Urban livability in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods: The experience of the German program “socially integrative city”

This paper asks how the livability of socially disadvantaged urban neighborhoods can be improved with the help of publicly funded area-based urban regeneration. It builds on the history of area-based regeneration policies in Germany aiming at upgrading and resolving urban problems at the neighborhood level. Its main argument is as follows. First, the fate of conventional physical upgrading policies focusing on the livability of deprived urban areas depends on the development environment. While successful upgrading sometimes makes inner-city neighborhoods so attractive that they run into a trend towards gentrification and displacement of the urban poor, the stabilization of less privileged areas cannot always be guaranteed. Second, alternative approaches are needed, linking limited physical upgrading with socially oriented policies, building on strategies like neighborhood management and empowerment. Third, they can make a substantial contribution to stabilizing deprived neighborhoods, thereby improving the general living conditions and the opportunities of the urban poor. However, they require at least some permanent intervention. Thus, they transcend the logic of area-based regeneration normally limited to restoring faith into the private real estate market and thereby directing inward investment into them that improves the quality of the physical environment. Fourth, they are hardly able to overcome significant negative stigmatization in cities that are severely hit by economic downturn and population decline. This is especially true when they act as arrival areas for consecutive waves of migrants, making it necessary to redefine the role of those areas in cities and accepting their high concentration of urban problems as a starting point for different area-based policies dealing with them. The key empirical background of the paper is the German system of urban development grants and an evaluation of the so-called program of “socially integrative city”.     

Simulation of interaction between high-temperature process and heat emission from electricity system in summer

During the hot summer season, using electricity systems increases the local anthropogenic heat emission, further increasing the temperature. Regarding anthropogenic heat sources, electric energy consumption, heat generation, indoor and outdoor heat transfer, and exchange in buildings play a critical role in the change in the urban thermal environment. Therefore, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model was applied in this study to investigate the heat generation from an indoor electricity system and its influence on the outdoor thermal environment. Through the building effect parameterization (BEP) of a multistorey urban canopy scheme, a building energy model (BEM) to increase the influence of indoor air conditioning on the electricity consumption system was proposed. In other words, the BEP+BEM urban canopy parameterization scheme was set. High temperatures and a summer heat wave were simulated as the background weather. The results show that using the BEP+BEM parameterization scheme of indoor and outdoor energy exchange in the WRF model can better simulate the air temperature near the surface layer on a sunny summer. During the day, the turning on the air conditioning and other electrical systems have no obvious effect on the air temperature near the surface layer in the city, whereas at night, the air temperature generally increases by 0.6 ℃, especially in densely populated areas, with a maximum temperature rise of approximately 1.2 ℃ from 22:00 to 23:00. When the indoor air conditioning target temperature is adjusted to 25–27 ℃, the total energy release of the air conditioning system is reduced by 12.66%, and the temperature drops the most from 13:00 to 16:00, with an average of approximately 1 ℃. Further, the denser the building is, the greater the temperature drop.     

长三角城市群节能减排效率及影响因素分析

使用夜间灯光数据估算了长三角城市群地区能源消耗量,通过数据包络分析、Tobit模型计算了节能减排效率与影响因素。研究结论表明:我国长三角城市群地区节能效率改进较小而减排效率提升较大,在诸多影响因素中固定资本投资率、产业结构与人口密度对节能减排效率有较大的促进作用;而第二产业集聚度目前影响方向为负,未来对节能减排效率的改进有一定的正向影响。     

Modes of making smart cities: Or,practices of variegated smart urbanism

The ‘actually existing’ smart city is not a monolith. It is not directed by a universal logic, nor does it develop in a standardised way. As recent research has argued, the spatial, material, and political contexts of cities have major influence over what smart urbanism looks like in practice. This paper adds analytical depth to, and broadens the geographical scope of, research on the variegated modes of making smart cities. Based on empirical research in multiple Australian cities we use three case studies to explore three different modes of smart urbanism, each one centred on the interests of a different key actor: corporate-centric, citizen-centric, and planner-centric. These different modes can, and do, co-exist in the same city. At times, they are competing logics that fight to pull the city in different directions. Yet, they can also work together to shape smart city initiatives. In describing these different modes, we pay particular attention to the ways that these projects and strategies must contend with the already existing spatial, cultural, and political contexts of each place.     

Porous nitrogen doped carbon foam with excellent resilience for self-supported oxygen reduction catalyst

Fabrication of graphitized carbon materials (e.g. carbon nanotubes and graphene) normally entails the assistance of transition metal catalyst. In this paper, a nitrogen doped carbon foam (NCF) with both graphitized and porous carbon structure was fabricated by direct pyrolysis of melamine foam (MF) without using any transition metal catalyst. The graphitized carbon structure was possibly attributed to the triazine moieties in the MF precursor. The introduction of oxygen groups in the oxidation step resulted in the formation of large amount of micro- and mesopores and therefore high specific surface area. The NCF exhibited a three-dimensional cellular network consisting of carbon microfiber with abundant micro- and mesopores and giving rise to a specific surface area over 980 m² g⁻¹. Due to such graphitized porous structure, the NCF was demonstrated to have superior resilience, excellent electrocatalytic activity and good durability for oxygen reduction.     

Cloud asset for urban flood control

The performance of physical assets has become a major determinant success factor for urban flood control. However, managing these assets is always challenging as there are a huge number of diverse assets involved, which are distributed throughout the city, and owned by different agencies. Aiming at improving the management efficiency of these assets, and ensuring their performance, this paper proposes the concept of cloud asset based on cloud computing, mobile agent, and various smart devices. Through hardware integration and software encapsulation, cloud asset could sense its real-time status, adapt to varied working scenarios, be controlled remotely, and shared among agencies. It enables accurate real-time control of every asset, and thus improves the management efficiency and effectiveness. This paper first presents the concept of cloud asset with its technical architecture, and then analyses the software agent model for cloud asset, which is the key enabler to realize UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) management of assets, and provides mobility and intelligence for them. After that, the framework of cloud asset-enabled workflow management is built, in which cloud asset could be easily found and dynamically invoked by different workflows. Finally, a demonstrative case is provided to verify the effectiveness of cloud asset.     

Predicting pollutant removal in constructed wetlands using artificial neural networks(ANNs)

Growth in urban population,urbanisation,and economic development has increased the demand for water,especially in water-scarce regions.Therefore,sustainable approaches to water management are needed to cope with the effects of the urbanisation on the water environment.This study aimed to design novel configurations of tidal-flow vertical subsurface flow constructed wetlands(VFCWs) for treating urban stormwater.A series of laboratory experiments were conducted with semi-synthetic influent stormwater to examine the effects of the design and operation variables on the performance of the VFCWs and to identify optimal design and operational strategies,as well as maintenance requirements.The results show that the VFCWs can significantly reduce pollutants in urban stormwater,and that pollutant removal was related to specific VFCW designs.Models based on the artificial neural network(ANN) method were built using inputs derived from data exploratory techniques,such as analysis of variance(ANOVA) and principal component analysis(PCA).It was found that PCA reduced the dimensionality of input variables obtained from different experimental design conditions.The results show a satisfactory generalisation for predicting nitrogen and phosphorus removal with fewer variable inputs,indicating that monitoring costs and time can be reduced.     

Mining urban data (part A)

Modern cities are flooded with data. New information sources like public transport and wearable devices provide opportunities for novel applications that will improve citizens׳ quality of life. From a data science perspective, data emerging from smart cities give rise to a lot of challenges that constitute a new inter-disciplinary field of research. This article introduces the first part of a special issue on the topic ‘Mining Urban Data’ published in the journal Information Systems.     

The concept of smartness in cyber–physical systems and connection to urban environment

The next-generation systems are expected to be largely cyber–physical systems (CPSs) that autonomously control physical processes, through sensors and actuators typically in real-time feedback and cooperative control loops distributed among physical and cyber environments. The rapid technological advancements enhance the smartness of these CPSs, pushing their boundaries of performance and efficiency by embedding new information and communication technologies. However, to what extent CPSs should be smarter so that they do not compromise safety and security of safety critical systems? is an open research question. Towards this goal, the purpose of this study is to establish a grounded theory to analyse what makes these systems smart? and eventually, how to find a balance between smartness and safety risks? In this precinct, this article aims to develop a conceptual framework, define the dimensions and derive the characteristics that make CPSs smart. The proposed approach combines an automated informetric and systematic analysis of literature pertinent to the topic of smartness across anthropology, science, engineering and technology. The analysis of a case study building and the discussions presented herein support the connection between the existing understanding of CPSs and smartness offered by the building design approach in urban environment.     

城市低碳群体建筑外部边缘空间规划仿真研究

针对当前空间规划方法存在的计算时间长、规划成本高等问题,提出一种基于蚁群算法的低碳群体建筑外部边缘空间规划方法。依据城市低碳群体建筑外部边缘空间的模糊特性,引入模糊集合理论对建筑外部边缘空间进行理解和建筑外部边缘空间模糊矩阵的构建,对边缘空间进行划分和限定。结合建筑外部边缘空间的特性和具体关系模式进行空间层次划分,计算空间属性权重,以此确立空间规划目标,根据空间规划目标函数构建空间规划模型,设定求解空间规划模型的蚁群算法信息素更新方式,依据个体信息素转移概率指导个体进行模型最优解搜索。实验结果表明,所提方法与传统的空间规划方法相比,有效减少了计算时间,降低了规划成本。