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• DNA provision in LTMP cases varies depending on disappearance circumstances. • Qualitative analyses provide insights into public concerns in this area. • Concerns manifest differently in LTMP cases. Policy response could enhance support. Identification of unidentified human remains, and long-term missing persons (LTMP) is imperative, allowing for missing persons to be reunited with their families, which could provide closure to families experiencing ongoing ambiguity surrounding the situation. However, identification remains problematic for several reasons, including the absence of DNA provision in the investigation. The research reported here is the second in a two-part series exploring public/family support for providing DNA in LTMP cases. In the first study, quantitative results showed that participants had concerns when asked if they thought there would be implications for a person providing DNA to police in LTMP cases. The aim of this second study was to explore further using qualitative methods the nuances and themes underpinning concerns for providing DNA in LTMP cases. Participants described their concerns about providing DNA in four hypothetical LTMP case scenarios (a child, an adult with dementia, a runaway 19-year-old adolescent, and an estranged adult). Through thematic content analysis, ten themes were identified. Nine themes run across all four LTMP case scenarios. The tenth theme was only observed in two scenarios; cases involving adolescents with a history of runaway, and in cases involving adults estranged from their family. Results showed public concerns differed according to LTMP case circumstances. Key findings point to public education about how DNA is used in LTMP investigations, the applicable legislation relating to police use of DNA in investigations and increasing public awareness around the benefits of DNA use in LTMP investigations. Potentional policy options are discussed that could guide the future development of nuanced police practice in different types of LTMP cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes point of departure in ongoing research into exclusionary design. Through design interventions such as leaning benches, steel spikes, water sprinklers, and barbed wire socially vulnerable and homeless people are kept from occupying and staying in public spaces in the cities around the world. Such exclusion by design contributes to "atmospheres of rejection" and affords new patterns of human mobility in the city. As the leaning (or otherwise modified) bench is one of the most predominant dark design interventions, this paper will single out the bench as one exemplary artefact to be explored. The bench carries both symbolic meaning, as well as it is a material artefact affording rest and occupancy. The design of benches and the positioning (or removal) of them are micro-installations that together with other urban furniture, makes-up the urban spaces as sites of congregation, exchange, and experience. The paper explores the bench on a background of three key terms: affordance, atmosphere, and material interpellation. The paper then turns to art practices in public spaces and illustrate how the socio-cultural significance of benches has been made visible by art interventions such as the "socially modified" benches by the artist Jeppe Hein. In the conclusion the paper draws out lines of enquiry for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study compares how young people (ages 15–16) learn circuitry concepts and layout design principles important to electrical engineering using one of two educational circuitry toolkits: paper circuits and traditional solderless breadboards. Paper-based prototyping kits are representative of a trend that incorporates new materials and approaches to integrating arts into traditional STEM disciplines. Extending prior research on how non-traditional toolkits enhance learning of electrical engineering outcomes, including basic circuitry concepts (i.e., current flow, polarity, and connections), this study examines the material affordances and design choices of the kits that contribute to youth's understanding of more advanced circuitry layout design principles, including space allocation, placement of electronic components, and routing. Results indicate that paper circuits better afford the learning of layout design principles for printed circuit boards (PCBs) with large effect sizes. This study illuminates how the materials of educational toolkits uniquely solicit body- and material-syntonic patterns of activity, and thus differentially engage learners' powerful ideas around circuitry and design principles. This investigation encourages careful consideration of the material affordances of some toolkits over others for learning purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection of concealed suspicious objects in public places is a critical issue and a popular research topic. Terahertz (THz) imaging technology, as an emerging detection method, can penetrate materials without emitting ionizing radiation, providing a new approach to detecting concealed suspicious objects. This study focuses on the detection of concealed suspicious objects wrapped in different materials such as polyethylene and kraft paper, including items like scissors, pistols, and blades, using THz imaging technology. To address issues such as the lack of texture details in THz images and the contour similarity of different objects, which can lead to missed detections and false alarms, we propose a THz concealed suspicious object detection model based on SMR–YOLO (SPD_Mobile + RFB + YOLO). This model, based on the MobileNext network, introduces the spatial-to-depth convolution (SPD-Conv) module to replace the backbone network, reducing computational and parameter load. The inclusion of the receptive field block (RFB) module, which uses a multi-branch structure of dilated convolutions, enhances the network's depth features. Using the EIOU loss function to assess the accuracy of predicted box localization further optimizes convergence speed and localization accuracy. Experimental results show that the improved model achieved mAP@0.5 and mAP@0.5:0.95 scores of 98.9% and 89.4%, respectively, representing improvements of 0.2% and 1.8% over the baseline model. Additionally, the detection speed reached 108.7 FPS, an improvement of 23.2 FPS over the baseline model. The model effectively identifies concealed suspicious objects within packages, offering a novel approach for detection in public places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematical modeling is a high-leverage topic; it is critical to students' participation in STEM education and supports civic engagement. Until recently, research on modeling at the elementary level has been underemphasized, particularly research on supports and challenges for teachers who engage in designing authentic modeling tasks. In this study, we employed qualitative case study methods to investigate how elementary teachers designed and implemented authentic mathematical modeling tasks, with an explicit focus on how their tasks evidenced different dimensions of authenticity. We analyzed three cases of teams of elementary teachers as they developed modeling tasks connected to school and community contexts. The three cases were: 1) a student-driven modeling task related to paper and plastic waste in a school cafeteria, 2) a modeling task based on authentic situations at a community-run resource center, and 3) a modeling task focused on designing and monitoring a school community-building art project. Our cases illustrate that elementary teachers can successfully design and implement modeling activities that utilize different entry points and evidence multiple dimensions of authenticity. Furthermore, we found that the specific dimensions of authenticity may vary depending on the design supports and curriculum challenges within each context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: Application of the digital twin concept to a specific scenario of the lift-and-transverse garage. Starting from the design phase to the final field planning and debugging. It not only verifies the feasibility of equipment solutions using virtual models of digital twins but also optimizes design solutions, identifies problems, and solves them. The operational test results of the virtual model can also fully demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed digital twin model and related design methods, which provide an important reference for the design optimization and operation of future stereo garages. In addition, compared with the traditional development process, the virtual simulation design and debugging method can not only shorten the development cycle and debugging cost but also accelerate the development progress. This new method provides a brand new idea for the development of the enterprise and also makes a positive contribution to promoting the modernization of urban parking lots. In the face of the challenges of limited urban space and the continuous increase of vehicles, stereo garages have been widely used as a solution in cities. In order to improve the automation and intelligence level of the stereo garage, this paper applies the digital twin technology to the lift-and-transverse stereo garage. A five-dimensional model of a digital twin has been developed based on an actual stereo garage. Combined with S7-PLCSIM Advanced, Botu TIA Portal, and NX MCD to build a virtual simulation platform, realizing the virtual simulation design and debugging of the digital twin-based stereo garage. This approach allows to test and optimize operational processes without relying on physical equipment, reducing labor and field debugging costs, shortening deployment cycles, and significantly reducing development costs. In addition, MCD allows real-time monitoring and control of security risks and failures detected. Finally, the feasibility of the virtual simulation and debugging scheme based on digital twin is verified by comparing the operation data of the virtual model and the actual stereo garage, which provides new ideas for the intelligent development of stereo garage but also can be used as an important reference for the development of equipment in other areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Chapter 2, I Control, i Shapiro follows gig workers: the human bodies commissioned to enact smart logics of maximum flexibility and modularity, to ensure that goods and money flow with as little "friction" as possible. Drawing from his own time working as a delivery worker for Caviar in Philadelphia, Shapiro vividly demonstrates the lack of predictability and control for the gig worker. [Extracted from the article]

The concept of 'publicness' addresses the intersection between people and their physical surroundings, and the ways in which they affect each other in an ongoing process. This point of relational exchange is the core concept behind 'Public Space in European Social Housing' (PuSH), a three-year HERA-funded project conducted by a transnational, multidisciplinary team of researchers. Large-scale modernist postwar housing estates, often used for social, cooperative, or mass rental housing, tend to be problematised as places of segregation and disintegration in European cities. Yet they are potentially also primary sites for integration between people of different cultural origins and social backgrounds. By investigating publicness in relation to social housing, including cooperative housing and mass rental housing estates, PuSH aims to better understand how cultural encounters happen, and ultimately to reflect on how integration can be better sustained. In this paper, we take a relational conception of publicness as our point of departure to explore the differentiations and intersections between sites and modes of public life in relation to our approach and the social housing estates we investigate. Moreover, we present our conceptual contribution to the concept of publicness, both theoretically and methodologically using multidisciplinary theories and methodologies, and four analytical categories: heritage, practices/policies, democracy, informality, and moreover exhibitions are used as a research tool. This paper is a collaborative output whereby different researchers on the project present their theoretical developments and positions, identify the analytical categories and theoretical vocabularies on which they daw, and reflect on potential ways in which these concepts can be operationalised, and on the synergies that may develop between them. Taken together, our approach offers significant interpretations of publicness in relation to questions of public space, and tackles some of the most pronounced tensions in discussions of public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on diverse urban regeneration examples from various continents, including Belgium, the US, China, India, Croatia, Italy, and Canada, featuring a combination of practice and research papers. Amini's practice paper explores the impact of the post-pandemic transitional period on cities, emphasizing the need for a new democratisation of the economy and collaborative urban policies.

"George Orwell's Perverse Humanity: Socialism and Free Speech" by Glenn Burgess is a book that explores the relationship between liberalism and socialism in Orwell's work. The author argues that Orwell's vision combines both ideologies and that they are mutually dependent on each other. The book examines Orwell's views on real-world experiences, political violence, and the importance of freedom of speech. However, the book also addresses contemporary issues such as "wokeism" and the debate surrounding cancel culture, although the evidence presented in this regard may be less convincing. Overall, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of Orwell's political thinking and his contributions to the fields of liberalism and socialism. [Extracted from the article]

The recovery of the global economy in the aftermath of COVID-19 faces enormous challenges. Ensuring stable income growth of the population has become an important means for developing countries to ensure sustained economic development. Raising the overall income of the population is a public initiative that benefits all citizens; therefore, governments of developing countries should promote the implementation of relevant public policies and the provision of public goods to ensure that existing economic instruments can benefit the entire population. In this regard, public space, as a typical form of public good, may play an important role in promoting the benefits of existing economic policies for all residents. This paper examines how residents' use of public space contributes to their income growth through social capital. Hypotheses are tested based on an econometric analysis of 1565 questionnaires received from Chinese workers. The results show that residents' use of public space can indeed be an important way to increase their income, which is realized through the enhancement of social capital. The research presented in this paper provides a new influence variable of public space to improve residents' income. Further, it improves people's understanding of the three classical concepts—public space, social capital, and income—by establishing the logical connection and theoretical explanation of physical space, emotional space, and value space in human society. The conclusions of this paper highlight the important role of public space in urban and rural development planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article introduces the AAAJ special issue's content and, in so doing, aims to reflect on the contribution that accounting as a discipline is placed to make within the more contemporary context of space exploration, the space economy and public space policy. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws together, identifies, expands upon and advances opportunities available to researchers seeking to investigate the ways in which accounting research and practice might inform the modern space sector. Findings: Papers comprising the AAAJ special issue are informed by authors with diverse research backgrounds (including various accounting subfields and non-accounting business disciplines) and varying methodological approaches, including positivist, interpretivist as well as critical research paradigms. Interestingly, the call for papers also attracted several non-accounting academics or academics who have not traditionally undertaken or engaged appreciably with accounting research. This diverse approach to addressing initial space accounting questions should help establish a firm launching point for future research advances. Originality/value: The paper's originality lies in advancing a need to engage with the unique demands of "the New Space Age", requiring fundamentally innovative approaches to many aspects of accounting such as financial accounting, management accounting and sustainability accounting as well as contextualising or re-contextualising current accounting concepts, principles and thinking to apply to a new setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the discussions of how to define a city, in Chapter 4 Storey guides the reader through case studies of primary cities. In his primer on ancient urbanism, Glenn Storey provides an introductory text that encompasses many crucial topics across a range of past urban sites. Storey classifies cities into "hyper" and "hypo" cities, which are compact high-density or physically large areas of with low-density populations, respectively. [Extracted from the article]

Doha, the capital city of Qatar, has experienced remarkable urban growth over the last two decades. This raises concerns regarding the city's fulfillment of compactness, complexity, and connectivity. This paper considers transit-oriented development (TOD) as a potential tool to attain a sustainable and diverse urban landscape in a situated context. Qualitative research methods, which include observations and mapping, are employed to gain a deeper understanding of the physical aspects of a situated context in the neighborhood of Al-Slata, Doha. Specifically, this paper aims to investigate the implementation of TOD in metro station precincts within Al-Slata based on five design aspects: (1) walkability; (2) balance of ground use; (3) mixed-use spaces; (4) intermodality and transportation hubs; and (5) a public transportation network. The findings include a lack of complexity and connectivity between urban activities and spaces adjacent to the metro station. In addition, these findings demonstrate the potential of metro stations to preserve the cultural heritage and social identity in a rapidly developing city like Doha. The recommendations include a layout design proposal to increase connectivity and complexity within the situated context and suggestions on how transit nodes and metro stations could become active hubs within the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naturalistic plantings, such as meadow‐style plantings, can improve the quality of urban green spaces through aesthetic, biodiversity and low maintenance features. Species selection for, and maintenance of naturalistic plantings are key to their success. While herbaceous and grassy meadows can be mowed, naturalistic plantings with woody plants require more intense maintenance to remove biomass and promote resprouting. We aim to understand woody plant responses to diverse disturbance regimes to potentially inform the selection and management of woody species in urban plantings. We conducted a quantitative systematic literature review of 72 papers and investigated what main external (climate, disturbance regime) and internal (buds, life stage, storage reserves) factors influence the resprouting response of woody plants. We found resprouting literature is geographically widespread for woody plants, but studies are skewed towards Temperate climates in USA and Australia, with a focus on high severity and high frequency fire disturbance. Resprouting response was mostly defined as a continuous response to disturbance dependent on disturbance regime, climate and plant traits. Maintenance and management of naturalistic woody plantings, through hard pruning techniques such as coppicing, may be informed by analogous high severity and high frequency disturbance studies. However, the literature on woody plant resprouting has several knowledge gaps for lower severity and lower frequency disturbance regimes and in more arid climates. Future research should evaluate the response of naturalistic woody plantings to disturbance in specific urban contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Festival studies is not only an important field of research for tourism or event industry but is also critical for an architectural and urban design field. Due to the amount of the progress done in this field by many inter- disciplinary areas, the subsequent corpus of research on festivals appears to be relatively disintegrated. Through a systematic literature review (SLR) from 2000 to 2021, this paper examined festivals studies from tourism to urban design disciplines. In this paper, descriptive and thematic analysis were carried out to analyse the state of existing research which gave in to the concept of festival studies. The purpose is to develop an SLR that intends to establish the knowhow on festival spaces and try to explore the advancement in the field and deliver potential research directions. The corpus thus helps us in establishing the topic which is least investigated and would need more research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The path of the international system is driven by political, economic, and social developments. COVID-19 has been an influential and transformative crisis which has had a huge impact on the world order. It has highly affected international affairs, is capable of transforming the system and is one of the world's major occurrences since the Second World War. The first impact has been that the crisis has forced all areas of public and private life into a rapid digitization process. In fact, the process had started before the pandemic, but the COVID-19 crisis triggered the transition process at an extraordinary intensity. As in a variety of other sectors, digital diplomacy has been highly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, which has brought momentum to the digitalization process of diplomacy. This paper analyzes digital diplomacy in the digital age, with a focus on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The research uses a theoretical framework that clarifies the distinctions between traditional and new public diplomacy. The article addresses the process of diplomacy responding to the new normal requirements in terms of technical impact. It provides an overview of the digitalization process of diplomacy, which was intensified by the pandemic, and examines the post-coronavirus global trends in terms of potential assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the present stage, the identification of dangerous behaviors in public places mostly relies on manual work, which is subjective and has low identification efficiency. This paper proposes an automatic identification method for dangerous behaviors in public places, which analyzes group behavior and speech emotion through deep learning network and then performs multimodal information fusion. Based on the fusion results, people can judge the emotional atmosphere of the crowd, make early warning, and alarm for possible dangerous behaviors. Experiments show that the algorithm adopted in this paper can accurately identify dangerous behaviors and has great application value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a very pertinent issue in the field of cybersecurity, particularly concerning the increased use of public Wi-Fi and the proliferation of IoT devices. The scenario, where an attacker captures user details through a malicious access point set up through a NodeMCU, is a practical illustration of a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack. These attacks are especially concerning in the context of smart homes and smart cities, where security breaches can lead to severe privacy invasions and disruptions of essential services. The NodeMCU, being a low-cost, open-source IoT platform, is accessible for creating such malicious access points. It can be programmed to mimic legitimate Wi-Fi hotspots to intercept the data of unsuspecting users. This type of attack can enable unauthorized access to sensitive information such as login credentials, personal data, and even control over connected IoT devices. This approach is user-friendly and can significantly reduce the risk of users unknowingly connecting to malicious websites. The contribution of this paper includes a demonstration and analysis of a common network and IoT attack and a novel method for detecting fraudulent URLs, particularly those used in phishing attacks. By addressing these aspects, the paper makes a significant contribution to the field of cybersecurity and helps foster a more secure and resilient network and IoT ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All the papers are centered around the I forest i as the main keyword, appearing in diverse combinations: forest management [[4], [7]], forest recreation [[7]], forest landscape [[6]], and forest air [[2]], plantation forest [[4]]. The authors concluded that people preferred flat views and had a strong preference for forest trail landscapes, which plays an important role in forest landscape recreation, and that the photos evoked both positive and negative emotions. Forests, which are viewed as an important natural resource for humanity, have been constantly threatened with degradation or even extinction since the dawn of the modern period. In some areas, predominantly rural ones, the forest acts as a site for the seasonal collection of berries and mushrooms (non-timber forest products, NTFPs), which are integrated into rural life as key social activities. [Extracted from the article]

In recent times, elevated urban linkages (EULs) have emerged as crucial components of urban development, cutting through the cities' urban fabric to accommodate the rapid expansion of urban cores and to facilitate traffic flow. However, these massive infrastructures have inadvertently given rise to urban lost spaces—vacant, inefficient areas within the urban fabric. Recognizing these lost spaces as untapped public assets, the paper explores sustainable development strategies to reclaim them into the urban fabric, transforming them into vibrant, multi-functional public spaces. The paper aims to achieve a set of urban design guidelines for rehabilitation design interventions which will be deduced into a comprehensive framework. This framework encompasses criteria for selecting appropriate approaches and types of rehabilitation design interventions, as well as design principles ensuring the desirability of the reclaimed space. The paper applies this framework to assess the El Sawy Cultural Wheel in Egypt, revealing it as a successful example of a reclaimed space. While positive aspects of rehabilitation design interventions are evident in terms of the approach and type of intervention in this case study, there are identified areas with shortcomings in fully implementing the design principles, if enhanced, could elevate the overall quality of the reclaimed space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a response to Kath Browne and Catherine Nash's paper 'From hegemonic to where?'. Building on their influential body of work and expanding upon further empirical research across Ireland, Canada and the UK, their paper is a direct examination of the views and experiences of those concerned about socio-legal challenges in sexuality and gender. With my responses and provocations, I gesture towards a relational geographical framing, focusing on three main themes: the everyday and relationality, experience and difference, and praxis and allyship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Cities and towns are critical geographies of refuge for a globally unprecedented number of forcibly displaced people. Yet urban processes also expose these groups and the local urban poor to recurrent displacements. While such experiences are shared, studies often treat these populations as distinct. Drawing on Yiftachel's notion of displaceability, this paper systematically reviews and synthesizes a global literature on diversely displaced people's placemaking in urban public space. Observing a significant analytical gap regarding cities of the so-called global South, the paper identifies a heuristic, and key analytical dimensions shaping divergent access and uses of public space by variously displaced populations. These concern: temporal patterns; powerful meta-narratives of people and place; and complex multi-scalar and multi-actor configurations of regulatory regimes governing public space. Simultaneously, acquisition and deployment of urban knowledge and a practice of (in)visibility enable differentially displaced populations' everyday claims to public space for wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following government’s national lockdown measures in March 2020 for almost two years, COVID-19 protocols and guidelines were issued for use in public spaces in South Africa. This paper explores the disruptions and educational inequalities that were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic following the strategies and interventions for teaching and learning adopted by schools and universities. An empirical study was conducted using in-depth telephonic and face-to-face interviews as the data collection methods. The sample included a total of five high schools, three of which were in the province of Kwa Zulu Natal (KZN), two in Gauteng while seven tertiary institutions were included in the study and three of which were universities located in KZN, two in the Eastern Cape, the one other in Gauteng including a private college also in Gauteng. This translated to a total of 11 participants, three of which had both high school and first year tertiary education experience during the period under review. The amassed data enabled this paper to capture the study population’s experiences of the COVID-19 national lockdown protocols and guidelines. The paper highlights the social inequalities that were illuminated by the impact of the pandemic which exposed the “digital divide” and the “digital inequality” among students. The data generated was coded and categorized into themes which helped in reflecting on the experiences of the study population during the period of the pandemic. The findings illuminated how COVID-19 exposed pre-existing inequalities in the education system, providing a more nuanced understanding of the aspects of the broader education sector. The paper adopts a social justice theoretical framework and argues that the turn to digital/blended teaching and learning, although it was beneficial, it did not eradicate social inequalities in education but contributed to some extent in deepening and reproducing them. A set of recommendations are proposed that could be helpful in mitigating against the social inequalities during times of social crises as social justice measures in the education sector in South Africa in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of smart cities has led to transforming modern city operations by applying emerging technologies from the fourth industrial revolution such as the Internet of Things, BIM and machine learning. To prepare for the future development of cities, it is necessary to investigate the current status of city development, research topics and the direction toward future cities. In this study, a systematic literature review was conducted following the combination of literature review guides by Kitchenham and the PRISMA statement. The review identified 141 peer-reviewed academic papers from web-based archives, such as Web of Science and SCOPUS, that were categorized into five topics related to smart cities and urban areas. The technologies applied in the research were analyzed to determine the direction future cities should take based on current smart cities and emerging technologies that will shape individuals' daily lives. However, it was discovered that research papers on critical areas, such as mobility and management, were lacking compared to those on building design and urban planning. This paper concludes with an example of a future urban area that has been transformed due to adoption of future mobility technology to address the shortcomings of the reviewed literature on building and urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing inequalities are one of the most pressing issues for cities, threatening the fulfilment of the rights of millions of urban residents. With three-quarters of cities now more unequal than in 1996, urban inequality has increasingly been recognized as a key global challenge.([1]) The Sustainable Development Goals and the UN-Habitat New Urban Agenda have recognized that addressing growing inequality has to be a priority for local and national governments, establishing global commitments that are in dialogue with localized efforts of urban transformation towards more equal futures. Importantly, this paper invites us to see the pandemic experiences and responses as a part of the expression of state power and wider classist inequalities which served to exclude vendors from public space and life, and which might in turn create trajectories that exacerbate inequalities. [Extracted from the article]

Africa's population is expected to triple by 2050, owing to rapid urbanisation and overall demographic trends. The combined pressures of urbanisation and climate change impact the ecosystem and the services it provides. As a result, additional dangers such as increased flooding, and environmental disruption have risen. Therefore, devising adaptive solutions to mitigate flood risk impacts while also building community resilience is needed. Evidence suggests that Nature‐based Solutions (NbS) can potentially alleviate floods and mitigate climate change impacts while also delivering other societal benefits. Despite rising NbS popularity following its recognition in the last decade, studies on its recognition in Africa remain limited. For this reason, this paper reviewed NbS studies conducted in East Africa (EA) to evaluate opportunities and barriers surrounding NbS adoption in EA. Academic literature published from January 2012 to May 2022 was reviewed using a comprehensive search of the SCOPUS database. Results show 14 papers have been published during the period, with the majority being post‐2020. In addition, the majority of the articles focused on cities and peri‐urban settlements, while public awareness, clear guidelines on performance monitoring, stakeholder inclusion, and diverse demonstration projects were highlighted as potential success factors for the adoption of NbS in EA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing social, cultural and physical characteristics and uses of public spaces by migrants are of longstanding interest to social scientists. Often embedded in uses of public spaces are splinters, resonances and connections to home and migration. This paper examines the religious spaces that Sri Lankan migrants engage with in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. To untangle the complexities associated with these spaces, we integrate a framework of belonging that encompasses rituals, relationships and restrictions. A multilayered dataset, which includes interviews with the Sri Lankan diaspora, (auto)ethnography, field observations and photography, revealed that within the Sri Lankan diaspora, individuals often used religious spaces to maintain rituals and identities. The data uncovered that some participants in the diaspora used religious spaces to gather and socialise with other diaspora members while others had dynamic relationships with these spaces – that is, the meanings attributed to religious spaces were at times fraught with tensions and hostilities towards religious practice and feelings of welcome. In this paper, we offer a snapshot of a growing diaspora in Australia and their negotiations to belong (or not). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization (WHO) articulated a vision in 1986, hoping that countries around the world would actively promote the construction and development of healthy cities. In the context of China, a paradigm shift in urban development has been triggered by the deep implementation of the Healthy China Strategy and the gradual completion of the comprehensive national spatial planning. This shift emphasizes a micro-level focus, advocating a human-centered approach to urban space exploration. In this paper, the Dingwangtai Area of Changsha City is selected as a case study. A street space health evaluation index system called "5D+" is constructed from six dimensions, namely, human perception, degree of mixing, density, distance to transit, destination accessibility, and devise. This research adopts the community as the fundamental unit of analysis, employing the Entropy-weighting TOPSIS method for the computation of indicators. The results of this study show that the Dingwangtai Area exhibits relative deficiencies in the dimensions of density, devise, and destination accessibility. Specifically, at the community level, the Ma Wang Street Community and the Fanhou Street Community have scored particularly low. In response, this paper proposes targeted measures and detailed recommendations aimed at optimizing the design of the street, enhancing the human experience, enriching functional attributes, and refining the street network. The ultimate goal is to propose a Healthy Streets Evaluation Index System based on the concept of a healthy city and to explore its relationship with healthy streets so as to provide valuable insights for the development of healthy city streets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of the big data era has provided many types of transportation datasets, such as metro smart card data, for studying residents' mobility and understanding how their mobility has been shaped and is shaping the urban space. In this paper, we use metro smart card data from two Chinese metropolises, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Five metro mobility indicators are introduced, and association rules are established to explore the mobility patterns. The proportion of people entering and exiting the station is used to measure the jobs-housing balance. It is found that the average travel distance and duration of Shanghai passengers are higher than those of Shenzhen, and the proportion of metro commuters in Shanghai is higher than that of Shenzhen. The jobs-housing spatial relationship in Shenzhen based on metro travel is more balanced than that in Shanghai. The fundamental reason for the differences between the two cities is the difference in urban morphology. Compared with the monocentric structure of Shanghai, the polycentric structure of Shenzhen results in more scattered travel hotspots and more diverse travel routes, which helps Shenzhen to have a better jobs-housing balance. This paper fills a gap in comparative research among Chinese cities based on transportation big data analysis. The results provide support for planning metro routes, adjusting urban structure and land use to form a more reasonable metro network, and balancing the jobs-housing spatial relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores spatial systems of modularity on the shoreline of Ein el Mrayseh located in Beirut. The modular systems are studied from a contextual lens while observing different modular interventions as design strategies on this shoreline. The Ein el Mrayseh corniche is one of the few remaining public spaces of Beirut, and is considered one of the most important outlet for the city residents. It is used by different types of groups, from different classes and backgrounds. Based on a series of observations, the paper analyses modular interventions by different stakeholders on this stretch. Two terms were coined: rigid and soft modularity, as linguistic and analytical modes to understand the spatial practices of Ein el Mrayseh. The paper argues that the users of this public space have developed soft modular strategies - dynamic and in constant flux, as a mean to tame the rigid modular strategies enforced on the site and to appropriate the space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'co-production' has been used in various fields, including planning, as collaborative forms of public goods and service delivery gain significance. Co-production has two sides—the 'co' side refers to actors and their motivations, while the 'production' side refers to phases and instruments. This paper examines privately owned public space/s (POPS) based on the two sides of co-production. Thereby, it addresses two research gaps. First, less has been written to date on the involvement of actors other than local authorities and developers. Second, little attention has been paid to the phase through which POPS are co-produced. The paper fills these research gaps by presenting the empirical work undertaken in HafenCity, Hamburg. It reveals a wide range of actors engaged in four different phases through various instruments. This paper also identifies challenges of co-production of POPS, and makes recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of urban public space is inherently problematic because the range of its possible uses and meanings is broad and unpredictable. This paper engages this problematic through the lens of Gibson's theory of 'affordances'—the ways the material world affords for human desires. We first explore some conceptual and methodological problems of the theory of affordances and its application in understanding and designing public space. These dimensions of affordance theory are then reconceived using the relational thinking of assemblage and actor-network theory (ANT). A key contribution of the paper is an expanded typology of affordances which includes improvised and serendipitous affordances that extend beyond the intentions of designers and users. This opens new ways of thinking about the design of urban public space as a space of possibility where outcomes are open, multiple, and unpredictable. The paper suggests how urban spaces can be shaped to better support rich cultural diversity and social inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green spaces are essential for enhancing the quality of life in cities, providing ecological, social, and economic benefits. However, as urban development continues to encroach on green spaces, their area decreases and their structures become fragmented, leading to declines in ecosystem services. To address these challenges, this Special Issue presents 15 research papers that explore innovative approaches and solutions for the strategic planning of urban green spaces. The papers focus on assessing the dynamics of ecosystem services, developing new planning methods, and exploring green space planning from the users' perspective to enhance service equity and efficiency. These studies provide valuable insights for urban green space planning and management. [Extracted from the article]

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Over the last years, world cities have emerged as multiple and complex habitats hosting numerous and varied urban refugia for biodiversity. Therefore, the published literature was systematically reviewed to investigate the increasingly acknowledged role of many urban habitats to function as refugia for species. Many plants and animals were reported to colonize a variety of urban environments: Urban forest/grassland (natural/seminatural), City park, Historical park (villa garden, botanical gardens, cemeteries, etc.), Green spaces (abandoned areas, railways, line of trees, etc.), Water body, and Built area. Refugia were found in over a hundred world cities, especially in medium- to very big-size cities. The number of papers focusing on animals (n = 66) were higher than those regarding plants and mushrooms (n = 19 and n = 1, respectively); however, the number of species recorded within refugia were the highest for plants. Plants exhibited the highest frequency (7 out of 19 papers) in Historical park, while animals in Urban forest/grassland (20 out of 66 papers). In most studies (25.9%), urban refugia were linked to Urban forest/grassland that is terrestrial natural and seminatural sites widespread within or around cities. The 22.3% of studies referred to generic Green spaces of several types interspersed within cities, both public and private. The 14.1% of refugia were found in Built area (artificial). About the 33% of studies reported the presence of species worthy of conservation (rare, endemic, endangered, or protected) for a total of 365 species. The 20% of investigated papers reported the presence of alien species for a total of 879 species. Invasive alien species recorded within refugium areas should be subjected to control measures to prevent degradation to refugia. Overall, the capability for urban areas to host a huge amount of biodiversity needs to be acknowledged by city planners so that management practices that maintain and support such diversity can be pursued. Recording and monitoring species along with their refugial habitats is fundamental to achieve this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Baghdad Science Journal is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)