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This paper analyzes and discusses the potential and limits of using Facebook data to analyse spatial-temporal urban rhythms and city centrality through the availability of services and retail. During September 2020, we harvested Facebook Places data using Graph API for our pilot area consisting in the city of Brno. Specifically, we focused on the spatial distribution of 'Food & Beverage', 'Shopping & Retail' and 'Medical & Health' categories, and their associated opening hours. The paper provides a detailed description of data collection and post-processing among possible analysis methods and visualizations presented in the context of our case study. The study focuses on inter-urban structures and urban rhythms through the analysis of opening hours of retail and services. We also discuss the benefits and potential problems associated with the use of these data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many metropolitan conceptualizations apply 'territorial grammar' when articulating the region. This paper approaches the metropolitan region as an entity whose extent and internal structure are negotiated in both space and time. We argue that the 'planning imagination', which is predominantly spatial in nature, must be temporalized by considering 'temporal grammar'. The main objective of this study is to explore how a temporal dimension can be integrated more effectively into how the metropolitan region is imagined and conceptualized. Therefore, we employ the dialogical concept of heteroglossia to present the metropolitan region as a continuous dialogue between municipalities of different power, as an open, ongoing and negotiated spatiotemporal unit. Our secondary aim is to employ this conceptualization in an empirical description of the spatiotemporal arrangement of a particular region (Brno, Czech Republic, summer 2015). For this purpose, we use data related to the opening hours of shops selling fast-moving consumer goods. Analysis revealed four specific voices present in the complex heteroglossia of the region: the voice of the core, the city of Brno; the voice of secondary urban centres; the voice of municipalities located in the hinterlands of secondary urban centres; and the voice of traditional agricultural municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daily rhythmical patterns in the city are investigated in depth in this paper. The city is conceptualised here as a cyclical process and described by a sequence of relatively stable spatial-temporal stages. The concept of a chronotope is incorporated in the analysis of retail opening hours in the middle-sized city of Brno (Czech Republic), in order to identify distinct fusions of specific times and specific retail places and to examine their position within the daily rhythms of the city. There are distinct time-space retail configurations (chronotopes), which play crucial roles in the social negotiation and imagination of basic temporal categories, such as early morning, late morning, lunchtime, afternoon, evening, as being taken-for-granted in the urban context. More generally, the paper offers an example of the ways in which the specific daily rhythms of the city are produced and structured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in opening hours for on-premise drinking places may influence the level of alcohol-related violence in two ways. The increased availability of alcohol increases the risks associated with it, while restrictive opening hours may produce more occasions for crime due to overcrowding at closing time. We use a quasi-experimental design with data from 13 Bavarian towns with and without restrictive opening hours and a negative binomial panel model. The outcome measure is violent incidents reported by the police between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. over the period of 12 years. Incidents at night disproportionally increase over the study period in the sample. After controlling for daily violence as well as for an interaction between policy regime and violence level, we find that restricted opening hours are only beneficial within settings of a low daily violence level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A popular argument in policy discussions on the liberalization of business hours proceeds on the assumption that business hours are strategic complements: if some firms open longer hours, competitors will be forced to extend their opening hours too. We provide first empirical evidence on the impact of competition and the form of strategic interaction in business hours between firms by using detailed information on business hours as well as the location of retail gasoline stations in Austria. Our findings reject the presumption of business hours being strategic complements. Firms tend to have longer opening hours in a more competitive environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate and rapid microbiological diagnostics are crucial to tailor treatment and improve outcomes in patients with severe infections. This study aimed to assess blood culture diagnostics in the Nordic countries and to compare them with those of a previous survey conducted in Sweden in 2013. An online questionnaire was designed and distributed to the Nordic clinical microbiology laboratories (CMLs) (n = 76) in January 2018. The response rate was 64% (49/76). Around-the-clock incubation of blood cultures (BCs) was supported in 82% of the CMLs (40/49), although in six of these access to the incubators around the clock was not given to all of the cabinets in the catchment area, and 41% of the sites (20/49) did not assist with satellite incubators. Almost half (49%, 24/49) of the CMLs offered opening hours for ≥10 h during weekdays, more commonly in CMLs with an annual output ≥30 000 BCs. Still, positive BCs were left unprocessed for 60–70% of the day due to restrictive opening hours. Treatment advice was given by 23% of CMLs (11/48) in ≥75% of the phone contacts. Rapid analyses (species identification and susceptibility testing with short incubation), performed on aliquots from positive cultures, were implemented in 18% of CMLs (9/49). Compared to 2013, species identification from subcultured colonies (<6 h) had become more common. CMLs have taken action to improve aspects of BC diagnostics, implementing satellite incubators, rapid species identification and susceptibility testing. However, the limited opening hours and availability of clinical microbiologists are confining the advantages of these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the past two decades urban time policies have been proposed and implemented in many European cities as a complement to traditional spatial planning methods. Such policies seek to provide an answer to the growing number of people facing time problems as a result of an erosion of collective time rhythms and a desynchronisation of different time structures of urban life. Particular emphasis is being placed on the reconciliation of opening hours of public service facilities with the travel and activity patterns of citizens in order to increase individual accessibility to urban services. In spite of the increasing relevance of time policies, only limited quantitative research has been conducted about the relationships between opening hours and accessibility. This paper seeks to extend this line of inquiry by exploring if and to what extent the accessibility of public facilities can be ameliorated by redesigning the timetables of service delivery. A method is proposed to optimise the temporal regime of public service delivery in terms of accessibility. The method is illustrated in a case study of accessibility of government offices within the city of Ghent (Belgium). Our findings suggest that by rescheduling the opening hours of public service facilities individual accessibility to service delivery can be improved significantly. Our study may support urban service deliverers, policymakers and urban planners in assessing timetables for a better ’accessible’ service provision. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]