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The global concern over the interplay between climate mitigation, urban structures, and city energy usage underscores a pressing need for innovative solutions. This research delves into the relationship between urban layouts, energy dynamics, and the thermal comfort of public spaces between buildings. Focusing on the contrasting climates of Luleå, Sweden, and Limassol, Cyprus, the study employs ENVI-met, a microscale urban climate simulation tool, for a parametric exploration at the city block scale. Assessing eight distinct scenarios across morning, noon, and afternoon timeframes, the research considers the impact of Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPVs) on user thermal comfort. Contrary to expectations, the study reveals that BIPV integration alone may not be the primary driver of improved thermal comfort during peak heat periods. Instead, factors like urban density and urban morphology emerge as influential contributors. For instance, increasing the urban fabric density by doubling the building height resulted in greater PET fluctuations ranging from −3 to +3 degrees, compared to the modest PET fluctuations ranging from 0 to +3 degrees observed with the simple integration of PVs onto buildings. These findings offer valuable insights for urban planners and policymakers, guiding decisions in considering the issue of thermal comfort in public spaces between buildings, while optimizing energy consumption in urban areas.

Cities continue to expand along with the growth of population, while our mobility systems often fail to meet the demands for social, environmental and economic sustainability. The second industrial revolution enabled the extensive use of private vehicles, posing various challenges to the sustainability of such systems. Luckily, several best practices aiming at tackling this issue have been identified in the past, facilitating progress towards sustainability. Nowadays, this progress is strongly supported by the call for cities to develop Sustainable Mobility Plans (SUMPS), which stands as an opportunity for best practices to be implemented in coordination with relevant policies. This research identifies the best practices that promote a modal shift, while it investigates their alignment with the strategy that enhances public transport services, encourages active mobility and disincentivizes private vehicle usage. Therefore, the presentation of these practices, introduces a set of initiatives that under aforementioned strategy promotes a modal shift. Furthermore, through the identification of best practices in various locations, several insights and inferences are drawn, providing useful guidance.

I. INTRODUCTION Studies of international trade flows of developing countries (LDCs) have tended to concentrate on aggregate flows.(1) Implicit in such studies is the assumption of identical elasticities across various [...]

The recent advances in MEMS, embedded systems and wireless communication technologies are making the realization and deployment of networked wireless microsensors a tangible task. In this paper we study node localization, a component technology that would enhance the effectiveness and capabilities of this new class of networks. The n-hop multilateration primitive presented here, enables ad-hoc deployed sensor nodes to accurately estimate their locations by using known beacon locations that are several hops away and distance measurements to neighboring nodes. To prevent error accumulation in the network, node locations are computed by setting up and solving a global non-linear optimization problem. The solution is presented in two computation models, centralized and a fully distributed approximation of the centralized model. Our simulation results show that using the fully distributed model, resource constrained sensor nodes can collectively solve a large non-linear optimization problem that none of the nodes can solve individually. This approach results in significant savings in computation and communication, that allows fine-grained localization to run on a low cost sensor node we have developed.

The impact of institutions on economic performance is currently the subject of much research. In this study we use panel data to estimate a stochastic production frontier and the sources of inefficiency for a broad set of countries. A maximum‐likelihood procedure is used to estimate the parameters for the stochastic production frontier and the determinants of inefficiency simultaneously. Our results show that institutions that promote greater economic freedom in turn promote efficiency.

Zusammenfassung: Unerwartete Wechselkursschwankungen und das Wachstum des internationalen Handels. - Der Verfasser untersucht die oft zitierte These, die Wechselkursvariabilität habe den internationalen Handel beeinträchtigt. Im Gegensatz zu früheren Arbeiten formuliert und schätzt er ein Modell mit zwei Gleichungen. Davon schätzt die erste die Bestimmungsgründe der Variabilität der realen Wechselkurse mit dem Ziel, zwischen den erwarteten und den unerwarteten Komponenten dieser Variabilität unterscheiden zu können. Die zweite ist eine Gleichung in reduzierter Form für die Bestimmungsgründe des Wachstums realer Exporte. Diese wird zum Testen der Hypothese benutzt, daß nur die unerwarteten Schwankungen der realen Wechselkurse das Wachstum der realen Exporte signifikant beeinflussen. Die Ergebnisse bestätigen diese Hypothese.

This article examines whether the trade balance of two dynamic export-oriented economies, Korea and Taiwan, exhibits a J-curve effect. The article studies both their bilateral and aggregate trade balance during the flexible exchange-rate era. When the exchange-rate coefficients are unconstrained, we demonstrate that no J-curve effect exists either for bilateral or aggregate trade balances. Several robustness checks confirm the validity of our findings. When a polynomial-distribute lag structure is imposed on exchange-rate coefficients, a J-curve is evident in some cases. The article discusses possible explanations for the general lack of evidence in favor of a J-curve, including the response of a small country's trade balance to exchange-rate changes.

The often cited argument that the high export earnings instability of LDCs is due to the tendency to have their exports concentrated on a small number of commodities or geographic markets is examined via the technique of Multidimensional Scaling (MDS). Based on time-series export earnings data from six LDCs which have experienced diverse development patterns, MDS is used to investigate the hypothesis that, for each LDC individual commodity or geographic market exports tend to move in phase. In addition, MDS enables the development of a country-specific measure of diversification which allows an examination of the export diversification experience of each country. [421]

The field of localization concerns the positioning of devices in physical space. The ability to cheaply and effectively locate mobile devices will allow users to understand the when, where and what of the physical world. Access to a wireless device's location would offer new application opportunities in diverse areas such as environmental monitoring, security, agriculture, emergency response, health care, and ubiquitous computing.

The following paper ("An Algorithm for Fast, Model-Free Tracking Indoors" by Aiyou Chen, Cristina Harko, Diane Lambert, and Phil Whiting) was reviewed and selected as part of the Special Issue on Localization, guest edited by Prof. Andreas Savvides (Yale University) and Prof. Richard Martin (Rutgers University). Due to reasons beyond our control, this paper could not be included with the other papers in the special issue in January 2007 (Volume 11, No. 1), and we apologize for that. Kindly refer to the January 2007 issue of MC2R for the Guest Editorial and the other papers.

This paper investigates the variability of nominal and real exchange rates of the members of the CFA Franc Zone by comparing it with those of other African countries. The study draws three conclusions. First, both nominal and real exchange rate variability increased during the flexible exchange rate period for all countries. Second, Zone members experienced lower nominal variability in comparison with their real variability. Finally, membership of the Zone results in lower nominal variability in comparison with that of non-members. The Zone members, however, experience no significant difference in real variability compared with that of non-members.