Urban Topography Research Articles

SPRNN: A spatial–temporal recurrent neural network for crowd flow prediction

The capability of predicting the future trends of crowds has rendered crowd flow prediction more critical in building intelligent transportation systems, and attracted substantial research efforts. The trend of crowd flows is closely related to time and the urban topography. Therefore, extracting and leveraging both spatial features and temporal features are key gradients for effectively predicting crowd flows. Many previous works extract spatial features from crowd-flow data in an iteration way. As a result, models suffer from a heavy computation cost while ignoring details of road topology and structure information. Meanwhile, temporal features, including short-term features and long-term features, are separately extracted. The fusion of all features at the last stage before accomplishing the prediction also neglects the underlying associativity between various features. To address the limitations, we leverage spatial features by extracting structural information of road structures, such as road connection, road density, road width, etc. Rather than extracting spatial features from crowd-flow data, we capture them from images of city maps by adopting convolutional neural networks. Moreover, we implement a new sequence feature fusion mechanism to merge both spatial features and temporal features from various time scales so as to predict crowd flows. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate our model on three benchmark datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that the model outperforms 15 state-of-the-art methods. The source code is available at: https://github.com/CVisionProcessing/SPRNN.

A fine construction method of urban road DEM considering road morphological characteristics

Urban road DEM is not only an important basic geographic information data of the city, but also an important element to describe and express the urban topography, and it is an indispensable part of the construction of the smart digital city, urban planning and urban surface process simulation. Previous methods for constructing urban road DEMs do not sufficiently consider the actual morphological characteristics of urban roads, and morphological distortion is evident in the expression of urban roads, seriously affecting the application of urban rainfall flood simulation and urban pipe network design. In response to these problems, this study proposed a considering morphological characteristics fine (CMCF) method of urban road DEM construction, selected a typical urban road area in the Jianye District of Nanjing City in China as the study area, used the 1:500 digital line graphic as data source, hierarchized roads in accordance with different morphological characteristics from the perspective of DEM construction, constructed the corresponding DEMs, and finally merged all levels of road DEMs to produce a complete high-precision urban road DEM. Results showed that the DEM constructed using the CMCF method not only exhibited higher elevation accuracy than the urban road DEM constructed using previous methods, i.e., inverse distance weighting (IDW) and triangulated irregular network (TIN) methods, with a mean error and a root-mean-square error of 0.015 and 0.060, respectively, but it can also accurately express the spatial element composition form and road morphological characteristics of urban roads, avoiding the distorted expression of road morphological characteristics. This study can provide a reference for a new DEM construction method and data support for smart digital city construction and urban surface simulation.

Towards an Inclusive Walking Community—A Multi-Criteria Digital Evaluation Approach to Facilitate Accessible Journeys

Half the world’s population now lives in cities, and this figure is expected to reach 70% by 2050. To ensure future cities offer equity for multiple age groups, it is important to plan for spatially inclusive features such as pedestrian accessibility. This feature is strongly related to many emerging global challenges regarding health, an ageing population, and an inclusive society, and should be carefully considered when designing future cities to meet the mobility requirements of different groups of people, reduce reliance on cars, and encourage greater participation by all residents. Independent travel to public open spaces, particularly green spaces, is widely considered a key factor that affects human health and well-being and is considered a primary motivation for walking. At the same time, unfavourable steepness and restrictive access points to open spaces can limit accessibility and restrict the activities of older adults or people with mobility impairments. This paper introduces a novel open access proximity modelling web application, PedestrianCatch, that simulates pedestrian catchments for user-specified destinations utilising a crowd-source road network and open topographic data. Based on this tool, we offer a multi-criteria evaluation approach that considers travel speed, time, urban topography, and visualisation modes to accommodate various simulation needs for different urban scenarios. Two case studies are conducted to demonstrate the technical feasibility and flexibility using the proposed evaluation approach, and explain how new renewal strategies can be tested when designing a more inclusive neighbourhood. This evaluation tool is immediately relevant to urban designers, health planners, and disability communities, and will be increasingly relevant to the wider community as populations age, while the corresponding analysis approach has a huge potential to contribute to the pre-design and design process for developing more walkable and accessible communities for all.

BM 40757: Marduk’s Arrival at the Akītu Temple on the 8th of Nisannu

Abstract This article offers an edition and an attempt at an interpretation of text BM 40757, which records a ritual related to the New Year Festival (NYF), or Akītu, of Marduk in Babylon. The text contains information on the festival’s structure, setting, and organization. It clarifies aspects related to the arrival of the river procession at the Akītu temple, the participants and deities involved, their spatial and ritual arrangements, the offerings and rites performed, the ceremonial elements involved, and the specific spaces in which the rites were carried out. It also illustrates aspects of urban cultic topography and, more importantly, features of the Akītu temple’s layout.

ЭТЮДЫ О ПАРИЖЕ: СБОРНИК ДЖИН РИС “THE LEFT BANK AND OTHER STORIES”

The paper discusses the debut collection “The Left Bank and Other Stories” (1927) by Jean Rhys, the classic of modernist literature, which has not yet been published in Russian. The focus is on the specifics of artistic representation of Paris in a number of short stories/sketches of Rhys. Based on the reconstruction of the biographical context, the point is made on the writer’s selectivity of urban topography, aiming at deconstruction of the image of Parisian chic, especially the ideas shared by representatives of the bohemians who settled in Paris in the 1920s. A series of sketches can also be considered as an exercise in a minor form, allowing to gain confidence in working on larger canvases, the autobiographical novels Quartet (1929), Good Morning, Midnight (1939), united by common topoi of Paris. In the poetics of the texts by Rhys, elements of impressionistic art (representation of the momentary impression, subjectivity of view, attention to the color palette, etc.) and modernist writing (weakened eventfulness, attention to detail, incompleteness, epiphany, montage, narration in the form of “central consciousness”, leitmotives, etc.) are combined. Rhys introduces an element of irony over schematized pattern of images of Paris, creating a system of leitmotives united by the theme of disillusionment, the impenetrability of the inner world of a free artist (including a woman of an artistic temperament), and a city free from any normativity. In addition, the use of intertext is noted as a tool that makes it possible to introduce a new meaning into a sketch on a “given” topic.

Ізмаїл на плані Ф. Кауффера 1797 р.

The Izmail’s plan, authored by a French Ottoman engineer F. Kauffer, is one of the most important sources on the history and historical topography of this Ottoman city on the lower Danube. The plan was drawn up in 1797. It reflects the planning of the city after the Suvorov assault in December 1790 and the return of Izmail to the Ottoman Empire following the Iasi Peace Treaty. The value of the document is that it reflects a large number of elements of urban development and infrastructure with signatures on the functional purpose of buildings and even the names of some streets, bazaars etc. After the liquidation of the fortress in 1856, all these buildings disappeared, including the systems of defensive fortifications. At present moment only the stone mosque with a dome survived – one of the oldest buildings in Izmail. The plan of the city and the fortress of Kauffer gives modern researchers the opportunity to recover much of the lost information. This makes this source extremely relevant and creates the need to introduce into scientific circulation a high-quality, readable digital copy of the plan. Therefore, the beginning of the history of the fortress and the city of Izmail dates back to the last decade of the 16th century. However, the peak of its development dates back to the 1780s. After the return of the city to the Ottoman Empire as a result of the Iasi Peace Treaty, the Turks immediately began a new phase of reconstruction of the fortifications. This period was reflected in the plan of F. Kauffer’s authorship in 1797. It is not yet known who authored this modernization project, but the French engineer left us a very detailed picture of the urban topography of Izmail in the period after the Suvorov assault.

Reactivating commuter cycling: COVID-19 pandemic disruption to everyday transport choices in Sydney, Australia

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rollout of public health lockdown orders, social distancing measures, and general avoidance of crowded and enclosed places, like mass public transport, have disrupted everyday transport mobilities worldwide. This paper offers insights on the transformative potential of pandemic disruption on transport behaviours through the experiences of commuter cycling reactivation which took place in Sydney, Australia since March 2020. We combine sensory ethnography with Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the refrain to interpret the pandemic as an experimental reference point in the reactivation of commuter cycling, specifically with regards to timing, flow, and spacings. Experiences of commuter cycling in Sydney reveal how fear is attached to cycling bodies. The sensations of self that arise through such conflict are differentiated within and between gendered bodies and urban topography, elements, and infrastructure. We find that for reactivated cyclists, the ability to fashion commuter cycling territories as safe and efficient is an ongoing experimental process of temporal and spatial segregation and separation. In this regard, the pandemic rendered concrete new possibilities of everyday commuting, but these remained constrained by popular discourses relating to cycling and cyclists.

Livy’s Cato and Commodities at Centre and Periphery

This paper is part of a larger project on how Livy represents the Elder Cato, from his entrance into the text in Book 29 to his last witticism preserved in the summary of Book 50, the longest biographical arc in this first third of Livy’s text. It views Cato through the lens of his relationship with objects, and with Livy’s narrative as an object as well. This paper focuses on one episode in the life of Livy’s Cato, the debate over the repeal of the Lex Oppia, and builds on previous scholars’ work to unite three arguments: 1) Livy weaves together textual space and Roman topography so as to emphasise the simultaneous marginality and centrality of this debate; 2) Livy’s Cato and Valerius fill Rome’s urban topography with images of things so as to draw attention via women’s bodies to the relationship between luxury and Rome’s imperium; 3) Livy uses this episode to make an argument about his own historical writing and its active relationship to the expansion of empire. This project focusing on Livy’s Cato is itself part of an even larger reexamination of how we read, and might read, Livy.

Review: The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome, by Nicola Denzey Lewis

Review: The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome, by Nicola Denzey Lewis

Examining the temporal and spatial distribution of potential urban heat island formations.

Due to urbanization worldwide, gradual increase in construction and use of irregular urban topography affect urban climate negatively, triggering urban heat island (UHI) formations in cities and thereby causing them to become uninhabitable places for human comfort. This study, which covers the province of Diyarbakır in Turkey, aims to determine the spatial and temporal distribution of areas with potential urban heat island (UHI) by using remote sensing methods and satellite/terrain data available between 2001 and 2019. According to the Landsat 7 satellite, an area with a potential of 27.4 km2 in 2001, 20.8 km2 in 2006, 27.4 km2 in 2008, 16.7 km2 in 2010, and 12.2 km2 in 2012 was determined. According to the Landsat 8 satellite, it was measured as 14.49 km2 in 2017 and 15.67 km2 in 2018. According to Landsat 8 satellite data, areas with UHI potential increased by 14.6% over a 3-year period. According to Landsat 7 data, there has been a continuous fluctuation over the years. One of the important results of this study is that between 2001 and 2019, the higher the rate of change according to the surface temperature, the larger the area with the potential of the heat island. At the same time, it has been determined that spatially potential UHIs have a great potential not in the city center, but in the surrounding areas close to the center and in the topographically hollow areas.

Large Eddy Simulations of Turbulent and Buoyant Flows in Urban and Complex Terrain Areas Using the Aeolus Model

Fast and accurate predictions of the flow and transport of materials in urban and complex terrain areas are challenging because of the heterogeneity of buildings and land features of different shapes and sizes connected by canyons and channels, which results in complex patterns of turbulence that can enhance material concentrations in certain regions. To address this challenge, we have developed an efficient three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code called Aeolus that is based on first principles for predicting transport and dispersion of materials in complex terrain and urban areas. The model can be run in a very efficient Reynolds average Navier–Stokes (RANS) mode or a detailed large eddy simulation (LES) mode. The RANS version of Aeolus was previously validated against field data for tracer gas and radiological dispersal releases. As a part of this work, we have validated the Aeolus model in LES mode against two different sets of data: (1) turbulence quantities measured in complex terrain at Askervein Hill; and (2) wind and tracer data from the Joint Urban 2003 field campaign for urban topography. As a third set-up, we have applied Aeolus to simulate cloud rise dynamics for buoyant plumes from high-temperature explosions. For all three cases, Aeolus LES predictions compare well to observations and other models. These results indicate that Aeolus LES can be used to accurately simulate turbulent flow and transport for a wide range of applications and scales.

Quality assessment of crowdsourced social media data for urban flood management

Urban flooding can cause widespread devastation in terms of loss of life and damage to property. As such, monitoring urban flood evolution is crucial in identifying the most affected areas, where emergency response resources should be directed. Flood monitoring through airborne or satellite remote sensing is often limited due to weather conditions and urban topography. In contrast, crowdsourced data is not affected by weather or topography, and they hence offer great potential for urban flood monitoring through real-time information shared by individuals. Despite the benefits, there is no guarantee of quality associated with crowdsourced data, which hampers its usability. In this paper, we present and evaluate two different approaches (binary logistic regression and fuzzy logic) to assess the quality of crowdsourced social media data retrieved from the public Twitter archive. Input variables were constructed based on Twitter metadata and spatiotemporal analysis. Both models were trained and tested using actual flood-related information Tweeted during three consecutive years of flooding in Phetchaburi City, Thailand (2016 to 2018), and produced good results. The fuzzy logic approach is shown to perform better, however its implementation involves significantly more subjectivity. The ability to assess data quality enables the uncertainty associated with crowdsourced social media data to be estimated, which allows this type of data to supplement conventional observations, and hence improve flood management activities.

Photovoltaic generation on vertical façades in urban context from open satellite-derived solar resource data

Solar radiation incident at building façades and elements in an urban context is essential in determining the energy production on building rooftops and vertical façades. The proper determination of solar irradiance incident on a vertical façade needs quality input of the components of solar radiation and a high resolution digital surface model with the heights of buildings and other elements in the urban area of study. In this work a thorough methodology for modeling PV generation, in hourly basis, at building façades with open available data and methods is presented. Hourly data of satellite-derived solar irradiance is used with high resolution digital model from LIDAR information to estimate with the Sandia model the PV generation of five small arrays at west, south and east façades of a building in Madrid. PV output modeled for west and south arrays are in rather good agreement with the monitored experimental data of the production. RMSE of 8% and 12% was observed for the monthly power predicted for west and south facades, respectively. The east façade case was much more challenging due to variability of shadows it receives from the nearby large deciduous trees throughout the year, which results in high uncertainty in the shading influence estimation. Anyway, the methodology proves the benefits and possibilities of detailed estimation of PV production in building façades from open available information regarding both solar resource, open modeling tools and urban topography, even in a very challenging conditions associated to the variability of trees canopy.

Streets and houses of Roman Alexandria revisited

Abstract

Mapping Turin’s Urban Topography in Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment

Much 1 attention has been paid to Naples as the setting of Elena Ferrante’s novels. But her tetralogy My Brilliant Friend (L’amica geniale 2011–2014) features a narrative frame set in the city of Turin. Turin is also the topographic background of her second novel, The Days of Abandonment (I giorni dell’abbandono, 2002; translated in English in 2005). In this article, I examine Ferrante’s spatial poetics by charting the walking routes of Olga, the narrator of The Days of Abandonment. I approach The Days of Abandonment as a spatial story, a narrative contingent on the protagonist’s walking in the city, on her body’s negotiating a hostile urban cityscape. I traverse the novel’s urban text punctuated by concrete sites––fountains and street intersections, urban signs and graffiti, public urinals and bronze monuments—to locate the novel’s narrative events on Turin’s map. The itineraries that I trace position Olga in a real-life topography that oppresses her body and psyche. This plotting of her body onto Turin’s map offers a topographic lens through which to explore urban space and culture as they inform the feminine physical and psychic landscapes in a contemporary Italian cityscape. Read through its itineraries and urban sites, The Days of Abandonment constitutes a feminine walking tour of Turin, mapping the intersections of women’s bodies and cityscapes.

Typological Characteristics of the Medieval City of Normandy and Its Functioning in the Political Space of the 14th — 15th Centuries

The article analyzes attempts to compose a typology of the Normandy agglomerations of the Late Middle Ages, to highlight the main features of a “medieval city” (administrative, military, economic, religious functions; the presence of specific city law and autonomy, participation in public political activity). The voluntary nature of granting rights and privileges to the cities of Normandy by their lords is noted. The possibilities of attracting modern sociological indicators (number of inhabitants, population density, and area of agglomeration) to characterize and rank medieval cities are examined. Based on Normandy data, the article examines the problems of the lowest border of a medieval city, a “small” city, possible reasons for the loss of urban status by the agglomeration. It is noted that a “small” city presupposes the existence and inclusion in a hierarchical structure consisting of multi-level urban centres for fairly large areas of the kingdom. It emphasizes the relevance of studying medieval regional urban networks, urban topography using data from archaeological excavations, using GIS cartography to study places and spaces of power, the need for more attention to studying the role of a city lord (king, count, baron, bishop, chapter, monastery, several lords) in various areas of urban life (a feature of Normandy: in the 15th century, there is an almost complete change of secular lords of cities twice). A brief description of the attitude of the Lancaster regime to Norman cities is given: on the one hand, the confirmation of privileges, on the other hand, the placement of garrisons to control loyalty, the demolition of the fortifications of several cities as a potential threat, the redistribution of urban real estate, the encouragement of immigration from England, the re-population of some cities. As the reign of Louis XI (1461—1483) shows, the traditional paradigm of “perfect harmony” in the relationship of the crown with the urban community needs serious adjustment.

A Multi-layered Analysis of Urban Topography: Galata District, Istanbul

A Multi-layered Analysis of Urban Topography: Galata District, Istanbul

A Most Notable Dwelling: The Domus Romana and the Urban Topography of Roman Melite

Abstract This paper offers an overview of Roman Melite: the paper examines the epigraphic evidence for the topography of the urban centres of Gaulos and Melite in particular, the activities of wealthy benefactors and the civic government of the municipia through benefactions to the Temples to Apollo and Proserpina and dedications to the Imperial Cult. There is only limited evidence for the buildings themselves apart from the Domus Romana that was discovered on the outskirts of Rabat in 1881. The urban area appears to have been in decline by the fourth century AD despite the presence of a Late Roman see and Byzantine officials. The paper concludes with the abandonment of the island as a consequence of the Aghlabid sack of 870.

Gustiness in thermally-stratified urban turbulent boundary-layer flows and the influence of surface roughness

Gustiness is examined for the wind speed, fluctuations, turbulence intensities and fluxes for a real urban topography. Using large-eddy simulation (LES) and an ensemble sampling approach, which allows a more comprehensive characterisation of the urban morphological features, a wide range of boundary-layer stabilities is considered: the bulk Richardson number, Rb ​∈ ​[−0.41, 0.82]. Ratios of the proposed gustiness statistics, G, over the conventional time-averaged flow and turbulence statistics are maximised for z/Have ​≲ ​1 (where Have is the mean building height). The strong linear scaling of G with the plan-area index (λp) for neutral stratification is found to persist for stably- and unstably-stratified flows (R2 ~ 0.8). By contrast, the non-dimensionalised building-height variability, σH/Have, and the effective frontal-area index, λf^≡λfHave/σH, are argued to be of more appropriateness as scaling parameters for G compared to their original forms, σH and λf. While the sensitivity of G to Rb is well defined at greater heights, the influence of surface inhomogeneity may be strong enough to oppose the effect of thermal stratification in the lower surface layers. Qualitative differences in the sensitivities to the boundary-layer stability are narrowly distinguishable amongst the zeroth-, first- and second-order gustiness statistics. The results are relevant to the understanding of urban wind hazards in thermally-stratified boundary layers.

Maritime signalling in Antiquity: the Lanterna of the harbour of Onoba Aestuaria, a new lighthouse along the Atlantic (Huelva, Spain)

Locating and identifying ancient lighthouses or signalling towers in maritime-terrestrial environments has over time been a topic of interest due to their scarcity. In this regard, the latest archaeological investigations carried out in Onoba Aestuaria (Huelva, Spain) within the framework of different research projects shed new light on the city’s Roman features and harbour. The research has yielded a vast amount of data as to the city’s urban topography, its peripheral industrial and funerary sectors, its intra-moenia and domestic areas, as well as its monumental public features. Particularly noteworthy is its harbour as the excavations identified for the first time both a fish-salting industrial sector and a zone dedicated to services and administration. Work in this second zone brought to light the foundation of a rectangular structure whose architectural and topographic characteristics appear to correspond to a lighthouse.