City Of Singapore Research Articles

Landscape design approaches to enhance human–wildlife interactions in a compact tropical city

Abstract Urban landscapes have the potential to conserve wildlife. Despite increasing recognition of this potential, there are few collaborative efforts to integrate ecology and conservation principles into context-dependent, spatial and actionable design strategies. To address this issue and to encourage multi-disciplinary research on urban human–wildlife interactions, we ask the following questions. To what extent should design and planning actions be aligned with urban ecology in the context of a compact city? How can wildlife conservation meet the seemingly conflictual demands of urban development and public preference? To answer these questions, we refer to the relevant literature and a number of design projects. Using the compact tropical city of Singapore as a case study, we propose 12 design strategies. We encourage designers and planners to strengthen the links between wildlife and urban dwellers and promote wildlife conservation within cities.

Управление развитием талантов

Developing the talents of the organization’s employees is becoming an increasingly important component for the formation of the organization’s competitive advantages since it is aimed at attracting and retaining high-quality specialists. The concept of talent can be described as a multifaceted phenomenon, including person’s abilities acquired from birth, skills obtained throughout life, and involvement in a favorite type of occupation. The article describes the main ways to identify employees’ talents, such as: “Tricky questions”, “Matrix for determining talent”, and analysis of employee’s personal life. The author recommends paying special attention to the context and examples of difficult situations from the employee’s work activities, the made-up decisions in these conditions, as well as to analyze the most successfully mastered areas. The author also identifies key positions regarding the motivation of talent development and emphasizes that the main driving force in creative activity is not monetary remuneration or evaluation of human efforts but opportunities for employees to show an aptitude to research, learn and develop. As a result of analyzing the experience of talent management in the public service of the city of Singapore, the article highlights such methods of working with talented employees as allocating working time for training, staff rotation, participation in inter- structural project teams, and mentoring. Also, the author considers the trend of introduction and use of artificial intelligence in the organization’s activities and its impact on the work of talented employees. It allows automating routine work and creating conditions for shifting the focus of employees to work creatively.

Urban Design and Economic Growth: An Analytical Tale of Two Tropical Cities

Federal and local governments around the world usually hail urbanisation as a sign of economic progress. However, the relationship is not that simple. The existence of agglomeration economies does not mean that urbanisation will directly result in positive economic outcomes. Also, there is significant diversity in urban growth patterns, with each pattern resulting in different economic and social outcomes. The diversity in patterns of urban growth and transformation implies that different economies can grow at different speeds in achieving socioeconomic goals. This study explores the urban development of two tropical cities – Cairns and Singapore – with a focus on their different urban growth patterns. Cairns is an expanding tropical Australian city located far from main urban centres, meaning it needs attention to foster positive change that will produce distinctive urban spaces which improve quality of life while providing economic growth opportunities. The city of Singapore is a tropical island-state situated near the equator with limited land and natural resources, and one of the largest urban populations in Southeast Asia. Its landscapes are constantly changing as urban planning plays a key role in formulating and guiding the physical terrains of modern Singapore, thereby shaping the quality of life of its population.

Vertical Farming: An Assessment of Singapore City

Urban planners, government leaders, and the farming community have noted the important role cities play in producing their own food to manage higher levels of domestic demand, food insecurity, environmental concerns and affordability. To better understand these issues our research examines urban farming; in particular, the use of vertical farming methods. Such approaches can be used to overcome not only food safety and land resource issues, but also better manage the threats posed by rapid urbanisation. With technological developments in hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics, vertical farming has become a much more efficient and affordable means of farming in urban spaces. Overall, these high-tech systems signify a shift in the ways farming and food production can be operationalised. The results from our analysis show that Singapore, a tropical city in Asia, is making significant strides in vertical farming with substantial public and private investment in R&D through high-tech, high-yielding, land-limited farms in high-rise buildings. Despite these initiatives, Singapore faces a highly constrained urban environment where land scarcity is exacerbated by a complex regulatory land use framework.

Imaginaries of the Future City in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Vienna

Today, cities the world over are entangled in aspirational future visions, as regions compete with others in different parts of the world for investment, tourists, and talent to guarantee economic growth. This paper approaches the cities of Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Vienna via their self-presentations and projections of the future. It sees cities as learning assemblages and pays attention to the narrative construction of imaginaries and future trajectories, as depicted in the respective city galleries and planning museums. All cities are found to be entangled in international policy trends and, in their unique ways, strive for recognition, competitiveness, and conviviality. Singapore emerges as torn between ambition, transparency, and control, while wanting to foster creativity and revive its cultural heritage; Kuala Lumpur appears simultaneously geared by boosterism and at home in opacity and multiplicity, privileging Malays while trying not to alienate other ethnic groups; and Vienna ambivalently projects a future that reconciles nostalgia for monarchic splendor and the social-democratic heritage of egalitarian urbanism with ambitions for international recognition and newly popular trends for citizen participation and “rights to the city.”

Pilot Study of a Customized Nanotextile Wet Garment Treatment on Moderate and Severe Atopic Dermatitis: A Randomized Clinical Trial

H He, MJ Koh, HY Lee, SB Ang. Pediatr Dermatol . 2020;37(1):52–57 To compare the use of nanotextile (100% nanopolyester) and viscose rayon (Tubifast) garments for wet wrap therapy (WWT) thereby demonstrating nanotextile as a comparable alternative to the conventional material, viscose. The study included infants and children younger than 18 years of age with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis (AD) from the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital inpatient ward and dermatology outpatient clinics in Singapore City, Singapore. Exclusion criteria included those with active skin infection, on immunotherapy, and phototherapy. Patients were recruited between March 4, 2017 to August 8, 2017. Enrolled patients were randomized to undergo viscose or nanotextile WWT in addition to …

Infrastructure of mobility: navigating borders, cities and markets

AbstractIn this article, which is based on research conducted in Hong Kong from 2010 to 2013, and again in 2018, I analyse the region‐bound circulation of independent women sex workers from the Philippines across the Asian global cities of Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Macau. Migrating as visa‐free tourists, they maintain a valid immigration status and maximize their income in the informal economy by adopting a step‐down transient mobility pattern characterized by a downward hierarchical circulation to multiple city‐states and country destinations. As I show, their multinational migration is produced and structured through the instrumentalization of a mobility infrastructure constituted by a regime of visa‐free circulation, transportation developments, commercialized migration services, and social networks. In this article, I attempt to extend the contemporary analysis of unauthorized migration by moving away from the prevailing focus on incorporation and settlement and towards an examination of the logics and mechanics of migration flows that occur outside state‐sanctioned channels.

The influence of building form variables on the environmental performance of semi-outdoor spaces. A study in mid-rise and high-rise buildings of Singapore

This study delved on the role of semi-outdoor spaces (SOS), as form-based strategies, in providing enhanced, thermally comfortable environments in highly dense urban contexts. A sample of sixty-three (63) SOS was studied, within four different mid-rise and high-rise buildings located in the warm-humid tropical city of Singapore. It was found: (i) that SOS may act as thermal buffer spaces; (ii) that microclimate creation in SOS is linked to form, specifically to geometrical variables such as void-to-solid ratio, height, height-to-depth ratio, height from ground level, green plot ratio and open space ratio, which influence significantly the environmental factors of air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air velocity and relative humidity; (iii) that some aforementioned geometrical variables (height-to-depth ratio and open space ratio) are linked to thermal comfort when estimated with SET* and PMV* thermal indices; (iv) and that thermal comfort (between −1 and +1 PMV*) can be achieved in SOS considering a typical Singaporean outdoor CLO of 0.3, especially for 1 MET (85.7% of SOS). In the context of Singapore, this study demonstrates that incorporating SOS to mid-rise and high-rise building forms promotes the creation of thermally comfortable microclimates suitable for human activity, even during the hottest hours.

Urban heat island mitigation in Singapore: Evaluation using WRF/multilayer urban canopy model and local climate zones

Mitigation and adaption measures must be designed strategically by urban planners, designers, and decision-makers to reduce urban heat island (UHI) related risks. We employed the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to assess UHI mitigation scenarios for the tropical city of Singapore during April 2016, including two heat wave periods. The local climate zones for Singapore were used as the land use/land cover data to account for the intra-urban variability. The simulations show that the canopy layer UHI intensity in Singapore can reach up to 5 °C in compact areas during nighttime. The results reveal that city-scale deployment of cool roofs can provide an overall reduction of 1.3 °C in the near-surface daytime air temperature in large low-rise areas. Increasing the thermostat set temperature to 25 °C from 21 °C in city-wide buildings can potentially reduce the air temperature due to less (~20%) waste heat discharge from air-conditioning units. A densification scenario considering an increase from approximately 7 841 people/km2 (2016) to 9040-9,600 people/km2 (2030) under the current climate leads to air temperature increase of 1.4 °C, which demonstrates the importance of limiting the densification of less compact areas in maintaining thermal comfort in the future.

Addressing the \u201cminimum parking\u201d problem for on-demand mobility

Parking infrastructure is pervasive and occupies large swaths of land in cities. However, on-demand (OD) mobility has started reducing parking needs in urban areas around the world. This trend is expected to grow significantly with the advent of autonomous driving, which might render on-demand mobility predominant. Recent studies have started looking at expected parking reductions with on-demand mobility, but a systematic framework is still lacking. In this paper, we apply a data-driven methodology based on shareability networks to address what we call the “minimum parking” problem: what is the minimum parking infrastructure needed in a city for given on-demand mobility needs? While solving the problem, we also identify a critical tradeoff between two public policy goals: less parking means increased vehicle travel from deadheading between trips. By applying our methodology to the city of Singapore we discover that parking infrastructure reduction of up to 86% is possible, but at the expense of a 24% increase in traffic measured as vehicle kilometers travelled (VKT). However, a more modest 57% reduction in parking is achievable with only a 1.3% increase in VKT. We find that the tradeoff between parking and traffic obeys an inverse exponential law which is invariant with the size of the vehicle fleet. Finally, we analyze parking requirements due to passenger pick-ups and show that increasing convenience produces a substantial increase in parking for passenger pickup/dropoff. The above findings can inform policy-makers, mobility operators, and society at large on the tradeoffs required in the transition towards pervasive on-demand mobility.

Erratum for The Hierarchy‐Niche Model for Supply Networks

Production and Operations ManagementVolume 29, Issue 10 p. 2425-2425 ErratumFree Access Erratum for The Hierarchy-Niche Model for Supply Networks This article corrects the following: The Hierarchy-Niche Model for Supply Networks Jianxi Luo, Daniel E. Whitney, Volume 28Issue 3Production and Operations Management pages: 668-681 First Published online: October 9, 2018 Jianxi Luo, Corresponding Author luo@sutd.edu.sg Singapore University of Technology and Design, 8 Somapah Road, Singapore City, 138682 Singapore Corresponding author: Singapore University of Technology and Design, 8 Somapah Road, Singapore City 138682, Singapore. Email: luo@sutd.edu.sg.Search for more papers by this authorDaniel E. Whitney, dwhitney@mit.edu Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139 USASearch for more papers by this author Jianxi Luo, Corresponding Author luo@sutd.edu.sg Singapore University of Technology and Design, 8 Somapah Road, Singapore City, 138682 Singapore Corresponding author: Singapore University of Technology and Design, 8 Somapah Road, Singapore City 138682, Singapore. Email: luo@sutd.edu.sg.Search for more papers by this authorDaniel E. Whitney, dwhitney@mit.edu Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139 USASearch for more papers by this author First published: 14 October 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13273AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat In Luo and Whitney (2019), the Equation (4) on page 672 was published incorrectly, it should read as follows: ((4)) Reference Luo, J., D. E. Whitney. 2019. The hierarchy-niche model for supply networks. Prod. Oper. Manag. 28(3): 668– 681. https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.12945Wiley Online LibraryWeb of Science®Google Scholar Volume29, Issue10October 2020Pages 2425-2425 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Source code to generate a training dataset for text recognition of Singapore's city area names and block numbers

Source code for training a deep learning model to recognise hand written text in an image. In particular, the model recognises Singapore's city area names as well as HDB block numbers.

Urban green space quality and older adult recreation: an international comparison

ABSTRACT Association between urban green space quality and older adult outdoor recreation may vary across contrasting community contexts, but few international comparisons have been made. Data on older adult outdoor recreation and the quality of thirty-two (32) green spaces were collected using established tools (Systematic Observation of Play and Recreations in the Community and the Community Park Audit Tool) adapted for the cities of Sydney, Singapore and Dhaka between February to May 2017. Descriptive statistics and Poisson regressions were used to analyse the association between older adult recreation and measures of green space quality in each city. Higher quality green space was associated with more sedentary activity (β = 0.02, p < 0.005) and walking (β = 0.034, p < 0.005) after adjusting for differences between cities. Further tests suggested both sedentary activity and walking were higher in parks scoring more favourably on safety. Vigorous recreational activities were more common in parks scoring more favourably on accessibility, safety and landscape quality. Differences in associations between older adult recreation with each quality indicator were observed between cities. Interestingly, the expected association between quality and recreational activity could be different where high-quality urban green spaces are abundant (e.g. Singapore).

Location Tracking System using GPS

for most city travelers, the arrival time of busses is the key detail. Excessively long waiting times at bus stops also deter and make relevant travelers from taking buses. In this paper, a method of bus arrival time prediction is presented based on participatory passenger sensing.With commodity cell phones,the local environmental history of bus passengers is effectively gathered and used to predict bus travel routes and forecast bus arrival times at different bus stops. The proposed program relies entirely on the participating users 'joint efforts and is independent of the bus operating companies, In this way, universal bus service support can be effectively introduced without the need for funding from different bus operating companies. The resort to more commonly accessible and energy-efficient sensing devices, including cell tower signals, movement statuses, audio recordings, etc., instead of referring to location information permitted by GPS,Which puts less pressure on the involved party and encourages its involvement. A prototype system is designed with various types of Android based cell phones and an extensive trial duration of 7 weeks with the NTU campus shuttle buses as well as Singapore city buses. The test results indicate that the program proposed achieves excellent predictive accuracy compared to the solutions implemented by certain bus operators and supported by GPS. Further implementing the system and conducting 4-day rapid trials with London bus system, indicating quick implementation of the proposed system and promising city-wide results. At the same time, the proposed solution is available in more general terms and is energy efficient.

Differential air temperature cooling performance of urban vegetation types in the tropics

The tendency for cities to be warmer than surrounding rural areas, known as the urban heat island effect, has become a matter of increasing concern, particularly in regions with a hot, humid climate. While urban vegetation may reduce air temperatures, the magnitude of this cooling effect varies between different types of vegetation. In this study we compared the cooling effect of five vegetation types that are commonly encountered in the tropical city of Singapore: grass, shrub, managed trees, managed trees over shrub, and secondary forest. Ambient air temperatures were monitored over 18 months at 88 locations, and analysed in relation to characteristics of the surrounding vegetation. Generalised additive modelling revealed significant temperature reductions associated with increasing cover of managed trees, managed trees over shrubs below, and secondary forest vegetation, with the latter vegetation type having the greatest effect. We conclude that vegetation can significantly ameliorate temperatures in cities with a hot, humid climate, but not all types of vegetation are equally effective. By demonstrating the cooling benefits of secondary forest in densely-populated urban areas, public education and engagement campaigns could help overcome negative perceptions of such vegetation.

Urban Vegetation Types are Not Perceived Equally in Providing Ecosystem Services and Disservices

Urban vegetation is important in providing ecosystem services to people. Different urban vegetation types provide contrasting suites of ecosystem services and disservices. Understanding public perceptions of the ecosystem services and disservices can therefore play an important role in shaping the planning and management of urban areas. We conducted an online survey (n = 1000) to understand how residents in the tropical city of Singapore perceived urban vegetation and the associated ecosystem services and disservices. The questionnaire was designed to explore whether different urban vegetation types (grass, shrubs, trees, trees over shrubs, and secondary forest) were perceived as equal in providing benefits. Respondents considered ecosystem services provided by urban vegetation to be more important than disservices. Among ecosystem services, regulating services were most highly rated, with more than 80% of the respondents appreciating urban vegetation for providing shade and improving air quality. Respondents recognized that different vegetation types provided different ecosystem services. For example, secondary forest was most commonly associated with education and wildlife, while trees were strongly associated with cooling and air quality. We conclude that in developing plans and designs for urban vegetation and ecosystem services, it is important to understand the perceptions, priorities, and concerns of residents.

An urban ecohydrological model to quantify the effect of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology (UT&amp;C v1.0)

Abstract. Increasing urbanization is likely to intensify the urban heat island effect, decrease outdoor thermal comfort, and enhance runoff generation in cities. Urban green spaces are often proposed as a mitigation strategy to counteract these adverse effects, and many recent developments of urban climate models focus on the inclusion of green and blue infrastructure to inform urban planning. However, many models still lack the ability to account for different plant types and oversimplify the interactions between the built environment, vegetation, and hydrology. In this study, we present an urban ecohydrological model, Urban Tethys-Chloris (UT&amp;amp;C), that combines principles of ecosystem modelling with an urban canopy scheme accounting for the biophysical and ecophysiological characteristics of roof vegetation, ground vegetation, and urban trees. UT&amp;amp;C is a fully coupled energy and water balance model that calculates 2 m air temperature, 2 m humidity, and surface temperatures based on the infinite urban canyon approach. It further calculates the urban hydrological fluxes in the absence of snow, including transpiration as a function of plant photosynthesis. Hence, UT&amp;amp;C accounts for the effects of different plant types on the urban climate and hydrology, as well as the effects of the urban environment on plant well-being and performance. UT&amp;amp;C performs well when compared against energy flux measurements of eddy-covariance towers located in three cities in different climates (Singapore, Melbourne, and Phoenix). A sensitivity analysis, performed as a proof of concept for the city of Singapore, shows a mean decrease in 2 m air temperature of 1.1 ∘C for fully grass-covered ground, 0.2 ∘C for high values of leaf area index (LAI), and 0.3 ∘C for high values of Vc,max (an expression of photosynthetic capacity). These reductions in temperature were combined with a simultaneous increase in relative humidity by 6.5 %, 2.1 %, and 1.6 %, for fully grass-covered ground, high values of LAI, and high values of Vc,max, respectively. Furthermore, the increase of pervious vegetated ground is able to significantly reduce surface runoff.

Buildings and the circular economy: Estimating urban mining, recovery and reuse potential of building components

Continuous accumulation of materials in cities have led to the prospects of urban mining for secondary resources. Several commodities and/or products have been assessed in recent years for urban mining and reuse potential viz. automobiles, electronic waste etc. Urban mining for buildings, the largest material sinks globally, however require considerations which differ from the product-centric urban mining approaches. This study proposes a methodological framework for estimating city-wide urban mining, recovery and reuse potential of building materials and components. First, it extends the material stock and flow assessment to urban mining potentials so that recoverable and reusable flows can be highlighted. Secondly, it expands potential applications of recoverable flows to provide an impactful representation to stakeholders such as policy makers, consumers, designers and practitioners. The proposed framework has been applied to the public residential buildings of Singapore, a city state in Southeast Asia, for assessing building components such as windows, doors, tiles, light fixtures, toilet and kitchen fittings. As a case study, construction of low-cost houses in neighbouring Indonesia was explored to receive building component flows. Results highlight that the reuse of building components could have supported construction in the range of 830–1910 houses in 2016 with more than 30,000 households getting benefit over the six years assessed in this study. Overall, outflows from the Singapore city can partly support the construction of 2200–6030 houses annually to resource-constrained housing sector in the surrounding developing region. Realization of such a circular economy practice will contribute towards sustainable development goals and climate change mitigation efforts.

“One thing leads to another”, but where? – Gateway cities and the geography of production linkages

AbstractAlthough it has been argued that current configurations of extractive industries provide opportunities for developing production linkages, in other words, that “one thing leads to another”, these opportunities are not necessarily realised directly in the resource‐holding countries. This article aims to explain why the greater opportunities for creating increased production linkages may remain unrealised. While existing research on production linkages is characterised by a national scale mode of analysis, this article examines production linkages in the resource‐poor gateway city of Singapore that are intended to serve oil and gas operations at the macro‐regional level in Indonesia and Vietnam. The results reveal that a significant depth and breadth of production linkages have unfolded in Singapore, highlighting that in particular sophisticated production linkages tend to have a broader geographic scope. Moreover, the analysis identifies factors that have shifted the territorial scale of labour‐intensive and low‐technology production linkages from a macro‐regional towards a national or subnational level, to the advantage of the resource‐holding countries. These insights add some complexity to the study of production‐linkage development and emphasise the need for a multi‐scalar perspective that does not stop at national borders.

An ecological-thermodynamic approach to urban metabolism: Measuring resource utilization with open system network effectiveness analysis

Cities have evolved as centers of economic growth and often described as open systems where the intake of resources is heavily dependent on flows imported from the external environment. The question is, how much of the resource available in cities is effectively utilized? In response, this paper develops an ecological-thermodynamic approach to assess the ability of a system to make full use of the resources available and reduce the demand for new resources. In this work, open system network effectiveness analysis is introduced as a novel assessment method to investigate the cities’ producer and consumer behaviors by studying the resource flow connections and the interactions between the socio-economic sectors. Investigation on the urban flows network evaluates the ability of the system to utilize the resource imported through the effectiveness of utilization indicator and the ability to convert the resource imported to useful products through the effectiveness of conversion indicator. The effectiveness indicators, utilization and conversion, represent the consumption and production characteristics of the system respectively. This is tested through a case study conducted for Singapore city over the time period 2005–2014. The effectiveness results show that the city, on average, has utilized 45% of the maximum extractable usefulness from the resources imported throughout the years, with the lowest effectiveness, 39%, and the highest effectiveness, 50%, in the years 2007 and 2014 respectively. The trajectory of effectiveness results throughout the years suggests a trade-off relationship between the producers and consumers to balance the production and consumption of resources in the city.