Urban Areas In Order Research Articles

Monitoring the dispersed composition of dust particles on the leaf blades of common lilac (Syringa vulgaris), small-leaved elm (Ulmus parvifolia), common apricot (Prunus armenica) in urban agglomeration

The article presents the study results of dusty particles on the leaves of tree species forms in the residential area of the Sredneahtubinsky district of the Volgograd region. The aim of the study was to monitor the dispersed composition of dust particles on various types of urban vegetation. Leaves of common lilac (Syringa vulgaris), small-leaved elm (Ulmus parvifolia), common apricot (Prunus armenica) as mass plant species growing in the residential area of the Sredneahtubinsky district of the Volgograd region were chosen as objects of study. The novelty of the work is the study dispersed composition of dust particles on the leaves of common lilac (Syringa vulgaris), small-leaved elm (Ulmus parvifolia), common apricot (Prunus armenica) from the standpoint of random functions expressed by integral distribution curves of particle mass over their equivalent diameters. The measurement of dust particles, dust processing, and the study of dust dispersed composition of was carried out in accordance with GOST R 56929-2016 using the SPOTEXPLORER computer program. As a result of the studies, it was found that the surface of the laminate leaf of common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) and elm have the best adsorption ability small-leaved (Ulmus parvifolia). The study's results are of practical importance - they provide information on the urban plants ability of leaves surface to retain fine-dispersed dust, offer a specific range of plant species for urban green areas, which can use the regional public services greening of urban areas in order to reduce PM2.5 emissions of PM10 in urban areas.

Smartphone-based drive-test methodology for the experimental characterisation of the physical layer and a performance assessment of LTE networks in urban environments

Long-term evolution (LTE) architecture has recently been enhanced by means of the introduction of multi-antenna systems that make use of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technology, both at the base transceiver station (eNodeB) and user equipment (UE). MIMO can deploy transmission diversity to achieve more robust transmission in poor propagation conditions and spatial multiplexing to increase throughput and thus LTE performance from an end-user perspective. The most recent version of the standard (Release 10) makes up to eight antennae available for the downlink transmission channel. The paper focuses on the most relevant physical-layer parameters used by LTE to optimise a MIMO system. Performance at different frequencies and bandwidths is investigated over a wide urban area in order to study the network behaviour in actual propagation conditions and to verify whether standard prescriptions are satisfied by a fully operational LTE mobile communication system.

Actions of social and labour inclusion with ICT: an assessment of the Velez-Malaga urban area

In the framework of knowledge society, information and communication technologies, the digital divide is still a determining factor for social inclusion and access to employment processes. In the interest of an inclusive and equitable development of digital competencies, governments and public policies should propose and enhance development programmes and initiatives for different groups of disadvantaged people, as well as the possibility of adult professional reorientation for those who run the risk of not having appropriate qualifications for their jobs. Consequently, it is necessary to ascertain the real situation of different urban areas in order to diagnose existing deficits in digital matters and develop integrated strategies to facilitate the inclusion and improvement of access to employment. The present study describes this reality in the municipal context of Velez-Malaga (Spain) and analyses the effectiveness of the measures put in place to improve the social and labour inclusion of its citizens.
 Keywords: Inclusion, ICT, employment, digital competency, citizens.

TALENT RETENTION, ATTRACTION AND THE REQUIRED FUTURE SKILLS FOR EMPLOYEES IN WINNING CITIES IN RURAL REGIONS

TALENT RETENTION, ATTRACTION AND THE REQUIRED FUTURE SKILLS FOR EMPLOYEES IN WINNING CITIES IN RURAL REGIONS

Relationship between the geometric profile of the city and the subjective perception of urban soundscapes

Large urban areas are very prone to be contaminated by different pollutants beyond safe limits. In recent years, it is not only pursued that these environments comply with all the regulations in this regard, but also to make them as comfortable as possible for their inhabitants. Being noise one of the most harmful pollutants, researchers and administrations are focusing their efforts in understanding and improving the subjective perception of the urban sound. This understanding could allow to make better decisions in the planning of large urban areas or in the efficient management of the traffic flow.The main purpose of this study is to evaluate if urban places with similar geometrical features are acoustically perceived in a similar manner. The study was conducted in the city centre of Madrid (Spain), where the sound was recorded in 13 places, and their geometrical features studied. In some of these places the recordings were performed more than one time, in different recording sessions, to study the acoustic stability of the environments. Psychoacoustic indicators were extracted and statistical analysis as well as clustering analysis were performed. A listening test was conducted to evaluate the agreement between the quantitative results and the perception of a sample of 16 participants. Both the quantitative and the qualitative analysis reported that urban places with similar geometries are perceived in a similar way. Also, it was proven that a recording performed a particular day in one place is highly representative of that place for similar working conditions. These results point out the benefits of incorporating the psychoacoustic indicators in the planning of large urban areas in order improve the acoustic comfort besides reducing the noise pollution.

ON THE PROCESS OF PLANNING THE WALLS IN CARTAGENA DE INDIAS (COLOMBIA)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the walls newly planned in the Spanish cities between the mid-16th century and early 17th century were planned and evaluated by the military engineers, local authorities and Spanish Court. For this purpose, this paper is composed of two sections. In the first section, this paper analyzes the process of planning the new walls in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia). There were two basic plans, Acuña’s plan and Antonelli’s, which were evaluated and argued between the Spanish Court and local authorities. And this paper demonstrates that there are two important factors in the evaluation that influence the final decision in the Spanish Court, that is, “preservation of urban area” and “capability for defense”. Pedro de Acuña, a governor of Cartagena de Indias, intended to preserve the urban area including cistern and building site as much as possible. Acuña’s plan was supported by the local authorities since it provides more opportunity to develop local economy and trade. On the other hand, Battista Antonelli(1547-1616), an Italian military engineer, aimed to realize the walls with higher capability for defense by demolishing a certain amount of the urban area in order to create the more appropriated defensive line for the walls in terms of the art of fortification. Other military officers also seemed to support Antonelli’s plan since they probably considered it more effective from military’s point of view. So, these two factors were totally opposed each other. Based on these two factors, two basic plans were argued. As a result, Acuña’s plan which emphasizes “preservation of urban area” was selected as the one to be constructed. And based on Acuña’s plan, the actual walls were almost completed in 1631.

Butterfly diversity along the urbanization gradient in a densely-built Mediterranean city: Land cover is more decisive than resources in structuring communities

Urbanization induces rapid landscape and habitat modifications leading to alterations in species distribution patterns and biodiversity loss. As pollinating insects such as butterflies are particularly susceptible to urbanization, it is important to pinpoint the factors that could enhance their diversity in the urban areas in order to design adequate management and conservation actions. Our study aims to investigate the influence of land cover and local habitat characteristics on the butterfly diversity patterns and community structure in a densely built city in the eastern Mediterranean region. We carried out butterfly surveys (line transects) in 45 randomly selected sites, distributed along an urbanization gradient. In each site, we assessed the surrounding landscape by measuring the land cover in a 200-m buffer zone, and the local habitat by estimating the available plant resources along each transect. Overall, 1805 individuals belonging to 41 butterfly species were recorded. Land cover was found to have the strongest influence on butterfly species richness, abundance and community structure. Although plant resources were sufficiently available within the whole study area, the butterfly community was significantly poorer in the more urbanized areas, indicating the potential role of habitat fragmentation and patch isolation. In contrast, butterfly diversity was significantly higher in the peri-urban area, underlying its conservation value for butterflies in the urban landscape. We attribute these findings to the degradation of the more urbanized areas due to long-term inadequate planning and the disorganized expansion of the city.

Statistical Analysis and Determination of Representative Size for Sediment in Malaysian Urban Drains

This paper highlights the statistical analysis done on sediment samples collected from concrete drains in Malaysian major urban areas in order to understand the characteristics of the sediment and also to determine the suitable representative grain size. Samples were collected from 12 urban areas in Peninsular Malaysia and 3 urban areas in East Malaysia and subjected to sieve analysis. Sieve analysis results had shown that the major component of the collected sediment samples was sand with a mean value of 72.2%, followed by gravel with a mean of 24.7% and silt and clay with a mean of 3.1%. Samples from 10 locations have shown a non normal distribution with the tenderness to skew to the right. Due to this, the conventional use of median grain size, d50 as the effective size for sediment samples might not be a good representation for the sediment distribution. Further statistical analysis in this paper have suggested that the mode grain size is a much better representative grain size due to its stability when compared to median and mean size. Thus, a much better representative for the sediment samples from Malaysian urban areas would be the mode size (in this case is d20).

Analysis and development of conceptual model of low-carbon city with a sustainable approach

Low-carbon cities have been the favorite subject of many societies with the aim of making a sustainable environment for life. The purpose of this study was to develop a conceptualized model of low-carbon city with a sustainable approach by applying life-cycle cost analysis as the methodology with secondary data from Iranian national report to the United Nations framework convention on climate change. This study attempts to examine the factors affecting the production and increase in carbon emission in urban areas and also provides some solutions to solve these problems and create low-carbon urban areas in order to promote environmental quality with a sustainable development approach. Then, some tools and methods are developed to improve the analytical rigor associated with climate action plans. With a focus on non-behavioral items, the cost and effectiveness of more than 30 action items are quantified. Finally, the scenario analysis was used to evaluate the cost and efficiency of various program designs. Results indicate that greenhouse gases mitigation takes remarkable initial investments. This cost differs from $1 to $70 M for each percent of reduction depending on scale and scope of the program. However, long-term cost savings are considerable if the program is properly designed, with the 20-year return period for different climate action plans, exceeding 100%.

How urban density, network topology and socio-economy influence public transport ridership: Empirical evidence from 48 European metropolitan areas

Understanding the determinants of public transport ridership is important in order to plan attractive public transport systems efficiently. This study analyses at a meta-level per capita public transport ridership across 48 European cities based on a rich database collected as part of this study. The dataset includes detailed mode-specific information about the public transport networks, hence extending previous research by analysing each public transport mode separately while simultaneously taking into account the main determinants of ridership identified by a thorough literature review of 36 previous studies, e.g. urban demographics and land uses. Factor analysis was deployed revealing four main composite determinants, namely i) metro coverage, network connectivity, and urban density, ii) suburban rail coverage, iii) economic inequality, and iv) light rail coverage. Subsequent multiple regression analysis confirmed the a priori hypothesis of per capita ridership being positively associated with the extent of network coverage in terms of metro, suburban rail and light rail transit. The importance of network connectivity was included with results suggesting that the number of transfer stations was more important than the cyclomatic number of the public transport network. Cities with higher economic inequality in terms of higher unemployment, lower per capita GDP and higher GINI-coefficient showed lower public transport ridership. Finally, the analyses highlighted the importance of proper definitions of urban areas in order to perform consistent analyses of data across cities. This revealed the impact on transit ridership of urban density defined as population and especially job intensity per km2. As the study is based on aggregate, cross-sectional data from a relatively small sample of European cities, it is not without limitations in terms of mainly revealing correlational structures rather than causations as well as not including all variables related to public transport ridership. Future studies should further investigate these interrelationships before drawing conclusions on the causational relationships.

Ecological network analysis on intra-city metabolism of functional urban areas in England and Wales

The UK has one of the world’s most urbanised societies where nearly 83% of the total population lives in cities. The continuing population growth could lead to increases in environmental pollutions and congestion within cities. The framework of urban metabolism uses an analogy between cities and ecosystems to study the metabolic processes within complex urban systems akin to natural biological systems. It remains as a challenge to fully understand the complicated distribution of resource flows within an urban network. In this paper, Ecological Network Analysis was applied to study the intra-city flows between economic sectors in 35 functional urban areas in order to investigate their respective metabolic relationships. The intra-city flows network of each area was also supplemented with the geographical distance between the workplace zones to study the impacts of spatial distribution on the density of resource flows. The metabolic systems were dominated by 64% of exploitative relationships with an average mutualism index of 0.93 and synergism index of 3.56 across all 35 areas. The consumption-control and production-dependency relationships revealed the hierarchical orders among the sectors resembling the pyramidal structure of an urban ecosystem. Network community classification emphasized the importance of inter-relationship within the organisation of each community class. The producer-type and consumer-type communities showed the tendencies of those sectors to cluster based on their respective hierarchical roles in the ecosystem. This work provides an insight into the wide range of intra-city ecological metabolic characteristics which can potentially expand to a multi-scale assessment of urban metabolism across the country.

Financial Inclusion and Macroeconomic Performance in Nigeria

The paper examines the relationship between financial inclusion and macroeconomic performance in Nigeria from 1981 to 2014. The data for the study were sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletins. The study employs the Ordinary Least Square and Granger Causality tests as estimation techniques. From the result, using the coefficient, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is positive at constant of 2573.946. This means that when all variables are held constant, there will be a positive variation up to 2573.946 units in GDP. This implies that there is a significant and positive effect of financial inclusion on macroeconomic performance in Nigeria. It is concluded that Credit to the Private Sector as a ratio of GDP (CPS/GDP), Money Supply as a ratio of GDP (MS/GDP), and Numbers of Bank Branches (NBB) have a unidirectional relationship to GDP – while Currency Out Banks (COB), Interest Rate (INT) and Total Saving (TSA)are independent of GDP. The study therefore recommends that the government and the Central Bank of Nigeria should improve on the facilitation of credit to the private sector, and money supply should be properly managed. The Central Bank of Nigeria should encourage the provisions of more bank branches to rural and urban areas in order to promote easy access to financial services.

The development of a walkability audit. Based on Iranian cities pedestrian environment

Given its influence on public health and the vehicle usage and its negative consequences, walkability has attracted much attention in recent decades. Meanwhile, the development of a method to measure walkability of urban areas in order to improve this feature is of utmost importance. Hence, after a comprehensive investigation into environmental measures related to the walking behavior of the users, it was attempted to develop an efficient and reliable environmental audit tool based on these measures. Following the development of a protocol for utilization and management of the tool, two different tests were employed to validate it. The participants were taught how to use the tool, then it was tested in the Eram neighborhood of Shiraz and the results were statistically analyzed. 13 of the environmental measures were found not to have validity to be used in various environments. However, given the remaining 50 items, the tool is valid for being applied to other urban areas.

Geophysical pre‐investigation for a Stockholm tunnel project: joint inversion and interpretation of geoelectric and seismic refraction data in an urban environment

ABSTRACTUnderground constructions for public traffic purposes are becoming increasingly important for urban areas in order to use the limited space more efficiently. Several electric resistivity tomography and seismic refraction tomography measurements were performed crossing a water passage near Stockholm during the pre‐investigation phase of a tunnel building project. The objective was to determine the bedrock interface and qualitatively assess the rock quality. The scope of this study is to present a field case in an urban environment and show improvements of geophysical results due to additional model constraints by a joint inversion. Results of individual inversions show a large transition zone below the seabed from electric resistivity tomography. Some parts of the seismic refraction tomography have a low model resolution, due to gas‐bearing sediments with a low velocity together with a high noise level, which leads to insufficient investigation depth that makes it difficult to determine the bedrock interface. However, the bedrock interface could be reconstructed in the resistivity model by performing a joint inversion, using the seismic velocity model to constrain the electric resistivity tomography model and vice versa. Adjacent geotechnical soundings support the joint inversion results. A vertical low resistive zone could be identified as a dominant fracture zone in the southern part of the investigated area. In general, the joint inversion approach significantly improved the electric resistivity tomography results and provided a more reliable bedrock estimation.

Improved analysis of ground vibrations produced by man-made sources

Man-made sources of ground vibration must be carefully monitored in urban areas in order to ensure that structural damage and discomfort to residents is prevented or minimised. The research presented in this paper provides a comparative evaluation of various methods used to analyse a series of tri-axial ground vibration measurements generated by rail, road, and explosive blasting. The first part of the study is focused on comparing various techniques to estimate the dominant frequency, including time-frequency analysis. The comparative evaluation of the various methods to estimate the dominant frequency revealed that, depending on the method used, there can be significant variation in the estimates obtained. A new and improved analysis approach using the continuous wavelet transform was also presented, using the time-frequency distribution to estimate the localised dominant frequency and peak particle velocity. The technique can be used to accurately identify the level and frequency content of a ground vibration signal as it varies with time, and identify the number of times the threshold limits of damage are exceeded.

Pengaruh Industrialisasi Terhadap Migrasi Per Propinsi di Indonesia Pada Tahun 2010

Tatik MariyantiFakultas Ekonomi Universitas TrisaktiEmail : tatik_m2002@yahoo.comAbstractThe title of this paper is the impact of industriiaization to migration by provinces in Indonesia on 2010. Today in Indonesia, there are still excess number of workers in the agriculture sector. The various sources clearly show the labor transformation in Indonesia still occur. Where as this transformation is a logical consequences for the developing country that carrying out the economic development. This condition also indicate with the excess labor in the capital intensive sector that relevan to the industrialization process. The experiences in some provinces show that migration to the urban area is related by the industrialization. The people migrate to the urban area in order to fullfill the labor needs in the industrial sector, because job in the industrial sectorwill give more added value compare with other sector such as agriculture sector. This research will anlyze the impact of industrialization to the migration by provinces in 2010.Based on theory and previous findings we estimate that there is influence of industrial sector employment, and wage rate toward migration between provinces in 2010, This research conclude that the contribution of industrial sector in regional GDP have a positive effect toward inter-provincial migration, the industrial sector contribution to employment has a effect on migration, and minimum regional wage rate have positive affect the migration significant at 5%. This test use Eviews-4, with multiple linear regression model.Keywords : Industrial sector, gross domestic product, employment, regional wage and migration

The GREENH-City interventional research protocol on health in all policies

BackgroundThis paper presents the research protocol of the GoveRnance for Equity, EnviroNment and Health in the City (GREENH-City) project funded by the National Institute for Cancer (Subvention N°2017–003-INCA). In France, health inequities have tended to increase since the late 1980s. Numerous studies show the influence of social, economic, geographic and political determinants on health inequities across the life course. Exposure to environmental factors is uneven across the population and may impact on health and health inequities. In cities, green spaces contribute to creating healthy settings which may help tackle health inequities. Health in All Policies (HiAP) represents one of the key strategies for addressing social and environmental determinants of health inequities. The objective of this research is to identify the most promising interventions to operationalize the HiAP approaches at the city level to tackle health inequities through urban green spaces. It is a participatory interventional research to analyze public policy in real life setting (WHO Healthy Cities).Method/designIt is a mixed method systemic study with a quantitative approach for the 80 cities and a comparative qualitative multiple case-studies of 6 cities. The research combines 3 different lens: 1/a political analysis of how municipalities apply HiAP to reduce social inequities of health through green space policies and interventions 2/a geographical and topological characterization of green spaces and 3/ on-site observations of the use of green spaces by the inhabitants.ResultsCity profiles will be identified regarding their HiAP approaches and the extent to which these cities address social inequities in health as part of their green space policy action. The analysis of the transferability of the results will inform policy recommendations in the rest of the Health City Network and widely for the French municipalities.Discussion/conclusionThe study will help identify factors enabling the implementation of the HiAP approach at a municipal level, promoting the development of green spaces policies in urban areas in order to tackle the social inequities in health.

Variability, drivers, and effects of atmospheric nitrogen inputs across an urban area: Emerging patterns among human activities, the atmosphere, and soils

Atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (N) is a major input of N to the biosphere and is elevated beyond preindustrial levels throughout many ecosystems. Deposition monitoring networks in the United States generally avoid urban areas in order to capture regional patterns of N deposition, and studies measuring N deposition in cities usually include only one or two urban sites in an urban-rural comparison or as an anchor along an urban-to-rural gradient. Describing patterns and drivers of atmospheric N inputs is crucial for understanding the effects of N deposition; however, little is known about the variability and drivers of atmospheric N inputs or their effects on soil biogeochemistry within urban ecosystems. We measured rates of canopy throughfall N as a measure of atmospheric N inputs, as well as soil net N mineralization and nitrification, soil solution N, and soil respiration at 15 sites across the greater Boston, Massachusetts area. Rates of throughfall N are 8.70±0.68kgNha−1yr−1, vary 3.5-fold across sites, and are positively correlated with rates of local vehicle N emissions. Ammonium (NH4+) composes 69.9±2.2% of inorganic throughfall N inputs and is highest in late spring, suggesting a contribution from local fertilizer inputs. Soil solution NO3− is positively correlated with throughfall NO3− inputs. In contrast, soil solution NH4+, net N mineralization, nitrification, and soil respiration are not correlated with rates of throughfall N inputs. Rather, these processes are correlated with soil properties such as soil organic matter. Our results demonstrate high variability in rates of urban throughfall N inputs, correlation of throughfall N inputs with local vehicle N emissions, and a decoupling of urban soil biogeochemistry and throughfall N inputs.

Development of a novel tunnel dismantling machine for the MTR West Island Line construction

ABSTRACTThe MTR West Island Line (WIL) Contract No. 703 from the Sheung Wan Station (SHW) tunnel to the Sai Ying Pun Station (SYP) tunnel is part of the extension of the existing MTR Island Line (ISL) of Hong Kong Island. The project involved the demolition and backfilling of 132 m of the existing Overrun Tunnel (ORT) through complex geology beneath a densely-populated urban area in order to enable the subsequent excavation of the WIL Down-track (westbound) running tunnel using a tunnel boring machine (TBM). The innovation of a bespoke tunnel dismantling machine (TDM) to tackle this challenge was adopted to minimise construction risks. A concrete bulkhead was built to separate the TDM works area from the operational railway. The TDM worked backwards from the operating railway interface inside the ORT to remove each ring of lining segments under 2.8 bar compressed air pressure, placing a sprayed concrete lining for temporary support and backfill of the remaining void left underground. The crew behind the d...

Experimental study of the effect of soil type on global warming using laboratory thermal collector

Among the causes of global warming, figure the modification of the nature of the soil. This paper presents an experimental study of the effect of soil type on global warming using a laboratory thermal collector. This paper shows also another application of this experimental apparatus used generally for parametric study in order to improve its efficiency. The experimental device (ET200) used in this study consists of a thermal collector and water reservoir. The thermal collector receives solar energy from a halogen lamp (which simulates solar radiation) on its glass surface. The same amount of the following materials is spread over the receptive surface of the thermal collector; agricultural soil, local regional soil (soil of the region where these experiments were performed), cement and plaster. The same experimental conditions are kept up for each material used as receptive surface cover.The incident heat flux is influenced by the nature of the receptive surface coverage. Indeed, the receptive surface covered by agricultural soil and local soil receives the same incident flux. This flux is reduced by 4% in case of cement and 8% in case of plaster (i.e; relative to flux received by agricultural soil and local soil). The reception glass covered with agricultural soil transmits better the energy received from the lamp to the heating medium (heat transfer fluid); this energy is lessened by 9% in the case of local soil, by 27% in the case of plaster and 18% in the case of cement. So, the incident solar radiation is well reflected by the plaster, it is less reflected by the cement and it is the least reflected in the case of agricultural soil and local soil. So, the thermal collector demonstrates that air temperature is affected by the nature of the soil. It is recommended to preserve agricultural lands and do not transforming them into urban areas in order to reduce the effect of global warming.