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This paper examines governance responses to Mobility as a Service (MaaS). The analysis focuses on the interactions between public transport systems and MaaS developments in Amsterdam, Birmingham, and Helsinki. Case comparison is informed by the multilevel perspective on socio-technical transitions and literature on meta-governance of networks. Drawing on these frameworks and empirical findings, the paper identifies six governance approaches to MaaS across cases: analyser, architect, convener, experimenter, lawmaker, and provider. These basic models encompass strategies ranging from hands-on strong intervention to information collection efforts. Consistent with the transitions literature, these six approaches indicate that public transport regimes seek to control the apparent disruptive potential of MaaS by incrementally absorbing innovations; to this end, regime actors adopt governance responses that tend to reproduce existing institutionalised ways of doing and prevailing logics. Furthermore, the six approaches reveal intense interaction between regime and niche, suggesting that a niche-regime space might have emerged in the cases; actors travel and operate across niche, regime, and niche-regimes, mainly driven by concerns with market share and revenue streams in the mobility system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Penetrating Neck Injuries (PNIs) affected 3.2% of trauma patients attending US and UK deployed medical treatment facilities (MTFs) during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Injured military personnel requiring aeromedical evacuation for such injuries were managed at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM), Birmingham, UK. The aim of this paper was to review the management of PNI in both deployed MTFs and when evacuated back to the UK.Patients and Methods: A retrospective case note review was performed of all military patients who sustained PNI whilst on deployment overseas, and who were subsequently evacuated to RCDM between March 2003 and December 2014.Results: Forty casualties who sustained PNI were identified, of which 28/40 (70%) sustained injury from explosive fragmentation, and 11/40 (28%) from gunshot wounds. Hard signs of PNI were present in 3/40 (7.5%) patients, soft signs in 14/40 (35%), no signs in 12/40 (30%), and unknown signs in 11/40 (28%) patients. Computed tomography angiography (CTA) was used in 39/40 (98%) patients, and was effective at ruling out significant injury, with 100% (29/29) of casualties with a negative CTA not developing vascular or aerodigestive injury. There were 9/29 (31%) patients who had surgical neck exploration despite both a negative CTA and absence of hard signs of PNI. There were 12/40 (30%) patients who required operative intervention at RCDM.Conclusion: UK military surgeons in Role 3 MTFs had a low threshold for surgical exploration, even in the absence of CT findings or hard signs. This was likely due to the high-energy mechanisms responsible for military PNI, in addition to the limited availability of equipment and clinical expertise in visualising the larynx. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart cities are part of the ongoing advances in technology to provide a better life quality to its inhabitants. Urban mobility is one of the most important components of smart cities. Due to the growing number of vehicles in these cities, urban traffic congestion is becoming more common. In addition, finding places to park even in car parks is not easy for drivers who run in circles. Studies have shown that drivers looking for parking spaces contribute up to 30% to traffic congestion. In this context, it is necessary to predict the spaces available to drivers in parking lots where they want to park. We propose in this paper a new system that integrates the IoT and a predictive model based on ensemble methods to optimize the prediction of the availability of parking spaces in smart parking. The tests that we carried out on the Birmingham parking data set allowed to reach a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.06% on average with the algorithm of Bagging Regression (BR). This results have thus improved the best existing performance by over 6.6% while dramatically reducing system complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• ANaRM is a simple ecosystem service model for NBS effects on flood hydrology. • Validated model provides realistic flood peak estimates across an urban catchment. • Ponds are most effective for reducing peak flow in channels and fluvial flooding. • LUC and SuDS reduce localized runoff, peak flow and pluvial flooding. • Sensitivity analysis to key NBS/runoff parameters, code and user guide provided. Ecosystem Service (ES) toolkits are increasingly used to quantify and visualize the benefits gained from Nature-based-solutions (NBS) but modules for hydrology are often absent, or if present they lack meaningful hydrological functionality or validation. This leads to gaps in the evidence base required by decision makers. To bridge the gap between such limitations and more complex hydrological models this paper presents a hydrologically based NBS model compatible with spatial ES toolkits. The approach 'Adapted Nature-based-solutions Rational Method' (ANaRM) is based on the Rational Method, widely used in hydrology. We apply this model to the city of Birmingham, England, to validate its performance and to analyse the effects of different NBS scenarios. The validated ANaRM model provided robust estimates of peak flow using design storm rainfall. It proved capable of simulating the hydrological effects of NBS such as land use change from urban to green, or installation of SuDS and ponds. Results suggest ponds are found most effective for achieving peak flow reduction in channels and are the best option for mitigating fluvial flooding downstream. Reduction in localised runoff and pluvial flooding is best achieved by converting impervious surfaces such as buildings, hardstanding and roads to green solutions such as green roofs, permeable pavements and greenspace. This paper highlights the importance of considering the spatial effects of urban NBS on hydrology, and that these can be captured with relatively simple modelling approaches such as ANaRM. Its ease of use means it suits any level of user looking to represent the flood mitigation aspect of NBS spatially and has high potential as part of any ES toolkit focused on representing the spatial effects of NBS on ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Road detection based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) has achieved remarkable performances for very high resolution (VHR) remote sensing images. However, this approach relies on massive annotated samples, and the problem of limited generalization for unseen images still remains. The manual pixel-level labeling process is also extremely time-consuming, and the performance of CNNs degrades significantly when there is a domain gap between the training and test images. In this paper, to address this problem, a global-local adversarial learning (GOAL) framework is proposed for cross-domain road detection. On the one hand, considering the spatial information similarities between the source and target domains, feature space driven adversarial learning is applied to explore the shared features across domains. On the other hand, the complex background of VHR remote sensing images, such as the occlusions and shadows of trees and buildings, makes some roads easy to recognize, while others are much more difficult. However, the traditional global adversarial learning approach cannot guarantee local semantic consistency. Therefore, a local alignment operation is introduced, which adaptively adjusts the weight of the adversarial loss according to the road recognition difficulty. Extensive experiments were conducted on different road datasets, including two public competition road datasets—SpaceNet and DeepGlobe—and our own large-scale annotated images from four cities: Boston, Birmingham, Shanghai, and Wuhan. The experimental results show that the proposed GOAL framework can clearly improve the cross-domain road detection performance, without any annotation of the target domain images. For instance, taking SpaceNet road dataset as the source domain, compared with the no adaptation method, the IOU performance of GOAL framework is increased by 14.36%, 5.49%, 4.51%, 5.63% and 15.14% on DeepGlobe, Boston, Birmingham, Shanghai, and Wuhan images, respectively, which demonstrates its strong generalization capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ocular burns are ophthalmological emergencies, owing to their potentially serious visual complications. Prompt recognition, irrigation and comprehensive examination including fluorescein staining is recommended to optimise outcomes. Burns standards recommend ophthalmological services be available in a 'timely' manner. This paper is a retrospective review of facial burn admissions between November 2017 and November 2018 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB), a regional burns centre in the United Kingdom. This study aims to assess referral rates to ophthalmology, timeliness of review and the proportion of patients reviewed within a 24h window. From the data available we also aim to determine the frequency of fluorescein examination. Of 88 patients admitted with facial burns, data was available for 80 patients. The majority (n=77, 87.6%) suffered thermal burns. Twenty-two (27.5%) patients were referred to ophthalmology, and 18 (22.5%) had a documented review. Mean time from admission to review was 45.0h, with 10 (52.6%) patients being seen within 24h. Of 80 patients, 50 (62.5%) patients had no documented fluorescein examination. Further prospective studies are necessary to inform clinical guidelines and optimise management of facial burns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Reward instrumentscould be successful in promoting sustainable multimodal options. • Results from a questionnaire survey and two real-life experiments are presented. • During the experiment, rewards increased time spent in public transport and walking. • Rewards mostly motivated public transport users. • Birmingham's users were more motivated than Vienna's participants. Reward-based instruments have the potential to encourage individuals' shift towards multimodal mobility options, thus contributing to a more sustainable and resilient transport environment. This paper aims to investigate the effects of reward-based instruments on promoting emerging mobility schemes and active transport, through real-world demonstrations in two European cities. Specifically, a route planning mobile application which tracks users' travel patterns was used to integrate a reward program offering points to incentivize people towards sustainable multimodal choices, including public transport, cycling and walking. In addition, a web-based questionnaire survey was conducted, and a discrete choice model was developed to model individuals' multimodal choice in the presence of different reward types, including monetary rewards, points and the provision of added value services. Overall, our findings indicate that reward-based instruments can contribute to the promotion of sustainable and emerging transport services. In particular, participants spent more time in public transport usage and walking during the reward-based period. Our results indicate that rewards could increase individuals' time spent in public transport usage and walking by about 21 min and 14 min per day respectively. Furthermore, it is found that public transport users were mostly motivated by rewards, while car users and walkers were not motivated towards cycling. Finally, the results indicate that Birmingham's users were more motivated than Vienna's participants, as public transport usage increased by about 209 min per week in Birmingham vs. 74 min per week in Vienna. Similar patterns of increase in the cities were observed for walking, while some population groups in Vienna were found insensitive to the prospect of earning rewards for using sustainable transport modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyses a work placement scheme established to create the conditions to: (i) incubate new designs in the jewellery sector in Birmingham; (ii) support a jewellery company compete more effectively in the global market; (iii) assist a newly qualified graduate jeweller to enter the jewellery sector. It introduces a new theoretical framework based on concepts from: Cultural–Historical Activity Theory—‘project-object’; Workplace Learning—‘vocational practice’; Philosophy of Mind—‘space of reasons’; to analyse individual and organisational contributions to workplace learning in this scheme. It identifies the strategies and tactics used by: (i) the organisations involved with the scheme to facilitate the incubation of the new designs, and (ii) an aspiring jewellery designer to create a new product range. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this conceptual framework for debates in workplace learning about: (i) the ‘front-loaded’ versus ‘practice-based’ conceptions of vocational education and (ii) the role of epistemic objects and practices in the development of vocational practice. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper studies the effects of the centrality, connectivity and agglomeration of retail establishments on their long-term viability in three cities in the United States, United Kingdom and The Netherlands. As retail is declining in all three markets, there is a dearth of knowledge on the spatial patterns of this decline. This obstructs the substantiation of development decisions and public policy on urban retail retention and growth. Without knowing where stores are most at risk of closing, where can we decide to invest or divest? This paper uses a self-built dataset of store locations and store closures over the span of more than a century in the urban cores of Detroit, Michigan; Birmingham, England; and The Hague, The Netherlands. While taking different paths, all three cities have experienced significant retail decline over the past century. The probability of store closure over time is compared to the metric distance of stores to the retail center of gravity (centrality), store location along well-used streets as measured by their Choice value (connectivity), and the number of surrounding stores (agglomeration). These three comparisons are statistically analyzed using simple line regression, panel regression, and spatial autoregressive probit models. Across these models, store closure is most significantly affected by agglomeration, then by centrality, followed by connectivity. The significance of all three measures is strongest in The Hague, followed by Birmingham and Detroit – two cities that experienced large-scale urban renewal and socio-economic decline. • Urban retail closure risk follows spatial patterns at the intra-cluster scale. • Establishment closure risk shows similarities in three transatlantic urban cores. • Establishment closure risk increases with fewer surrounding establishments. • Establishment closure risk increases further away from the retail center of gravity. • Establishment closure risk may increase on poorly connected streets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scenario planning projects have been used in a variety of organisational settings to explore future uncertainty. The scenario process is often a participative one involving heterogeneous stakeholder groups from multiple organisations, particularly when exploring issues of wider public concern. Facilitated workshops are a common setting for scenario projects, typically requiring people to be physically present in order to participate and engage with others for the duration of the project. During workshops, participants progress through the stages of the process, generating content relevant to each stage and ultimately the scenarios themselves. However, the periods between workshops and other episodes of activity (e.g. interviewing stakeholders) are rarely mentioned in such accounts. Thus we know very little about what activities take place between such activities, when they occur and who is involved. This is a particular issue for larger scale scenario projects that run over a period of weeks or months and involve multiple workshops; in such cases organisers and facilitators have to consider how to maintain the interest and levels of engagement of participants throughout the duration of the project. A variety of social media exist which allow people to interact with each other virtually, both in real time and asynchronously. We reflect on the use of social media within a project to develop scenarios for the future of the food system around Birmingham, UK, in the year 2050. We explore how a particular social media, namely Twitter, can be used effectively as part of a scenario planning project, for example to engage participants and encourage contributions to the project. We suggest that Twitter can support the serialisation of strategic conversations between the face-to-face workshops. The paper considers the implications of these reflections for both the scenario process and scenario projects more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy is a vital resource in modern life. With increasingly limited availability of traditional energy resources, e.g., oil, coal and nuclear, together with environmental concerns, there is raised awareness that energy needs to be both used more efficiently and generated in line with thinking on sustainability. Ready access to ‘clean’ energy is essential if we wish to maintain our current way of life without compromising our wellbeing or the carrying capacity of the planet. This paper aims to analyse the differences and similarities in energy supply and demand between two very different cities. Masdar City, founded in 2008, is a dynamic new Middle-Eastern city being built in a desert environment. Its aim is to be the most sustainable city in the world and offers an exciting opportunity to provide unique insights into the application of different innovative technologies as ‘new-build’ within an urban environment. Birmingham is a well-established post-industrial city that has evolved over fourteen hundred years. It was one of the fastest growing cities in 19th century England (Popp and Wilson, 2009) [1] . To do this a material flow analysis approach has been adopted to provide a framework for the study. The energy-related opportunities and mutual benefits that each city can gain from the experiences of the other are explored and five emergent issues are identified: innovation and experimentation, lock-in, balance, resilience and governance. This work shows how a greater understanding of common issues can lead to more sustainable, resilient and robust cities, able to face the challenges of the next 50 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across developed polities, there is growing evidence of the spatial reordering of poverty and of its detrimental impact on the life chances of poorer people. This paper extends this body of research, via a comparative case study of two cities in the United Kingdom, by unravelling the interplay of policies shaping the changing morphology of poverty. It progresses to examine the significance of the changing centralisation and segregation of poverty on neighbourhood inequalities in the exposure to crime, probing the relevance of urban criminological tool sets to account for the spatial patterning of crime. It achieves this through interweaving fifteen years of data on poverty and police recorded crime with accounts of the policies and interventions that have sought to reshape and address their manifestation. Though the cities exhibit distinct trajectories, we find evidence of both the decentralisation of poverty and of decreasing segregation in contrast to previous studies. Poverty and crime patterns are converging in the neighbourhoods closest to, but less so in the neighbourhoods furthest away from, city centres. We discuss the relevance of these findings for research seeking to understand the spatial reordering of poverty and neighbourhood inequality in the exposure to crime. • There have been substantial changes to the spatial patterning of poverty and crime in Glasgow and Birmingham. • Despite distinct neighbourhood trajectories, we find evidence of decentralisation of poverty and of decreasing segregation. • In both cities marked reductions in poverty and crime took place in the inner-city areas. • Crime and poverty patterns are converging in the neighbourhoods closest to, but less so in the neighbourhoods furthest away from, the city centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Birmingham Irradiation Facility was developed in 2013 at the University of Birmingham using the Medical Physics MC40 cyclotron. It can achieve High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) fluences of 10 15 (1 MeV neutron equivalent ( n eq )) cm −2 in 80 s with proton beam currents of 1 μA and so can evaluate effectively the performance and durability of detector technologies and new components to be used for the HL-LHC. Irradiations of silicon sensors and passive materials can be carried out in a temperature controlled cold box which moves continuously through the homogenous beamspot. This movement is provided by a pre-configured XY -axis Cartesian robot scanning system. In 2014 the cooling system and cold box were upgraded from a recirculating glycol chiller system to a liquid nitrogen evaporative system. The new cooling system achieves a stable temperature of −50 °C in 30 min and aims to maintain sub-0 °C temperatures on the sensors during irradiations. This paper reviews the design, development, commissioning and performance of the new cooling system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The disposal of waste by landfill generates community concerns, during both site operations and following the cessation of activities. Whilst previous hedonic studies have generally examined the impact on property prices of distance to the nearest active landfill site this paper presents a study for Birmingham in England in which properties are simultaneously located close to numerous active and historical landfill sites. Accounting for the proximity of historical landfill sites alters the perceived disamenity impact of active sites and furthermore, reveals evidence of significant disamenity impacts, decades after site closure, albeit over shorter geographical distances. Estimated disamenity impacts are however somewhat sensitive to assumptions regarding the geographical range of the externalities generated by landfill. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Within-house and within-room spatial temporal variability in PBDE contamination of indoor dust may influence substantially the reliability of human exposure assessments based on single point samples, but have hitherto been little studied. This paper reports concentrations of PBDEs 17, 28, 47, 49, 66, 85, 99, 100, 153, and 154 in indoor dust samples (n=112) from two houses in Birmingham, UK. To evaluate within-house spatial variability, four separate rooms were sampled in house 1 and two separate rooms sampled in house 2. Up to four different 1m2 areas in the same room were sampled to evaluate within-room spatial variability, and for all studied areas, samples were taken for eight consecutive months to evaluate temporal and seasonal variability. Concentrations of ΣPBDEs in individual samples from house 1 varied between 21 and 280ngg−1; while the range of concentrations in house 2 was 20–1000ngg−1. This indicates that where and when a sample is taken in a house can influence substantially the contamination detected. In one room, concentrations of PBDEs in an area located close to putative PBDE sources exceeded substantially those in an area 2m away, with marked differences also observed between two areas in another room. Substantial within-room spatial differences in PBDE concentrations were not discernible in the other rooms studied. Concentrations of PBDEs in the majority of rooms within the same houses were not markedly different between rooms. Nevertheless, large differences were observed between PBDE concentrations detected in two rooms in the same house in both houses studied. In one instance, this is hypothesised to be attributable to the presence of a carpet in one room and bare wooden floor in another, but firm conclusions cannot be drawn. Within-room temporal (month-to-month) variability was substantial (relative standard deviations for ΣPBDEs=15–200%). In some rooms, the introduction and removal of putative sources like a TV and a bed, appeared to exert a discernible influence on PBDE concentrations. PBDE concentrations in spring and summer were not markedly different from those observed in autumn and winter. Possible dilution of PBDE concentrations in dust at higher dust loadings (g dust per m2 floor surface) was investigated in a small number of rooms, but no firm evidence of such dilution was evident. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Since its formation in June 2001, the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM) at Birmingham University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has treated most of the British military personnel who have sustained serious maxillofacial injuries while serving abroad. We retrospectively analysed all recorded maxillofacial injuries of personnel evacuated to the RCDM between June 2001 and December 2007. We know of no existing papers that describe oral and maxillofacial injuries of military personnel, or workload in the 21st century. During the period 119 personnel with maxillofacial injuries were evacuated to the RCDM for treatment 83% of whom were injured in Iraq or Afghanistan. In total 61% (72/119) of injuries were caused by improvised explosive devices, 9% (11/119) were gun shot wounds, and 1% were caused by aircraft incidents. A further 29% (35/119) of patients had injuries not associated with battle. The most common injuries were facial lacerations (106/119). There were 54 facial fractures of which 17 primarily affected the maxilla, and 15 the mandible. Associated injuries were to the brain (24%), torso (26%), upper limb (39%), and lower limb (31%). The number of maxillofacial injuries has risen over the last 7 years, and has also increased in proportion to the total number of injured soldiers evacuated between 2005 and 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Real-time fluorescence monitoring has been mostly performed in marine systems, with little progress being made in the application of fluorescence excitation–emission matrix (EEM) spectroscopy, especially for freshwater monitoring. This paper presents a two weeks experiment where real-time fluorescence EEM data have been obtained for Bourn Brook, Birmingham, UK, using an in-situ fibre-optic probe. Fluorescence EEMs were measured every 3min for two weeks, with control ‘grab’ samples every hour analyzed for fluorescence EEMs as well as pH, conductivity and dissolved organic carbon. Comparison of real-time and control samples showed an excellent agreement, with no evidence of fibre-optic probe fouling. EEMs of different character were identified using self-organizing maps, which demonstrated seven clusters of fluorescence EEMs which related to the intensity of fluorescence and relative intensities of peak T 1 and T 2 vs. peak C and peak A fluorescence. Fluorescence intensity of peaks A and C were observed to increase with rainfall, and a diesel pollution event was detected through an increase in T 2 fluorescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Urban groundwater resources are of considerable importance to the long-term viability of many cities world-wide, yet prediction of the quantity and quality of recharge is only rarely attempted at anything other than a very basic level. This paper describes the development of UGIf, a simple model written within a GIS, designed to provide estimates of spatially distributed recharge and recharge water quality in unconfined but covered aquifers. The following processes (with their calculation method indicated) are included: runoff and interception (curve number method); evapotranspiration (Penman–Grindley); interflow (empirical index approach); volatilization (Henry''s law); sorption (distribution coefficient); and degradation (first order decay). The input data required are: meteorological data, landuse/cover map with event mean concentration attributes, geological maps with hydraulic and geochemical attributes, and topographic and water table elevation data in grid form. Standard outputs include distributions of: surface runoff, infiltration, potential recharge, ground level slope, interflow, actual recharge, pollutant fluxes in surface runoff, travel times of each pollutant through the unsaturated zone, and the pollutant fluxes and concentrations at the water table. The process of validation has commenced with a study of the Triassic Sandstone aquifer underlying Birmingham, UK. UGIf predicts a similar average recharge rate for the aquifer as previous groundwater flow modelling studies, but with significantly more spatial detail: in particular the results indicate that recharge through paved areas may be more important than previously thought. The results also highlight the need for more knowledge/data on the following: runoff estimation; interflow (including the effects of lateral flow and channelling on flow times and therefore chemistry); evapotranspiration in paved areas; the nature of unsaturated zone flow below paved areas; and the role of the pipe network. Although considerably more verification is needed, UGIf shows promise for use: in providing input for regional groundwater solute transport models; in identifying gaps in knowledge and data; in determining which processes are the most important influences on urban groundwater quantity and quality; in evaluating existing recharge models; in planning, for example in investigation of the effects of landuse or climate change; and in assessing groundwater vulnerability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article presents an announcement regarding the third international conference to be organized by the International Association for the Integrational Study of Language and Communication during July 5-7, 2004, at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England. The theme of the conference will be "Language teaching and integrational linguistics." The article informs that anyone wishing to present paper in the conference should contact the local organizer.