Regeneration Investment Research Articles

Investment in regeneration versus asexual reproduction is resource‐dependent in a freshwater annelid

Abstract The post‐embryonic developmental processes of regeneration and asexual agametic reproduction are widespread and often co‐occur in animals. These traits are of great ecological significance, but their physiological dynamics within species are not well understood. In naid annelids, regeneration and asexual reproduction via fission are evolutionarily related and mechanistically similar yet distinct, making these animals useful systems in which to study resource allocation strategies between the two processes. How asexual reproductive investment varies as a function of somatic investment demands was tested in the naid Pristina leidyi by repeatedly amputating the heads of individual worms, allowing regeneration to proceed, and measuring reproductive output over time. Treatments were replicated under high and low food levels to determine to what extent the investment dynamic between regeneration and fission is affected by the resource pool. Reproductive output was affected by injury and regeneration frequency in a resource‐dependent manner, such that only worms with less food availability exhibited reproductive deficits; injury and regeneration did not affect reproductive output of worms under the high food condition. When reproductive output was decreased, this occurred not through a reduction in offspring quantity but a reduction in offspring quality. In the offspring of experimental animals, body size and fission speed were dependent on parental feeding level and to a lesser and inconsistent extent on parental injury history, but regeneration speed was unaffected by parental treatment. These findings suggest that, in a species capable of both regeneration and asexual reproduction: (1) the resource pool is a key factor mediating the resource investment pattern between regeneration and fission; (2) sacrificing per‐offspring investment rather than fecundity may be an optimal strategy if resources are limiting; (3) regeneration and fission have evolved distinct resource allocation pathways. This work prompts further questions about the physiological dynamics between regeneration and asexual reproduction in animals, such as whether and to what extent these have evolved adaptively, including in response to injury and resource pressures. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Carbon offset as another driver of timberland investment returns in the United States

Timberland investment has three return drivers: biological growth, timber price change and land value appreciation. The interaction of the three drivers determines the total timberland investment returns. Recent public attention to climate change resulting from excessive greenhouse gas emissions, nonetheless, has led to more discussion of forests as a natural carbon sink. With carbon sequestration, landowners should be compensated for keeping trees alive. The cash flows associated with forest carbon present an opportunity for timberland investors to potentially generate extra returns. For an afforestation investment and at the current carbon price of about $20 per metric ton in the voluntary market, forest carbon has a moderate contribution of about 21% to the total timberland investment return with a return premium is about 115 basis points. However, for a regeneration investment in which only additional carbon sequestration beyond the baseline is credited, the impact of forest carbon on total timberland investment return is minor yet positive. Overall, the return contribution of forest carbon is positively related to carbon price, interest rate, and investment horizon. As the pressure from global warming tightens, demand for nature-based carbon storage tends to increase, leading to higher carbon prices. Meanwhile, concerns about additionality often result in longer-term carbon contracts. All these would boost the influence of forest carbon on total timberland investment returns in the future.

Market Regeneration in Line with Sustainable Urban Development

This article presents the study of the optimal design solutions for regeneration of marketplaces. It examines the design variants for the revitalisation of the marketplace, in particular, investment in their modernisation in order to find the most optimal model for transforming these public spaces to have a significant impact on the city’s development. The research is a comparative analysis of the implementation of regeneration design models on the marketplace within the Oliwa district of Gdansk (Poland).The data for the case study design models includes analysis based on various optimisation criteria, taking into account the urban and economic aspects of the city landscape when selecting a specific space revitalisation design model. The implementation of regeneration investment includes a number of complex processes that must be sustainable and so require rational social and spatial planning, as well as proper organisation in terms of cost and time.

An Optimization Decision Support Model for Sustainable Urban Regeneration Investments

In order to support the decision-making process related to the reduction of land consumption into the urban regeneration interventions, the present research has the aim to define and propose a goal programming-based model that can be adopted for the negotiation phases of public and private subjects involved. In particular, the proposed model can provide for a range of feasible scenarios that, according to the specific purposes of the Public Administration, can be implemented in order to achieve the financial, environmental and social level of sustainability targets set by the Agenda 2030. In this way even the private entrepreneur can verify his personal convenience to participate in the investment. Furthermore, the possibility provided by the model to choose a different combination of urban parameters that define the convenience of interventions before their implementation, could reduce the increasingly significant problem of badly concluded interventions, interrupted because they lack an effective ex ante evaluation.

At What Cost? Trade-Offs and Influences on Energetic Investment in Tail Regeneration in Lizards Following Autotomy.

Caudal autotomy, the ability to shed a portion of the tail, is a widespread defence strategy among lizards. Following caudal autotomy, and during regeneration, lizards face both short- and long-term costs associated with the physical loss of the tail and the energy required for regeneration. As such, the speed at which the individual regenerates its tail (regeneration rate) should reflect the fitness priorities of the individual. However, multiple factors influence the regeneration rate in lizards, making inter-specific comparisons difficult and hindering broader scale investigations. We review regeneration rates for lizards and tuatara from the published literature, discuss how species’ fitness priorities and regeneration rates are influenced by specific, life history and environmental factors, and provide recommendations for future research. Regeneration rates varied extensively (0–4.3 mm/day) across the 56 species from 14 family groups. Species-specific factors, influencing regeneration rates, varied based on the type of fracture plane, age, sex, reproductive season, and longevity. Environmental factors including temperature, photoperiod, nutrition, and stress also affected regeneration rates, as did the method of autotomy induction, and the position of the tail also influenced regeneration rates for lizards. Additionally, regeneration could alter an individual’s behaviour, growth, and reproductive output, but this varied depending on the species.

Does reframing urban policy around wellbeing support carbon mitigation?

New Zealand (‘Aotearoa’) is a highly urbanised country with one of the first governments in the world to adopt a wellbeing budget framework. That framework, in combination with the architecture for decarbonisation provided by New Zealand’s 2019 ‘Zero Carbon’ Act, means there are now institutional and policy incentives in place, and developing incrementally, to combine the pursuit of wellbeing and decarbonisation. These incentives also align with the outcomes highlighted in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper considers the way policy and institutional approaches to carbon mitigation are being linked to wellbeing in three interconnected urban, non-agricultural domains responsible for much of New Zealand’s carbon emissions: building, urban form and transport. Looking beyond the current Covid-19 recovery process, emerging evidence is presented to ascertain whether the wellbeing-focused policy approach, with its associated attention to co-benefits, is creating a clear institutional refocusing. In addition, other evidence suggests that New Zealanders see health and wellbeing as improving, at the same time as the country is moving towards the net zero carbon emissions target. <strong><em>Policy relevance</em></strong> In New Zealand, a new emphasis by the government on wellbeing now provides a powerful policy framing. At the same time, attention to the critical issue of climate change is strongly influencing many aspects of public policy. This paper investigates, for three related economic domains—building, urban form and transport—how the new framing is being manifested in institutions and policy. Attention to co-benefits, highlighting elements of wellbeing, appears to be shifting the policy debate away from economic growth towards a richer set of concerns more relevant to an era in which managing environmental, social and health crises (such as Covid-19), decarbonisation, and housing affordability are more prominent. The paper also outlines a new research programme that measures outcomes from a set of major public housing and urban regeneration investments in terms of wellbeing metrics.

Assessing the Transformability of Public Housing through BIM

Public residential buildings make a large portion of the European existing stock and they quite often require deep renovation interventions. A methodology for setting priorities and targeting regeneration investments should be defined relying on the increasing use of building information modelling (BIM) tools even for managing existing buildings. The aim of this paper is to integrate the evaluation process into BIM Revit software developing a specific plug-in, a Decision support system (DSS) that will help to identify the most appropriate flats to be transformed. It is based on measuring three indicators: Usability, Fragmentation, and Constructive Modifiability. Through their weighted average it is possible to obtain a final transformability score. The proposed approach has been tested on a case study chosen within the 1st P.E.E.P. (1st public plan for council and affordable housing) that has been approved in Rome in 1964. The results demonstrate that the transformability of apartments is related mainly to the Constructive Modifiability indicator and buildings with reinforced concrete frames show higher scores. A widespread application of such a methodology on large real estate portfolio may lead stakeholders involved in housing management investments in clear choices related to maintenance of buildings.

Dinâmicas em Espaços Culturais do Centro Histórico de Portimão, Portugal

The main goal of this study consists in building indicators regarding the performance of cultural venues in the city of Portimão, Alrgarve region, Portugal, which are inserted in a pedestrian route, the Accessible Tourist Route of Portimão. These are the Museum of Portimão, a cultural venue that expresses the local history of the canning industry, and the Tempo Theatre, placed also in a historic building, where there are cultural performances. Both buildings are architectural objects with heritage value, with rehabilitation design for cultural spaces. The methodology applied is characterised by a theoretical basis, by the collection and analysis of quantitative data. The theoretical knowledge comes from a literature review, in areas e.g.: cultural tourism, accessible tourism, heritage and urban rehabilitation. The quantitative data are arising from the collection of data of the cultural venues Tempo Theatre and Museum of Portimão: number of visitors/viewers and number of sessions and activities since 2008. With this study it can be concluded that the cultural spaces Museum of Portimão and Tempo Theatre are enjoyed not only by residents but also by visitors, in the city of Portimão. This analysis defends the importance of investment in urban regeneration, heritage enhancement and cultural venues to implement an accessible and sustainable cultural tourism.

England’s overlooked neighbourhoods: Defining, understanding and regenerating ‘left behind’ communities

The term ‘left behind’ has become common currency since the 2016 UK referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU). It is often used to describe areas of the country that have missed out on the economic prosperity from which others have benefited. Generally, however, the term tends to be loosely defined and applied. This paper describes research which hazards a more precise definition and a mapping of areas that might be accurately referred to as ‘left behind’, acknowledging that the phenomenon has a social and cultural, as well as an economic dimension. The research described in this paper was commissioned by Local Trust from OCSI. A new Community Needs Index (CNI) was developed for the project. This new index identifies wards in England that lack civic infrastructure (places for people to meet, green space and recreational opportunities), connectivity — physical and digital — and community engagement. The 206 wards which the research identifies as perhaps the most ‘left behind’ are both in the top 10 per cent of this new CNI and in the bottom, or most deprived, 10 per cent of the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The research finds that ‘left behind’ wards are concentrated in post-industrial and coastal areas, often housing estates on the peripheries of towns and cities. The residents of these areas have markedly worse socio-economic outcomes compared to those living in similarly deprived areas; they have fewer job opportunities, lower levels of educational attainment and poorer health. The research indicates the multidimensional nature of the problems in these neighbourhoods and suggests the value and importance of civic infrastructure, connectivity and community engagement as a protective factor which helps to guard against them becoming too entrenched or severe. Our experience of delivering the Big Local programme, and our assessment of the evidence from past local area initiatives, is that flexible, community-led solutions which build community confidence and capacity, and which create connections to opportunities in the wider geographical area, are key to improving ‘left behind’ areas and the quality of life of the people living in them. We argue, based on the evidence, that new government investment in neighbourhood regeneration is urgently needed. This should take the form of long-term funding focused on building hard and soft civic assets. It is our view that only through this approach will sustainable positive change be created in the areas that most need it.

Assisted natural regeneration accelerates recovery of highly disturbed rainforest

SummaryLarge areas of rainforests in Australia and other tropical regions have been extensively cleared since the mid‐19th century. As abandoned agro‐pastoral land becomes increasingly prominent, there is an ongoing need to identify cost‐effective approaches to reinstate forest on these landscapes. Assisted regeneration is a potentially lower cost restoration approach which aims to accelerate forest recovery by removing barriers to natural regeneration. However, despite being widely used its ecological benefits are poorly quantified, particularly on long cleared and grazed land. This study quantified the benefits of assisted regeneration on previously cleared land in a subtropical rainforest ecosystem within eastern Australia. Three different site types were used (grazed, grazing excluded and grazing excluded plus assisted regeneration, each with a maximum distance of 120 m to remnant forest) to compare forest recovery up to 10 years after grazing was relieved with and without 4–6 years of assisted regeneration. Assisted regeneration sites showed a threefold increase in canopy cover, fourfold increase in native tree and shrub species richness and over 40 times greater native stem density compared to nonassisted regeneration sites. Stimulation of native recruitment appears dependent on the simultaneous removal of multiple barriers to regeneration, with the exclusion of grazing alone insufficient. This demonstrates the additional ecological benefits arising from investment in assisted regeneration. It offers considerable promise as a cost‐effective tool for accelerating and improving reinstatement of forest on retired agro‐pastoral land in the humid subtropics.

Érzékelt tér, elgondolt tér, megélt tér: A térbeliség trialektikája egy budapesti barnamező-rehabilitációs beruházás példáján

A tanulmány egy budapesti barnamező-rehabilitációs beruházás, a Millenáris lakossági percepcióját, az azzal kapcsolatos ismereteket és attitűdöket, valamint a helyszínhez kötődő társadalmi térhasználatot vizsgálja. A kérdőíves felmérés elméleti alapjául Henri Lefebvre és Edward Soja térelméleti koncepciója, a térbeliség trialektikája szolgált, mely a térbeliség három szemléleti módját különbözteti meg: a tér, ahogy azt érzékeljük (érzékelt tér), a tér, ahogy arról gondolkodunk (elgondolt tér), illetve a tér, ahogy azt megéljük, használjuk (megélt tér). A kutatás tapasztalatai alapján kijelenthető, hogy a vizsgált helyszín azért válhatott sikeres barnamező-rehabilitációs beruházássá, mert a kilátogatók érzékelt, elgondolt és megélt terében egyaránt markánsan jelen van. Az épített környezet újraértelmezésének sikerességét az építészeti-örökségvédelmi szakma által is nagyra értékelt építészeti kulisszák jelzik, ugyanakkor kétségtelen, hogy a Millenárist létrehozó érdekcsoport a terület „jelentéseit” (vagyis a tér reprezentációit) is a számára megfelelő módon tudta pozicionálni. Mindössze ezek által azonban nem válhatott volna sikeressé a helyszín: a lakosság az erőteljes hatalmi-politikai konnotációk ellenére is elfogadja és aktívan használja a területet, azonban ehhez olyan napi rutinokra épülő új funkciókra volt szükség, amelyek a performativitás révén folyamatosan megélt kapcsolatot teremtenek a környező lakosság és a megújult egykori ipari helyszín között.

The Entrepreneur Rail Model: Funding urban rail through majority private investment in urban regeneration

The 21st century has seen an unprecedented expansion of urban rail as a response to urban congestion, low carbon mobility and as a seed for urban regeneration. Many cities would like to do much more rail in their futures to create knowledge economy centres but cannot find the funding, including Australian cities that are the focus for this paper. Four approaches to funding are outlined from fully government to fully private with two in between. The Entrepreneur Rail Model suggests a majority private sector funding can facilitate the new markets for urban regeneration as well as providing integrated rail that government's usually find difficult to fund. The process requires transit planning to be seen primarily as a land development tool rather than a transport system. This was the historical function of urban rail in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and signals a significant new 21st century rail market as well as the need for new procurement and governance systems for land assembly and transport planning that can ensure network integration, new assessment models and public good outcomes.

Biophysical and Economic Analysis of Black Spruce Regeneration in Eastern Canada Using Global Climate Model Productivity Outputs

We explore the biophysical potential and economic attractiveness of black spruce (Picea mariana) regeneration in eastern Canada under the high greenhouse gas emission scenario (RCP 8.5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The study integrates net primary productivity and net ecosystem productivity estimates from three major global climate models (GCMs), growth and yield equations specific to black spruce, and economic analyses to determine spatially varying investment values of black spruce regeneration—both including and excluding carbon sequestration benefits. Net present value (NPV) was used to represent financial attractiveness. It was assumed that stands would not be harvested at volumes less than 80 m3·ha−1. A baseline case with the stumpage price set to $20 m−3, stand establishment cost $500 ha−1, and the discount rate 4%, was used with wide-ranging sensitivity analyses conducted around these assumptions. These values represent the wide range of choices and outcomes possible with black spruce regeneration investments. The results indicated a latitudinal gradient in economic attractiveness, with higher forest productivity and NPVs in the southern portion of the study area; however, black spruce regeneration was not economically attractive unless regeneration costs were very low (representing something closer to a natural regeneration type scenario) and/or carbon sequestration benefits of at least $5 ton−1 CO2 were realized. In general, the optimal harvest rotation age increased with increasing carbon price by approximately 9 to 18 years. Results of this study highlight the importance of future price and yield expectations and establishment costs in evaluating forest investments.

The UAE as an Emerging Actor in the Western Balkans: The Case of Strategic Investment in Serbia

In recent years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has increased its engagement on the international stage. One area where it has been increasingly active is the Western Balkans. While its aid programmes were initially directed towards Albania, it has also started to invest in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. This paper focuses mainly on the last of these: UAE commercial investment in Serbia. As is shown, this activity has been focused on four key sectors: aviation, urban construction, military technology and agriculture, chosen to reflect different strategic imperatives. Whereas investments in agriculture and military technologies are part of a strategy of risk mitigation in respect of food security and military security, the investments in aviation and construction form part of a wider strategic policy of economic diversification in anticipation of the post-oil economy. Meanwhile, viewed from the Serbian perspective, these investments have not been without controversy because of their lack of transparency, allegations of corruption, and lack of public debate over plans to transform downtown Belgrade with a substantial new investment in urban regeneration. Serbia’s willingness to host strategic investment from the UAE is also surprising because of UAE support for Kosovo and claims that it has come with questionable political demands. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that UAE investments are a welcome boost to an ailing and crisis ridden economy.

Phylogeny strongly drives seed dormancy and quality in a climatically buffered hotspot for plant endemism.

Models of costs and benefits of dormancy (D) predict that the evolutionarily stable strategy in long-term stable environments is for non-dormancy (ND), but this prediction remains to be tested empirically. We reviewed seed traits of species in the climatically buffered, geologically stable and nutrient-impoverished campo rupestre grasslands in Brazil to test the hypothesis that ND is favoured over D. We examined the relative importance of life-history traits and phylogeny in driving the evolution of D and assessed seed viability at the community level. Germination and viability data were retrieved from 67 publications and ND/D was determined for 168 species in 25 angiosperm families. We also obtained the percentage of embryoless, viable and dormant seeds for 74 species. Frequencies of species with dormant and non-dormant seeds were compared with global databases of dormancy distribution. The majority of campo rupestre taxa (62·5%) had non-dormant seeds, and the ND/D ratio was the highest for any vegetation type on Earth. Dormancy was unrelated to other species life-history traits, suggesting that contemporary factors are poor predictors of D. We found a significant phylogenetic structure in the dormancy categorical trait. Dormancy diversity was highly skewed towards the root of the phylogenetic tree and there was a strong phylogenetic signal in the data, suggesting a major role of phylogeny in determining the evolution of D versus ND and seed viability. Quantitative analysis of the data revealed that at least half of the seeds produced by 46% of the surveyed populations were embryoless and/or otherwise non-viable. Our results support the view that long-term climatic and geological stability favour ND. Seed viability data show that campo rupestre species have a markedly low investment in regeneration from seeds, highlighting the need for specific in situ and ex situ conservation strategies to avoid loss of biodiversity.

Networks and Fault Lines: Understanding the role of housing associations in neighbourhood regeneration: a network governance perspective

Networks and Fault Lines: Understanding the role of housing associations in neighbourhood regeneration: a network governance perspective

Networks and Fault Lines

Networks and Fault Lines

Networks and Fault Lines: Understanding the role of housing associations in neighbourhood regeneration: a network governance perspective

Networks and Fault Lines: Understanding the role of housing associations in neighbourhood regeneration: a network governance perspective

Investment Constraints in Urban Regeneration: Property Developers and Local Authorities Perspective

Urban decay is a phenomenon created due to the expansion of urban population, the restructuring of industrial, social composition as well as the deterioration of urban areas. Consequently this will increase issues of crime, mass unemployment, low quality in urban services, social problems etc. Thus urban regeneration is a tool used to overcome all these issues in order to create quality of urban living, diversify and vibrant cities. However, the involvement of investment in urban regeneration is still infancy in Malaysia as compared to other countries such as Australia, UK, Hong Kong, and etc. This is due to the perception of investors towards the profit generation and the risk involve. The objective of this paper is to determine the constraints involved in urban regeneration investment from the perspectives of the property developer companies and the local authorities. The method used is an exploratory with primary data collection through a questionnaire survey. The findings revealed that the main constraints is in regards of the land issues as well as high cost of investment, however, the benefits gain should also be considered as this create a livable urban living.

Challenging the myths: An investigation of the barriers to wider use of Local Asset Backed Vehicles in the UK

With a shortage of debt funding, particularly for real estate investment and development, alongside public-sector funding cuts, the full effects of which are only just being felt, the need to explore alternative modes of regeneration financing has, arguably, never been so acute. When considering the public-sector real estate asset base, composed of operational assets, commercial estate and development land, a series of questions arise, mostly related to access to finance. Such questions are often prompted by concerns about refurbishment requirements and liabilities, financing of new developments, the creation of sustainable communities and the delivery of better estate management. How will these be funded in light of current budgetary and wider resource constraints? One option is Local Asset Backed Vehicles (LABVs) — limited liability, special purpose joint ventures, operating through Public–Private Partnership collaboration between a public body and a private company. This paper presents the findings of a research project that sought to identify essential success factors and investigate barriers preventing wider uptake of LABVs, first through a comprehensive review of the literature on LABVs that have operated in the UK over the last decade, and secondly, by capturing, through expert interviews, the perceptions and experiences of practitioners involved in such LABVs. The study sheds light on some of the myths surrounding LABVs and attempts to dispel some of the common misconceptions surrounding their procurement, operation and performance. The research ultimately sought to identify the key measures that are required to make LABVs a more viable tool for financing and facilitating investment in economic development, regeneration and renewal in the UK.