自然山区大气景观模拟显示方法初探

提出了一个模拟大气、云雾等自然环境的照明模型，对视线距离较大，视野开阔的自然景物造型，如山体造型，更具有真实感效果，可获得模拟云、雾等天气特征的三维地形风景图。实验效果令人满意，并具有简单实用之特点。     

地热水医疗保健作用评价

在查阅大量文献的基础上,分析了地热水中各种有益组分的医疗保健作用机理;以河南省出露温度最高的洛阳九龙山疗养院温泉为典型例子,根据水质检测结果,按照《医疗矿泉水水质标准》(GB11615-89)对其医疗作用进行了评价;结果表明,该处地热水中多种组分具有医疗价值质量浓度或达到命名医疗热矿水名称的质量浓度,具有较高的医疗价值和保健作用.     

一类非线性椭圆方程组解的存在性

将一类非线性椭圆方程组的求解问题化归为一给定泛函的临界点问题．利用变分法、经典的极值理论和山路引理证明了给定泛函在各种不同条件下临界点及非平凡临界点的存在性，从而得到了这类非线性椭圆方程组的解及非平凡解．     

一种基于小波变换的数字图像自动聚焦算法

由傅立叶光学理论可知 ,图像高频能量值可以反映聚焦程度 .在传统图像灰度方差评价函数的基础上 ,利用小波多分辨率分析 ,提出了一种新的自动聚焦算法 .清晰度评价函数通过舍去图像低频概貌信号 ,突出了高频能量 ,具有更好的尖锐性 .并分析了分解层数对评价函数性能的影响 .通过改进的变步长爬山算法实验表明 ,该算法与传统灰度方差算法相比具有更好的聚焦精确度 .     

地理信息系统在城市环境规划中的应用

地理信息系统技术应用于环境规划工作具有多方面的优越性,能够进行规划信息管理、规划方案比较、评价与决策支持、规划图件制作等工作,基于地理信息系统建立城市环境规划信息系统是加强环境管理有力的技术支持.     

Solving the Urban Transit Routing Problem using a particle swarm optimization based algorithm

The Urban Transit Routing Problem (UTRP) comprises an NP-hard problem that deals with the construction of route networks for public transit networks. It is a highly complex and multiply constrained problem, in which the assessment of candidate route networks can be both time consuming and challenging. Except for that, a multitude of potential solutions are usually rejected due to infeasibility. Because of this difficulty, soft computing algorithms can be very effective for its efficient solution. The success of these methods, however, depends mainly on the quality of the representation of candidate solutions, on the efficiency of the initialization procedure and on the suitability of the modification operators used.An optimization algorithm, based on particle swarm optimization, is designed and presented in the current contribution, aiming at the efficient solution of UTRP. Apart from the development of the optimization algorithm, emphasis is also given on appropriate representation of candidate solutions, the route networks in other words, and the respective evaluation procedure. The latter procedure considers not only the quality of service offered to each passenger, but also the costs of the operator. Results are compared on the basis of Mandl's benchmark problem of a Swiss bus network, which is probably the only widely investigated and accepted benchmark problem in the relevant literature. Comparison of the obtained results with other results published in the literature shows that the performance of the proposed soft computing algorithm is quite competitive compared to existing techniques.     

Reality check: Planning education in the African urban century

Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa owes much to the colonial legacies that inform the shape and composition of African urban spaces and places. This applies to legislation, institutional systems and planning education. In 2008, the Association of African Planning Schools AAPSs embarked on a 3-year initiative on the revitalisation of planning education in Africa, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The aim of the project was to propose ways through which the training of urban planners can be more responsive to the special circumstances of African urbanisation. This paper reflects on this initiative.     

Influent generator for probabilistic modeling of nutrient removal wastewater treatment plants

The availability of influent wastewater time series is crucial when using models to assess the performance of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) under dynamic flow and loading conditions. Given the difficulty of collecting sufficient data, synthetic generation could be the only option. In this paper a hybrid of statistical (a Markov chain-gamma model for stochastic generation of rainfall and two different multivariate autoregressive models for stochastic generation of air temperature and influent time series in dry conditions) and conceptual modeling techniques is proposed for synthetic generation of influent time series. The time series of rainfall and influent in dry weather conditions are generated using two types of statistical models. These two time series serve as inputs to a conceptual sewer model for generation of influent time series. The application of the proposed influent generator to the Eindhoven WWTP shows that it is a powerful tool for realistic generation of influent time series and is well-suited for probabilistic design of WWTPs as it considers both the effect of input variability and total model uncertainty.     

The Biopolitics of Thirdspace: Urban Segregation and Resistance in Puerto Rico’s Luis Lloréns Torres Public Housing Project

The public housing programme in Puerto Rico was highly influenced by a culturally engrained logic of colonialism that aimed to achieve a behavioural transformation of the residents of public housing based on white “criollo” norms and conducts. To this day, the process of Othering with which these bodies are understood and viewed has recurrently been reproduced and redeployed utilizing the island’s old racial/colonial hierarchies. Criminality and drug-related activities are the main discursive agents employed to stigmatize the communities that live inside public housing in Puerto Rico. It is constantly inferred that most of its residents break with the behavioural norms that the rest of the population abides by. This argument is constantly utilized to perpetuate the cultural lens that views these sectors as lazy, unruly and dangerous. This highly prejudiced misconception justified the police occupations and the fences that were erected in and around public housing premises during the 1990s. However, most of these communities rarely view themselves as victims, and it is this paper’s argument that they are constantly and collectively enacting political and physical spaces of dissent, resistance and encounter that – however momentarily – are able to overturn some of these powerful ideological and spatial constructs.     

Can cities become self-reliant in food?

Modern cities almost exclusively rely on the import of resources to meet their daily basic needs. Food and other essential materials and goods are transported from long-distances, often across continents, which results in the emission of harmful greenhouse gasses. As more people now live in cities than rural areas and all future population growth is expected to occur in cities, the potential for local self-reliance in food for a typical post-industrial North American city was determined. Given current policies and bylaws and available area, crop yields, and human intake, three distinct scenarios were developed to determine the potential level of food self-reliance for the City of Cleveland, which has been plagued with home foreclosures and resulting vacant land, lack of access to healthy food, hunger, and obesity particularly in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Scenario I, which utilizes 80% of every vacant lot, can generate between 22% and 48% of Cleveland’s demand for fresh produce (vegetables and fruits) depending on the vegetable production practice used (conventional gardening, intensive gardening, or hydroponics), 25% of both poultry and shell eggs, and 100% of honey. Scenario II, which uses 80% of every vacant lot and 9% of every occupied residential lot, can generate between 31% and 68% of the needed fresh produce, 94% of both poultry and shell eggs, and 100% of honey. Finally, scenario III, which adds 62% of every industrial and commercial rooftop in addition to the land area used in scenario II, can meet between 46% and 100% of Cleveland’s fresh produce need, and 94% of poultry and shell eggs and 100% of honey. The three scenarios can attain overall levels of self-reliance between 4.2% and 17.7% by weight and 1.8% and 7.3% by expenditure in total food and beverage consumption, compared to the current level of 0.1% self-reliance in total food and beverage by expenditure. The analysis also reveals that the enhanced food self-reliance would result in $29 M to $115 M being retained in Cleveland annually depending upon the scenario employed. This study provides support to the hypothesis that significant levels of local self-reliance in food, the most basic need, is possible in post-industrial North American cities. It is concluded that while high levels of local self-reliance would require an active role of city governments and planners, public commitment, financial investment, and labor, the benefits to human health, the local and global environment, and the local economy and community may outweigh the cost.