large neighborhood search process is embedded, including the breaking, reorganization and local search processes. The large neighborhood search process could expand the range of the neighborhood building in the solution space. A receding horizon control strategy is used to divide the original problem into several subproblems to further improve the solving efficiency. The proposed RHC-SALNS algorithm solves the ARSP instances taken from the actual operation data of Wuhan Tianhe Airport. The key parameters of the algorithm were determined by parametric sensitivity analysis. Moreover, the proposed RHC-SALNS is compared with existing algorithms with excellent performance in solving large-scale ARSP, showing that the proposed model and algorithm are correct and efficient. The algorithm achieves better optimization results in solving large-scale problems.

Neighborhood Built and Social Environment Influences on Lifestyle Behaviors among College Students in a High-Density City: A Photovoice Study.

Based on the social ecological approach, a photovoice study was conducted to explore how neighborhood built and social environments facilitate or hinder college students' lifestyle behaviors, including physical activity, active transportation, and dietary behavior. A total of 37 college students took photos about neighborhood built and social environments that may affect their physical activity, dietary behavior, and active transportation, and shared their perceptions about how neighborhood built and social environments influence their lifestyle behaviors. Our findings demonstrated that the availability and accessibility of services, school facilities, and home facilities affected physical activity and dietary behaviors among college students. Moreover, the well-developed transportation facilities and networks benefit college students' active transportation. Environments-based interventions are recommended in future research to better understand the associations between neighborhood built and social environments and lifestyle behaviors in college students.

Fusion of vertical and oblique images using Intra-Cluster-Classification for building damage assessment

Using High Resolution (HR) and Very High Resolution (VHR) Remote Sensing (RS) images for post-disaster building damage assessment provides more information than low-resolution images. Consequently, a damage map is expected to be at building level, which requires both rooftop and facade information. Oblique imagery is therefore becoming increasingly popular for post-disaster analysis. However, oblique images are rarely available in the pre-disaster acquisition, and thus without any prior information it is a challenging task to assess the facade damage just from a post-disaster scene. As a solution, we aggregated information at the cluster level using pre-disaster neighborhood buildings’ feature analysis, and thus the post-disaster building-level damage assessment is supported by the cluster-level information. Therefore, the proposed method, Intra-Cluster-Classification (ICC), uses hierarchical steps of unsupervised and supervised methods to detect damaged and undamaged areas within each cluster of buildings. The procedure is implemented on Google Earth Engine platform, and the results are evaluated using Hurricane Michael (2018) images. At the building-level, damage information is shown as a fractional number between 0 and 1, with the higher number indicating more destruction. R-squared (R2) value is 0.9688 between actual and predicted damage scores. In addition, the Overall Accuracy (OA) and the Kappa coefficient (K) in the 4-class RS-scale are 83.2% and 0.7438, respectively. Furthermore, in 3-class RS-scale, the OA and K of our results are 91.08%, and 0.8582, respectively.

Assessment of Satisfaction Level of Residents in a Housing Community, A Case of City Paradise, Lalitpur

As mentioned by Canter and Rees (1982), residential satisfaction (RS) is the degree to which the residential environment helps dwellers achieve their goals, and it evaluates the extent to which the current housing environment is meeting residents’ needs, expectations and ambitions. Residential satisfaction in planned housing is a widely researched topic in global context, however, in case of Nepal, not much research has been done on the topic. There are many planned housing communities being developed, but the living experience of the residents are rarely studied, and neither their perception in living in gated communities. This paper aims to contribute to theory and practice concerning residential satisfaction in housing community of Lalitpur known as City Paradise which is one of the major projects of Civil Homes Housing Company. This study is based in a household survey conducted in City Paradise Housing community. Data was collected from 40 households out of total 72 units, through simple random sampling to avoid any kind of biasness during the study. Data was analyzed to study the level of satisfaction, using Likert scale, among the residents with respect to design and planning characteristics of housing units, public facilities and services, and neighborhood. The results of analysis show that the respondents comparatively had higher satisfaction levels in context of neighborhood planning and less satisfied with design and planning features of housing and provision of public facility and convenience. Residents are quite satisfied with the child-friendly environment in their neighborhood, but planning and layout of buildings are not good enough to meet their satisfaction level. This research helps to address current issues related to satisfaction level of the residents of housing community and recommend the possible ways for its betterment.

Three Strategies of Urban Renewal for One National Outline Plan TAMA38: The Impact of Multiparametric Decision-Making on Neighborhood Regeneration

The urban renewal of deteriorated areas is a challenge for many city decision-makers. In this study, we aimed to understand the role and impact of the Israeli national outline plan, TAMA38, on urban renewal areas by examining three urban renewal strategies. This plan was developed to strengthen individual buildings against earthquakes, but it also serves as a catalyst for the renewal of deteriorated individual residential buildings in old neighborhoods, particularly in high-demand districts. TAMA38 focuses on the renovation of individual buildings, primarily residential, but neglects the comprehensive vision of the public and private needs of the neighborhood/site complex, of which the individual building is only one component. To understand which planning strategy will achieve better spatial results under TAMA38, a broader examination is required. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of three urban sites developed under the TAMA38 program in the city of Haifa using three main strategies: (1) one comprehensive plan led by one developer with a change in building locations (2) one comprehensive plan but led by diverse developers, while building locations remain unchanged and (3) individual building renewals with no comprehensive plan. The methodology for this analysis was based on the evaluation of various quantitative and quality parameters that influence the performance of the built environment. The results of the research emphasize the need to choose an urban renewal strategy tailored to a specific location, as well as the need for the authority to take responsibility for planning open public spaces throughout the process.

A decision-making design framework for the integration of PV systems in the urban energy planning process

Researchers typically use performance analysis tools to support the design decisions of PV systems on urban scales. However, performance simulation tools are mostly used for analysis only, providing feedback to confirm the system performance rather than influencing the system design to respond to the intended performance goals. Hence, it is essential to use simulation for synthesis and generation instead of analytical simulation in designing PV systems. Employing evolutionary algorithms (AEs) seems to be a great way to solve multi-objective optimization problems that aim to design PV systems in accordance with the electricity demand and peak times of neighborhoods. This study proposes a novel design decision-making framework to develop, evaluate, and interact with the design of the PV system at the neighborhood scale in one interface to better achieve the intended objectives. The design objectives of this study include increasing the self-consumption (SC), decreasing the payback period (PB), maintaining higher self-sufficiency (SS) of the PV system, and reducing the net load variance over the grid. The study aims to increase the correlation between the PV system's electricity production and the aggregate electricity demand of buildings in neighborhoods. This is done by optimizing the range of orientation of the PV panels and the number of panels on each orientation. The design decision-making framework is guided by multiple scenarios, and a residential neighborhood located in Los Angeles, California, is considered a case study. The results show how the PV production pattern differs when various design objectives are considered in the optimization process. In general, the optimized PV system in all tested scenarios has more PV panels in the south-west orientations as a response to the late demand and the higher electricity prices in the evening in the studied neighborhood.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL REGIONS OF SLOVAKIA

Aspects of regional and local sustainable development are turning into key elements of strategic planning documents in EU countries. The topic of sustainable development includes issues of both urban and peripheral areas. It encompasses the classic fields of environmental protection and green energy, as well as the parameters of social inclusion, creative capital development, community and neighbourhood building, etc. The paper reviews the implementation of sustainable development goals in Slovakia with a focus on the programme promoting green infrastructure and the practice of mixed-use urban spaces. The principles of green infrastructure are introduced in Slovakia in line with the concepts of NECONET ecological networks and ÚSES systems of territorial environmental sustainability. The 2030 Environmental Strategy of Slovakia covers three areas, namely water protection and biodiversity, climate change and air protection, and green economy. Prominence is given to the development of renewable energy in the country. The paper determines the main obstacles to the development of Slovakian green infrastructure compared to that of the EU. These include a lack of financing, slow adoption of legislation, and lack of regulation in the land ownership rights.

Objectively measured external building quality, Census housing vacancies and age, and serum metals in an adult cohort in Detroit, Michigan.

Residentially derived lead pollution remains a significant problem in urban areas across the country and globe. The risks of childhood residence in housing contaminated with lead-based paint are well-established, but less is known about the effects of housing quality on adult lead exposure. To evaluate the effects of residential-area housing age, vacancy status, and building quality on adult lead exposures. We evaluated the effect of Census block group housing vacancy proportion, block group housing age, and in-person survey evaluated neighborhood building quality on serum levels of lead, mercury, manganese, and copper among a representative cohort of adults in Detroit, Michigan, from 2008-2013 using generalized estimating equations. Participants in Census block groups with higher proportions of vacant and aged housing had non-significantly elevated serum lead levels. We identified similar positive associations between residence in neighborhoods with poorer objectively measured building quality and serum lead. Associations between Census vacancies, housing age, objectively measured building quality, and serum lead were stronger among participants with a more stable residential history. Vacant, aged, and poorly maintained housing may contribute to widespread, low-level lead exposure among adult residents of older cities like Detroit, Michigan. US Census and neighborhood quality data may be a useful tool to identify population-level lead exposures among US adults. Using longitudinal data from a representative cohort of adults in Detroit, Michigan, we demonstrate that Census data regarding housing vacancies and age and neighborhood survey data regarding housing quality are associated with increasing serum lead levels. Previous research has primarily focused on housing quality and lead exposures among children. Here, we demonstrate that area-level metrics of housing quality are associated with lead exposures among adults.

Seismic Fragility Analysis of Low-Rise RC Buildings with Brick Infills in High Seismic Region with Alluvial Deposits

Most of the reinforced concrete buildings in Nepal are low-rise construction, as this type of construction is the most dominant structural form adopted to construct residential buildings in urban and semi-urban neighborhoods throughout the country. The low-rise residential constructions generally follow the guidelines recommended by the Nepal Building Code, especially the mandatory rules of thumb. Although low-rise buildings have brick infills and are randomly constructed, infill walls and soil–structure interaction effects are generally neglected in the design and assessment of such structures. To this end, bare frame models that are used to represent such structures are questionable, especially when seismic vulnerability analysis is concerned. To fulfil this gap, we performed seismic vulnerability analysis of low-rise residential RC buildings considering infill walls and soil–structure interaction effects. Considering four analysis cases, we outline comparative seismic vulnerability for various analysis cases in terms of fragility functions. The sum of observations highlights that the effects of infills, and soil–structure interaction are damage state sensitive for low-rise RC buildings. Meanwhile, the design considerations will be significantly affected since some performance parameters are more sensitive than the overall fragility. We also observed that the analytical fragility models fundamentally overestimate the actual seismic fragility in the case of low-rise RC buildings.

Association between Objectively Measured Neighbourhood Built Environment and Walkability

Some previous studies show that the majority of the urban planners and urban designers uses subjective measures to assess built environment attributes and neighbourhood walkability in Malaysia. However, those were using objective measures just evaluating one or two attributes of the built environment. Hence this paper focuses on objective measures of several built environment attributes that influence walkability. The paper links various objective measures of attributes of the built environment that influence walkability with objectively measured walkability. For this study data was obtained from Putrajaya review of the master plan and geographical information system data and walking distance obtained from the pedometer. The pedometers were deployed for 7-days period to capture an objective level of walkability. To achieve this study objective, a case study was conducted on three different residential precincts of Putrajaya, Malaysia and a randomly selected sample of 134 respondents from each of these three precincts was collected. To measure built environment attributes objectively, indices were used for quantifying compactness, diversity, accessibility and connectivity. The results indicate that overall indices values of Precinct 18 are high compared to precinct 9 and 8. The daily distance measured by pedometer is also high for Precinct 18. Findings of this study recommend that it is practicable for the urban designers and urban planners to employ these two objective methods. As in this study built environment index results correspond with pedometer recorded distance hence it is concluded that GIS data also has the potential to be used to construct measures of built environment attributes and to develop indices of walkability on neighbourhood scale both in Malaysia as well as in Pakistan.