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The original article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40410-022-00165-2.Retraction: City, Territory and Architecture (2022) 9:27 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40410-022-00165-2The Editor-in-Chief retracted this article because it contains material that substantially overlaps with the following articles, (Bibri [1]) and (Camarda et al. [2]).The authors have not replied to correspondence from the Publisher.Publisher's NoteSpringer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.By Hassan Kamran Dastjerdi and Narjessadat Hossaini NasrabadiReported by Author; Author [Extracted from the article]

In an era marked by growing global population and climate variability, ensuring food security has become a paramount concern. Rice, being a staple crop for billions of people, requires accurate and timely yield prediction to ensure global food security. This study was undertaken across two rice crop seasons in the Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand state to predict rice yield at 45, 60 and 90 days after transplanting (DAT) through machine learning (ML) models, utilizing a combination of optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data in conjunction with crop biophysical parameters. Results revealed that the ML models were able to provide relatively accurate early yield estimates. For summer rice, eXtreme gradient boosting (XGB) was the best-performing model at all three stages (45, 60, and 90 DAT), while for kharif rice, the best-performing models at 45, 60, and 90 DAT were XGB, Neural network (NNET), and Cubist, respectively. The combined ranking of ML models showed that prediction accuracy improved as the prediction date approaches harvest, and the best prediction of yield was observed at 90 DAT for both summer and kharif rice. Overall rankings indicate that for summer rice, the top three models were XGB, NNET, and Support vector regression, while for kharif rice, these were Cubist, NNET, and Random Forest, respectively. The findings of this study offer valuable insights into the potential of the combined use of remote sensing and biophysical parameters using ML models, which enhances food security planning and resource management by enabling more informed decision-making by stakeholders such as farmers, policy planners as well as researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air conditioning contributes a high percentage of energy consumption over the world. The efficient prediction of energy consumption can help to reduce energy consumption. Traditionally, multidimensional air conditioning energy consumption data could only be processed sequentially for each dimension, thus resulting in inefficient feature extraction. Furthermore, due to reasons such as implicit correlations between hyperparameters, automatic hyperparameter optimization (HPO) approaches can not be easily achieved. In this paper, we propose an auto-optimization parallel energy consumption prediction approach based on reinforcement learning. It can parallel process multidimensional time series data and achieve the automatic optimization of model hyperparameters, thus yielding an accurate prediction of air conditioning energy consumption. Extensive experiments on real air conditioning datasets from five factories have demonstrated that the proposed approach outperforms existing prediction solutions, with an increase in average accuracy by 11.48% and an average performance improvement of 32.48%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research proposes a novel Hybrid Success History Intelligent Optimizer with Gaussian Transformation (SHIOGT) for solving different complexity level optimization problems and for Convolutional Neural Network (CNNs) hyperparameter tuning. SHIOGT algorithm is designed to balance exploration and exploitation phases through the addition of Gaussian Transformation to the original Success History Intelligent Optimizer. The inclusion of Gaussian Transformation enhances solution diversity enables SHIO to avoid local optima. SHIOGT also demonstrates robustness and adaptability by dynamically adjusting its search strategy based on problem characteristics. Furthermore, the combination of Gaussian and SHIO facilitates faster convergence, accelerating the discovery of optimal or near-optimal solutions. Moreover, the hybridization of these two techniques brings a synergistic effect, enabling SHIOGT to overcome individual limitations and achieve superior performance in hyperparameter optimization tasks. SHIOGT was thoroughly assessed against an array of benchmark functions of varying complexities, demonstrating its ability to efficiently locate optimal or near-optimal solutions across different problem categories. Its robustness in tackling multimodal and deceptive landscapes and high-dimensional search spaces was particularly notable. SHIOGT has been benchmarked over 43 challenging optimization problems and have been compared with state-of-the art algorithm. Further, SHIOGT algorithm is applied to the domain of deep learning, with a case study focusing on hyperparameter tuning of CNNs. With the intelligent exploration–exploitation balance of SHIOGT, we hypothesized it could effectively optimize the CNN's hyperparameters. We evaluated the performance of SHIOGT across a variety of datasets, including MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, CIFAR-10, and CIFAR-100, with the aim of optimizing CNN model hyperparameters. The results show an impressive accuracy rate of 98% on the MNIST dataset. Similarly, the algorithm achieved a 92% accuracy rate on Fashion-MNIST, 76% on CIFAR-10, and 70% on CIFAR-100, underscoring its effectiveness across diverse datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational allocation of healthcare facilities is a key component of planning strategies in promoting public health and wellbeing worldwide. Many Chinese cities have been experiencing population loss, making it challenging to match the supply and demand of healthcare facilities accurately. How to plan healthcare facilities to improve spatial accessibility in shrinking cities is still an underresearched topic. Taking Lufeng in China as the case, we used residential electricity consumption rate as proxy data to rectify the actual population distribution and used Gaussian two-step floating catchment area (G2SFCA) to evaluate the spatial accessibility of hierarchical healthcare facilities for making recommendations to improve the planning of healthcare facilities in shrinking cities to achieve better spatial accessibility. Our findings indicated that: (1) the supply and demand of healthcare facilities were generally not well matched, especially in the fringe area; (2) the sudden influx population during festival periods placed additional burden on medical resources in the fringe area and its spatial accessibility, especially on township hospitals and community healthcare services; and (3) to promote the spatial accessibility of healthcare facilities in shrinking cities, we proposed related planning strategies regarding the targeted allocation of three-level healthcare facilities to match the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment, and flexible setting of mobile healthcare facilities and telemedicine to echo the temporal population changes. These findings can provide references for improving livelihood health in cities experiencing population loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning processes play an important role in enhancing understanding and analyzing real phenomena. Most of these methodologies revolve around solving penalized optimization problems. A significant challenge arises in the choice of the penalty hyperparameter, which is typically user-specified or determined through Grid search approaches. There is a lack of automated tuning procedures for the estimation of these hyperparameters, particularly in unsupervised learning scenarios. In this paper, we focus on the unsupervised context and propose a bi-level strategy to address the issue of tuning the penalty hyperparameter. We establish suitable conditions for the existence of a minimizer in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space, along with presenting some theoretical considerations. These results can be applied in situations where obtaining an exact minimizer is unfeasible. Working on the estimation of the hyperparameter with the gradient-based method, we also introduce a modified version of Ekeland's principle as a stopping criterion for these methods. Our approach distinguishes from conventional techniques by reducing reliance on random or black-box strategies, resulting in stronger mathematical generalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demographic and economic shrinkage has become a common trend in the current urbanisation environment, especially for small cities in developed countries. The desired socio-economic redevelopment of these cities has been significantly affected by the functional, organisational, financial, and professional constraints caused by both shrinkage and city size. Paradoxically, this slow development has enabled better preservation of their historic cores, urban heritage, and traditional culture. Nevertheless, the aforementioned local constraints have a profound impact on sustainable urban regeneration, and successful examples are still quite rare. This research presents an inspiring case—a small museum quarter in Sombor, Serbia. Museum quarters are a relatively new concept in culture-led urban regeneration; all known examples are located in big cities. Hence, this research tries to create an innovative methodological link between two theoretical fundaments: the role of cultural heritage in shrinking small cities and its expression through a museum quarter as one of the concepts of culture-led urban regeneration. An analytical framework for the aforementioned single case study is derived by forming this link. The main findings underline that the museum quarters in shrinking small cities should be developed in a micro-format to rationally address and the limited local resources. Furthermore, in contrast to museum quarters in big cities, they should be physically detached from the main retail street to enhance their separate identity and should be internally balanced in both spatial and functional aspects, meaning that the key museum/cultural institutions are equally dispersed throughout the quarter and clearly interconnected by a pedestrian-friendly open public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The governance of urban shrinkage has recently become an important topic for geographers and urban planners. However, a comprehensive exploration of the various spatial problems and governance paths in shrinking cities remains a huge gap in urban shrinkage governance literature. Building on the review and induction of extensive literature, this paper constructs a theoretical framework for the spatial governance of urban shrinkage from four perspectives: conceptual connotations, influencing factors, paths, and effects. By field investigation and policy interpretation, it takes Jixi City as a case, a coal-based shrinking city in China, to explore the policy response of the government and their effects. We find that the spatial governance of Jixi is a process of multisubject participation and multielement integration focusing on various spatial issues, which confirms the rationality of the analytical framework. Also, there are both similarities and differences in the spatial governance of urban shrinkage between Western countries and Chinese. This study enriches the theory of urban shrinkage governance, shows Chinese characteristics in urban governance, and provides governance enlightenment for other shrinking cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban shrinkage is becoming a worldwide issue. However, empirical investigation still lacks an understanding of the spatial extent of the factors that drive local population decline, a prevalent aspect of urban shrinkage. Empirical evidence on multilevel factors relating to population decline is particularly scarce. We investigated the influences by analyzing economic, social, physical, and policy conditions at the local and regional levels. Regional conditions, as well as local conditions, are also related to the decline of the local population. The effect goes beyond economic and demographic conditions; conditions such as the local infrastructure level and development policy also significantly influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban shrinkage has gradually become an issue of world-concerning social matter. As urbanization progresses, some Chinese cities are experiencing population loss and economic decline. Our study attempts to correct and integrate DMSP/OLS and NPP/VIIRS data to complete the identification and measurement of shrinking cities in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). We identified 36 shrinking cities and 644 shrinking counties on the municipal and county scales. Based on this approach, we established the average urban shrinkage intensity index and the urban shrinkage frequency index, attempting to find out the causes of shrinking cities for different shrinkage characteristics, city types and shrinkage frequencies. The results show that (1) the shrinking cities are mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta city cluster, the midstream city cluster and the Chengdu–Chongqing economic circle. (2) Most shrinking cities have a moderate frequency of shrinking, dominated by low–low clusters. Resource-based, heavy industrial, small and medium-sized cities are more inclined to shrink. (3) The single economic structure, the difficulty of industrial transformation and the lack of linkage among county-level cities are possible reasons for the urban shrinkage in the YREB. Exploring the causes of urban shrinkage from a more micro perspective will be an inevitable task for sustainable development in YREB and even in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines people-place relationships in a carbon-intensive area—i.e., heavily dependent on the steel industry and marked by severe environmental degradation—involved in the EU Just Transition Mechanism (Taranto, Italy). Drawing upon a psychosocial perspective grounded on social representations theory, this article focuses on intertwining the sense of place, identity processes, and agency to understand the dynamics of place stigma and identity devaluation. In-depth semi-structured interviews with active residents were thematically and discursively analyzed. The results suggest both theoretical and applied insights. Overall, they highlight a widely shared negative representation of the place related to territorial stigmatization, ambivalent place attachments, and devaluation of place-based and social identities. To cope with such processes and dynamics, identity processes seem to act as self-protective mechanisms both at a personal and social level. The article concludes by inviting a more comprehensive conceptualization of just transition, harm restoration, and related territorial planning to include the psychosocial processes underlying the community's well-being and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are numbers of various new infill constructions and renovations occurring in many cities annually that are based more on bottom-up initiatives by various stakeholders rather than top-down initiated plans according to a city master plan. Such infill modifications of urban structure might look small, not very numerous and insignificant at the first glance, but even small changes in a complex system such as a city can cause significant shifts in the functioning of the urban network. The presented research, developed on mathematical graph simulative modeling, including space syntax but not restricting the model to it, and employing the theory of four urban capitals by Lars Marcus, offers a way to analyze how the spatial, social, ecological and economic capitals of Kaunas will change if all the currently confirmed and publicly announced construction projects are implemented. The urban spatial network is seen as an integrator and enabler of interactions between the other three capitals. Each of the capitals is represented by quantitative data in the weighted mathematical graph: spatial capital by the perimeters of buildings accessible from a public space; social capital by the number of inhabitants; economic capital by the mean values of land prices; and ecological capital by the size of green areas and their infrastructure. All the data for modeling of changes in the capitals, except the future land prices, was based on information from implemented and planned projects. In order to predict them, a neural network tool was applied. Considering that changes in the absolute values of capitals are in essence limited by local context (e.g., number of inhabitants, market size, natural geographical conditions, and limits of spatial structure for densification), the idea of a positive synergy between urban capitals is proposed and explained in this article. All the presented simulation models are validated using independent open data as density of points of interests, etc. The results of the investigation reveal that synergy between capitals will decrease in Kaunas and that complex top-down coordination of bottom-up initiated urban projects is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, Alpine communities have been affected by many social, cultural, economic and demographic changes that have challenged the hegemonic development models of the 20th century and questioned the city–country cleavage. Nevertheless, the huge potential expressed by culture-based practices in low-density areas—such as the Alps—still represents an unexplored field of research. In order to progress in research in the field, through the analysis of a case study in the Italian Western Alps (Cuneo, Piedmont Region), the article proposes a new methodology of analysis and highlights that new places of cultural production are emerging and that the related culture-based practices can play the role of driver of innovative and sustainable development paths. Based on the results of the case-study analysis, the article presents a taxonomy of new practices in which the binomial culture–territory acts as a driver and explores how these processes can be transferred to similar contexts, in particular, other low-density areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time series modeling and forecasting play important roles in many practical fields. A good understanding of soil water content and salinity variability and the proper prediction of variations in these variables in response to changes in climate conditions are essential to properly plan water resources and appropriately manage irrigation and fertilization tasks. This paper provides a 48-h forecast of soil water content and salinity in the peculiar context of irrigation with reclaimed water in semi-arid environments. The forecasting was performed based on (i) soil water content and salinity data from 50 cm beneath the soil surface with a time resolution of 15 min, (ii) hourly atmospheric data and (iii) daily irrigation amounts. Exploratory data analysis and data pre-processing phases were performed and then statistical models were constructed for time series forecasting based on the set of available data. The obtained prediction models showed good forecasting accuracy and good interpretability of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing evidence that projected climate change has the potential to significantly affect public health. Many of these effects are likely to be exacerbated by the risks associated with exposure to heat, floods, and chemical and biological pollution in cities. Identifying the effects of climate change on the environment, and the risks and opportunities of adapting to mitigating climate change can help city policies and planning. The stability of urban systems may be jeopardized if appropriate measures are not taken with the urban climate in the field of environment. Studies show that urban life has always been closely related to the natural environment. One of the most important natural factors involved in the typology of cities, which has a very influential role, is climate. In fact, the characteristics and conditions of geographical spaces, especially cities, are due to the natural and abnormal natural possibilities and limitations of natural geographical factors. Because the city originates from the mathematical and relative position, natural factors, especially climate, have a great impact on the typology and natural and human characteristics of cities. In this fundamental article, a descriptive-analytical method has been tried to examine urban space policies with emphasis on the environmental field. The question that arises here is what effect does climate change have on the type and method of policy- making and policy of urban managers in the field environmental? The results show that cities are climatically divided into desert, mountainous and coastal cities that have their own economic and social characteristics. Since environmental issues in any country are largely due to natural conditions and the characteristics of the human environment, knowledge of natural geography and an understanding of the dialectical relationships between the environment and humans are important for analyzing geographical issues. And has a significant role in managing space policy, especially urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on post-socialist suburbanization, which originally focused on demand side dynamics and linear narratives of modernization, have progressively adopted more holistic approaches that consider the various dimensions and factors behind the phenomenon. However, there are still significant gaps and shortcomings affecting this research domain; studies encompassing demand side and supply side dynamics are rare, and so are comparative perspectives. The phenomenon has rarely been analyzed in the context of broader metropolitan change, together with other dynamics such as inner-city gentrification, degradation, or maintenance/regeneration of socialist era residential neighborhoods. This study addresses the mentioned gaps through a multi-dimensional comparative pilot analysis of suburban dynamics in Saint Petersburg and Riga. The analysis encompasses the spatial extent of demographic, socioeconomic, and housing market dynamics within the broader context of metropolitan change. The findings reveal a picture of a demographically and economically significant phenomenon with remarkable implications for macro- and micro-level socio-spatial segmentation; the distinctive features between the two cases are primarily due to migration dynamics and the short/medium term effects of the 2008 financial crisis on the real estate market and industry. Overall, the suburban option appears to be an attractive option for the demand side (in terms of an economic trade-off or societal aspiration) as well as a safe and profitable option for developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the transformation of China's industry and demographic structure, urban shrinkage, especially the resource-based cities due to their single industrial structure, tend to emerge gradually. Using empirical and quantitative methods, this paper explores the evolution mechanism of urban shrinkage in Hegang, a resource-based city in China. Our findings suggest that there are many correlations or cyclic relationships among variables, which provide an empirical confirmation for the complexity of urban shrinkage process. The result shows there is a time delay of about four to five years between the mining industry and the changes of demographic profile, economic performance and built environment variables. The development of Hegang has formed a path dependence on resource-based industries. Furthermore, the time lags between demographic profile and economic performance variables are not obvious, and the real estate market has a certain sensitivity to perceive population loss and economic change. Besides, market led public service facilities are more sensitive to the changes of population outflow and economic recession than government led public service facilities. The study findings could offer insights for other resource-based cities in developing countries to employ on the economic development policies issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution intends to overview and frame a conceptual model for Cultural and Creative Enterprises (CCEs) that we call Platform Spaces. The paper contextualizes and discusses the main issues and challenges facing the CCE sector, identifying the need for more complex concepts better able to distinguish new policies and approaches being experimented with in Italy and across Europe. As Italy is currently experiencing a particularly rich period regarding the development of cultural creative activities based largely on social innovation, both in terms of organization management and relation with territorial development, it is an ideal context in which to explore the emergence of this new model. The paper describes three diverse examples of Platform Spaces based on multi-stakeholder cooperation mechanisms, arts and culture, and the engagement of local communities to not only ensure the accessibility of their activities but also to meet territorial development goals. With this analysis, the paper discusses a new conceptual framework that can be relevant both in theory and in practice, identifying policy recommendations to address territorial development approaches for Platform Spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work contains reflections on the awareness of how the lack of knowledge and the unknown are important elements to consider during any territorial and environmental planning process. The unknown can affect dramatically the effectiveness of choices and start a chain of unpredictable consequences. The awareness of such issues emerged dramatically with the recent pandemic. Plans often deal with policy decisions, planning decisions that interest collectivity, human and non-human beings, our space, our territories and our time (or portions of time). Such plans (either for households or a city or a region) have to cope with unexpected events, uncertainties, with unwanted consequences. After an exploration of some theoretical aspects of knowledge and non-knowledge, we argue about the extent to which ontologies can be a useful conceptual approach to deal with the lack of knowledge and the unknown in planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to define and determine the intangible components of cultural heritage related to the spatial structure of land in a comprehensive way using computational methods. The components were quantified and a method of empirical evaluation of landscape durability was proposed for agricultural areas of significant cultural and historical value with an evident mosaic structure of fields, baulks, ponds, meadows, and forests. This method allows us to identify places more resistant to political transformation and those with greater cultural potential. The paper proposed an integrated approach to the measuring of the degree of preservation of spatial arrangements in the landscape based on a set of objects that describe the spatial land structure. The article classifies areas by the degree of preservation of rural spatial arrangements of land. The spatial analysis employed facilitated a synthetic quantification of the multi-criteria process. Three groups of factors were used: spatial assessment of land-cover type persistence (u), agricultural land structure persistence (w), and persistence of settlement buildings (z). The final results pinpointed areas in need of strategic intervention to sufficiently protect the rural cultural heritage, properly consider them in zoning planning, and ensure their sustainable development. The proposed tool can be used to monitor the degree of changes in the landscape layout structure when multiple time points are analysed as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lebanon is a laboratory of cultural and territorial mobilities. The civil war caused the emergence of communal cultures and diverse modalities of locals/visitors encounters dependent on locals' religions and visitors' origins, and to the submission of territorial development to geopolitical interventions. This paper focuses on an empirical approach that determines cultural dynamics, tourism encounters, and mobilities as fundamental pillars of territory development in two Lebanese cities with different religious backgrounds, Christian in Byblos and Muslim in Baalbek. The discursive analysis of documentation reveals the focus of local, national, and international actors in both cities on the valorization of archaeological sites with the inclination of the local actors towards inclusive development. 264 and 245 qualitative surveys distributed to locals and visitors in Byblos and Baalbek respectively and analyzed statistically disclose their perceptions oriented primarily towards cultural tourism, with leisure tourism emerging in Byblos and religious tourism prospering in Baalbek. The discourses of multilevel actors and the surveys reveal that the degree of consensus between actors, locals, and visitors on cultural, touristic, and territorial dimensions is more significant in Byblos than in Baalbek. This paper points out the impacts of locals' religions, locals/visitors encounters, and geopolitical issues on the mobilization of territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Materiali e Strutture is the property of Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon s.r.l. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Radical developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) have widely affected urban sectors including cultural tourism. Furthermore, ICT have influenced modern spatial planning practices and have contributed to the advancement of interactive Web-GIS technologies that create new challenges and opportunities for spatial data management and potential for stakeholders' engagement in planning. The convergence of culture, tourism, and ICT; developments in ICT-enabled planning; and interactive Web-GIS technologies have offered new opportunities for collaborative cultural planning. In such a context, the scope of this paper is to combine ICT-enabled, planning-related principles, cultural mapping, crowdsourcing, data management tools, and spatial models in an integrated framework, serving heritage-led development objectives. Focus is placed on broadening cultural planning perspectives through strengthening stakeholders' engagement in the process of sustainably managing local assets and designing cultural tourism products that spread benefits to the local economy and reboot development processes. The study attempts to illustrate the added value of mature ICT-enabled approaches, tools, and technologies in the cultural tourism sector, reflecting the increasing smart tourism interest and applications that flourish in a smart city context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research on urban shrinkage is being conducted around the globe, since many countries are confronted with the phenomenon of shrinking cities. So far, the research on urban shrinkage has focused strongly on case studies, which is why we can benefit from a diverse and empirically rich knowledge base on the phenomenon and its regional manifestations. By bridging and comparing the European and Japanese academic discourse, we aim to identify the different recurring theories and key issues discussed under the umbrella term 'urban shrinkage' and strive to uncover blind spots of the debate. For this purpose, we conduct a qualitative meta-analysis of 100 empirical cases that are documented in the literature dealing with shrinking cities in the EU and Japan. This meta-analysis is based on comparative qualitative content analysis. It reveals a regionally differentiated pattern of various causes, effects and responses documented for shrinking cities in Western, Mediterranean and post-socialist EU countries and in Japan. Based on these findings, we offer an agenda for future research by suggesting an integrative perspective on the context-specific dynamics of urban shrinkage. We argue for an integrative understanding of shrinking cities in order to develop a valid knowledge base for evidence-based policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Methaodos: Social Science Journal / Methaodos: Revista de Ciencias Sociales is the property of Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicacion y Sociologia, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Italy, like many other European countries, is characterized by the presence of numerous municipalities often placed in areas far from major mobility infrastructures (highways, railways, ports and airports), community services (Health services, Education facilities, Administrative centers) and the main economic flows, that are normally defined as "inner areas". Inner areas are characterized by process of depopulation, economic deficit, marginalization in National and European policies. The study highlights classification methods able to identify the degree of belonging to the class of inner areas. It defines specific indicators able to estimate the level of membership to the inner areas in a scientific way, showing different territorial scenarios. These approaches have been improved using the SaTScan methodology, a circle-based spatial-scan statistical method. It concerns geo-informatic surveillance used as a scientific base to lead urban regeneration policies. The study presented here demonstrates how investigating the inner areas cannot be limited to studying only the distance from the service supply centres, as done by the Italian Ministry 's study, but it is necessary to investigate all components of the phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Valga is a small shrinking town in Estonia where the heritage conservation area acts as the business, administrative and cultural centre of the town. Compared to the overall socio-economic situation of the town, the heritage conservation area suffers due to substantially faster depopulation and higher vacancy rates. Revitalization of the urban centre is a key part of the small town's strategy. This paper addresses the question: In an area of urban shrinkage, what role does heritage protection play in revitalization of a town centre? Drawing on a qualitative case study of the Valga heritage conservation area, the findings show that the current heritage protection system does not support revitalization efforts. There is a need to develop a new set of heritage conservation rules for shrinking cities and to adapt the current heritage conservation system to urban shrinkage. The paper further proposes some possible aspects of such system adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to quantify spatial relationship of land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes and land surface temperature (LST) using remote-sensing and geographical information system techniques over 10 major metropolitan cities of India. For this purpose, Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus images of these cities during winter period from 2001 to 2013 are used. Statistical analysis of the LULC classification has shown overall accuracy ranging between 85% and 88%. The LULC classification and estimated LST using the satellite imageries reveals the presence of multiple urban heat islands (UHIs) and their increase in number in all cities. Significant increase in built-up/urban areas are noticed at the expense of vegetated lands and barren lands over Lucknow, Nagpur, and Jaipur, whereas in Hyderabad and Bengaluru the built-up area and the dry/barren lands are observed to be increasing, at the expense of crop/grass lands. Higher UHI intensities in the range of 8.9-10.3°C are noticed over Mumbai, Nagpur, and Hyderabad compared to the other cities. Higher temperature zones (hotspots) are found to be increasing in the built-up area as well as in barren lands. Varying increase in UHI intensity among the cities is noticed which may have implications in the regional climate over the cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Italy, planning processes are often introduced by a Program of strategic objectives, drawn up in conjunction with the initial phases of a Strategic environmental assessment. This combination of preliminary processes offers significant space for strategic approaches and even strategic plans, particularly at the local level. This paper deals with Taranto, a socially and environmentally problematic and decaying industrial city in southern Italy. The present research shows and discusses the starting context of a recent, innovative strategic planning process, dealing with the complexity of the Taranto context through a scenario-building approach, hybridized with a cognitive-map-based interaction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to contribute to the debate of the economic transformation on cities discussing the case of Florence and its evolution from 'art city' to 'creative fashion city'. According to the evolutionary vision of the path dependence model, the paper analyses the birth, development and establishment of the fashion industry within the city. This analysis seeks to understand if cultural and creative resources may contribute to the emergence of new trajectories or to the renewal - or decline - of existing ones. Results show that the existence of an endowment of cultural and creative assets and a base of knowledge and competences historically related to the artisanal tradition foster the creation of a fashion cluster. Despite the specificities of the case, the paper may give some insights of risks and opportunities related to rethinking the local economic transformation following a cultural-led and creativity-oriented approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]