Digital Cities: Towards an integrated decision support methodology

This paper deals with the problem of the low ICT adoption rate by many cities or urban regions. The consequences of the poor ICT environment in these authorities may be summarized into (i) the cutback of local business competitiveness, (ii) the incapability of attracting new business investments, (iii) the poor service of citizens needs (living in the local area or abroad – a foreign country or another city, namely emigrants), (iv) the poor service of visitors that have or want to have transactions in the local area. The main shortcomings of local authorities refer to lack of capabilities and expertise, negligence of local needs and urban characteristics, absence of ICT adoption models to local needs, ignorance of development and exploitation models etc. These regions need support so as to select the most appropriate ICT best practices, integrated them into their strategic plans and implement them with success. This procedure is particularly complex, since many factors and restrictions have to be considered. The overall objective of this paper is to illustrate the Digital City concept and to propose an integrated methodology for Digital City development that will act in a supportive way for the regions or cities that have low rates in ICT penetration and try to adopt ICT best practices into their core functions and services.     

What are the most important predictors of computer science students' online help-seeking behaviors?

This study investigates the most important predictors of computer science students’ online help-seeking behaviors. 203 computer science students from a large university in southeastern United States participated in the study. Online help-seeking behaviors explored in this study include online searching, asking teachers online for help, and asking peers online for help. Ten-fold cross validation was used to select the most significant predictors from eight potential factors, including prior knowledge of the learning subject, learning proficiency level, academic performance, epistemological belief, interests, problem difficulty, age and gender. Problem difficulty was selected as the most important predictor for all three types of online help seeking, while learning proficiency level, academic performance, and epistemological belief were selected as the most important predictors for both online searching and asking teachers online for help. Based on the selected factors and their relationships with online help seeking, the study provides guidance on targeted training for online help seeking in an era of mass higher education.     

Parents' education,school‐age children and household location in American cities

The location of households within metropolitan areas has been a topic of interest for many decades. It has been receiving more attention by researchers recently because of the increasing attractiveness of many cities in the United States to certain types of households and to certain types of jobs. This study considers whether 15 large cities and the boroughs of New York City are attractive to families with school‐age children, especially those with college‐educated parents. It is shown that overall more affluent and educated families with school‐age children are less likely to live in many large central cities with a few important exceptions.     

意大利城镇化的社会经济与空间历史进程及模式评述

本文回顾了意大利城镇化的历史演进过程,介绍了意大利城镇体系分布概况,并以北部艾米利亚—罗马涅大区为例提出意大利在发达国家和地区中是一个"分散城镇化"发展的典型成功案例,具有多中心和大中小城市相对均衡的城镇体系,城镇规模普遍较小,企业也以小规模为主,这种中小企业与中小城市的结合在全球化浪潮中仍然保持了良好的发展势头,乡村和农业依然是意大利国家和国民经济的重要、积极的组成部分,值得我国学者和村镇工作者深入探讨。     

中国城镇化的困局与破局——中镇模式的设想与检视

城镇化本质上是人与土地产生新型关系的进程.因此,以何种方式聚集,怎样协调相互发生关系的人与地,便成为城镇化过程中的关键问题.新中国成立以来,中国人民对建立人、地合理配置方式进行了积极的探索,大城市论和小城镇论是其中最具代表性的两种观点.60多年的实践告诉我们,"大"、"小"两种发展模式都没有处理好城镇化进程中人与地、人...     

Networks and the City

‘Cities need to change to survive. As living beings that are constantly replacing their cells, rebuilding their veins and arteries, and pumping energy and matter or producing waste, cities are also growing and evolving as they age.’ Just how complex, though, are cities? Sergi Valverde and Ricard V Solé of the ICREA-Complex Systems Lab at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona look at how network theory and emergent dynamics might be bringing us closer to an overarching theory of urban organisation.     

(Sustainable) quality of life in English city locations

Ever since the United Kingdom published its second sustainable development strategy in 1999, the legitimacy-governing construct of quality of life has been refashioned in the English policy context to accommodate a novel intergenerational dimension. This paper examines the magnitude of this sustainability transformation by examining the operationalisation and reported outcomes of formally established sustainable quality of life data in conjunction with commensurate quality of life information compiled twenty years previously, amongst 63 matched city locations. Conceptually, we find that although the sustainable quality of life data is comparatively more sophisticated in its environmental connotation it has not managed to reconcile this effort with the social and economic domains of sustainability, tending instead to neutralise the distributive, class-based tenor of its predecessor. Empirically, meanwhile, we find that whereas Northern-based city locations perform comparatively worse on the sustainable quality of life rankings Southern ones do much better. We also find that while the lowest scoring localities tend to be afflicted by similar types of quality of life deficiencies the top ones shine on a diverse range of issues.     

高光谱成像技术应用于畜禽肉品品质研究进展

食品安全不光关乎我们身体健康而且影响着社会稳定,做好食品安全检测是防止有毒食品进入人体的关键步骤也是维护社会稳定的重要举措。为改善传统畜禽肉质检测方法费时费力的现状,食品安全检测方法正趋于多样化,引入了许多高新技术,高光谱成像技术（hyperspectral imaging,HSI）便是其中之一。它是将成像技术和光谱技术相结合,在不损伤产品外形的情况下得到产品外部图像特征和产品内部品质信息光谱图,本文从畜禽肉品品质安全角度出发,围绕畜禽肉品化学指标、物理属性和食用安全指标三个方面,综述了高光谱成像技术在畜禽肉品安全检测中的应用,归纳总结了预处理,变量筛选和建模方法。对目前高光谱成像技术应用于畜禽肉品检测中所暴露的缺点进行总结, 并就未来发展方向进行展望,为食品安全检测提供了新的参考。     

Mesh-Mould: Robotically Fabricated Spatial Meshes as Reinforced Concrete Formwork

If robots are to be employed in the construction of high-rise structures, logistics and material systems have to be entirely rethought to cater for both their abilities and limitations: robots have limited loading capacity, but greater dexterity than other on-site, automated construction techniques. Here, Norman Hack of ETH Zurich and Willi Viktor Lauer of the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) at the Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability (SEC) describe the research they have undertaken to develop ‘mesh-mould’ as an alternative to conventional formwork.     

相互学习--21世纪的中国和欧洲城市

通过对欧洲的大都市地区和世界性城市的发展的回顾和分析,提出了对中国城市发展和大都市地区发展的规划建议.