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Abstract Background Traumatic fractures occur frequently worldwide. However, research remains limited on the association between short-term exposure to temperature and traumatic fractures. This study aims to explore the impact of apparent temperature (AT) on emergency visits (EVs) due to traumatic fractures. Methods Based on EVs data for traumatic fractures and the contemporary meteorological data, a generalized Poisson regression model along with a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) were undertaken to determine the impact of AT on traumatic fracture EVs. Subgroup analysis by gender and age and sensitivity analysis were also performed. Results A total of 25,094 EVs for traumatic fractures were included in the study. We observed a wide “J”-shaped relationship between AT and risk of traumatic fractures, with AT above 9.5 °C positively associated with EVs due to traumatic fractures. The heat effects became significant at cumulative lag 0–11 days, and the relative risk (RR) for moderate heat (95th percentile, 35.7 °C) and extreme heat (99.5th percentile, 38.8 °C) effect was 1.311 (95% CI: 1.132–1.518) and 1.418 (95% CI: 1.191–1.688) at cumulative lag 0–14 days, respectively. The cold effects were consistently non-significant on single or cumulative lag days across 0–14 days. The heat effects were higher among male and those aged 18–65 years old. The sensitivity analysis results remained robust. Conclusion Higher AT is associated with cumulative and delayed higher traumatic fracture EVs. The male and those aged 18–65 years are more susceptible to higher AT.

The acceleration of urbanization intensifies the urban heat island, outdoor activities (especially the road travel) are seriously affected by the overheating environment, and the comfort and safety of the bus shelter as an accessory facility of road travel are crucial to the passenger’s experience. This study investigated the basic information (e.g., distribution, orientation) of 373 bus shelters in Guangzhou and extracted the typical style by classifying the characteristics of these bus shelters. Additionally, we also measured the thermal environment of some bus shelters in summer and investigated the cooling behavior of passengers in such an environment. The results show that the typical style of bus shelters in the core area of Guangzhou is north–south orientation, with only one station board at the end of the bus, two backboards, two roofs (opaque green), and the underlying surface is made of red permeable brick. The air temperature and relative humidity under different bus shelters, tree shading areas, and open space in summer are 34–37 °C and 49–56%, respectively. For the bus shelters with heavy traffic loads, the air temperature is basically above 35.5 °C, and the thermal environment is not comfortable. During the hot summer, when there is no bus shelter or trees to shade the sun, the waiting people adjust their position with the sun’s height, azimuth angles, and direct solar radiation intensity to reduce the received radiation as much as possible, which brings great inconvenience to them. When only bus shelters provide shade, people tend to gather in the shaded space, and cooling measures such as umbrellas, hats, and small fans are still needed to alleviate thermal discomfort. However, the aforementioned various spontaneous cooling behaviors still cannot effectively alleviate overheating, and it is very important to increase auxiliary cooling facilities in bus shelters.

Against the background of smart city construction and the increasing application of big data in the field of planning, a method is proposed to effectively improve the objectivity, scientificity, and global nature of urban park siting, taking Guangzhou and its current urban park layout as an example. The proposed approach entails integrating POI data and innovatively applying machine learning algorithms to construct a decision tree model to make predictions for urban park siting. The results show that (1) the current layout of urban parks in Guangzhou is significantly imbalanced and has blind zones, and with an expansion of the search radius, the distribution becomes more concentrated; high-density areas decrease from the center outward in a circle, which manifests as a pattern of high aggregation at the core and low dispersion at the edge. (2) Urban park areas with a service pressure of level 3 have the largest coverage and should be prioritized for construction as much as possible; there are fewer areas at levels 4 and 5, which are mainly concentrated in the central city, and unreasonable resource allocation is a problem that needs to be solved urgently. (3) There was a preliminary prediction of 6825 sites suitable for planning, and the fit with existing city parks was 93.7%. The prediction results were reasonable, and the method was feasible. After further screening through the coupling and superposition of the service pressure and the layout status quo, 1537 locations for priority planning were finally obtained. (4) Using the ID3 machine learning algorithm to predict urban park sites is conducive to the development of an overall optimal layout, and subjectivity in site selection can be avoided, providing a methodological reference for the planning and construction of other infrastructure or the optimization of layouts.

Population aging is a global issue. China is facing the same challenge, especially in its megacities, with more than 10 million permanent urban residents. These densely populated cities urgently need the scientific planning and optimization of the layout of service facilities for older people. Taking Guangzhou, a megacity in China, as an example, this study uses point-of-interest (POI) data and the ID3 machine learning decision tree algorithm to train a site selection model for service facilities for older people. The model can help to select appropriate locations for new service facilities for older people more scientifically and accurately, and it can provide targeted suggestions to optimize the layout of the service facilities for older people in Guangzhou. First, Guangzhou city is divided into 29,793 grids of 500 m × 500 m based on the range of activities of older people, and 985 grids are found to contain service facilities for older people. Then, the POI data of the grid are fed into the ID3 algorithm for training to obtain a prediction model for the selection of sites for service facilities for older people. The effective prediction rate of the model reaches 87.54%. Then, we apply the site selection model to predict the whole city of Guangzhou, and 4534 grids are suitable for service facilities for older people. In addition, considering the degree of concentration of the elderly population in each street, we further filter out 1066 priority grids as the final site selection. Finally, taking into account the situation of the streets in different districts, we propose several strategies to optimize the layout of the construction of service facilities for older people.

The “Grotto-Heavens and Blissful Lands” (dongtian and fudi, 洞天福地) is a unique concept of sacred space in China and even in East Asia, combining beautiful natural scenery, rich historical heritage, and diverse cultural heritage. This paper tries to explain Mount Jingfu’s (jingfu shan, 靜福山) aesthetic representations. The results show that the landscape’s physical environment projects the spatio-temporal system and the concept of the universe in Daoist aesthetic ideals. With the spatial evolution of divine immortals’ abodes from imagination to reality, people’s yearning for divine cave palaces is transformed into their connection with and their expression of the palaces in exploring space interests and aesthetic trends that are then integrated into the secular life of thousands of households through living religious rituals. Preserved by local religious believers, the ritual activities incorporated geographic, familial, and divine interactions, and characterised essential social aesthetics. By exploring a typical case of Lingnan Region (lingnan, 嶺南, an old term for South China), this paper aims to elucidate the significance of the Grotto-Heavens and Blissful Lands as living heritage in contemporary society across multiple dimensions, and to provide a theoretical basis for the protection of its system.

The water-town settlements in the East River Delta of China engage with the aquatic environment, establishing a comprehensive cultural–ecological system. However, rapid urbanization challenges the structural integrity of water-town settlements. Focusing on the East River Delta as the study area, we utilized the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), settlement morphology indicators, systematic clustering, and graph classification methods. We conducted a quantitative analysis of the spatial characteristics of water-town settlements at various scales, followed by formulating a sequence encoding based on landscape factors and constructing a settlement landscape spatial map. We characterized the landscape spatial structure of water-town settlements formed through the gradual evolution of morphological water network structures, retracing a prototype of water-town settlement landscape spatial structures. Results: ① Water-town settlements exhibit distinct uniformity in the landscape spatial features. The settlement landscapes conform to water network patterns, with streets and alleys aligning with water bodies. Crucial elements, including docks, bridges, and waterside farmland, are integral to this landscape. ② Water-town settlements undergo three progressive differentiation phases based on their location. The spatial distribution of settlements reveals three distinct landscape features influenced by the delta’s dynamic interplay between water and land. ③ Various regions exhibit three typical settlement layouts: upstream settlements are mainly clustered and linear, while midstream and downstream settlements, characterized by linear and strip-like features, align with the river’s course. These research findings offer preliminary insights into landscape spatial prototypes, contributing valuable perspectives to the conservation and design of water-town settlements.

This study focuses on the ongoing hybridisation of minjian (folk or popular, literally “among the people”) religious activities in rural areas of south China. It demonstrates recent changes in religious hybridisation through extensive fieldwork in two villages. It also investigates intellectual debate on the concept of minjian religion and presents the relationship between state power and the religious revival in contemporary Chinese society. It then draws on fieldwork data to examine the hybrid nature of Chinese minjian religion from three aspects: the diversification of participants, the performative hybridisation of rituals, and the blending of spatial layouts. The main argument is that the revival of minjian religion involves the hybridisation of mystical and secular elements and of traditional and modern elements through the complex interactions between rural communities and official authorities.

Abstract Introduction Rambling natural landscapes or landscape gardens may invoke positive emotions. However, the manner in which people experience landscape gardens and the cortical differences in the appreciation of the naturalness and artificiality of landscapes remain unknown. Methods This study scanned participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they viewed photographs of natural landscapes and landscape gardens and performed scene type judgment task. Results As predicted, we identified brain regions that were associated with perceptual process, cognitive process, and rewarding experience when appreciating natural landscapes and landscape gardens without color preference. Meanwhile, the contrast between the appreciation of landscape gardens and natural landscapes was characterized by stronger activations of the inferior occipital lobe, the left superior parietal lobule (SPL), the right fusiform gyrus, the right cuneus, and the right hippocampus. Conclusions Responses in these regions indicate that the appreciation of landscape gardens and natural landscapes relies on common cortical regions, and suggest the possibility that the inferior occipital lobe, the SPL, the fusiform gyrus, and the cuneus may be specifically associated with the appreciation of landscape gardens.

Substantial evidence suggests that beauty is associated with the survival and reproduction of organisms. Landscape architecture is composed of a series of natural elements that have significant evolutionary implications. The present study used one pilot material ratings and three experiments to examine the mechanisms of aesthetic appraisals of landscape architecture. The results confirmed that landscape architecture elicited a sense of beauty and captured visual attention more easily than other types of architecture during explicit aesthetic rating task (Experiment 1) and implicit aesthetic perception task (dot-probe paradigm, Experiment 2). Furthermore, the spatial cueing paradigm revealed that response latencies were significantly faster for landscape architecture than non-landscape architecture on valid trials, but there was no significant difference in this contrast on invalid trials at 150-ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA, Experiment 3a). At 500-ms SOA (Experiment 3b), participants responded significantly faster for landscape architecture on valid trials, but reacted significantly slower for landscape architecture on invalid trials. The findings indicated that the beauty of landscape architecture can be perceived implicitly, and only faster orienting of attention, but not delayed disengagement of attention was generated at early stages of the processing of landscape architecture. However, the attentional bias at later stages of attentional processes may be resulted from both faster orienting of attention and delayed disengagement of attention from landscape architecture photographs.

According to the framework of evolutionary aesthetics, a sense of beauty is related to environmental adaptation and plasticity of human beings, which has adaptive value and biological foundations. Prior studies have demonstrated that organisms derive benefits from the landscape. In this study, we investigated whether the benefits of landscape might elicit a stronger sense of beauty and what the nature of this sense of beauty is. In two experiments, when viewing classical landscape and nonlandscape architectures photographs, participants rated the aesthetic scores (Experiment 1) and had a two-alternative forced choice aesthetic judgment by pressing the reaction button located near to (15 cm) or far from (45 cm) the presenting stimuli (Experiment 2). The results showed that reaction of aesthetic ratings for classical landscape architectures was faster than those of classical nonlandscape architectures. Furthermore, only the reaction of beautiful judgment of classical landscape architecture photograph was significantly faster when the reaction button was in the near position to the presenting photograph than those in the position of far away from the presenting photograph. This finding suggests a facilitated effect for the aesthetic perception of classical landscape architectures due to their corresponding components including water and green plants with strong evolutionary implications. Furthermore, this sense of beauty for classical landscape architectures might be the embodied approach to beauty based on the viewpoint of evolutionary aesthetics and embodied cognition.