Vacant Areas Research Articles

Ghost City Extraction and Rate Estimation in China Based on NPP-VIIRS Night-Time Light Data

The ghost city phenomenon is a serious problem resulting from the rapid urbanization process in China. Estimation of the ghost city rate (GCR) can provide information about vacant dwellings. This paper developed a methodology to quantitatively evaluate GCR values at the national scale using multi-resource remote sensing data. The Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership–Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer (NPP-VIIRS) night-time light data and moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) land cover data were used in the evaluation of the GCR values in China. The average ghost city rate (AGCR) was 35.1% in China in 2013. Shanghai had the smallest AGCR of 21.7%, while Jilin has the largest AGCR of 47.27%. There is a significant negative correlation between both the provincial AGCR and the per capita disposable income of urban households (R = −0.659, p < 0.01) and the average selling prices of commercial buildings (R = −0.637, p < 0.01). In total, 31 ghost cities are mainly concentrated in the economically underdeveloped inland provinces. Ghost city areas are mainly located on the edge of urban built-up areas, and the spatial pattern of ghost city areas changed in different regions. This approach combines statistical data with the distribution of vacant urban areas, which is an effective method to capture ghost city information.

ASSESSING THE VARIATION OF THE DRY SEASON’S SURFACE TEMPERATURE IN BINH DUONG PROVINCE FROM 2002 TO 2016 BY APPLYING THERMAL REMOTE SENSING

Thermal remote sensing with its own concepts and potentials has presented a variety of applications in the atmosphere and land surface temperature (LST) variation detection. The objective of this study is to access the LST variation in the dry season of Binh Duong province for understanding the effect of land-use change on the microclimate conditions. The spectral radiation value was determined from gray-scale of thermal infrared images of Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRs, followed by the LST calculation. Results showed that the LST in dry season decreased approximately 1.5 °C over the past 15 years from 30.8 °C in the year 2002 to 29.3 °C in the year 2016, due to a large area of newly planted land of industrial trees changed into mature ones in 2016. The area, in which temperature increased corresponding to 16.6 % of the natural square, has developed rapidly with new industrial parks, urban areas, and vacant land areas. Therefore, the Government should have solutions to promote its positive side and mitigate its negative side by a suitable land-use structure in order to both develop the economic continuously and help to mitigate the climate change effects.

Community empowerment strategy by sustainable built environment planning in Urban Kampong

Almost all big cities in developing countries have low-income people who live in Urban Kampong. The poor people live mostly near the city center and occupy vacant areas within the city. It is obvious that the low-income people in urban area have to deal with minimal infrastructure facilities in their settlements. They have to live with bad access to the main road, bad environmental quality, and lack of playgrounds for the children, etc. Many positive aspects that can be found in low-income settlement, if they are observed carefully without having negative prejudice before. Those positive aspects are the creative process of the inhabitant for struggling. Since relationship among the inhabitant is quite close, public spaces are necessary for them, because they use them as a place of communication. Besides, the creativity in building their house mostly with used materials make their housing types unique. As a development approach, the way the poor people develop their housing areas can be formulated as strategic approaches for empowering the inhabitants as well as improving the built environment in which the low-income people live. This paper will explain a research in low-income settlements developed in Yogyakarta city.

Urban Voids: renewal and regeneration experiences in Naples

City and society, by definition unstable, constantly redefine the relation between places and actors, generating frequently critical circumstances that are addressed by only temporary solutions. The unexpected and uncontrolled social conditions and lifestyles build new geographies and centres. The activities of dismantlement, degradation, reuse, abandonment, and land use, continuously blend materials and relationships and requires rethinking the methods of describing the city and defining a new grammar of representation closer to the contemporary space, materials, actors, and relationship. Focusing on experiences of renewal, regeneration and recycle, the objective of this exploratory study is to investigate their different impacts in a well-known complex urban system as Naples. The study emphases on the urban and social dimensions, favouring a descriptive and visual perspective from those who experience life in the city, considering the processes implemented by local actors and the reactions of inhabitants to these processes. Infact in Naples, despite its critical conditions, it is possible to trace signals indicating small informal practices of re-use in vacant or ruined areas, as well as existing small-scale clustering processes to re-adapt single buildings or spaces for new uses. So, this study uses an innovative methodology to investigate this emerging implied writing as a set of latent questions and needs expressing renewal, regeneration and recycle phenomena. Through this technique, we will focus on the images of the city and its development trajectories.

Vacant urban areas: Causes and interconnected factors

Vacant urban areas (VUAs) can consist of both vacant land and abandoned structures. In this article, the authors summarize a recent survey on VUA, examine current conditions and causes of VUA, and explore the possible interconnections among these conditions and causes. The research examines employment, fiscal position, elasticity, population alteration, and regional location as primary variables. We find that VUAs are not interchangeable indicators of urban decay. Vacant land is most often associated with cities that have expanded their political boundaries while structural abandonment is more related to a city's population loss. Improvement of the local economy may not necessarily help reduce vacant land while structural abandonment is more sensitive to a city's economic status. Regional planning for VUAs, the strategic location of new industries and jobs, and new population/density regulatory approaches could be the next phase in addressing VUA changes.

Pacific lamprey recolonization of a Pacific Northwest river following dam removal

AbstractRecolonization of Pacific lampreys Entosphenus tridentatus into historically used freshwater habitats in the United States Pacific Northwest was evaluated in the White Salmon River basin after removal of Condit Dam. Pacific lamprey population declines are of concern, and passage barrier removal is often recommended for conservation. Condit Dam on the White Salmon River in Washington was a complete barrier to fish migrating upstream for nearly 100 years, was breached in 2011, and was removed by 2012. Distribution of larval Pacific lampreys was estimated before and after removal of Condit Dam using either backpack or deepwater electrofishing. Larval detection probabilities were calculated for the basin, and sample efforts were refined to ensure at least 80% confidence that larvae were absent when not detected. Pacific lampreys were not present upstream of Condit Dam before it was removed but were present in areas downstream of the dam. After dam removal, Pacific lamprey larvae were collected upstream of the former dam site from four reaches of the mainstem White Salmon River, indicating a recent recolonization event. Pacific lampreys were absent from the river mouth area before the dam was removed but were found in newly created habitat at the mouth after dam removal. Pacific lampreys naturally recolonized the White Salmon River basin within a few years after dam removal. Removing dams and providing passage opportunity can allow Pacific lampreys to distribute into vacant areas and may help reverse population declines.

Urban development and landuse change patterns in Muscat city, Oman

Urban sprawl is a remarkable characteristic of cities of the Arabian Gulf region, including Muscat city, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman. The city has grown from discrete isolated settlements to a compact, dense urban metropolitan region across narrow coastal alluvial plain. This paper examines the specific implications and trends of urban landuse dynamic in Muscat city in the last five decades. Urban landuse patterns were traced and analyzed from different sources, including: Landsat, IRS, IKONOS, QuickBird, GeoEye, Aerial photos and Printed map. RS and GIS change detection techniques using Normalized Difference Building Index (NDBI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were used. The categorization of landused classes was mainly based on high resolution images like IKONOS, QuickBird and GeoEye. The results indicated that, residential, commercial and industrial landuses have shown large increase, basically at the expense of vacant and agricultural areas. The trend of urban landuse patterns was largely filling the gap and empty areas, creating an urban structure of high density. The actual range of urban expansion might have been small, and the degree of change for the whole city region, might have been not remarkable because of the relatively new expansions of urbanization and industrial development in Muscat. However, the negative impacts of these changes might escalate in the future if a plan to regulate land development is not developed and implemented.

Planificación, crisis y discontinuidad urbana en la ciudad hispanorromana

In this work we go into detail about the analysis of the empty spaces or vacant areas located in the interior of the Hispano-roman cities, a phenomenon little known of the ancient town planning. On the one hand, we present an updated list of cities affected by this situation. On the other hand, we link this dynamic with the implementation of excessive urban planning projects.

Towards Regenerated and Productive Vacant Areas through Urban Horticulture: Lessons from Bologna, Italy

In recent years, urban agriculture has been asserting its relevance as part of a vibrant and diverse food system due to its small scale, its focus on nutrition, its contribution to food security, its employment opportunities, and its role in community building and social mobility. Urban agriculture may also be a tool to re-appropriate a range of abandoned or unused irregular spaces within the city, including flowerbeds, roundabouts, terraces, balconies and rooftops. Consistently, all spaces that present a lack of identity may be converted to urban agriculture areas and, more specifically, to urban horticulture as a way to strengthen resilience and sustainability. The goal of this paper is to analyse current practices in the requalification of vacant areas as urban gardens with the aim of building communities and improving landscapes and life quality. To do so, the city of Bologna (Italy) was used as a case study. Four types of vacant areas were identified as places for implementing urban gardens: flowerbeds along streets and squares, balconies and rooftops, abandoned buildings and abandoned neighbourhoods. Six case studies representing this variety of vacant areas were identified and evaluated by collecting primary data (i.e., field work, participant observations and interviews) and performing a SWOT analysis. For most cases, urban horticulture improved the image and quality of the areas as well as bringing numerous social benefits in terms of life quality, food access and social interaction among participants. Strong differences in some aspects were found between top-down and bottom-up initiatives, being the later preferable for the engagement of citizens. Policy-making might focus on participatory and transparent planning, long-term actions, food safety and economic development.

Neem oil (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) affects the ultrastructure of the midgut muscle of Ceraeochrysa claveri (Navás, 1911) (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae)

Cytomorphological changes, by means of ultrastructural analyses, have been used to determine the effects of the biopesticide neem oil on the muscle fibers of the midgut of the predator Ceraeochrysa claveri. Insects, throughout the larval period, were fed eggs of Diatraea saccharalis treated with neem oil at a concentration of 0.5%, 1% or 2%. In the adult stage, the midgut was collected from female insects at two stages of adulthood (newly emerged and at the start of oviposition) and processed for ultrastructural analyses. In the newly emerged insects obtained from neem oil treatments, muscle fibers showed a reduction of myofilaments as well as swollen mitochondria and an accumulation of membranous structures. Muscular fibers responded to those cellular injuries with the initiation of detoxification mechanisms, in which acid phosphatase activity was observed in large vesicles located at the periphery of the muscle fiber. At the start of oviposition in the neem oil treated insects, muscle fibers exhibited signs of degeneration, containing vacant areas in which contractile myofilaments were reduced or completely absent, and an accumulation of myelin structures, a dilatation of cisternae of sarcoplasmic reticulum, and mitochondrial swelling and cristolysis were observed. Enzymatic activity for acid phosphatase was present in large vesicles, indicating that mechanisms of lytic activity during the cell injury were utilized but insufficient for recovery from all the cellular damage. The results indicate that the visceral muscle layer is also the target of action of neem oil, and the cytotoxic effects observed may compromise the function of that organ.

Willingness of Farmers to Transform Vacant Rural Residential Land into Cultivated Land in a Major Grain-Producing Area of Central China

A large amount of cultivated lands in China is occupied by vacant residential areas, thereby wasting land resources and placing local food security at risk. Therefore, transforming vacant rural residential land back to its previous form is urgently required to maintain the amount of cultivated land and guarantee food security. We comprehensively analyzed the willingness of farmers to participate in vacant residential land transformation and determine the factors that influence such willingness, including the awareness of farmers about their rural residential environment, their knowledge of residential land-use policies and their awareness of the consequences of such transformation. A detailed survey was conducted amongst 252 farmers owning vacant residential lands in central China. Amongst these farmers, 75, 87 and 90 were entirely, partly and not living on farming, respectively. Only half of these farmers were willing to transform the vacant residential land, whilst those farmers who were partly living on farming were less willing to participate in the transformation than those who were entirely and were not living on farming. The factors that influence the willingness to transform varied across different types of farmers. Farmers who were not and were partly living on farming were significantly affected by their awareness of their rural residential environment, their knowledge of residential land-use policies, the length of residential land vacant time and their household income. Those farmers who were partly living on farming were also influenced by the number of vacant residential plots they possessed. Farmers who were entirely living on farming were significantly affected by their knowledge of the residential land-use policies, the number of vacant residential plots they possessed, their awareness of the consequences of land transformation and their family size. Results indicate that farmers are anxious about vacant residential land loss and that a communication gap is observed between them. Therefore, along with the communication between farmers and the government, the publicity and transparency of the rural residential land-use policies must be improved to eliminate the communication gap, relieve the anxiety of farmers, and increase the willingness to transform their vacant residential lands.

Planning and urban growth. What to do with urbanized vacant areas in the land of Valencia?

Planning and urban growth. What to do with urbanized vacant areas in the land of Valencia?

Study on the Mobile FinTech Vacant Technology using Patent Analysis

The purpose of this study is to examine the vacant technology areas by conducting patent analysis of financial technology (FinTech) related to mobile devices. To this end, this study investigated the technological scheme and industry trends first and then derived the technology classification system. Subsequently, key patent was selected from the effective data extracted from this study, and then vacant technology areas of FinTech were examined. It is expected that this study will be used as reference data in order to check patent trends of key technology in FinTech related to mobile devices and to choose the direction of technological development of FinTech.

Elasticity and urban vacancy: A longitudinal comparison of U.S. cities

The effects of urban expansion and population change on vacant land patterns are not fully understood. While the majority of previous research documents that depopulation can result in increased vacant urban areas, there are conflicting findings in regards to the effects of urban expansion. What remains unclear is whether higher urban elasticity (expansion in size) contributes to increases in urban vacancies, or the inverse. While elastic cities extend their boundaries and develop outwardly, inelastic cities contract or stay the same in size and utilize infill development. This research sought to determine if urban elasticity plays a significant role in contributing to urban vacancy increases through an exploratory, quasi-experimental longitudinal analysis of vacant address data from 40 U.S. cities of over 100,000 persons from 2000 to 2010. We compared the top 20 elastic (boundaries expanded the most) and inelastic (boundaries contracted the most) cities. A fixed effects panel model was developed to observe changes over time and differences in total, residential, and business land uses. Results indicate that aggressive urban expansion can contribute to increased urban vacancies, specifically in reference to residential land uses. This finding clarifies what had heretofore been a murky aspect of the urban studies literature.

Design and Analysis of Cost-Efficient Sensor Deployment for Tracking Small UAS with Agent-Based Modeling.

Recently, commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have gained popularity. However, these UAS are potential threats to people in terms of safety in public places, such as public parks or stadiums. To reduce such threats, we consider a design, modeling, and evaluation of a cost-efficient sensor system that detects and tracks small UAS. In this research, we focus on discovering the best sensor deployments by simulating different types and numbers of sensors in a designated area, which provide reasonable detection rates at low costs. Also, the system should cover the crowded areas more thoroughly than vacant areas to reduce direct threats to people underneath. This research study utilized the Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) technique to model a system consisting of independent and heterogeneous agents that interact with each other. Our previous work presented the ability to apply ABM to analyze the sensor configurations with two types of radars in terms of cost-efficiency. The results from the ABM simulation provide a list of candidate configurations and deployments that can be referred to for applications in the real world environment.

Graphical causal inference and copula regression model for apple keywords by text mining

Apple is a leading company of technological evolution and innovation. This company founded and produced the Apple I computer in 1976. Since then, based on its innovative technologies, Apple has launched creative and innovative products and services such as the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the Apple app store, and the iPad. In many fields of academia and business, diverse studies of Apple’s technological innovation strategy have been performed. In this paper, we analyze Apple’s patents to better understand its technological innovation. We collected all applied patents by Apple until now, and applied statistics and text mining for patent analysis. By using graphical causal inference method, we created the causal relations among Apple keywords preprocessed by text mining, and then we carried out the semiparametric Gaussian copula regression model to see how the target response keyword and the predictor keywords are relating to each other. Furthermore, Gaussian copula partial correlation was applied to Apple keywords to find out the detailed dependence structure. By performing these methods, this paper shows the technological trends and relations between Apple’s technologies. This research could make contributions in finding vacant technology areas and central technologies for Apple’s R&D planning.

A Novel Silicon/Graphite/Carbon Composite Anode for High Performance Lithium Ion Batteris

To response the multiply increased demand in portable electronics, hybrid electric vehicles and large scale energy storage over the last decade, Li-ion batteries (LIBs) with higher energy density and power capability have been desired. With respect to the anode of LIB, Silicon have received a great deal of interest as the fully lithiated (ca. Li22Si5) alloy has the highest theoretical capacity of any known material at 4140 mAh/g (3579 mAh/g for Li15Si4at room temperature). Although it is about 10 times higher than that of a conventional graphite anode, a Si-based electrode has yet to find use in commercial application because of its low coulombic efficiency (C.E.) and poor capacity retention. Si is typically known to undergo over 300% of volume expansion on Li insertion, which leads to cracking and crumbling of active particles and the resultant loss of electrical contact between electro-active materials causes rapid capacity fading. Although extensive researches have been reported to alleviate the problems, most of approaches are commercially unviable as they usually involve complicated and prohibitively high cost processes. Hence, a Si anode with sufficient performances and low cost production is highly desired. This study presents a novel cost-saving Si-based anode material with high coulombic efficiency and prolonged cyclability of excellent electrochemical performances using a low-cost synthesis though the attractive route. As a part of our strategy, we attempted to employ a by-product derived from a granular poly-Si mass production system for the feedstock of solar cell application. In such a way, a certain amount of amorphous silicon particles (ASP), the by-product, is derived homogeneously from the nucleation of gas dust in a silane-based gas phase reactor. (Fig. 1 shows HRTEM image and SAD pattern for ASP.) Our pioneering attempt is advantageously characterized by follows: 1) obtained sub-micron sized Si particles are superior to nano-sized Si particles in the battery performance and business value and 2) the production cost is expected to be many times lower than nano-sized Si by utilizing the by-product from an already matured mass production. Further improvement in consideration of commercial feasibility and processing cost is achieved by employing ASP into spherical Si/graphite/carbon composite systems. In Fig. 2, it is seen that spherical ASP/graphite/carbon composite is obtained with the particle size around 7-11 μm. Representative cross-section view demonstrates carbon coated ASP are enclosed by graphite layers; though vacant areas exist sparsely. In the optimized system, the mechanical stress on Si particles induced by huge volume expansion on Li insertion is alleviated and the direct contact between Si and electrolyte is prevented, by which irreversible reaction leading to deterioration of coulombic efficiency is reduced. In this context, we have performed a systematic study on the influence of choice and application method of carbon material which is a critical element in the composites. In such a way, ASP are carbon coated before or during the fabrication process of spherical composites and the achieved advantageous characteristics are summarized as follows: 1) separation of each silicon particles, preventing agglomeration and 2) a strong bonding between Si and graphite for maintaining the electrical contact on charge-discharge, 3) a ductile matrix to buffer the huge stress caused by volume expansion and 4) vacant space inside the composite to accommodate the huge volume changes. It is worth noting that such extraordinary ASP/graphite/carbon composites are manufactured in an inexpensive way as the process consists of only a few steps. The electrochemical characterization demonstrates remarkable performances as the coulombic efficiency at the first cycle reaches up to 90% and the capacity retention after 100cycle is over 92% at 620 mAh/g. Material characterization is performed through several different analytical methods including HRTEM, in-situ solid state lithiation, in-situ dilatometer to support and discuss the unique properties of ASP and the superior performances of our spherical Si/graphite/carbon composite systems.

Optimized Cooperative Dynamic Coverage in Mixed Sensor Networks

This article considers the problem of improving the dynamic coverage and event detection time of mixed wireless sensor networks (WSNs). We consider mixed WSNs that consist of sparse static sensor deployments and mobile sensors that move continuously to monitor uncovered (vacant) areas in the sensor field. Mobile sensors move autonomously and cooperatively by executing a path planning algorithm. Using a simplified scenario, the article derives the optimal path strategy for a single mobile sensor to search two nonconnected uncovered regions with the minimum average detection delay or with the maximum dynamic coverage. The resulting optimal strategy confirms that it is better to search areas that are less likely to hide a target but are located closer to the mobile node, rather than heading toward the most likely area. Based on the insights gained from the simplified scenario and the theory of coverage processes, the article proposes a surrogate method to approximate the best searching neighborhood radius (a design parameter of the path planning algorithm) that optimizes the dynamic coverage and event detection time capabilities of mixed WSN deployments. Extensive simulation results indicate that this approach can achieve very good results, both for a single and for multiple collaborating mobile sensors.

Evaluating Urban Landscape Dynamics over Srinagar City and Its Environs

Rapid, unplanned and uncontrolled urbanization causes disorganized growth. The patterns of urban development are changing natural landscapes and their dynamics. This has necessitated understanding of spatial patterns of urbanization and prompted research. Urbanization being a dynamic phenomenon has been facing ambiguities regarding methods to study its dynamism. It has made operational, a wide-variety of spatial metrics methods utilizing multiple dates of remotely sensed data. The present work carries out the quantitative and qualitative analysis of urban growth of Srinagar by using Urban Landscape Analysis Tool (ULAT). Urbanized Area (UA), Urban Footprint (UF) and New Development (ND) maps are generated to quantify the degree of urbanization based on spatial density of built-up area. Comparative analysis of these maps in relation to the built-up spread pattern indicates that mostly the environs of the Srinagar city which includes mostly agricultural, vacant and marshy areas prominently in northern, western and southern areas contribute to the development of the city.

Study on the factors to transform underused land focusing on the influence of railway stations in central areas of Japanese Local cities

The recent increase in underused land, such as outdoor parking lots and vacant areas, is a serious problem that has led to the decline of central areas in Japanese local cities. To develop these land lots, the distribution of underused land as well as factors to transform these areas must be analyzed. However, the secular changes in underused land are not understood quantitatively, and transformation factors have not been analyzed from the viewpoint of underused lot types.In this study, we constructed a database of underused land using housing maps on GIS. Then we analyzed the relationship between the changes in underused land areas and commercial activity in the central areas of 37 core cities. Finally transformation factors from underused land to business-use and residential land were evaluated with an emphasis on the influence of the proximity to a railway station.Between 1985 and 2005, the results show that small areas of underused land have decreased in central areas, but there is a net increase of underused land. Additionally, commercial activity and population have declined in central areas compared to national trends and the average of core cities. Analyses of transformation factors reveal that outdoor parking lots negatively impact the transformation, but the combination of constructing of railway stations close to central areas and adopting land-use zoning for business-use and residential land have a positive affect on the transformation of underused land.