Vacancy Rates Research Articles

Future hotter summer greatly increases residential electricity consumption in Beijing: A study based on different house layouts and shared socioeconomic pathways

Emerging studies illustrated that climate change has great impacts on residential electricity consumption, but only a few studies focused on impacts of daily weather and extreme hot days, not to mention considering house layouts. Here, we establish U-shaped response functions between daily outdoor air average temperature and residential electricity intensity (electricity consumption per unit house construction area), based on four house layouts; then we examine how climate change challenges residential electricity consumption in Beijing during the non-heating period under four shared socioeconomic pathways. Small houses are characterized with higher residential electricity intensity, while large houses present stronger marginal effects at high temperature. With present population, housing vacancy rate and house traits, climate change will increase 5%∼7% of residential electricity consumption in near future (2021–2050) and up to 29% in far future (2051–2100) during the non-heating period. Three hot summer months (June, July and August) contribute to more than 1/2 of total consumption and 76∼84% of the increase in future due to more hot days (≥ 20 °C). Residential electricity consumption in Beijing was much lower under the low-warming scenario of SSP1–2.6 than other scenarios, as well as the grid system pressure at peak consumption. Our findings also highlighted the awareness of huge challenges to vulnerable groups, considering climate change, higher electricity price and aging society in future.

Optimal Electric Bus Scheduling with Multiple Vehicle Types Considering Bus Crowding Degree

Electric buses are environmentally friendly with the features of zero emissions and low noise levels. Therefore, it is an inevitable trend to replace traditional fuel buses with electric buses. In the urban transportation system, the most common electric bus scheduling mode is single-vehicle-type scheduling, where crowdedness in peak hours could impair the bus service level. In contrast, a high vacancy rate in off-peak hours might lead to a waste of resources. To balance efficiency and the bus service level, this paper built an electric bus scheduling model with multiple vehicle types distinguished by vehicle configurations, such as bus capacity, battery capacity, purchase cost, charging power, and electricity consumption rate. The optimization objective was to minimize the bus system costs, including bus depreciation costs, charging costs, and congestion time costs. Then, a genetic algorithm was designed to solve the model, and the model is verified by a case study of one bus line in Nanjing, China. Compared with the single-vehicle-type scheduling schemes, including large and small vehicle types, the experimental results showed that the proposed model can reduce total bus system costs by 3.52% and 6.85%, respectively. The research results can provide references for bus companies to formulate driving plans and configure vehicles.

Business Churning and Neighborhood Instability: Is There a Link?

Much of the work concerning economic dynamism has focused on its aggregate-level implications, while there have been rising concerns about business displacement at the community or neighborhood level. In this article, we analyze this important (restructuring) process using detailed establishment-level business information and explore how it manifests itself across space within the Los Angeles—Long Beach—Santa Ana, CA Urbanized Area. We also investigate the association between business churning and neighborhood-level housing vacancy rates to understand the implications of dramatic changes in the business landscape. We find that housing vacancies are more likely to increase in urban neighborhoods with a higher establishment death rate, while the creation of new businesses can mitigate the association to some extent. We also detect substantial variation across decades not only in the spatial distribution of business churning but also in its association with housing vacancy rates, suggesting the evolving nature of business dynamics and their implications.

Analysis of factors affecting the occurrence of vacant houses according to vacant house classification: Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

This study aimed to analyze factors affecting the occurrence of vacant houses according to vacant house classification across regions of Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The analysis considered urban scales, metropolitan areas, and weather data to determine the characteristics of variables that generate vacant houses. The findings showed that housing vacancy rates could be more accurately determined by dividing urban scales into big cities, medium-sized cities, small cities, and towns/villages, rather than merely metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. The number of variables affecting the occurrence of vacant houses increased in regions with a high housing vacancy rate and differed according to regional characteristics. The predictive factors for the occurrence of vacant houses in Shizuoka Prefecture were greatly influenced by population, society, and industry. Shizuoka Prefecture needs social policies to stimulate the influx of young people to mitigate the occurrence of vacant houses. Meanwhile, the weather data on daylight hours, number of days with precipitation, and number of days with strong wind showed a correlation with the vacancy rate. Thus, weather data must be considered in urban planning. Our findings can be used for policy making regarding management of housing vacancy rate, urban renewal, and new town planning.

Building Flood Resilience Among Older Adults Living in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

This paper explores compounding challenges for older coastal populations due to accelerated sea level rise at the nexus of physical hazard exposure and place-based socioeconomic and health considerations. This study applies geospatial analysis to assess the spatial distribution of older adults (age 65+) and their socioeconomic characteristics in Miami-Dade County in Florida. Next, it uses logistic regression to evaluate the socioeconomic determinants of block groups with 20% or more of residents age 65 and older at 3 feet of sea level rise compared to the other block groups in Miami-Dade. The results show that this study area has an older population clustered in flood-prone locations along the shoreline. The block groups with more than 20% of older adults and sea level rise risk have higher homeownership and vacancy rates, a higher percentage of homes constructed before 1980, and more older individuals who live alone. This study identifies place-based compounding factors undermining the ability of older residents to adequately cope with accelerated sea level rise flooding in coastal urban locations. Namely, owning an older home in a declining neighborhood and living alone can trap older individuals in place and increase their flood risk.

Wpływ pandemii COVID-19 na demografię i rynek pracy krajów europy środkowo‑wschodniej

Purpose – An attempt to assess the impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic on the demographic situation and labor markets of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Research method – To assess the demographic implications and changes in the labor market, the comparative method of linear regression was used for the periods of 2011–2019 and 2011–2021. Population, birth and death rates, net migration, general demographic index, employment rate, unemployment rate and job vacancy rate were examined. Results – The COVID‑19 pandemic had a negative impact on the surveyed demographic and labor market indicators and disrupted their positive trends. The collapse of trends had the characteristics of a negative economic shock. Originality / value / implications / recommendations – Preliminary research analyses indicate the negative consequences of the COVID‑19 pandemic on the demographic processes of the CEE countries and the labor market. These studies should be continued during and after the infection subsides, which will allow for a better understanding of the processes taking place in both studied areas.

Increasing the Supply of Direct Support Professionals through Targeted Immigration

Agencies that provide supports and services to people who have intellectual and/or developmental disabilities are unable to hire sufficient number of adequately trained staff. Vacancy rates for those positions that provide direct support and services to people who have disabilities approach 20%. Insufficient compensation was noted as a primary cause of the workforce crisis, and the history of funding social does not suggest that increased funding is imminent. The crisis will continue without either a significant increase in the supply of workers or a decreased demand for workers. Targeted immigration strategies are proposed as a shortterm solution to increasing the supply of Direct Support Professionals currently existing in the intellectual disability field.

COVID19 Impact on Child Maltreatment: Evidence from Abuse and Neglect Investigations in Texas

COVID-19 has brought challenges to the society in various aspects, as one of the most vulnerable members of society, children’s lives have also been significantly affected by it. This study aims to address the child maltreatment impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Leveraging county level data sets from Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and United States Census Bureau, XGBoost method and fixed effect model was used to investigate the most important economic, demographic, and social factors. It is found that population of 16-year-old or over, the rental vacancy rate, the population of 16-year-old or over that commutes to work by walking, and population of 16-year-old or over that works in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining industry is positively associated with total number of child maltreatment cases. On the other hand, the total population in labor force, the female population not in labor force, the average of public cash assistance (in dollars), the average time (in minutes) commuting to work, and the population whose household contains 2 units/rooms are negatively associated with total number of child maltreatment cases. Also, a single-difference model was implemented to identify that the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with 7.6% increase in total number of child maltreatment cases.

The influence of environmental and economic turbulence on civil construction in the region

This article is devoted to the analysis and forecasting of the development of civil engineering in the region in the context of recurring macro-shocks that create political and economic turbulence. The dynamics of the commercial real estate market in St. Petersburg have been studied. The purpose of the article is to study the influence of various factors (including vacancy levels) on market price indicators and to predict the dynamics of its development. Objectives of the study: analyse office, retail, and warehouse real estate in the city, study the degree of influence of the vacancy rate of objects on the market situation; build a forecast of the dynamics of market development, considering the influence of the dynamics of the share of vacant space; identify market trends in an unstable economic situation. The result of the study is a forecast of the dynamics of development of the commercial real estate market in St. Petersburg and, accordingly, civil construction in this region. Based on regression analysis, factors influencing the dynamics of price indicators for commercial premises were identified. The study confirmed the hypothesis about the connection between the dynamics of commercial real estate market segments and key events in the economy. This suggests the need to identify time stages at which the composition and number of key factors changes. The study shows that different segments of the commercial real estate market react differently to the level of vacancy, which is due to their specific functioning.

Pharmacist vacancy rates double in one year in community pharmacy

Pharmacist vacancy rates double in one year in community pharmacy

Динамика и региональные особенности восстановления рынка труда в период COVID-19

The imbalance between labour supply and demand, both by types of economic activity and by professional groups, differs in Russian regional labour markets, causing long-term unemployment and im-poverishment of the population. The article examines the transformation of the labour market, regional characteristics of market failures and its recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on sample surveys of the labour force conducted by the Federal State Statistics Service, we determined monthly unemploy-ment dynamics and, subsequently, the vulnerability and instability of regional labour markets. It is hypoth-esised that the stronger the contraction of employment and the greater the unemployment, the longer the process of labour market recovery during the pandemic; regions recover from the crisis at different speeds. Indicators of the intensity of labour market failures and its recovery are proposed. Since the pandemic is a peculiar phenomenon that affected the economy and society, human behaviour in the labour market, the concept of excessive unemployment was used (the difference between actual unemployment and its pre-pandemic level). We performed a correlation analysis of the relations between labour market failures and its recovery in four groups of regions characterised by different labour market fluctuations. The cal-culated Spearman’s coefficients showed a positive relationship between the indicators. The depth of la-bour market failures and its recovery rate in regions with developed infrastructure, attracting labour mi-grants, are revealed. A positive relationship was established between the unemployment dynamics and the increase in vacancy rate reported by employers to employment agencies, increase in the average monthly salary. This article presents the results of the first research stage. Further studies will expand the time se-ries of employment and unemployment in order to identify long-term trends and build a forecasting model.

Starting Now: Implementing the Healthy Work Environment Standards Is More Important Than Ever

Starting Now: Implementing the Healthy Work Environment Standards Is More Important Than Ever

Not quite the ‘death of the high street’ in UK city centres: Rising vacancy rates and the shift in property use richness and diversity

This paper explores the inter-connections between property use diversity, change of use, and the adaptive capacity within urban retailing systems. The retailing centres of five UK case study cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Liverpool, and Nottingham, are examined over a twenty-year period using original databases on property use and geospatial mapping techniques to employ property use richness and diversity metrics in a novel manner. Overall, the analysis finds property use richness has generally risen as comparison retailing and financial services have contracted, to be replaced by hospitality, leisure, and residential uses. However, this re-balancing has not been even across retailing centres and is outstripped by rising vacancies. The study also reveals spatial variation in change of use and use diversity and richness as retailing centres slowly adapt, implying that future policymaking should focus on creating more resilient, mixed use city centres as an alternative to the single use retail high streets of the past.

Geometric shapes and vacancy rates for the modulation of the electronic and transport properties in MoS2 nanoflakes

The electronic and transport properties of MoS2 nanoflakes are investigated using a six-band tight-binding model. The energy band structures are modified by changing the shape, size, vacancy rate, and vacancy distribution of the flakes, resulting in additional energy states in the energy bandgap region. For large flakes, the effects of their geometric shape are found to be negligible, because shape effects on the density of states (DOS) decrease with increasing flake size. The positions and DOS of these additional in-gap states are strongly related to the vacancy rate as well as to the distribution of vacancies. The number of in-gap states and the magnitude of the density of these states are both proportional to the vacancy rate. However, if the rate is high enough for vacancy clusters to form, the transmission is somewhat degraded at certain incident energies, owing to backscattering and capture of carriers by the clusters. Since the current transmission is determined primarily by the detailed energy band structure, the in-gap states due to vacancies enable the realization of low-energy currents in devices based on low-dimensional materials.

Forecasting the housing vacancy rate in Japan using dynamic spatiotemporal effects models

Forecasting the housing vacancy rate in Japan using dynamic spatiotemporal effects models

Estimating Housing Vacancy Rate Using Nightlight and POI: A Case Study of Main Urban Area of Xi’an City, China

Estimating the housing vacancy rate (HVR) has always been a hard-to-break point in the study of housing vacancy. This paper used nighttime light and POI (point of interest) data to estimate the HVR in the main urban area of Xi’an city based on extracting built-up areas. The built-up area was extracted using the threshold method, and the spatial resolution of the results was 130 m (same as Luojia-1). Meanwhile, after removing the non-residential areas from the images, the HVRs for the period 2018–2019 from four nighttime light images were calculated, and the HVR of the main urban area of Xi’an city was estimated using the average method and its spatial patterns were analyzed. The results show that: (1) Luojia-1 has great advantages in estimating urban HVRs. The HVRs calculated by Luojia-1 were characterized by a high resolution and a short calculation time. (2) After estimating the results of the four scenes’ remote sensing images, it was found that the results obtained using the average were closest to the actual vacancy situation, and the spatial distribution of the vacancy could be seen using the minimum values. (3) The overall housing occupancy in Xi’an city was good, and the HVRs were low, but the overall vacancy rate for the edge of the built-up area was high. The government should devote more attention to places with high HVRs.

Island carrying capacity for three development types: ecological resource, agricultural production, and urban construction

The evaluation of island carrying capacity is the premise for conducting the island spatial planning and can contributes to guiding island ecological conservation and socioeconomic developments. In this study, the island carrying capacities were evaluated for the three major development types, namely, ecological resource, agricultural production, and urban construction, based on the quantity and quality. The occupancy and vacancy rates of island carrying capacity were measured in different scenarios. Miaodao Archipelago and Dongtou Archipelago in China were selected as the study area to demonstrate the evaluation. The former is constituted all by spatially isolated rocky islands, while the latter is featured by the coexistence of the sandy and rocky islands and the connection with the mainland by bridges. The results indicated the high variances of occupancy and vacancy rates of island carrying capacity at multiple spatial scales. Across the two archipelagos, climate conditions, island composition, and spatial connections with the mainland controlled the spatial variance at this scale. For different types of islands, the sandy island presented distinctly higher occupancy and vacancy rates for agricultural production than the rocky islands. At the single island scale within the same archipelago, the developments of agricultural production and urban construction distinctly increased with the increase in the island area. The dependency of island constructions on the external world in Dongtou Archipelago was higher than that in Miaodao Archipelago. Meanwhile, the difference in traffic conditions between the two archipelagos did not distinctly influence the food dependency on the external world. Then, practical suggestions in terms of quantity control and quality promotion were proposed to improve the island carrying capacity.

The COVID-19 Sentiment and Office Markets: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of COVID-19 sentiment on office building rents and vacancy rates in China with a COVID-19 sentiment index constructed based on Baidu search queries on COVID-19-related keywords. We analyzed the data of office buildings and economic data from 2013 Q3 to 2022 Q2 in seven major Chinese cities with a two-stage Error Correction Model framework. We found that a heightened level of COVID-19 sentiment significantly and adversely affects the Chinese office buildings market. Specifically, office building rents decrease more than 8% if a city is exposed to an increase of one unit of COVID-19 sentiment for an entire quarter. The interaction terms model further reveals that the COVID-19 sentiment has a more substantial impact on office building rents where office vacancy is higher, reflecting an asymmetric effect. The findings here support the fear sentiment hypothesis. The findings suggest that a heightened level of investors’ COVID-19 sentiment resulted in a deterioration of office rents, reinforcing the role of investors’ sentiment in the pricing of office buildings. The findings suggest that investors should consider investor sentiment, particularly COVID-19 sentiment, in their decision-making.

Recruitment and organising 3rd year pharmacy undergraduates into summer placements in primary care in Southwest England

Abstract Introduction Primary care is facing a workforce shortage, especially in Southwest England (SW).1 Funding for clinical pharmacist roles in GP has an impact on community pharmacy with pharmacists leaving to take up PCN positions.2 SW has higher rate of vacancies in than nationally.3 Oriel data showed that fill rate for split foundation training placements in GP is high, however, in SW is significantly low. Aim To increase recruitment of future pharmacists in SW by offering pharmacy undergraduates paid 5-week summer placements in GP or GP/community pharmacy partnership, gaining primary care experience, showcasing benefits of cross-sector working and encouraging development of partnerships for increased cross-sector training placements. Objectives Students enjoy SW area placement, Students recommend placement to other students, Students preference GP foundation placement, Supervisors express interest in a summer placement for 2022, Supervisors express interest in the GP split trainee pharmacist programme. Methods Expressions of interest (EOIs) sought from primary care placements in SW and 16 sites selected. Applicants shortlisted and interviewed online. 16 offered placements based on preference of location. Funding by HEE South reimbursed for student’s wages. Planning booklets provided to GPs, workbooks to students and online induction attended. During the placement, students completed an audit and case-based discussion, shadowed healthcare professionals, assisted administration and pharmacy tasks and practised basic procedural skills. Students attended end-of-placement event to share learning and sent questionnaire focusing on enjoyment of the placement and likelihood of returning to the Southwest and primary care for future employment. Supervisors sent questionnaire separately focusing on likelihood to partake in future. Questionnaires were sent, completed and analysed via Jisc. Ethics approval was not required. Results 10 students and 11 supervisors completed the survey. 60% students enjoyed SW. 90% students would recommend placement to other students and 90% would like to see them in other areas. 70% students very likely to or definitely would apply for GP foundation placement. 63% supervisors benefitted from having a student and 81% would recommend having summer placement student. 55% supervisors would definitely EOI in future summer placement programme and 55% would definitely EOI in GP split foundation programme. 25% students chose GP/Community placements in SW, 18% other placements in SW, 12% GP placements in other regions. Oriel fill rates in SW increased from 36.67% in 2020 to 39.30% in 2021, GP/Community placements remained the same in 2021 at 28.2% and community placements increased in from 18.14% in 2020 to 18.75% in 2021. Discussion/Conclusion The students enjoyed their placements and would recommend to other students. Supervisors found having students useful and would have a student in the future. Although some students were successful in securing a placement in SW for foundation training, due to nature of Oriel it’s not possible to determine how many preferenced SW and GP split programme, this is a limitation to the evaluation. Oriel fill rates didn’t increase for SW community/GP placements as desired, however this was a very small cohort. This pilot will be repeated summer 2022 so fill rates can be evaluated in 2023.

An Investigation of the Impact and Resilience of British High Streets Following the COVID-19 Lockdown Restrictions

British high streets have faced significant economic and cultural challenges as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is predominantly due to government enforced restrictions which required all ‘non-essential’ retail to close, resulting in a significant change in the way consumers interacted with high streets. While all premises related to the retail or hospitality sector were forced to close, leading to rising vacancy rates, some high streets were more resilient to the economic shock than others. In this paper we detect some of the unforeseen consequences of the pandemic on British high streets and create a measure of resilience. The impact of the lockdown restrictions have resulted in some high streets, notably Spring Street in Paddington, London, experiencing disproportionate decline. Others including Northolt Road in Harrow, London were able maintain their occupancy. This study provides a typology of high street resilience incorporating the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and links the impact of government policy to the economic performance of high streets. The outcomes from this research address both local and national policy contexts as the resilience typology has the potential to assist in funding allocation for recovery and regeneration projects.