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Guiding urban planners on the cooling returns of different configurations of urban vegetation is important to protect urban dwellers from adverse heat impacts. To this end, we estimated statistical models that fused multi-temporal very fine spatial (20 cm) and vertical (1 mm) resolution imagery, that captures the complexity of urban vegetation, with remotely sensed temperature data to assess how urban vegetation configuration influences urban temperatures. Perth, Western Australia, was used as a case-study for this analysis. Panel regression models showed that within a location an increase in tree and shrub cover has a larger cooling effect than grass coverage. On average, holding all else equal, an approximate 1 km2 increase in shrub (tree) cover within a location reduces surface temperatures by 12 °C (5 °C). We included a range of robustness checks for the observed relationships between urban vegetation type and temperature. Geographically weighted regression models showed spatial variation in the cooling effect of different vegetation types; this indicates that i) unobserved factors moderate temperature-vegetation relationships across urban landscapes, and ii) that urban vegetation type and temperature relationships are complex. Machine learning models (Random Forests) were used to further explore complex and non-linear relationships between different urban vegetation configurations and temperature. The Random Forests showed that vegetation type explained 31.84% of the out-of-bag variance in summer surface temperatures, that increased cover of large vegetation within a location increases cooling, and that different configurations of urban vegetation structure can lead to cooling gains. The models in this study were trained with vegetation data capturing local detail, multiple time-periods, and entire city coverage. Thus, these models illustrate the potential to develop locally-detailed and spatially explicit tools to guide planning of vegetation configuration to optimise cooling at local- and city-scales.

Cities tend to be built in areas of high biodiversity, and the accelerating pace of urbanization threatens the persistence of many species and ecological communities globally. However, urban environments also offer unique prospects for biological conservation, with multiple benefits for humans and other species. We present seven ecological principles to conserve and increase the biodiversity of cities, using metaphors to bridge the gap between the languages of built-environment and conservation professionals. We draw upon John Ruskin's famous essay on the seven lamps of architecture, but more generally on the thinking of built-environment pioneers such as Patrick Geddes (1854–1932) who proposed a synoptic view of the urban environment that included humans and non-humans alike. To explain each principle or ‘lamp’ of urban biodiversity, we use an understanding from the built-environment disciplines as a base and demonstrate through metaphor that planning for the more-than-human does not require a conceptual leap. We conclude our discussion with ten practical strategies for turning on these lamps in cities. Urban planners, architects, landscape architects, engineers and other built-environmental professionals have a key role to play in a paradigm shift to plan for the more-than-human, because of their direct influence on the evolving urban environment. This essay is intended to increase dialogue between ecologists and members of these professions, and thus increase the biodiversity of cities around the world.

While it is well recognised that increasing vegetation cover reduces the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in cities, less is understood about the spatial pattern of vegetation type required to maximise cooling benefits. This study examines how different urban vegetation spatial configuration and composition impact on the UHI phenomenon. We investigated this on a set of sites in Metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. Urban vegetation raster data at 20 cm resolution was used to define five height-based vegetation cover types (grass, shrub, small, medium and large trees); and to calculate eight landscape metrics: percentage of landscape (PLAND), mean patch area (AREA_MN), patch density (PD), edge density (ED), mean patch shape index (SHAPE_MN), mean Euclidean nearest-neighbour distance (ENN_MN), Shannon’s diversity index (SHDI) and Landscape shape index (LSI). These vegetation landscape metrics of vegetation types were established as independent variables and statistically analysed with the UHI intensity as the dependent variable using Classification and Regression Tree analysis (CRT). The CRT model was developed based on 6469 records and including depth of 5, 41 nodes and 21 terminal nodes. From the total 43 independent variables, 11 were identified as high impact factors on UHI intensity. Our findings revealed a consistent negative statistical relationship between UHI intensity and PLAND-landscape, PLAND-large tree and PLAND-medium tree across the study sites. The PLAND, ED and AREA_MN were the most prevalent metrics to explain UHI effect, which has also principally demonstrated the joint impact of the three metrics on UHI effect. This study presents a new framework of a fine-scale assessment and modelling for the impact of urban vegetation on UHI; and elaborates a practical approach of using CRT technique to design local-based UHI mitigating strategies taking advantage of different vegetation structure.

In what ways can we advance the community’s understanding of cities and enhance possibilities for creative responses to urban problems? Patrick Geddes’ communication methodologies remain relevant to answering these questions. Two constants across his long career were his propagandizing and pedagogical activities. The bedrock of both were exhibitions. Inspired by the succession of Great Exhibitions from the mid-nineteenth century, Geddes directed his thirst for acquiring and sharing knowledge into a rambling collection of planning materials gathered from all corners of the globe and organised into his own series of exhibitions which prompted viewers to relate the work of other places to their own. Drawing on assemblage thinking, this paper argues that Geddes' exhibitionary work prefigures McFarlane’s notion of “urban learning” across the requisite activities of translation, coordination and dwelling. We describe these changes and the interplay between Geddes' epistemology and his exhibition practices to reflect on how his approach to civic education retains pertinence to the present day.

Most studies of urban forest management look at vegetation on public land. Yet, to meet ambitious urban forest targets, cities must attempt to maintain or increase trees and canopy cover on private urban land too. In this study, we review and evaluate international approaches to protecting and retaining trees on private urban land. Our study combines a systematic academic literature review, two empirical social science studies on the views of urban forest professionals, and a global case study review of innovative regulations and incentives aimed at protecting and retaining trees on private urban land. Case studies were evaluated for the extent they exceeded minimum standards or went beyond ?business-as-usual?. We found that the most innovative mechanisms combine many regulations, instead of relying on a single regulation, and use financial incentives to retain or plant trees in newly developed or re-developed sites, as well as private residences. We did not find any cases where appropriate monitoring was in place to determine the efficacy and efficiency of these mechanisms. We also found no single simple solution that could effectively and efficiently protect and retain trees on private land. Only by combining policies, planning schemes, local laws, and financial incentives with community engagement and stewardship will cities protect and retain trees on private land. Useful and innovative ways to protecting and retaining trees on private land involves providing solutions at multiple governments levels, embedding trees in existing strategic policy and management solutions, incentivising positive behavior, creating regulations that require payment up front, and engaging the broader community in private tree stewardship.

Hot weather not only impacts upon human physical comfort and health, but also impacts the way that people access and experience active travel options such as walking and cycling. By evaluating the street thermal environment of a city alongside an assessment of those communities that are the most vulnerable to the effects of heat, we can prioritise areas in which heat mitigation interventions are most needed. In this paper, we propose a new approach for policy makers to determine where to delegate limited resources for heat mitigation with most effective outcomes for the communities. We use eye-level street panorama images and community profiles to provide a bottom-up, human-centred perspective of the city scale assessment, highlighting the situation of urban tree shade provision throughout the streets in comparison with environmental and social-economic status. The approach leverages multiple sources of spatial data including satellite thermal images, Google street view (GSV) images, land use and demographic census data. A deep learning model was developed to automate the classification of streetscape types and percentages at the street- and eye-view level. The methodology is metrics based and scalable which provides a data driven assessment of heat-related vulnerability. The findings of this study first contribute to sustainable development by developing a method to identify geographical areas or neighbourhoods that require heat mitigation; and enforce policies improving tree shade on routes, as a heat adaptation strategy, which will lead to increasing active travel and produce significant health benefits for residents. The approach can be also used to guide post COVID-19 city planning and design.

• Zoonotic nematodes of the genus Trichinella are known to occur in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. For example, Trichinella spiralis was reported in pigs and humans at the turn of the Second World War in Sicily and Trichinella britovi in pigs, red foxes and dogs from Corsica and Sardinia since 2004. Following the discovery of T. britovi in Corsica and Sardinia, a question arose as to whether this species was also present in Sicily which is located only 3.14 km from continental Italy. To address this query, we investigated the presence of anti-Trichinella antibodies in the serum of Nebrodi black pigs, a breed that is bred in the wild in the Nebrodi Regional Park, a protected area of the island rich in flora and fauna. Blood samples were collected from 112 Nebrodi black pigs from five farms. Sera were tested by ELISA and ELISA positive sera were confirmed by Western blot (Wb) using excretory/secretory antigens. Eighteen (16.1%) serum samples belonging to 17 fattening pigs and 1 boar tested positive by Wb. Positive sera tested by Wb using crude worm extract antigens (CWE), displayed a banding pattern similar to the CWE-Wb pattern of T. spiralis and T. britovi reference pig sera but different to that of T. pseudospiralis reference pig sera. No larvae were detected in muscles of serologically positive pigs by artificial digestion. The presence of anti-Trichinella antibodies in the absence of larvae in the muscles, suggests that the pigs were infected with T. britovi and not T. spiralis whose larvae survive in the muscles for at least two years. These results suggest that T. britovi is circulating in Nebrodi Regional Park in Sicily. ELISA testing may constitute a suitable tool for large-scale screening of Trichinella spp. infection in free-ranging pigs, when ELISA-positive sera are confirmed by Wb. Free-ranging animals can act as sentinels for the presence of zoonotic nematodes of the genus Trichinella in wildlife.

Trees provide myriad ecosystem services of benefit to urban populations; however, urban development is pressuring existing urban tree coverage. Thus, a pertinent challenge for planners is identifying development scenarios that find synergies between urban growth and the preservation or enhancement of tree canopy coverage. This paper presents the training and validation of a model that predicts changes in neighbourhood-level urban tree canopy cover associated with different socio-economic and physical urban form variables. Neighbourhoods across Perth, the capital city of Western Australia, were used as a case study. A Random Forests model was trained using a suite of socio-economic and urban form variables and neighbourhood percentage tree canopy cover derived from very high resolution multispectral remote sensing images and digital surface models. This model was validated using independent test data with a mean absolute error of 1.78% and a root mean square error of 2.42%. An application of this model was demonstrated using the City of Nedlands, Perth, where a new planning scheme allowing denser urban development has been approved by the State Government. The magnitude and spatial variation in the change of neighbourhood tree canopy cover in the City of Nedlands in 2050 associated with three urban development scenarios was predicted using the model.

‘Care’ is a keyword for cities and citizens in the 21st century. This paper draws on Emma Power's (2019) notion of ‘caring-with’ as an ethical and analytical guide for caring action and relational community capacity-building around gambling at the local scale. The focus of analysis is the approval of electronic gaming machines or EGMs colloquially known as ‘the Pokies’, with particular reference to the Australian context and the experience of Castlemaine - a small town in the south-eastern state of Victoria whose citizens successfully appealed an application for further gambling development. The paper highlights how caring-with re-frames community responses to gambling as an assemblage of localized care practices and relations. This includes, but is not limited to, working to develop a culture of care, challenging systemic injustices, and proactive rather than reactive practices of collective care.

Functional studies of membrane proteins (MP) in their native environment (the cellular membrane) is challenging due to the complexity of the native membranes and measurement interferences from other membrane constituents or reactions. Therefore, MPs are often purified and integrated into systems which mimic their natural environment in a membrane as e.g. liposomes or nanodiscs, a process called reconstitution, allowing to investigate its function and structural aspects without any disturbing background. The most important problem during MP-reconstitution is the often random orientation of the MP in the liposomal membrane after reconstitution. For functional studies of the MP of interest and quantitative analysis of its properties, unidirectional orientation in the liposomal membrane is required. Previous work of other groups, where MPs have been reconstituted and studied, did not include a final and universal approach (Rigaud JL, Levy D. (2003) Methods Enzymol. 372:65-86.; Tunuguntla R et al. (2013) Biophys. J. 105(6):1388-96.) and procedures have to be individually optimized for an enrichment of enzyme orientation. In most cases, however, orientation cannot be influenced and is thought to depend on the three-dimensional structure of the protein (Tunuguntla R et al. (2013) Biophys. J. 105(6):1388-96; Nordlund G et al. (2014) Nat. Commun. 5:4303.). We are currently developing and establishing a universal method to force unidirectional reconstitution of MPs by the aid of a molecular unit that can be attached to every protein. Our method is based on the observation that the F1F0 ATP synthase with its large hydrophilic head piece (F1 part) orients highly uniformly when embedded in preformed vesicles. We try to mimic this situation with a bioengineering approach that should be applicable to a wide variety of proteins. Once such a method is fully established, the interplay of two or more membrane proteins can be investigated more quantitatively.

To determine the reproducibility and robustness of an ELISA to detect anti-Trichinella IgG in pig sera which was previously validated at the Community Reference Laboratory for Parasites (CRLP), a ring trial was organized involving European and extra-European reference laboratories for Trichinella. The sensitivity and specificity of the assay determined by the CRLP validation resulted to be 100% and 98.29%, respectively. The assay was reproducible, moreover, based on the receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve, the sensitivity and specificity of the assay reached 97.5% and 96.9%, respectively. The analysis of the differences in optical density (OD) between duplicates indicated a high repeatability of the ELISA with about 95% of the differences between −0.16 and 0.17 absorbance units. The accuracy of the test was determined by calculating the area under the ROC curve (AUC). Overall, the ELISA index (IE) showed a very high accuracy (AUC = 0.9965) and it performed significantly better than the mean of the duplicated ODs (AUC = 0.9387). Of the 21 participating laboratories, nine performed the test without any modification of the original protocol, and 14 with some modifications. Of the laboratories that followed the protocol exactly, three produced false-negatives; whereas of the laboratories that modified the protocol, five produced false-negatives (differences between these two groups of laboratories were not significant, p = 0.18). When comparing these two groups of laboratories, the AUCs were very similar (0.9988 and 0.9955, respectively). Finally, a normal mixed multiple model effect was used to evaluate if the IE obtained was only related to the serum or to other parameters such as the laboratory, dilution of the serum tested and application of the proposed protocol. The variability found in the test results was mainly due to the serum samples. The assay proposed is robust and reproducible and can be used for monitoring the lack of Trichinella infection in domestic pigs.

A number of societal changes such as an ageing population and a lack of economic prosperity mean that Japanese greenway planners will be faced with a number of new challenges in the coming decades. These societal changes will be particularly dramatic in the Japanese New Towns, which were constructed in the late 1950s. Some of these New Towns marked a departure for Japanese planning by including a network of greenways, which were planned to provide pleasant corridors for pedestrians and bikers. Around 30 years have passed since these areas were developed; today the greenways in these New Towns have become corridors with dense and rich greenery. Such matured greenways, which were supposed to provide an amenity for local residents, have increasingly come to be regarded as a cause of fear of crime. To try and mitigate this, trees and shrubs along the greenways are now closely trimmed or even removed. However, such mature vegetation along the greenways may be regarded as a feature that maintains the history of the town. Such vegetation is also expected to provide ecological corridors that accommodate wildlife species which were abundant in the rural areas surrounding these New Towns. Within the context of proposing an optimum management scheme for Japanese greenways, the following study aims to explain and discuss how the fear of crime on greenways can be prevented whilst maintaining their ecological and historical functions.

A green belt is a zone of land around the city where building development is severely restricted. Although London's green belt has a history of being effective in achieving its purposes, recently planners have started debating how it could be reformed. The green belt's reformers propose renewing the green belt's function. However no recent research has shown the current distribution of London's green belt. The aim of this research is to explore which factors influence the functions of London's green belt. We first investigate the history of the green belt's functions. We then analyse the green belt's current functions by grouping local authorities in relation to their green belt policies using cluster analysis. The history of the green belt's establishment reveals the fundamental values that lie behind the green belt's functions. Using cluster analysis we group the local authorities according to whether they use the green belt to: control urban growth, enhance landscape protection, improve the landscape or whether they consider the green belt to be a minor issue. Overall we argue that a new green space planning concept should be implemented that explicitly refers to the green belt's role in restoring landscapes.