Neighbors In Order Research Articles

WALKABILITY ANALYSIS FOR AGE FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD

The attributes of Physical Environment has greater impact on walkability of age friendly Neighborhood. As there is significant increase of young population in India, (Unicef 2019 report) there is a need for age friendly infrastructure for the future. Walkability is a key factor for Age friendly Neighborhood in order to create a sense of healthy and livable community.

Chemical abundances of 1111 FGK stars from the HARPS-GTO planet search sample

Context. Elemental abundances are of prime importance to help us reconstruct the origin and evolution of stars and galaxies in our Universe. Sulfur abundances have not been as heavily studied as other elements, so some details regarding their behaviour are still unclear. Aims. We aim to investigate [S/Fe] ratios in stars of the solar neighbourhood in order to analyse the chemical evolution of sulfur and probe for possible differences in abundances of planet host and non-planet host stars. Methods. We used the code MOOG to perform spectral synthesis and derive v sin i values and [S/Fe] ratios for 719 FGK stars with high-resolution (R ~ 115 000) and high-quality spectra from the HARPS-GTO programme. We found the best fit and corresponding parameter values by performing χ2 minimisation of the deviation between synthetic profiles and observational spectra. Results. Our results reveal that sulfur behaves as a typical α-element, with low abundances in young thin disc stars and high abundances in old thick disc stars, following what was expected from our understanding of the Galactic chemical evolution (GCE). Nevertheless, further studies into the abundances of sulfur in very metal-poor stars are required as our sample only derived sulfur abundances of stars with metallicity as low as [Fe/H] = − 1.13 dex. High-α metal rich stars are more enhanced in sulfur compared to their thin disc counterparts at the same metallicity. We compare our results to GCE models from other authors in the [S/Fe] versus [Fe/H] plane. The [S/Fe]-age relationship is a good proxy for time, just as is the case with other α-elements. We report no differences in the abundances of sulfur between stars with and without planetary companions in the metallicity range [Fe/H] ≥−0.3 dex.

Urban Renewal through the Lens of Unsuccessful Projects: The Pralltown Neighborhood of Lexington, Kentucky

This article examines the Pralltown neighborhood of Lexington, Kentucky, and the concept of the “unsuccessful” urban renewal project. Pralltown was created for and by freed slaves following the Civil War, and for virtually its entire existence, it has endured public policy efforts to change the neighborhood in order to address its real or perceived failings. By framing the two urban renewal projects proposed for Pralltown as points in a long line of reform efforts, this article draws attention to the persistent need for residents of postbellum African American neighborhoods to devote time and energy countering policies of marginalization.

Assessment and Mapping Green Areas Ecosystem Services and Socio-Demographic Characteristics in Turin Neighborhoods (Italy)

The ecosystem services (ES) and human well-being are keywords that guide the Italian strategy on urban greening. The development of ES priorities linked to specific land uses help to guide the drafting of management plans. The aim of the research was to assess and map green areas ecosystem services and socio-demographic characteristics in Turin neighborhoods in order to identify where to improve the provision of ecosystem services and the socio-demographic conditions. The Preliminary Assessment Method (PAM) was used for the assessment of provision and regulating services based on land use. The Species-specific Air Quality index (S-AQI) was used to assess the regulating services provided by trees. Three socio-demographic characteristics were analyzed at the neighborhood level—age index, housing density, and % of economically assisted citizens. PAM results show that Turin provides more ecosystem services in peripheral areas of the city. Trees with high S-AQI values represent 21% of the censed trees. Not recommended trees are 18%. The neighborhoods with higher S-AQI values are not always characterized by a higher number of trees/km2 or species richness. Results show that the northern part of the city is characterized by higher values of ES and socio-demographic conditions than the central-southern part. This aspect is related to the conspicuous presence of agricultural land uses and water bodies, together with the presence of tree species with a high S-AQI values and high or medium socio-demographic conditions. 57% of the neighborhoods present low results for both aspects. Actions to improve the quality of green spaces in those neighborhoods could have great effects on liveability. Future management and planning strategies for increasing citizens’ well-being through urban greening should consider the proposed approach.

Age Group Estimation Based on the Transition Count of 3rd Order Neighborhood using V and Inverted V Patterns

Age Classification is used in so many applications like crime detection, face detection and so on. . The age leads to significant variation in human face. The variation depends on many factors like gender, exposure to sunlight, drinking, weight loss or weight gain. In our paper the performance of face aging is established based on v pattern and Inverted v pattern by using the transition count of third order neighborhood. In our proposed method the age of the person is divided into 5 categories 1.Childhood (0-12years) 2.Young Adults (13-25years) 3.Middle Age Adults (26-40years) 4.Senior Adults (40-60years) 5.Senior Citizens (more than 60 years).The quantative evaluation and analysis is performed in our proposed method when compared to other existing methods after applying on 4 different facial image databases.

Towards more effective consumer steering via network analysis

Increased data gathering capacity, together with the spread of data analytics techniques, has prompterd an unprecedented concentration of information related to the individuals’ preferences in the hands of a few gatekeepers. In the present paper, we show how platforms’ performances still appear astonishing in relation to some unexplored data and networks properties, capable to enhance the platforms’ capacity to implement steering practices by means of an increased ability to estimate individuals’ preferences. To this end, we rely on network science whose analytical tools allow data representations capable of highlighting relationships between subjects and/or items, extracting a great amount of information. We therefore propose a measure called Network Information Patrimony, considering the amount of information available within the system and we look into how platforms could exploit data stemming from connected profiles within a network, with a view to obtaining competitive advantages. Our measure takes into account the quality of the connections among nodes as the one of a hypothetical user in relation to its neighbourhood, detecting how users with a good neighbourhood—hence of a superior connections set—obtain better information. We tested our measures on Amazons’ instances, obtaining evidence which confirm the relevance of information extracted from nodes’ neighbourhood in order to steer targeted users.

United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali

UNITED NATIONS MULTIDIMENSIONAL INTEGRATED STABILIZATION MISSION IN MALIThe security and political instability of West and Central African countries is influenced by several factors and is a topical issue for the United Nations UN and the European Union’s EU foreign policy. The security of the region decreased to a low level after the declaration of the war on terrorism in 2003. According to the Global Peace Index GPI, which takes into account the militarization and security of society, countries such as Mali 2.686 — 144, Central African Republic 3.236 — 155 or Libya 3.262 — 157 compared to other countries of the world have long been in the unflattering index position, which is evaluated by 163 countries. The destabilization of Libya and the consequences of the fall of the dictatorial regime of Muammar Gaddafiled to the subsequent spread of instability in the region in 2011. After the emergence of the radical organization of the Islamic State IS, as well as other organized armed groups in the Middle East and in some African Union states, fighters are rapidly expanding into Mali, Mauritania and Niger. The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali MINUSMA was launched in July 2013. As asymmetric terrorist attacks on UN peacekeepers have increased, a UN-level debate was held to strengthen the mandate and capabilities of UN MINUSMA. Contributing countries of the African Union were aware of the fact that terrorist attacks could spread to neighboring countries and therefore called on UN Member States to become more actively involved in the mission in Mali. The pre-sented article analyzes the political and security situation of Mali and the participation of members of the Army of the Czech Republic at the UN MINUSMA. The author of the article concluded that Mali in the post-conflict reconstruction needs to implement all stages of post-conflict reconstruction and necessarily needs the presence of UN and EU troops.Participation of members of the Army of the Czech Republic should correspond to the ambitions of the Czech Republic within the EU in achieving the objectives of stabilizing the unstable territories in the neighborhood in order to prevent future potential security risks.

Community Geography: Examining Open Space, Socioeconomic Status, Housing Market Strength, and Solar Energy Potential in Buffalo’s West Side, New York

Community geography entails a university-community partnership where university researchers are guided by research questions and objectives provided by an organization or entity. Texas State University’s geography department (TXSTGD) partnered with People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH), a nonprofit organization in Buffalo, New York. PUSH identified four objectives for Texas State’s geography department concerning the Westside of Buffalo: (1) develop an open space plan through identification of current and potential open spaces; (2) examine the socioeconomic status of neighborhoods in order to determine areas of vulnerability; (3) analyze housing vacancies, property values, and sales trends to assist in locating new opportunities for affordable housing and other community development projects; and (4) explore suitability for residential solar power installations. Implications of the findings are discussed, and this paper concludes with the implications of community geography for university geography departments and community advocacy and planning.

EDU-GARDEN TRAINING FOR SUPPORTING ISLAMIC BASIC EDUCATION IN MEDAN

Community service activities are focused on the problem of enriching the understanding and practice of making governance a simple garden, edu-garden, which can be done by the students of primary school in Medan city rural areas, with the conditions of the lack of urban green areas as well as the mandate of the national education, 2013 to make education sustainable environment-based vocational called as Adiwiyata school. Partnering with school teachers MIS Al Hidayah Medan Johor and Medan Selayang, be forming edu-garden as an alternative to the procurement of the garden utilizing household waste. Minimal conditions to the availability of land recycling infrastructure can be used for urban green movement through practical training programs edu-garden forming by utilizing waste for gardening activities. The result is the creation of edu-garden forming by teachers and students as teaching materials module based educational environment. The results of the simulation training and edu-garden forming this a viable alternative layout creation of urban green neighborhoods in order to achieve environmental health and public welfare.

Pedestrian Re-Identification Monitoring System Based on Deep Convolutional Neural Network

The gradual establishment of large-scale distributed camera networks and the rapid development of “Internet +” have resulted in the recent popularization of massive video surveillance systems. As pedestrians are the key monitoring targets in video surveillance systems, many studies are focusing on pedestrian re-identification monitoring algorithms across cameras. At present, the pedestrian re-identification model is not only faced with the difficulty of training the network model due to the huge quantity difference between different types of training samples, but also needs to reduce the impact of the large difference in visual performance on the model identification accuracy. To solve these difficulties, this paper proposed a deep learning model and designed a system based on a deep convolutional neural network for pedestrian re-identification. In particular, we determined the difference between the system input neighborhoods in order to derive the local relationship between the two input images, thus reducing the effects of illumination and perspective. Furthermore, we employed focal loss to solve the phenomenon of sample imbalance in the pedestrian re-identification process in order to enhance the actual application potential of the model. The proposed method was implemented in our developed end-to-end monitoring system for pedestrian re-identification. The hardware component of the system design framework was composed of a digital matrix, streaming media storage server and a network high-speed dome, with the ability to extend to additional tasks in the future. Our approach reduces the effects of data imbalances and visual performance differences, with a score of 76.0% for rank-1 and 99.5% for rank-20 on large data sets (CUHK03), which is not only a significant improvement over the previous IDLA, but also superior to other existing approaches.

Dust absorption and scattering in the silicon K-edge

Context. The composition and properties of interstellar silicate dust are not well understood. In X-rays, interstellar dust can be studied in detail by making use of the fine structure features in the Si K-edge. The features in the Si K-edge offer a range of possibilities to study silicon-bearing dust, such as investigating the crystallinity, abundance, and the chemical composition along a given line of sight. Aims. We present newly acquired laboratory measurements of the silicon K-edge of several silicate-compounds that complement our measurements from our earlier pilot study. The resulting dust extinction profiles serve as templates for the interstellar extinction that we observe. The extinction profiles were used to model the interstellar dust in the dense environments of the Galaxy. Methods. The laboratory measurements, taken at the Soleil synchrotron facility in Paris, were adapted for astrophysical data analysis and implemented in the SPEX spectral fitting program. The models were used to fit the spectra of nine low-mass X-ray binaries located in the Galactic center neighborhood in order to determine the dust properties along those lines of sight. Results. Most lines of sight can be fit well by amorphous olivine. We also established upper limits on the amount of crystalline material that the modeling allows. We obtained values of the total silicon abundance, silicon dust abundance, and depletion along each of the sightlines. We find a possible gradient of 0.06 ± 0.02 dex/kpc for the total silicon abundance versus the Galactocentric distance. We do not find a relation between the depletion and the extinction along the line of sight.

A Macroscopic Traffic Model-based Approach for Sybil Attack Detection in VANETs

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are expected to play an important role in our lives. They will improve traffic safety and bring a revolution on the driving experience. However, these benefits are counterbalanced by possible attacks that threaten not only the vehicle’s security, but also passengers lives. One of the most common ones is the Sybil attack, which is more dangerous than others since it could be the starting point of many other attacks in VANETs. This paper proposes a distributed approach allowing the detection of Sybil attacks using the traffic flow theory. The key idea here is that each vehicle will monitor its neighbourhood in order to detect an eventual Sybil attack. This is achieved by comparing between the real accurate speed of the vehicle and the one estimated using the V2V communications with vehicles in the vicinity. This estimated speed is obtained using the traffic flow fundamental diagram of the road’s portion where the vehicles are moving.A mathematical model that evaluates the rate of Sybil attack detection according to the traffic density is proposed. Then, this model is validated through some extensive simulations conducted using the well-known NS3 network simulator together with SUMO traffic simulator.

Assessment of the Spatial Heterogeneity of Breast Cancers: Associations Between Computed Tomography and Immunohistochemistry

Background:Tumour heterogeneity is considered an important mechanism of treatment failure. Imaging-based assessment of tumour heterogeneity is showing promise but the relationship between these mathematically derived measures and accepted ‘gold standards’ of tumour biology such as immunohistochemical measures is not established.Methods:A total of 20 women with primary breast cancer underwent a research dynamic contrast-enhanced computed tomography prior to treatment with data being available for 15 of these. Texture analysis was performed of the primary tumours to extract 13 locoregional and global parameters. Immunohistochemical analysis associations were assessed by the Spearman rank correlation.Results:Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α was correlated with first-order kurtosis (r = −0.533, P = .041) and higher order neighbourhood grey-tone difference matrix coarseness (r = 0.54, P = .038). Vascular maturity-related smooth muscle actin was correlated with higher order grey-level run-length long-run emphasis (r = −0.52, P = .047), fractal dimension (r = 0.613, P = .015), and lacunarity (r = −0.634, P = .011). Micro-vessel density, reflecting angiogenesis, was also associated with lacunarity (r = 0.547, P = .035).Conclusions:The associations suggest a biological basis for these image-based heterogeneity features and support the use of imaging, already part of standard care, for assessing intratumoural heterogeneity.

How does the Built Environment Influence Public Transit Choice in Urban Villages in China?

With growing traffic congestion and environmental issues, the interactions between travel behaviour and the built environment have drawn attention from researchers and policymakers to take effective measures to encourage more sustainable travel modes and to curb car trips, especially in urbanising areas where travel demand is very complicated. This paper presents how built environmental factors affect public transit choice behaviour in urban villages in China, where a large population of low-income workers are accommodated. This location had a high demand for public transit and special built environmental characteristics. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to examine both the determinants and magnitude of their influence. The results indicate that the impacts of built environments apply particularly in urban villages compared to those in formal residences. In particular, mixed land use generates an adverse effect on public transit choice, a surprising outcome which is contrary to previous common conclusions. This study contributes by addressing a special type of neighbourhood in order to narrow down the research gap in this domain. The findings help to suggest effective measures to satisfy public transit demand efficiently and also provide a new perspective for urban regeneration.

Multi-hypothesis contextual modeling for semantic segmentation

Semantic segmentation (i.e. image parsing) aims to annotate each image pixel with its corresponding semantic class label. Spatially consistent labeling of the image requires an accurate description and modeling of the local contextual information. Segmentation result is typically improved by Markov Random Field (MRF) optimization on the initial labels. However this improvement is limited by the accuracy of initial result and how the contextual neighborhood is defined. In this paper, we develop generalized and flexible contextual models for segmentation neighborhoods in order to improve parsing accuracy. Instead of using a fixed segmentation and neighborhood definition, we explore various contextual models for fusion of complementary information available in alternative segmentations of the same image. In other words, we propose a novel MRF framework that describes and optimizes the contextual dependencies between multiple segmentations. Simulation results on two common datasets demonstrate significant improvement in parsing accuracy over the baseline approaches.

Individual, social, and physical environmental factors related to changes in walking and cycling for transport among older adults: A longitudinal study

To date, no longitudinal studies examined the change in walking and cycling for transport as distinct outcomes over time and investigated the predictors of those changes. Therefore, this present study examined the change in odds of engagement in walking and cycling for transport as distinct outcomes among Belgian older adults over a three-year follow-up period, and examined factors (i.e. socio-demographics, psychosocial, perceived social and physical environmental characteristics) related to these changes in engaging in walking and cycling for transport. Against our expectations, we found significantly higher odds of engaging in cycling for transport among older adults at follow-up compared to baseline and no significant differences in the odds of engaging in walking for transport. Interventions should assist older adults to increase their self-efficacy towards PA, their perceived benefits of PA, and their perception of land use mix diversity in their neighborhood in order to increase the engagement in walking/cycling for transport over time, or help to decrease their perceived barriers towards PA or their perception to have a lot of physical barriers to walk/cycle in their neighborhood. Future longitudinal studies with larger samples are warranted investigating interaction effects between different predictors at various levels to find out which factors can be further integrated into active transport interventions in older adults.

Statistical Analysis of Maximally Similar Sets in Ecological Research

Maximally similar sets (MSSs) are sets of elements that share a neighborhood in a high-dimensional space defined by a symmetric, reflexive similarity relation. Each element of the universe is employed as the kernel of a neighborhood of a given size (number of members), and elements are added to the neighborhood in order of similarity to the current members of the set until the desired neighborhood size is achieved. The set of neighborhoods is then reduced to the set of unique, maximally similar sets by eliminating all sets that are permutations of an existing set. Subsequently, the within-MSS variability of candidate explanatory variables associated with the elements is compared to random sets of the same size to estimate the probability of obtaining variability as low as was observed. Explanatory variables can be compared for effect size by the rank order of within-MSS variability and random set variability, correcting for statistical power as necessary. The analyses performed identify constraints, as opposed to determinants, in the triangular distribution of pair-wise element similarity. In the example given here, the variability in spring temperature, summer temperature, and the growing degree days of forest vegetation sample units shows the greatest constraint on forest composition of a large set of candidate environmental variables.

Lifestyle-Routine Activities, Neighborhood Context, and Ethnic Hate Crime Victimization.

There is little empirical work examining how individuals' characteristics and lifestyles may influence hate crime victimization. In addition, while recent research suggests that social disorganization theory is useful for understanding hate crime, more studies are needed to understand how community characteristics influence hate crime victimization. This study conducts multilevel models using survey data from approximately 3,700 individuals nested within 123 neighborhoods in order to examine whether lifestyles and neighborhood context contribute to ethnic hate crime victimization. The results identify several measures of lifestyle that are associated with hate crime victimization. In addition, neighborhood collective efficacy was related to lower risk for hate crime victimization. The results provide support for lifestyle-routine activities theory and social disorganization theory and contribute to our understanding of hate crime victimization.

Adolescent girls in context: Not all patterns may be created equal.

Much research exists on the importance of risk factors within individual contexts of parenting, neighborhood, school, and peers for adolescent development. However little exists on whether risks in certain contexts may be more or less likely for risk accumulation across contexts – referred to as the Weighted Risk Phenomenon (WRP). One way to study WRP is to study adolescent patterns of co-existing risk characteristics across domains and over time. The present study focuses on studying information about parenting, neighborhood, school, and peers in order to understand how risk can have different patterns over time. Participants were all girls recruited from junior high schools in rural and metropolitan areas of Sweden. The results illustrate that there are stable structural and individual pathways across four contexts of adolescent girls which may represent risk over time. Structurally, patterns which emerged at grade 7 reappeared again a year later and again a year after that in grade 9. In general, the same individuals seem to re-emerge in the same or similar patterns over time. Those who showed risk accumulation patterns tended to report prior risk factors in the parenting context. Such trends are supported in the literature and give support to the postulation that parenting is one of the strongest risk factors for adolescents. The findings indicate possible underpinnings of WRP.

Lifestyle drift and the phenomenon of 'citizen shift' in contemporary UK health policy.

Despite political change over the past 25 years in Britain there has been an unprecedented national policy focus on the social determinants of health and population-based approaches to prevent chronic disease. Yet, policy impacts have been modest, inequalities endure and behavioural approaches continue to shape strategies promoting healthy lifestyles. Critical public health scholarship has conceptualised this lack of progress as a problem of 'lifestyle drift' within policy whereby 'upstream' social contributors to health inequalities are reconfigured 'downstream' as a matter of individual behaviour change. While the lifestyle drift concept is now well established there has been little empirical investigation into the social processes through which it is realised as policies are (re)formulated and implementation is localised. Addressing this gap we present empirical findings from an ethnography conducted in a deprived English neighbourhood in order to explore: (i) the local context in the process of lifestyle drift and; (ii) the social relations that reproduce (in)equities in the design and delivery of lifestyle interventions. Analysis demonstrates how and why 'precarious partnerships' between local service providers were significant in the process of 'citizen shift' whereby government responsibility for addressing inequity was decollectivised.