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Underprivileged people in many parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America use earthen dwellings because of environmental and economic advantages. However, such non-engineered structures often encounter unacceptable risks from various natural calamities such as earthquakes, floods, etc. The 3rd January 2017 moderate earthquake in Tripura (NE India) is prime evidence of severe damage to earthen houses in rural Tripura. The present research focuses on enhancing the seismic strength of traditional earthen houses through mechanical stabilization with locally available low-cost sustainable natural fibers (i.e., jute and straw) and stabilizing materials (i.e., clay and lime), respectively. Primarily, the shear and flexural strength of both stabilized and unstabilized model rammed earthen wallettes are investigated experimentally. Thereafter, a 3D finite element (FE) numerical model is developed to verify the sanctity of the experimental findings. The study reveals that fiber-reinforced earthen wallettes, especially jute fiber-reinforced wallettes, exhibited significant improvement in shear and flexural strength including ductility behaviour whereas, clay and lime-stabilized wallettes offered improvement in strength exhibiting brittle failure. Finally, the seismic response of a prototype fiber-reinforced rammed earth wall is evaluated through 3D FE-based numerical modelling considering the input motion of the 2017 Tripura earthquake which also indicated significant improvement compared to the unimproved one. However, from the viewpoint of sustainability, it is concluded that carbon emissions of approx. 38% may be reduced in the case of natural fibers such as jute and straw compared to synthetic stabilizing agents (i.e., lime). Hence, the study promotes the use of low-cost sustainable fibers with a lower carbon footprint and minimum energy consumption in earthen houses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupant behavior is among the main causes for the mismatch between simulated and in-use energy performance of buildings. One of the strategies considered capable of reducing user's behavior induced energy consumption, while increasing indoor environmental quality is the application of Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS). In this study, three building user's profiles have been considered depending on their energy consumption. The energy savings due to BACS class increase have been calculated, and a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) has been performed to evaluate the feasibility of different scenarios. Additional co-benefits perceived by the individuals have been accounted for in the form of willingness-to-pay (WTP). The methodology is applied to two case studies: a nearly zero-energy building (NZEB) rural single-family house and a recently renovated dwelling in an apartment block. The results show that the main reductions are achieved by the users' behavior alone, and the adoption of BACS is economically feasible only when an incentive program is in place, and the WTP is repeated as a recurrent co-benefit over the years. In particular, relying only on energy reduction due to higher BACS class introduction is not economically desirable. The greatest savings are achieved by the behavioral change of the user when coupled with BACS, supporting their potential role in improving user's energy literacy. Finally, incentive schemes are necessary to reduce the investment costs of such projects, being these the most influential variables in the feasibility of BACS applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the importance of managed hunting estates is a focal step in knowing whether they affect game and non-game species. Microhabitat and human presence were measured in managed and unmanaged hunting estates in the Mamora forest to identify the best predictors of the vulnerable European turtle dove (TD) occurrence (presence/absence) by means of generalized linear mixed models (GLMM). The results reveal that TD occurrence increases significantly close to paved roads and to houses of shepherds with enclosures and far away from rural agglomerations in managed hunting estates, whereas, in unmanaged hunting estates, it increases far from paved roads and close to rural agglomerations and houses of shepherds with enclosures. Furthermore, whatever the type of hunting forest estate, the TD occurrence increases with an increasing cover of trees and remoteness from cereal crops. In the Mamora forest, the effect of hunting estate type on TD occurrence is not that strong to be noticeable in the managed hunting estates (apparent positive effect on TD occurrence). However, human presence turns out to be beneficial for TD in unmanaged hunting estates. It is recommended to test the geographical generality of our results using the same analytical approach in other managed and unmanaged hunting estates for both game and non-game species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Hypertension is one of the most important risk factors for premature mortality and morbidity in Iran. The objective of the Iranian blood pressure (BP) measurement campaign was to identify individuals with raised blood pressure and providing appropriate care and increase the awareness among the public and policymakers of the importance of tackling hypertension. Methods: The campaign was conducted in two phases. The first (communication) phase started on May 17th (International Hypertension Day). The second phase started on June 8th, 2019, and lasted up to July 7th during which, blood pressures were measured. The target population was Iranians aged ≥ 30 years. Participants voluntarily referred to health houses in rural and health posts and comprehensive health centers in urban areas in the setting of the Primary Health Care network. Additionally, over 13,700 temporary stations were set up in highly visited places in urban areas. Volunteer healthcare staff interviewed the participants, measured their BP, and provided them with lifestyle advice and knowledge of the risks and consequences of high blood pressure. They referred participants to physicians in case their BP was high. Participants immediately received a text message containing the relevant advice based on their measured BP and their past history. Results: Blood pressure was measured for a total of 26,678,394 participants in the campaign. A total of 13,722,148 participants (51.4%) were female. The mean age was 46 ± 14.1 years. Among total participants, 15,012,693 adults (56.3%) with no past history of hypertension had normal BP, 7,959,288 participants had BP in the prehypertension range (29.8%), and finally, 3,706,413 participants (13.9%) had either past medical history of hypertension, used medications, or had high BP measured in the campaign. Conclusion: The campaign was feasible with the objective to increase the awareness among the public and policymakers of the importance of tackling hypertension in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how poor-quality housing affects Vietnamese individuals' health, measured using the number of sick days, which directly affects productivity and economic growth. Our analysis addresses endogeneity issues generally ignored in previous studies. We provide evidence, robust to various alterations that, the absence of an indoor water tap and homeownership, harmful indoor cooking fuel type, and the poor physical structure of the dwelling have adverse impacts on individuals' health. Our findings indicate that the adverse effects of housing on health arise from a larger spectrum of housing issues in rural areas compared to urban areas. We also find that the intensity in deprived housing conditions has a non-linear relationship with health, suggesting that even some degree of housing assistance can have a beneficial impact on individuals' health. Our study provides useful policy guides and informs healthy living practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing quality is essential to human well-being, security and health. Monitoring the housing quality is crucial for unveiling the socioeconomic development status and providing political proposals. However, depicting the nationwide housing quality in large-scale and fine detail is exceedingly rare in remote rural areas owing to the high cost of canonical survey methods. Taking rural China as an example, we collect massive rural house images for housing quality assessment by various volunteers and further build up a deep learning model based on the assessed images to realize an automatic prediction for huge raw house images. As a result, the model performance achieves a high R2 of 0.76. Afterward, the housing qualities of 10,000 Chinese villages are estimated based on 50,000 unlabeled geo-images, and an apparent spatial heterogeneity is discovered. Specifically, divided by Qinling Mountains-Huaihe River Line, housing quality in southern China is much better than in northern China. Our method provides high-resolution predictions of housing quality across the extensive rural area, which could be a complementary tool for automatical monitoring of housing change and supporting house-related policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The source of Darwin's illness has been a contentious issue in the literature for almost 70 years. Different causal factors have been invoked to account for his symptoms, including Chagas disease. The Chagas hypothesis is based upon Darwin's diary, in which he narrates his experience with kissing bugs, the main vector of the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease. In this contribution, we examine the consistency of the "Chagas disease hypothesis" in the light of current ecological and epidemiological knowledge of the disease in Chile. According to his diary and letters, during his overland trips, Darwin slept in rural houses and outdoors for 128 days in a "hyperendemic" area for Chagas disease, more than exposing him to kissing bugs. This observation conveys a likely additional source of infection than previously considered, which might reinforce the idea that Chagas disease contributed to Darwin's manifest physical deterioration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bacterial antibiotic resistance is an important global health threat and the interfaces of antibiotic resistance between humans, animals and the environment are complex. We aimed to determine the associations and overtime trends of antibiotic resistance between humans, animals and water sources from the same area and time and estimate attribution of the other sources to cases of human antibiotic resistance. A total of 125 children (aged 1–3 years old) had stool samples analysed for antibiotic-resistant bacteria at seven time points over two years, with simultaneous collection of samples of animal stools and water sources in a rural Indian community. Newey–West regression models were used to calculate temporal associations, the source with the most statistically significant relationships was household drinking water. This is supported by use of SourceR attribution modelling, that estimated the mean attribution of cases of antibiotic resistance in the children from animals, household drinking water and wastewater, at each time point and location, to be 12.6% (95% CI 4.4–20.9%), 12.1% (CI 3.4–20.7%) and 10.3% (CI 3.2–17.3%) respectively. This underlines the importance of the 'one health' concept and requires further research. Also, most of the significant trends over time were negative, suggesting a possible generalised improvement locally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatially consistent and up-to-date maps of human settlements are crucial for addressing policies related to urbanization and sustainability, especially in the era of an increasingly urbanized world. The availability of open and free Sentinel-2 data of the Copernicus Earth Observation program offers a new opportunity for wall-to-wall mapping of human settlements at a global scale. This paper presents a deep-learning-based framework for a fully automated extraction of built-up areas at a spatial resolution of 10 m from a global composite of Sentinel-2 imagery. A multi-neuro modeling methodology building on a simple Convolution Neural Networks architecture for pixel-wise image classification of built-up areas is developed. The core features of the proposed model are the image patch of size 5 × 5 pixels adequate for describing built-up areas from Sentinel-2 imagery and the lightweight topology with a total number of 1,448,578 trainable parameters and 4 2D convolutional layers and 2 flattened layers. The deployment of the model on the global Sentinel-2 image composite provides the most detailed and complete map reporting about built-up areas for reference year 2018. The validation of the results with an independent reference dataset of building footprints covering 277 sites across the world establishes the reliability of the built-up layer produced by the proposed framework and the model robustness. The results of this study contribute to cutting-edge research in the field of automated built-up areas mapping from remote sensing data and establish a new reference layer for the analysis of the spatial distribution of human settlements across the rural–urban continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To comprehensively understand the law of urban-rural relationship and propose scientific measures of urban-rural coordinated development in Northeast China, this study uses the coupling coordination degree model and geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model to analyze the spatial-temporal patterns and the corresponding driving mechanisms of its urban-rural coordination since 1990. The results are as follows. First, the urban-rural coupling coordination degree in Northeast China was very low and improved slowly, but its stages of evolution is a good interpretation of the strategic arrangements of China's urbanization. Second, the urban-rural coupling coordination degree in Northeast China had spatial differences and was characterized by central polarization, converging on urban agglomeration, which was high in the south and low in the north. Moreover, the gap between the north and south weakened. Third, the spatial-temporal evolution of the urban-rural coordination relationship in Northeast China was influenced by pulling from the central cities, pushing from rural transformation, and government regulations. The influence intensity of the three mechanisms was weak, but the pulling from the central cities was stronger than that of the other two mechanisms. Furthermore, the spatial difference between the three mechanisms determines the spatial pattern and its evolution of the urban-rural coordination relationship in Northeast China. Fourth, to promote the development of urban-rural coordination in Northeast China, it is essential to advance urban-rural economic correlation, enhance the government's role in regulating and guiding, and adopt different policies for each region in Northeast China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World demand for honey and hive products is in excess of marketed production. In Africa, honey is the most important hive product and is the main driver of producers venturing in beekeeping. Despite the enormous demand for honey both locally and internationally, production is still below potential and this is attributable to multiple challenges. They include lack of Apiculture policy, decline in the number of bee colonies, habitat destruction, and lack of data on bee population trends, low key conservation strategies and absence of structured marketing of honey and hive products. Data on pollinator populations and production trends in Kenya is scarce. The present work aims to critically examine the current state of honey bees and stingless bee production, marketing, conservation, diseases, recording and contribution to rural households in Kenya. Strategies to overcome the challenges and achieve more sustainable bee production are discussed. The number of bee colonies in Kenya has reduced by 16.76% whereas national average honey production per hive has increased from 3.77 kg/hive/year to 13.38 kg/hive for the last ten years. Seven species of stingless bees and three subspecies of Honey bees are recognised in Kenya. Forest fires, habitat destruction, pesticide use, and climate change are the major threats to these pollinators. Conservation programs in Africa do not target bees per se but forests. The establishment of bee conservation programs that involve rural communities is critical for the preservation of the genetic diversity of bee populations. Establishment of honey hubs for bulking and marketing honey and hive products is a viable option in marketing apicultural products and also an incentive for conservation. Enactment of apiculture policy and a paradigm shift in land use systems, climate change mitigation strategies, providing alternative livelihood options and involvement of rural communities are key in reversing the effects of low apiculture productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the design, implementation and field trials of WiMesh, a resilient wireless mesh network-based disaster communication system purpose-built for underdeveloped and rural parts of the world. Mesh networking is a mature area, and the focus of this paper is not on proposing novel models, protocols or other mesh solutions. Instead, the paper focuses on the identification of important design considerations and justifications for several design trade offs in the context of mesh networking for disaster communication in developing countries with very limited resources. These trade-offs are discussed in the context of key desirable traits including security, low cost, low power, size, availability, customization, portability, ease of installation and deployment, and coverage area among others. We discuss at length the design, implementation, and field trial results of the WiMesh system which enables users spread over large geographical regions, to communicate with each other despite the lack of cellular coverage, power, and other communication infrastructure by leveraging multi-hop mesh networking and Wi-Fi equipped handheld devices. Lessons learned along with real-world results are shared for WiMesh deployment in a remote rural mountainous village of Pakistan, and the source code is shared with the research community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The payment of bridewealth or lobola is a longstanding cultural practice that has persisted in South Africa despite significant societal shifts over the past two decades. Lobola has always been a complex and contested practice that both reinforces gender inequalities and, at the same time, provides status to women and legitimacy to marriages. In this paper, we describe rural South African women's perceptions of lobola, their experiences related to marriage and lobola, and how they reconfigure lobola to fit within modern life course aspirations and trajectories. We draw on interviews with 43 women aged 18–55 in rural South Africa to examine desires related to lobola and the meanings of lobola given current social, economic, and health (HIV) conditions in rural areas. Our findings indicate that lobola offers women a complex set of benefits and liabilities. Although women value the support, social status, and respectability lobola offers, they also lament how lobola curtails their freedom to pursue education and limits their autonomy from husbands as well as in-laws. Women also view lobola as offering a sense of security amidst the uncertainty of the local political economy and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We conclude that the way women incorporate lobola into their desires and plans reflects tension between the expectations and aspirations of "modern" women in a post-apartheid context in which rights feature prominently but economic security is not guaranteed, and cultural scripts reinforce longstanding gender norms but also ensure social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic swine have been introduced by humans into a wide diversity of environments and have been bred in different production systems. This has resulted in an increased risk for the occurrence and spread of diseases. Although viromes of swine in intensive farms have been described, little is known about the virus communities in backyard production systems around the world. The aim of this study was to describe the viral diversity of 23 healthy domestic swine maintained in rural backyards in Morelos, Mexico, through collection and analysis of nasal and rectal samples. Next-generation sequencing was used to identify viruses that are present in swine. Through homology search and bioinformatic analysis of reads and their assemblies, we found that rural backyard swine have a high degree of viral diversity, different from those reported in intensive production systems or under experimental conditions. There was a higher frequency of bacteriophages and lower diversity of animal viruses than reported previously. In addition, sapoviruses, bocaparvoviruses, and mamastroviruses that had not been reported previously in our country were identified. These findings were correlated with the health status of animals, their social interactions, and the breeding/rearing environment (which differed from intensive systems), providing baseline information about viral communities in backyard swine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although some studies have suggested that women with schizophrenia are more likely to achieve positive outcomes, the evidence-base is fraught with inconsistencies. In this study we compare the long-term course and outcomes for men and women living with schizophrenia in rural Ethiopia.Methods: The Butajira course and outcome study for severe mental disorders is a population-based cohort study. Community ascertainment of cases was undertaken between 1998 and 2001, with diagnostic confirmation by clinicians using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry. Findings from annual outcome assessments were combined with clinical records, patient and caregiver report, and psychiatric assessments at 10-13 years using the Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation- LIFE chart. For the sub-group of people with schizophrenia (n = 358), we compared course of illness and treatment, co-morbidity, recovery, social outcomes and mortality between men and women. Multivariable analyses were conducted for modelling associations identified in bivariate analyses according to blocks shaped by our a priori conceptual framework of the biological and social pathways through which gender might influence the course and outcome of schizophrenia.Results: Looking into over 10-13 years of follow-up data, there was no difference in the functioning or recovery in women compared to men (AOR = 1.79, 95% CI = 0.91, 3.57). Women were less likely to report overall life satisfaction (AOR = 0.22, 95% CI = 0.09, 0.53) or good quality of spousal relationships (AOR = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.01-1.04). Men were more likely to have co-morbid substance use and there was a trend towards women being more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant (AOR = 2.38, 95% CI = 0.94, 5.88). There were no gender differences in the course of illness, number of psychotic episodes or adherence to medications.Conclusion: In this rural African setting, we found little evidence to support the global evidence indicating better course and outcome of schizophrenia in women. Our findings are suggestive of a gendered experience of schizophrenia which varies across contexts. Further investigation is needed due to the important implications for the development of new mental health services in low and middle-income country settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media can play a key role in shaping public opinion and setting a policy agenda by conveying and influencing public discourse. This article evaluates how the Spanish media has covered the topic of the forest bioeconomy and what kind of discourse it has produced and reproduced around it. For this purpose, we analysed the content of 204 national and regional newspaper articles. The results reveal the scarce penetration of the forest bioeconomy in media and some weaknesses in the narrative production and communicative dimension. The discourse is mainly constructed by governments with a limited presence of multiple stakeholders and an absence of conflict and divergent or alternative views. In addition, the discourse only addresses regional or local problems within the framework of an extended and dominant paradigm of economic growth considering the forest bioeconomy as an opportunity to combat fire, rural abandonment, smallholdings, and poor forest management. We conclude that media is not using its strategic potential and capacity as a public space. To become agents of change, the media should reflect a forest bioeconomy based on successful experiences of innovation and valorization, and adopt a transformative social vision that gives relevance to the interconnection between multiple stakeholders, forest multifunctionality and rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate how changes in weather patterns affected rural-urban migration across 41 sub-Saharan African countries, by age and sex, over the 1980–2015 period. We combine recent age- and sex-specific estimates of net rural-urban migration with historical data on rainfall and temperature from the Climate Research Unit (CRU). We also compare standard unweighted estimates of rainfall and temperature to estimates weighted by the proportion of the country's total rural population in the CRU grid. Results show that rural out-migration of young adults is the most sensitive to shifts in weather patterns, with lower rainfall, lower variability in rainfall, and higher temperatures increasing subsequent rural out-migration—though the last of these is not observed in weighted models. The strength of these effects has grown stronger over time for 20–24 year olds, though weaker above age 30. In contrast, increasing temperature variability is associated with a higher rural in-migration of children (0–9) and older adults (55–64). Gender differences in these effects are minimal and concentrated in areas which experienced heavy reductions in rainfall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization has triggered large rural population floating into cities, which in turn affects rural human-land relationships. The actual human-land relationship involves the coupling level of a time point and dynamic change of a time interval. However, few studies have identified the rural human-land relationship from these two perspectives. This study combined static coupling analysis with a dynamic decoupling model to analyze the relationships between rural population and settlements from 2009 to 2018 in Jiangsu Province, China. Although the static coupling degree in Jiangsu Province was relatively high, the decoupling analysis found that the rural human-land relationship in most counties was uncoordinated. There were 11 combination types based on the coupling and decoupling relationships. The most common two types (accounting for 76.74%) were recession decoupling with high-level coupling and strong decoupling with high-level coupling. Although the majority of counties had a high-level coupling degree, an uncoordinated change in rural population and rural settlements was observed in these counties. Counties with relatively reasonable human-land relationships accounted for only 12.79% of the total. The combination features for each type were identified and differential policies were proposed for optimizing human-land relationship in rural areas. This study would contribute to our understanding of the multiple relationships between rural population and settlements involved in different patterns and processes, and expect to provide theoretical and methodological support for promoting rural revitalization and sustainable development in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the trends of Chinese rural transformation development, and the sustainable development goals for resources and environment, reasonable arranging the potential development space and the ecological space, so as to optimize the distributions of rural settlement would be the key challenge for rural areas in ecologically fragile regions. From the perspective of maintaining regional ecological security, this paper takes Da'an City, a typical ecological fragile region in Jilin Province, as the case area, constructing the comprehensive ecological security pattern (ESP) on basis of landscape ecology, and applying the landscape pattern indexes to quantitative analysis the spatial distribution characteristics of rural settlements. Then, different optimization directions and management strategies are put forward for rural settlements in each secure zone under the comprehensive ESP. The experimental results showed that 1) the area of the low security zone, the general security zone, the moderate security zone and the extreme security zone was 1570.18 km2, 1463.36 km2, 1215.80 km2 and 629.77 km2, representing 32.18%, 29.99%, 24.92% and 12.91% of the total area of the target area, respectively. 2) The rural settlements in Da'an City were characterized by a high degree of fragmentation with a large number of small-scale patches. 3) The area of rural settlements in the ecological relocation zone, the in situ remediation zone, the limited development zone and the key development zone was 22.80 km2, 42.31 km2, 36.28 km2 and 19.40 km2, accounting for 18.88%, 35.03%, 30.04% and 16.06% of the total area of rural settlements, respectively. Then, different measures were proposed for settlements in different optimization zones in order to scientifically plan important ecological space, production space and living space in rural areas. This paper aims to provide fundamental support for rural settlements based on redistribution from the perspective of landscape ecology and provide insights for rural planning and rural habitat environmental improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steel fibers increase the strain capacity of normal and high-strength concrete columns. Availability of normal or high-strength concrete and conventional reinforcement is limited for low-rise concrete houses in rural areas. It is in the interest of society, of the thousands of people that live in those houses, that house performance be evaluated. This paper assesses the behavior of 18 short, square-section columns made of low-strength concrete reinforced with hybrid steel bars and micro-fibers under axial compressive loads. The investigated variables were the steel ratio (2.8% and 5.6%) and layout of transverse reinforcement and the fiber dosage (10 kg/m3 and 20 kg/m3). Response of the specimens was assessed in terms of crack patterns and failure modes, compressive stress–strain curves and the contribution of concrete, conventional steel reinforcement and steel fibers to the performance of the columns. Experimental stress–strain curves of the columns were compared with those computed using existing analytical models. The comparison of the measured and calculated stress–strain curves showed that it is required to calibrate a model for the columns with the key characteristics included in the experimental campaign. The study developed a behavioral model that is consistent with the trends of the results measured. The effectiveness of the proposed model was evaluated through statistical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In under-developed rural areas of Asia, a larger portion of the housing facilities is constructed without any intervention of engineer(s). Such non-engineered reinforced concrete (NRC) structures constitute a major portion of the housing in rural areas. The lateral load resisting columns, in these structures, are constructed by locals using poor quality concrete having compressive strength as low as of 5 MPa and the amount of reinforcement may be lower than 1%. In the case of any earthquake activity, the higher population density and vulnerability of NRC structures would result in the loss of precious human life and economic turmoil. This paper investigates the reversed cyclic behavior of such an NRC column in low to moderate seismic regions of Thailand. Four columns, representative of existing NRC structures, were tested under reversed cyclic loading. Two axial load levels were used to study the effect of axial load on the ultimate lateral load and displacement capacity of the NRC column specimens. To investigate the influence of bar type, 9 mm round rebars and 12 mm deformed bars were used to fabricate the specimens. The maximum lateral drift was found to be extremely low (i.e.,1.75%) under a higher axial load level. The type of reinforcement found to influence the extent of damage in these columns. Finally, a newly developed numerical model; to incorporate the axial-flexure-shear phenomenon, is used to simulate the reversed cyclic behavior of the tested specimen and found to be successful in replicating the observed reversed cyclic behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An earthquake of MW = 6.5 occurred on May 24, 2014, at 12:25 h local time (09:25 GMT), its epicenter in the Aegean Sea, 25 km north of Gökçeada. The effect of the earthquake produced the most damage in the rural houses of Gökçeada. This paper describes the evaluations made through onsite field observations of the damages inflicted on the structures of thirty rural houses in the Tepeköy settlement connected to Gökçeada. An evaluation was made of the types of damage, the mechanisms of damage and the causes of the damage sustained by these houses, which all had similar structural characteristics but different plan typologies and suffered varying levels of damage. The damage observed in Gökçeada was classified using the catalogue of mechanisms originally developed for the failure mechanisms identification and vulnerability evaluation procedure. The general types of damage were cracks in the loadbearing external walls and corners, diagonal cracks starting from the corners of doors and windows, vertical out-of-plane displacement of external walls, out-of-plane fragmentation or disintegration and collapse of external wall and partial collapse of loadbearing internal walls, ruptures in the outer surfaces of loadbearing external walls, partial collapse of roof structure, partial collapse of hearth and chimney sections, rupture or flaking of window and door lintels. The causes of the general damage may be cited as an irregular bonding system, weak mortar, stone block formation, stone block size, absence of tie beams, corners weakly connected, weak connection of wall-roof system, week connection of wall-floor system, and different internal wall systems. The levels of damage and the mechanisms of damage vary depending upon the number of causes of the damage, the particulars of the layout, and some structural properties. In terms of the characteristics of the layout, an increase in unsupported loadbearing wall lengths led to more destructive damage mechanisms in the houses. In terms of structural characteristics, the construction of the internal wall system with timber on the upper floors, and with stone material on the lower floors was a major factor in increasing the level of damage and determining its type and mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban population and urbanized land in China have both increased markedly since the 1980s. Urban and suburban developments have grown at unprecedented rates with unknown consequences for ecosystem functions. In particular, the effect of rapid urbanization on the storage of soil carbon has not been studied extensively. In this study, we compared the soil carbon stocks of different land use types in Beijing Municipality. We collected 490 top-soil samples (top 20 cm) from urban and suburban sites within the Sixth Ring Road of Beijing, which cover approximately 2400 km, and the densities of soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC), and total carbon (TC) were analyzed to determine the spatial distribution of urban and suburban soil carbon characteristics across seven land use types. The results revealed significant differences in soil carbon densities among land use types. Additionally, urban soil had significantly higher SOC and SIC densities than suburban soil did, and suburban shelterbelts and productive plantations had lower SIC densities than the other land use types. The comparison of coefficients of variance (CVs) showed that carbon content of urban topsoil had a lower variability than that of suburban topsoil. Further findings revealed that soil carbon storage increased with built-up age. Urban soil built up for more than 20 years had higher densities of SOC, SIC and TC than both urban soil with less than 10 years and suburban soil. Correlation analyses indicated the existence of a significantly negative correlation between the SOC, SIC, and TC densities of urban soil and the distance to the urban core, and the distance variable alone explained 23.3% of the variation of SIC density and 13.8% of the variation of TC density. These results indicate that SOC and SIC accumulate in the urban topsoil under green space as a result of the conversion of agricultural land to urban land due to the urbanization in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of rural household survey in 12 provinces of China in 2005, this research built an econometrical model to find the area standard for rural housing land. This standard is expected to facilitate rural housing land administration, efficient and intensive housing land use and policy making. This research concludes: 1) according to the household survey data, the average area for rural housing land in China is about 235.26 m, and the rural housing land mainly includes unused land (42.89%) and house construction land (37.76%) with the average floor-area ratio of 0.42; 2) the indexes in the standard concern the factors such as location, landform, house form, household population and cultivated land area per farmer, which all have significant effects on rural housing land use; 3) the reasonable area for rural housing land may be 150 m in average before 2020, and the referential standards in different provinces are 120 m, 130 m, 140m, 150 m, 160 m, 170 m, 190 m, 200 m, 210 m, 220 m, 230 m and 250 m respectively; and 4) if there are less than two persons or more than five persons in a family, these standards need to be decreased or increased by 7%. When the cultivated land area per farmer is lower than the provincial average, the standards have to reduce by 3.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]