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BackgroundTracking person-to-person SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the population is important to understand the epidemiology of community transmission and may contribute to the containment of SARS-CoV-2. Neither contact tracing nor genomic surveillance alone, however, are typically sufficient to achieve this objective.AimWe demonstrate the successful application of the integrated genomic surveillance (IGS) system of the German city of Düsseldorf for tracing SARS-CoV-2 transmission chains in the population as well as detecting and investigating travel-associated SARS-CoV-2 infection clusters.MethodsGenomic surveillance, phylogenetic analysis, and structured case interviews were integrated to elucidate two genetically defined clusters of SARS-CoV-2 isolates detected by IGS in Düsseldorf in July 2021.ResultsCluster 1 (n = 67 Düsseldorf cases) and Cluster 2 (n = 36) were detected in a surveillance dataset of 518 high-quality SARS-CoV-2 genomes from Düsseldorf (53% of total cases, sampled mid-June to July 2021). Cluster 1 could be traced back to a complex pattern of transmission in nightlife venues following a putative importation by a SARS-CoV-2-infected return traveller (IP) in late June; 28 SARS-CoV-2 cases could be epidemiologically directly linked to IP. Supported by viral genome data from Spain, Cluster 2 was shown to represent multiple independent introduction events of a viral strain circulating in Catalonia and other European countries, followed by diffuse community transmission in Düsseldorf.ConclusionIGS enabled high-resolution tracing of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in an internationally connected city during community transmission and provided infection chain-level evidence of the downstream propagation of travel-imported SARS-CoV-2 cases.

Summary Globally, about one billion urban dwellers live in deprived areas (commonly referred as slums). However, this figure may be highly uncertain due to large data gaps. For example, in many cities, systematic underreporting occurs, which hampers the monitoring of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators. Earth observation (EO) data can be used to extract consistent spatial information on important aspects of the physical domain of deprivation and can offer essential proxies to not well-covered (e.g. social and economic) domains. However, for the development of a global data repository on deprived areas, several conceptual and methodological issues need to be solved. First, the relationship between concepts of a slum household and a deprived area needs to be defined in the context of information available in EO images. Second, the costs and benefits of different types of EO-data need to be established. Third, at different scales (ranging from communities, city to global scales), meaningful spatial aggregation units need to be established that are suitable to deal with uncertainties, privacy, ethics, and user needs. Fourth, computationally feasible, scalable, and transferable methods are required to produce a global data repository on deprived areas. This chapter provides an overview of methodological advances to address the above four major challenges .

BACKGROUND: Tracing of SARS-CoV-2 transmission chains is still a major challenge for public health authorities, when incidental contacts are not recalled or are not perceived as potential risk contacts. Viral sequencing can address key questions about SARS-CoV-2 evolution and may support reconstruction of viral transmission networks by integration of molecular epidemiology into classical contact tracing. METHODS: In collaboration with local public health authorities, we set up an integrated system of genomic surveillance in an urban setting, combining a) viral surveillance sequencing, b) genetically based identification of infection clusters in the population, c) integration of public health authority contact tracing data, and d) a user-friendly dashboard application as a central data analysis platform. RESULTS: Application of the integrated system from August to December 2020 enabled a characterization of viral population structure, analysis of four outbreaks at a maximum care hospital, and genetically based identification of five putative population infection clusters, all of which were confirmed by contact tracing. The system contributed to the development of improved hospital infection control and prevention measures and enabled the identification of previously unrecognized transmission chains, involving a martial arts gym and establishing a link between the hospital to the local population. CONCLUSIONS: Integrated systems of genomic surveillance could contribute to the monitoring and, potentially, improved management of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the population.

The ongoing growth of motorized transport modes poses serious challenges to urban environments such as air and noise pollution, adverse health impacts, and improper allocation of space in the city. Over time, the paradigms of transport planning have shifted gradually toward active transport as a utilitarian and recreational form of sustainable urban mobility with desirable ecological, economical, and social properties. Active travel modes, concerning the physical activity of locomotion, generally include walking and bicycling, which have environmental benefits such as a decrease of carbon and reduction of traffic congestions. Besides, active transport, as a form of an active lifestyle, is one of the most usual physical activities which have numerous benefits regarding health and wellbeing, including reducing risk factors of chronic diseases, such as overweight and obesity, and increasing happiness, contentment, and engagement. Therefore, active transport has been increasingly considered in transportation and urban planning studies as an alternative for motorized transport and a sedentary lifestyle. Studies have shown that the built environment can facilitate active transport by walking or cycling to destinations and accordingly contributes to residents’ physical activity. Hence, this study aims to explore and explain the association between the built environment and active transport by urban residents through a literature review. Insights such as there are important natural/physical and macro/micro environmental characteristics that encourage the tendency for active transport as well as socioeconomic and sociodemographic attributes differently affect this indicative relationship, are subsumed in a conceptual framework that can guide future empirical studies.

Fast and reliable detection of patients with severe and heterogeneous illnesses is a major goal of precision medicine1,2. Patients with leukaemia can be identified using machine learning on the basis of their blood transcriptomes3. However, there is an increasing divide between what is technically possible and what is allowed, because of privacy legislation4,5. Here, to facilitate the integration of any medical data from any data owner worldwide without violating privacy laws, we introduce Swarm Learning—a decentralized machine-learning approach that unites edge computing, blockchain-based peer-to-peer networking and coordination while maintaining confidentiality without the need for a central coordinator, thereby going beyond federated learning. To illustrate the feasibility of using Swarm Learning to develop disease classifiers using distributed data, we chose four use cases of heterogeneous diseases (COVID-19, tuberculosis, leukaemia and lung pathologies). With more than 16,400 blood transcriptomes derived from 127 clinical studies with non-uniform distributions of cases and controls and substantial study biases, as well as more than 95,000 chest X-ray images, we show that Swarm Learning classifiers outperform those developed at individual sites. In addition, Swarm Learning completely fulfils local confidentiality regulations by design. We believe that this approach will notably accelerate the introduction of precision medicine. © 2021, The Author(s).

As the locus of urbanization moves Southward, dynamics of city-making are rapidly shifting. In the context of India which has experienced pronounced urban shifts since the 1990s, this chapter draws upon one specific case of a slum eviction in Bangalore, asking what it can tell us about the way urban development is being carried out in the city. Via qualitative methods of semi-structured interviewing, discourse analysis and spatial mapping, it examines the actors, instruments and structures which control, produce, negotiate and contest urban space. It suggests that the model of development the case reflects is characterized by democratic deficit in governance and endemic informality which is fueling and perpetuating socio-spatial polarization. This creates challenges for sustainable urban development as Bangalore’s vulnerable residents are excluded on fundamental grounds. Apart from the insights acquired on the eviction case, the contribution also reflects on the added value of combining different research methods to elicit the impacts of the eviction on slum dwellers’ quality of life, in particular with regard to their ability to meaningfully engage in governance processes which mediate the production of space.

Applying geographic information (GI) technologies to facilitate managerial and operational processes in urban management is a widely known approach. However, planning practice seems to lag behind in their incorporation. While the academic world has embraced planning support systems (PSS), their use in planning practice remains sporadic and limited. This disconnect creates a gap between the PSS knowledge produced in academic settings, with regard to collaborative planning and decision-making, and the unrealized potential of applying PSS in planning cultures that lack collaborative approaches. This chapter aims to address the gap between academia and planning practice by incorporating the practitioner discussions regarding the utility of PSS in a planning process. It elaborates a real-life case application that explored the usability of PSS in a collaborative planning approach. Through this contribution, we aim to strengthen the relationship and foster interaction between academia and practice.

The characteristic seventeenth-century facade of the Amsterdam Canal District seems to have changed little in four centuries. The fine-grained urban morphology with its intimate intertwining of land and water is still very much intact. The preindustrial maritime technology implied that mercantile shipping was not just highly labour intensive but also that functions – loading and unloading, warehousing, coordination and control, as well as living and leisure – were bound to be in close proximity to each other as well as near the water. According to Mark D’Eramo (2015: 85), “the mansions of the great merchants were never far from the port; the

In the current century of accelerated urbanisation cities are exposed to increasing complexities, dynamics and uncertainties. This particularly applies to secondary, fast growing cities in the Global South which face major plan-ning challenges to provide and improve access to infrastructures and services in the changing context of population growth and climate change. Urban studies scholars from the Global South increasingly remind us that, given the differences of Southern cities, established planning and policy models from developed Northern cities cannot be simply transferred to this context, that conventional ways of knowledge generation are insufficient to respond to future urban challenges and that relying on only one knowledge type or discipline will not help us address the upcoming infrastructure challenges. In order to contribute to this debate, this paper 1) unpacks the different knowl-edge with regard to urban infrastructure planning, 2) introduces the Science and Technology Studies’ concept of infrastructuring into planning studies, and 3) and touches upon potentials and limitations of geo-spatial tools (e.g. GIS) for eliciting and producing spatial knowledge in infrastructuring processes. The paper sees infrastructuring as a socio-technical, continuous process of ‘building’ infrastructure, in which the relations between infrastructure compo-nents and users adjust over time, but also as a participatory process in which stakeholders having different knowledges interact on infrastructural ques-tions. It paper presents four techniques of infrastructuring that help 1) elicit alternative modes of knowing and people’s practices, 2) imagine alternative urban futures, 3) prototype urban futures and 3) co-create urban futures. It argues that these techniques are useful analytical devices in transdisciplinary research to better understand the mutual relationship between urban develop-ment, infrastructures, services and people and how interventions can be designed to better address current gaps in infrastructure access and provision while being sensitive to issues of unequal power-relationships and unequal access

Recently, “nature-based solutions” (NBS) or “building with nature” have received global attention as a multidimensional approach to reduce impacts of climate change and associated meteorological disaster risks such as heat waves, droughts, floods as well as provide solutions to global challenges. The European Commission (EC) recognizes that NBS can support innovation and address social, economic and environmental challenges. There has been evidence on the potential of NBS in cities. One example is the use of green areas in cities to tackle adverse impacts of heatwaves in addition to improving air quality, promoting urban farming, or providing areas for water detention. However, knowledge on such applications is fragmented. Considering climate change and associated effects, a systematic literature review on the role of NBS as a policy tool with regard to equity, social justice and integration is very much needed and is the aim of this contribution. In this systematic literature review, we seek to synthesize the knowledge on 1) the state of art of NBS applications, 2) their relations with equity and justice, and 3) the systemic integration of social, economic and environmental dimensions in cities. The questions that we seek to answer through this literature review are: • How can NBS, as a policy and planning measure, help to integrate multiple dimensions (social, economic and environmental) and mitigate climate change impacts? • To what extent have current studies/policies considered issues of equity and social justice ? We conducted an electronic literature search and finalized it in May 2019, using Scopus and Web of Science databases. We limited the search to peer-reviewed articles, books and book chapters written in English. No other filters were applied. The selection of suitable full texts was based on a set of established criteria and a developed code book prior to the review. The search returned 147 unique records. In this paper we present the in-depth analysis of the selected 108 studies for a large target group involving decision makers, engineers as well as the planners. The results are indicative of the current state of the art of NBS applications in cities from 29 countries in 5 continents.

Climate change is a major global challenge with impacts at multiple scales and interconnections with numerous environmental processes and factors, such as flooding, heatwaves and the security of food/water. International organizations such as the World Bank or the United Nations agree on the increasing adverse impacts of climate change on urban areas and conduct programs on mitigating effects of climate change and associated disaster risks and providing sustainable innovation actions. Conventional ‘top-down’ engineering solutions or spatial planning alone cannot ensure cities’ capacity to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Physical measures such as flood barriers or embankments, may be highly effective and efficient within their lifespan. However, they are inflexible, difficult to integrate into dense urban fabrics due to conflicting interests in property ownership, they require high maintenance and they make limited contributions to other societal challenges. Hence, alternative approaches are needed that integrate the physical, social, economic, and environmental dimensions to govern the impacts of climate change and associated societal challenges. Through a systematic literature study and policy analysis, this paper evaluates and integrates findings from selected European cases to find answers to the following questions: 1) “How can NBS, as a policy and planning measure, help to mitigate climate change impacts in urban areas?” 2) “Whether can NBS contribute to more equity and justice in cities?”, and 3) “Can NBS help to integrate the different dimensions, such as social, economic, environmental as well as the physical?” The results can inform future urban development strategies and policies with the ultimate goal of being climate resilient.

This book presents the results of the international research project CODALoop: Community Data Loop for Energy Conscious Lifestyles. It dissects the energy practices that make urban households demanding energy in their daily life and reveals the pathway towards reducing this energy demand. To unpack energy practices, the authors of this volume move away from efficiency problems studying the interaction between human and new technologies. Instead, they use a repertoire of different analytical instruments to study how interaction between humans, and between humans and data, change the social norms that shape energy needs. The volume offers a synthesis of a cross- disciplinary study of energy reduction carried out in three different countries through multiple methodological approaches. The project at the source of the book was funded under the Joint Program Initiative 'Urban Europe' and the ERA-net framework.

In their presentation, Prof. Karin Pfeffer and Dr. Hebe Verrest focused on the issue of (in)equality in the context of the Smart City concept. According to the presenters, Smart City approaches have become a popular urban planning policy approach of cities across the globe. How Smart City policies operate in contemporary cities is being examined in the emerging, but still underdeveloped, academic field of ‘smart urbanism’. Pfeffer and Verrest discussedthe case of Cape Town,South Africa, where the bus rapid transit system MyCiTi has recently been implemented. Cape Town is characterized by a socio-economically highly unequal society with a fragmentedand highly segregated urban form and structure. The implementation of MyCiTi aimed at reducing inequality by creating a sustainable transport system,which provides access to urban resources and economic opportunities across social groups. However, the presenters stressed that increased significance of digitalization in realizing urban mobility in Cape Town as well as the opportunities it offers, raiseethical questions in the context of social and spatial (in)equality.

There is a tremendous urgency to reduce energy consumption in cities through behavioral change. Nowadays, individual-oriented technological and behavioral solutions and feedback by means of energy efficiency measurements are often used to decrease energy consumption. However, their effectiveness is being questioned. A complementary approach is to consider individuals as part of a community. Social interactions between individuals who belong to a community may have a significant role in challenging current energy usage and in reducing energy demand. In particular, this article, using an experimental approach, explores the role that different types of spaces, both physical and virtual, where social interactions at the community level occur, can play in the activation of ‘energy discursive consciousness’ and in the co-creation of new meanings of energy. These face-to-face and virtual (through the help of a digital platform) social interactions are analyzed through the lens of ‘energy discursive consciousness’, defined as the ability people have to put their own energy-related actions into words. The article explores and uncovers the discursive processes taking place during these social interactions in two communities in Amsterdam. The knowledge of these processes in contemporary planning research and practice is a necessary requirement to advance proposals for community-centered polities aimed at raising awareness of energy use and needs.