Retting of coconut husk ‐ a unique case of water pollution on the South West coast of India

The extensive backwaters of Kerala are the sites for a flourishing cottage industry ‐ the coir industry. This enterprise almost exclusively located along the 590 km coastal belt of Kerala, provides direct employment to over half a million people in the state and produces nearly 90% of the total coir goods in the world. The shallow bays and lagoons of the 30 backwater systems of the state are traditional areas for the retting of coconut husk for the production of the coir fibre. The paper examines the environmental status of the retting grounds in Kerala, in relation to the biotic communities. The study revealed that retting activity has caused large scale organic pollution along with the mass destruction of the flora and fauna, converting sizeable sections of the backwaters into virtual cesspools of foul smelling stagnant waters. High values of hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, BOD₅ associated with anoxic conditions and low community diversity of plankton, benthic fauna, fish, shell fish, wood boring and fouling organisms were the outstanding feature of the retting zones.     

Residential satisfaction assessment of a 1970s modernist housing community in Istanbul: searching for the reasons behind the preservation of a housing community’s current architectural status against the urban transformation movements affecting the entire city

Going against the mainstream popularity of high-rise housing developments dominating the Turkish construction market in the late twentieth century, Haluk Baysal and Melih Birsel collaboratively built the Istanbul Yesilkoy Housing Community project in 1973 using the principles of modern architecture. Although the modern lifestyle dominant in the design of this housing project did not emerge from the principles of life inherent to Turkish domestic architecture, this study examines how this project could remain resistant to the destructive force of a possible earthquake in a location where the land value is higher than many other districts of Istanbul. This study’s research question is whether or not the survival of this residential housing community could be attributed to residential satisfaction. The study’s research method was a residential satisfaction survey and factor analyses. The results showed that the continued existence of the residential community in the midst of the urban transformation movement is because the community satisfied its residents’ needs for safety, centrality, and neighbourliness.

     

Using ecological momentary assessment to understand a construction worker’s daily disruptions and decisions

Capturing the momentary decisions and actions made by construction workers in response to workflow disruptions is challenging because, until now, there has not been a minimally disruptive data collection method that allows workers to identify their decision process ‘in the moment’. However, an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) method—designed to capture momentary work experiences in natural settings—can provide researchers with detailed information about the daily challenges experienced by workers during the course of performing their tasks. An explanation of the method is provided, along with examples of the types of research questions that can be addressed and appropriate analysis techniques. The EMA method is being used on a federally funded research programme in the United States that is investigating how construction workers adapt to workflow disruptions by improvising their decisions and actions. Consequently, this article demonstrates the use of the method by presenting an idiographic study of William, an electrical construction worker. The evaluation of William’s disruptions, decisions and actions elucidated an important relationship: every one of William’s disruptions required an improvisational action in order for him to continue working. The EMA method opens the door to the development of new theories about rapid decisions and subsequent actions on construction sites.     

A Comparison between Industry’s and Academia’s Perceptions of a Career in Construction Education

It is well documented that real-world experience is essential in teaching the applied sciences. However, it has also been shown that faculty positions are being filled with candidates with strong research agendas but less industry experience. The aim of this study is to understand what industry’s perception of a career in academia is like and compare it to the perceptions of those actually in the profession. This is viewed as a needed first step in attracting more industry practitioners into construction education. The study surveys practitioners and faculty on how satisfying a career in CM academia is at meeting 16 factors identified as important to overall job satisfaction. The responses of both groups were compared to evaluate where industry’s perceptions did not align with those of faculty. The study also compared the workplace attributes that industry indicated they valued most and what faculty indicated a career in education provided. The study found that a terminal degree, interest in research and publishing, interest in teaching, and salary were the greatest barriers for industry practitioners to enter CM academia. The comparison of work place priority and barriers to entry was used to provide potential strategies to encourage more industry practitioners into CM education.     

Intervening in the cycle of poverty,poor housing and poor health: the role of housing providers in enhancing tenants’ mental wellbeing

Journal of Housing and the Built Environment - Poverty, poor housing and poor health are complexly interconnected in a cycle that has proven resistant to intervention by housing providers or policy...     

Building a Golden Grove ‘community’: a study of suburban production processes in South Australia, 1970s–1980s

Ideals of community have been associated with the practice of planning for over a century. Proponents of the Golden Grove Development considered particular ideals of community to be fundamental to the financial and social success of the new suburban development. This paper will analyse the early planning processes that underpinned the production of community ideals and argue that these planning processes took place at the transition between welfarism and neo‐liberalism. This study will offer provocative glimpses into late twentieth century suburban planning practices; practices that establish the Golden Grove Development as a model of late twentieth century suburban production processes.     

The making of a megastructure: architectural modernism,town planning and Cumbernauld’s Central Area, 1955–75

The development of the Central Area at Cumbernauld New Town was a landmark in town centre design and an intriguing example of the convergence between architectural modernism and town planning in the 1950s and 1960s. This paper, which considers the genesis, development and subsequent reassessment of this extraordinary structure, comprises five main parts. The first supplies conceptual background, by seeing the Central Area as an expression of thinking about megastructures. The next section examines the background to the designation of Cumbernauld New Town and the challenges that its location posed for town centre design. The third part discusses the way that Cumbernauld’s town centre, one of the few megastructures ever built, evolved as the chosen form for this site, looking at the progress from initial ideas through to the formal design. The fourth section reviews the various phases of implementation, concentrating on the two initial phases – the only ones that proceeded in line with the original megastructural schema. The final section reflects on the abandonment of the megastructural principle after Phase 2 and considers the wider significance of this episode. It highlights the design deficiencies and poor political decisions that blighted the megastructure before commenting on the implications of this episode for understanding the relationship between architectural modernism and town planning.     

Varieties of Home Ownership: Ireland’s Transition from a Socialised to a Marketised Policy Regime

This article presents an historical institutional analysis of government supports for home ownership in Ireland. In doing so, it critiques the interpretation of the Irish home ownership system and, by extension, of this tenure’s meaning and role as a neo-liberal project which dominates the comparative housing literature. Rather than liberal policies, the article argues that between the 1920s and 1970s, government subsidies slowly expanded, in terms of generosity, variety and universal availability, to such a scale that Ireland’s home ownership regime was effectively ‘socialised’. This regime (not market forces) raised home ownership to 80 per cent of households. However, ideological, financial and socio-economic supports for this regime weakened and during the 1980s home ownership was marketised as universal subsidies were withdrawn and mortgage lending privatised. The implications of this redirection were initially disguised by low house price inflation, but when the economy boomed in the 1990s home ownership contracted sharply to levels which could be supported solely by the market.     

Spatial estimation of aquifer’s hydraulic parameters by a combination of borehole data and inverse solution

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - A combination of borehole data interpretation and inverse solution method used to estimate the spatial distribution of hydraulic conductivity...     

Bruno Zevi,the continental European emissary of Geoffrey Scott’s theories

In the late nineteenth century, Bernard Berenson revived the analytical methodologies employed in art history by proposing new methods of pictorial analysis, such as space-composition and life-enhancement. In the twentieth century, his pupil Geoffrey Scott transferred these new methodologies from their original context, Renaissance painting, to architecture. Though Scott was a recognised critic within English aesthetic circles, he was largely ignored in Continental European academic communities. The influence of his book The Architecture of Humanism (1914) was limited to the Anglo-American world before the 1940s. This essay depicts the key role that the Italian architect Bruno Zevi played after the Second World War, by becoming the primary architectural historian to introduce and diffuse Scott’s forgotten masterpiece in many non-English-speaking countries. Zevi defended a critical methodology based on spatial, empirical, and sensory analysis of architectural works, an attitude that is observed in his theoretical corpus written immediately after his return from the United States. This paper proposes an examination of Zevi’s reception of Scott’s theories and the debates that it propagated, and aims to contribute to the understanding of the methodological approach followed in the years after the Second World War on both sides of the Atlantic.     

Landfill sites,solid waste management and people’s resistance: a study of two municipal corporations in Kerala

This paper examines some issues associated with the centralised waste management system and the ways in which urban local bodies tackled the resistance against centralised waste management. The study is based on a sample survey of 175 households located in the landfill sites connected with two Municipal Corporations, viz. Thrissur and Kochi. The study observed that the local government resists change in solid waste management. When the resistance is strong alternative methods like decentralised waste management are chosen; and where the resistance is weak there is a tendency to maintain the centralised waste management system.     

Impact of partially stabilised zirconia on a single-cylinder diesel engine’s performance,using orange oil methyl ester biodiesel

Exhaustion of crude oil resources, rise in fuel prices and necessity to find less-carbon fuel have encouraged to find an alternative fuel. Biodiesel is characterised by its fuel properties, which may have an adverse effect on performance and emission characteristics of the engine. Thus, it is necessary to trans-esterify the extracted orange oil and make it viable for diesel engine. In the present work, partially stabilised zirconia was used as a thermal barrier coating (TBC) for the combustion chamber components using plasma spray technique. The present study focused on the impact of TBC on performance and emission characteristics of a diesel engine with B1 (20% orange oil methyl ester with 80% diesel) sample and diesel. Increased brake thermal efficiency and reduced brake-specific fuel consumption are observed for B1 in the TBC engine. On comparing with the uncoated engine, the B1 in coated engine exhibited lower carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon, oxides of nitrogen and smoke emissions than diesel.     

Re-examination of Zipf’s law and urban dynamic in China: a regional approach

Recent efforts have been made to interpret spatial-temporal evolution of urban system using Zipf??s law. The debates remain whether Zipf??s law holds true for large and diverse countries with long urbanization history, and how varied geographical settings with different socioeconomic conditions affect city-size distributions. This research investigates China??s urban system dynamics through expanded Zipf??s law at national and regional level. First, the paper revisits urban system dynamic theories and recent applications of Zipf??s law. The city data from 1960 to 2000 are then used to analyze rapid changes of urban systems in China through Zipf??s plots of cities over the entire nation and in six macro regions, respectively. The paper also examines top ten city rank changes nationally and regionally to examine temporal trajectories of key cities and the impacts on urban systems over space. Three types of Zipf??s law reflections are found over six China??s macro regions, based on the similarities of temporal dynamics of urban systems.     

Women’s fear of crime in residential open spaces: a structural equation model

Fear of crime (FOC) among women has recently drawn a lot of attention from experts in different fields. As a construct, it involves individual, social, and physical aspects. Yet, there is a paucity of research on women's FOC in residential complexes focusing on demographic characteristics, social connections, and the indicators of open space simultaneously. Thus, the present study aimed to fill the gap in this area. In this regard, different theoretical and empirical aspects of the issue were reviewed, based on which a conceptual model was developed. The data were collected using a researcher-developed questionnaire consisted of three main constructs, namely FOC, social connections, and open space. Of female residents in residential complexes in Mashhad, Iran, 198 were selected as samples of the study. The hypothesized model was assessed using SmartPLS and structural equation modeling. The results indicated the effect of social connections on FOC, and the mediating relationship between open space and FOC through social connections. The research also provides fresh insights into the effects of demographic variables and cultural differences on FOC.

     

The successes and failures of a key transportation link: accessibility effects of Taiwan’s high-speed rail

Taiwan does not only have a high population density; its population exhibits a strong preference for high-density downtown living. Rich Taiwanese thus live downtown, not in the suburbs. In addition, the expected negative relationship between accessibility and the spaciousness of housing is weak or non-existent in Taiwan’s metropolitan areas. Taiwan should therefore be highly suited to rail transportation investments. In 2007, a new high-speed railroad was inaugurated, connecting seven metropolitan areas. Hedonic estimates show that high-speed rail accessibility has a substantial impact on house prices in at least four of the regions. Interregional downtown-to-downtown commuting time seems to be the most important determinant of success in generating a station-centered price-distance gradient. Neighborhoods around HSR stations in suburban locations are not likely to spawn residential communities for commuters, since most Taiwanese prefer downtown residential locations.     

Genesis and culmination of Uzô Nishiyama’s proposal of a ‘model core of a future city’ for the Expo 70 site (1960‐73)

The US National Commission on Urban Problems in 1968 alleged that an increase in minimum residential lot sizes in the suburbs was a leading cause of suburban restrictiveness, and that part of the motivation for the increase was discrimination against households of low and moderate income. An examination of the zoning ordinances in all of the suburban municipalities in Cook County, Illinois for 1946 and 1971 shows that, except for a few prominent examples, such an allegation cannot be substantiated. Cook County is the second‐largest county in the USA and had a suburban population of 2.124 million in 1970. Suburban Cook County consisted largely of dormitory suburbs in 1940. Eleven suburbs increased the restrictiveness of zoning during the 1946–71 period, but only two of these are of major importance. Nine suburbs reduced the restrictiveness of zoning, of which eight reduced the land requirements for multi‐family housing. The study confirms the view that, in the 25 years after Word War II, some of the impact of restrictive zoning was mitigated by the availability of a wide variety of jurisdictions.