bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Diversity and Inclusion Management
Authors: Itam Urmila , Bagali M. M.
Published: July 2018

Diversity and inclusion have been increasingly recognized and are the most utilized organizational resources over the last three decades. However, research has demonstrated that many organizations may not have the requisite diversity in their midst. Research further highlights that employees might feel that few of their components of their social identities may be valued and included, leaving them feeling excluded. These attitudes may influence employee behaviors, leading to low morale, high absenteeism, low job satisfaction, negative word of mouth, and so on, which will eventually make the estranged employee leave the job/organization. Understanding the impact of diversity and inclusion on individual, group, and organizations performance is analyzed through employee engagement by developing a framework. To develop a framework that provides rigorous theoretical evidence for its ability to determine whether an organization has indeed engendered an inclusive and engaging environment for its employees is the goal of the chapter.
Structuring the “Expected”
Authors: Khuntia Devanjan
Published: July 2018

This paper based on empirical research attempts to deal with the question of media imagination and the marginalization of women migrants in Indian Megapolis. Foregrounding on the emerging social fact regarding the urban settings catering to one-third of country's population as migrants of which more than two-thirds are women categorically from non-urban rural areas. Further, in the backdrop of the internet and the new media penetration of rural population by half of total usage in India by 2020, the functions of the mediated imageries of the sexes need to be re-examined within the rural-urban continuum for a better clarity of media-gender relationship. The popular media imageries many of which disseminate unrealistic, stereotypical, and restrictive perceptions resulting in portrayal of women in stereotypical ways contradicts the general perception of non-urban women-emancipation through consumption of media texts which is highly urban centric. Such contestation of media effects raises a need to investigate how women migrant to the urban setting consider, analyse, internalize and utilize such portrayal of themselves in the media thus reflecting the actual consumption pattern of media texts and gender roles fixations. This paper particularly looks at an unexplored area of new media consumption within the non-urban migrants to Indian metropolis. It is an attempt to locate affordable alternative communication technology to understand the renewed social interactions of women migrants via virtual social networks in urban centres and how it infers and shape their social identity formation.
Gender Difference in Perception and Use of Social Media Tools
Authors: Liu Youmei
Published: July 2018

Research on gender difference remains a strong interest today because the gender equality issue has not been fundamentally tackled in many areas due to traditional and cultural gender values. However, on the technology adoption, especially social media tools usage, the gender difference is less prominent. The research study in this chapter was conducted in a higher education institution and data were collected from 1534 students in eight years (2009–2016). The purpose of this study is to find out if there are any gender difference in familiarity of social media concept and use of social media tools, and if the traditional gender values are affecting social media adoption. The results indicate that there is no statistically significant gender difference in media concept knowledge. Both genders were using the same top four social media tools. However, male participants have higher usage of resource-based social media tools, while females have higher usage on relationship building platforms.
Product Patent in Pharmaceuticals and Compulsory Licensing
Authors: Maan Jatinder , Kumar Dinesh
Published: July 2018

The issue of patenting is a contentious issue. Different stakeholders hold opposite views. The pharmaceutical giants demand for stricter and longer Intellectual Property Protection for the promotion of research and development. They contend IP protection to be the “bedrock of their business”. While the health activists and governments of developing nations want greater flexibility in intellectual property protection and shorter patent period protection. Article 31 of the TRIPs agreement provides certain flexibilities to cater to certain situations. The countries are free to determine the grounds to issue provisions like compulsory licensing. But despite the provisions very few countries have used them. Pharmaceuticals giants with the backing of developed countries always try to denounce the practice of compulsory licensing with economic and political pressure. This chapter explains the concept and significance of Intellectual Property with reference to Pharmaceuticals. It also traces the little history of TRIPs agreement and explains the concept of Compulsory Licensing with trends in its use. It also discusses the few instances where compulsory License has been issued in different countries and tries to find the reasons of non issuance of Compulsory License.
Concept of Association Rule of Data Mining Assists Mitigating the Increasing Obesity
Authors: Sharma Sugam
Published: July 2018

Association rule of data mining is known to encompass a wide set of intelligent techniques that intent to unveil and analyze correlations and associations between items in a set. Market basket analysis is one such, possibly the most popular technique in business domain that is used to analyze combinations of items that often are listed together in various transactions. In this paper, the author strives to expand applicability of the same concept to human health under purview of health informatics. The present growing rate of obesity has raised alarming concept to the communities globally. It entails several chronic diseases that may be fatal eventually. This work aims to aid in the ongoing efforts to alleviate the obesity, primarily caused by lack of physical exercise. Concept of association rule of data mining may help regulating mild exercise by associating it with a daily activity, sleeping at night. Mild but regular short exercise just before sleep may help ameliorating individual's health.
Mobility in Healthcare
Authors: Gürsel Güney
Published: July 2018

Mobility is the blossoming technology of our era. Mobile devices, especially smart phones, tablets, phablets are becoming common, and they are being a part of us as we carry all the time with us. Business discovered the easy-to-reach-customer facility of mobility and companies focus on this area. Scientific research focused on this area as well. Using the facilities provided with all the time with us mobile devices, especially healthcare can gain tremendous advances and have already done in some applications. Remote healthcare, decreased costs, advanced healthcare access, prioritizing the patients, can be given as examples to the advances that have been gained. As the mobile healthcare applications becoming common, there exists a danger of abuse and misuse. The need for regulations has emerged. The purpose of this study is to give basic information and vision about the usage of mobility in medical domain to ease healthcare and make it more effective. The mobile technologies used in the healthcare information systems, together with the challenges, problems and regulations, is explained.
mHealth Environments for Chronic Disease Management
Authors: Georga Eleni I. , Papadopoulos Athanasios N. , Fotiadis Dimitrios I.
Published: July 2018

The management of chronic diseases requires the continuous monitoring and control of an extensive set of medical and lifestyle parameters affecting the health status of patients. The purpose of this chapter is to present an overview of the state of the art in wearable medical systems and mobile self-management support interventions in the daily care of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. In both cases, research and commercial approaches to the integration of specialized sensors in a wearable smart module are presented and their ability to provide real-time estimations for crucial parameters is emphasized. Moreover, special emphasis is placed on mobile self-monitoring applications which are progressively enhanced with decision support, pattern recognition and predictive capabilities which can be used by the patient. The way in which mobile health technology can improve health outcomes is discussed and future research directions are described.
Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) Friend or Foe to Patients in Healthcare?
Authors: Litinski Veronika
Published: July 2018

Failure to appropriately measure Value is one of the reasons for slow reform in health. Value brings together quality and cost, both defined around the patient. With technology we can measure value in the new ways: commercially developed algorithms are capable of mining large, connected data sets to present accurate information for patients and providers. But how do we align these new capabilities with clinical and operational realities, and further with individual privacy? The right amount of information, shared at the right time, can improve practitioners' ability to choose treatments, and patients' motivation to provide consent and follow the treatment. Dynamic Consent, where IT is used to determine just what patients are consenting to share, can address the inherent conflict between the demand from AI for access to data and patients' privacy principles. This chapter describes a pragmatic Commercial Development framework for building digital health tool. It overlays Value Model for healthcare IT investments with Patient Activation Measures and innovation management techniques.
Mobile Health Applications Assisting Patients With Chronic Diseases
Authors: Iltchev Petre , Śliwczyński Andrzej , Szynkiewicz Potr , Marczak Michał
Published: July 2018

This chapter analyzes the role of m-health applications supporting patients with chronic diseases (based on examples from asthma care). The purpose of the chapter is to describe the mobile health application development cycle. The chapter begins with a presentation of asthma as a chronic disease and its prevalence and costs for society, as a determinant of the role and place of m-health applications in chronic disease management. Subsequent sections analyze trends in the development of health care, information systems, and health care payment systems as components of the environment for the implementation of m-health applications. The chapter focuses on prerequisites for the introduction of this type of solutions, presents existing applications, and discusses how to define the key functionalities and benefits for patients, payers, and doctors. The financing cycle, barriers to implementation, and future trends are also addressed.
Telemedicine in Low Resource Settings
Authors: Ndlovu Kagiso , Mauco Kabelo Leonard , Littman-Quinn Ryan
Published: July 2018

Telemedicine is a means to support health-care provision utilizing information and communication technology (ICT) tools and telecommunication services. This chapter focuses on telemedicine practices in low resource settings, referencing key telemedicine initiatives in Botswana. Telemedicine is highly practiced in the developed world, and recently there is an increasing interest in the developing world. Current literature suggests telemedicine as an important tool for improving healthcare delivery for low resource settings. Hence the authors' interest in exploring the current status of telemedicine practices with reference to telemedicine projects from low resource settings such as Botswana. The chapter reveals that telemedicine in such settings is mainly implemented through mobile phones, also known as mobile health (mHealth). In this chapter, the authors discuss factors influencing successful implementation of telemedicine solutions in Botswana. Furthermore, the chapter discusses telemedicine implementation challenges in each of the projects and presents possible mitigation strategies. The chapter concludes by affirming the feasibility of successfully practicing telemedicine in low resource settings; notwithstanding challenges such as lack of legal and eHealth frameworks in most developing countries.
Presenteeism Among Healthcare Sector Specialists
Authors: Wężyk Agata , Czarnecka Karolina
Published: July 2018

This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of presenteeism (i.e. being at work despite having health problems) among healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses and caregivers. We present a review of studies regarding prevalence of presenteeism as well as determinants of attending work while ill in healthcare sector. We also describe some preliminary result of a research project on presenteeism in Polish employees. Finally we discuss ethical concerns that are inevitable in case of healthcare workers, who come to work despite being ill.
Geography of Female Suicide
Authors: Günay Semra
Published: July 2018

Suicide is a complex structure and also affects the families whose members commit suicide, health care professionals and society. Suicide is accepted as a form of death of external causes. It can be predicted and majority of suicides can be prevented. Suicide shows a big amount of differences depending on time, region, age level, gender and race. In order to understand and prevent suicide, several geographical, medical, psychosocial, cultural and socioeconomic factors have been studied. A tiny disorder in one of these factors may cause a significant change that results in severe outcomes. In preventing suicide, it is important to determine the subgroups that have high risk. Strategies to prevent suicide can be developed through searching and understanding the suicide geography. In this study, the spatial pattern of female suicide is examined with suicide maps. With suicide maps, it is aimed to clarify the spatial alteration of the deaths caused by female suicide, to help in focusing on female suicide, to increase the awareness of the specific regions and groups that have a high risk and to guide those who are dealing with decreasing the death ratios, public health experts and decision makers. In Turkey, according to the suicide rate averages of ten years (2002-2011), mostly the young age groups are at risk among women. The ratio of suicides caused by family incompatibility, educational failure and emotional relationship and not forced marriage is higher in females than in males. Turkey is a northern hemisphere country and features subtropical climate types, where females mostly commit suicide in summer and spring seasons. It is observed that there is no peak period in female suicide in Turkey. When the distribution of suicide based death ratios are examined, it is seen that the highest ratios are in the eastern and western parts of Turkey. It is seen that suicide occurs in the provinces with low socioeconomic status as well as the provinces with high socioeconomic status and in provinces with both a large population and a small population. And also it is determined that for those provinces, detailed studies should immediately be started. It is seen that the ratio of female suicide is getting higher and approaching to the ratio of male suicide from western parts to eastern parts of Turkey. Between these years, 75% of the suicides were committed by means of violent methods and 25% of them were committed by means of nonviolent methods. The provinces where the ratio of using violent suicide methods is higher than the standard deviation are located in the eastern part of the country. It is noteworthy that the ratio of female suicide victims who are single is close to the ratio of those who are married. The suicide ratio of married women is decreasing from west to east.
A Multidisciplinary Remote Healthcare Delivery System to Increase Health Care Access, Pathology Screening, and Treatment in Developing Countries
Authors: Edoh Thierry Oscar , Pawar Pravin Amrut , Brügge Bernd , Teege Gunnar
Published: July 2018

In this paper, the authors describe a case study of the poor access to healthcare in developing world, case of Benin, a West African developing country. The authors identify problems and the existing obstacles for applying standard Telemedicine and eHealth solutions. The authors particularly describe an adapted multidisciplinary remote care delivery system approach for improving and increasing the use of existing health services as well as the access to healthcare by overcoming some cultural, social, financial, and at least linguistic barriers. The multidisciplinary remote care delivery system integrates traditional practitioners, because most people are more confident with the traditional medicine. The authors further present a practical test which has shown that their approach has the potential to improve the quality and effectiveness of health care in rural and other concerned regions and also increase the accessibility to health care system.
A Systematic Review of Competency-Based Education Effort in the Health Professions
Authors: Wu Wenxia , Martin Brian C. , Ni Chen
Published: July 2018

Quality healthcare cannot be achieved without competent health professionals. Competency-based education (CBE) is an educational delivery option that may prove to be effective in meeting that need. Through a systematic literature review using content analysis techniques, this chapter explores the conceptual complexity and operational challenges of using CBE in health professions education. Drawing a picture of how competencies are defined and developed in the context of health professions education, this chapter summarizes current practices of integration, delivery, and assessment of competencies. Challenges, emerging trends, and future research directions are also identified. This review found that, unlike in medical education, there are different sets of competencies for most various healthcare disciplines and sub-disciplines and this review suggests that CBE can be a viable model that will enable health professions education to address the diverse needs of health professionals.
The Effects of Social and Demographic Factors on Cardiovascular Disease
Authors: Min Hosik
Published: July 2018

The chapter investigates the effects of social and demographic factors on cardiovascular disease (CVD) controlling health related factors. The data used in this study is the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, and are merged the three waves, 2009-2010, 2011-2012, and 2013-2014. The logit regression analysis is used as a statistical model, and the results of this study confirm the significant associations with CVD in age, race/ethnicity, marital status, and educational attainment as expected ways. Health behaviors also show significant and strong relationships with CVD, which support the current prevention and intervention programs' strategy that focuses on changing lifestyles on an individual and a community level. The results of the social and demographic factors on CVD confirm that having CVD is not only a medical or biological process but also a social outcome. Thus, a better understanding of the social and demographic factors on CVD helps us to not only reduce the mortality rate, but also develop more effective policies and programs.
Preservation and Access to Digital Materials
Authors: Kalusopa Trywell
Published: July 2018

As the digital world unfolds, Africa continues to grapple with the issues of preservation and access of digital materials. This chapter demonstrates through a systematic literature review how Africa could learn from other efforts in the world to develop and guide their own strategic and policy options to deal with issues of preservation and access of digital materials. The chapter reviews literature on global or universal collaborative strategies and efforts on digital preservation initiated in the developed world as a learning curve for Africa. The current challenges of national and institutional capacities regarding the preservation of digital materials in selected African countries that have made some visible efforts and impact are also discussed. The chapter then makes several recommendations on the strategic and policy options for improving the state of material preservation, human and material requirements in order to improve the long-term preservation, and standards for the longer-term usability and interoperability of digital materials in Africa.
Medieval Porticoes of Rome: New Methods and Technologies for Revealing Rome’s Architectural and Urban Heritage
Authors: Anders Selena Kathleen
Published: July 2018

At the moment there are few comprehensive texts or instruments that allow architects, designers, historians, planners or even students the ability to understand the complex layers of a city’s urban fabric. As a result, this paper was prepared in order to be uploaded to a digital tool that allows for such exploration of the built environment.   The transformation of the city of Rome is documented in a number of sources and as a result makes it the ideal city for study of architectural and urban evolution.  As a case study in digital documentation this paper examines the medieval façade porticoes of Rome at three scales: urban, architectural, and detail.  The identification and mapping of these structures, are shown together allowing one to examine them in relation to historic and present day city maps.  In addition, their location is analyzed in relation to ancient Roman streets and historic processional routes, to observe the connection amongst their location and that of major thoroughfares of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.  At the architectural scale, the detailed documentation in plan and elevation reveal four distinct variations that existed in the use of the residential façade portico.  At the scale of architectural detail, an inventory of reused architectural elements or spolia that make up the residential porticoes reveal the reuse of ancient Roman column shafts, bases and capitals as well as the medieval masons’ preference for the use of the Ionic capital in particular.  This paper prepares a methodology for digital deployment of traditional scholarship focused on architecture and the built environment.
Contribution of planned built environments to city transformation: urban design practice in Montreal from 1956 to 2016.
Authors: Racine Francois
Published: July 2018

Contributions to the literature on Canadian urbanism and, in particular, Canadian urban design, despite some notable exceptions, are relatively limited. The presentation explains from an urban form perspective the practice of urban design in Montreal from the mid-twentieth century onwards. The research seeks to interpret the development of urban design practice in Montreal by reviewing a representative sample of urban projects built over the past six decades. The urban projects are used to illustrate the different renewal strategies adopted, to understand how urban design ideology/ideas have changed over time in Montreal and how they have influenced the spatial organization, form, and aesthetic of the city. The principal theoretical and methodological contribution of the research is to develop a morphological framework to study and understand the physical-spatial mode of organization of planned built environments and to study their relationship to urban form (Racine 2016). The author uses this chronological investigation of the cases to reveal how each school of thoughts that has emerged in the discipline of urban design since its foundation in 1956 (Krieger, Saunders, 2009), has addressed the problems of modernist urban planning and to move the field of urban design thinking forward. The first results of our analysis show the importance of morphological and spatial relations between vernacular and planned built environments.  The morphological issue of continuity of urban space is crucial to assure a certain level of urban equity between citizens and to assure the sustainability of the development of the city as a whole.
The Cyclicality of the Anthropic Space in Urban Morphology: an architectural perspective.
Authors: Marzot Nicola
Published: July 2018

This paper intends to offer a systematic reflection on the significance of “cyclicality” in the processual development of the anthropic space, ranging from the territorial to the architectural scale. The reflection will essentially focus on those theoretical contributions emerging from the disciplinary field of architecture and urban design. Among them, three outstanding research positions can be clearly listed over the last century and will therefore be analyzed in-depth:  Saverio Muratori’s definition of “Storia Operante”; John Habraken’s system of “Support and infill” and the Re_Cycle Italy research network program on “Recycle”. Beyond those stances, modern precedents can be traced back in some Neo avant-garde movements, especially Japanese Metabolism and Radical architecture. The topic rapidly assumes nowadays an increasing interest because of the financial crisis which is still affecting the world on a global scale and the subsequence necessity to critically reflect on the responsible reuse of heritage to face the challenging demand of a sustainable approach in the building market. The reflection is intentionally limited to the western country panorama, since there is an historical evidence of its long-lasting legacy in the transformation of the city form over the millennia. One of the expected results of the paper is to contribute to the definition of a new design strategy, in order to profit from the increasing presence of waiting lands and vacant buildings to drawn the society of the near future, offering room for experimentation to the emerging driving forces which claim a role in its deployment.
The loss of semi-public spheres within the Vienna urban parterre system—cause and effect study
Authors: Psenner Angelika
Published: July 2018

As proven in the preceding pilot study the historical Viennese ground floor originally presented an intruiging and essential semi-public sphere with no clear-cut boundary between inside and out. Rather, doors and windows were left open most of the time so that there were many points that gave access to the ground-floor premises. Original photos from the period attest to this: the ground-floor facades were permeable; semi-public or even private uses of the ground floor extended to the street, and conversely, the premises were easily accessible to the “public flow.” In addition many of the ground-floor premises in the chosen research area were connected with basement floors or cellars underneath, which meant a further extension of the urban parterre. The (commercial) use of the street-facing premises in most cases also included the interior courtyard. Today, interior courtyards mostly accommodate garbage cans or dumpsters; more intensive, diversified uses of this part of the StadtParterre nowadays are rare. Thus the historical StadtParterre was a ramified, varied, much-used and hence engaging space. Permeable ground-floor facades provided a flexible interface between public and semi-public spaces; intensely interacting with one another. First and foremost, though, the point here is to acknowledge the significance of the urban parterre for the functoning of a city—a fact that has somewhat fallen into oblivion in the noughties of the 21st century ever since the emergence of 3D city modeling. The reason for this may be that conventional 3D city models canot really represent intricate, small-scale, multilayered, and ramified ground-floor structures und thus prevent us from perceiving them in a broader functional perspective.The paper discusses reasons and socio-urban effects of a dis-linked, malfunctioning urban parterre.References Anderson, S. ed. (1978): On Streets. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press. Appleyard, D. (1981): Livable streets. Berkeley: University of California Press. Davis, H. (2012): Living Over the Store: Architecture and Urban Life. London and New York: Routledge. Gehl, J. (1996): Life between Buildings: Using Public Space. Translated by Jo Koch. Copenhagen: Arkitektens Forlag (orig. Livet mellem husene. 1978). Krusche, J. and Vogt, G. (2011): Strassenräume Berlin, Shanghai, Tokyo, Zürich: Eine foto-ethnografische Untersuchung. Baden, CH: Lars Müller Publishers. Scheuvens, R. and Schütz, T. (2012): Perspektive Erdgeschoss, Werkstattbericht 121. Vienna: Magistratsabteilung 18, Stadtentwicklung und Stadtplanung.
Urban density for a carbon free city in different climates
Authors: Chen Hsiao-Hui , Dietrich Udo
Published: July 2018

In a carbon free city, the energy demand, including thermal energy (heating, cooling and hot water), power (ventilation and artificial light) in buildings and transport, need to be covered by the renewables gained on site or in the surrounding area outside of the town. This means a huge compensating area is required for harvesting renewable energy. This paper aims to explore the urban density that could potentially achieve the balance among three requirements: energy saving, land saving, and human scale. By holding constant of building type, estate size, thermal energy system, power harvesting system, lighting system and traffic energy (electric car), different scenarios of urban density in various climate zones were compared. The results show that, although increasing urban density by increasing number of storey does reduce transportation energy consumption, the rate of decreased transportation energy consumption slows down as the number of storey increases. Also, artificial light will reach saturation (100% of hours of use) with increased number of storeys and, therefore, increase building energy consumption. For cold or moderate climates, the optimal scenario would be 4 to 6 storeys with street width of 25m. For the hot and humid climates, the optimal choice would be 6 to 8 storeys and the effect of urban density on the land-use requirement is larger than the effect of compensating area because heating is power-based. These optimal ranges of number of storey provide good daylight access and also fall into the range of human scale.
Dysfunctions in the territorial form: the case of Valencia.
Authors: Miralles Josep Lluís
Published: July 2018

It is possible to associate the idea of territorial harmony with the idea of territorial function. The perception of a territory with distributed uses that allow the observer to identify its functions and a landscape, urban and territorial, appropriate to the uses, generates a sense of harmony or order of “things”, uses, in the territory. To the contrary, when, for example, people observe a natural space or resource as agricultural lands, where other external uses are located, such as industrial installations or transport infrastructures, the observer perceives a disorderly, degraded and dysfunctional landscape. This idea can serve as a basis to analyze the territorial forms. This article aims to analyze the territorial dysfunctions that have occurred in the process of transformation of the metropolitan area of Valencia and propose actions to manage the territory to sustainability. In metropolitan areas, such as the case of Valencia, there are usually spaces of great environmental value that give an environmental service as an ecological pantry for the population. However, in recent times, many of these spaces have undergone processes of urban sprawl that have produced a collapse of territorial harmony. In addition, mature metropolitan areas have low or no population growth while the artificial territory continues to increase. It is necessary to promote positive initiatives to identify and manage the green infrastructure. This implies a structural review of territorial management processes to achieve sustainability.
Spatial Patterns in Mass Consumption: The Fast Food Chain Network and its Street Patterns, Clusters and Impact on Street Safety
Authors: Lin Genevieve Shaun , Karimi Kayvan
Published: July 2018

Can the fast-food chain network, to some extent, support the socio-spatial structure and safety of the street? Is there an urban spatial pattern within the ‘Chain Network’ and mass consumption? This papers dwells on spatial patterns on mass consumption in the global capitalistic cities of London and Tokyo, through the lens of the fast food chain network. Their symbols (for instance, the Golden Arches of McDonalds) are instantly recognizable both by locals and tourists. McDonalds started off as a hot dog stand in California in the 1940s and rapidly expanded across America in lieu of the mass usage of the automobile and construction of freeways. A foreigner can order easily from a McDonalds menu in Tokyo, without speaking Japanese, because the menu is created in a “global language”. Fast food chain stores, such as McDonalds and Starbucks, seem to be sprouting in every street corner, even as much as 3 of the same shop on the same street. You don’t have to find them, because they will find you. Rather than casting them aside as complex economic or political factors, the first part of the research focuses on its spatial clustering, and to see if there is an intrinsic spatial relationship with high-choice, or highly integrated streets. How far deep does the network go from the highest choice streets? The second part of the research will see if the clusters of fast-food chain, with their “night economy” would lead to safer and more pleasant street and communities. Fast food chains do indeed play a vital spatial role in our physical communities in the 21st century.
Mass housing estates legacy: urban design perspectives
Authors: Díez Medina Carmen , Monclús Javier
Published: July 2018

In the recent international debate about mass housing estates built during the decades of rapid urban growth after the World War II different approaches coexist. Many studies, including diagnosis about their current state, have been carried out, some of them from a social and economic standpoint; other offer architectural and historical approaches. It has only been in the last years, that urban planning and urban design perspectives have been considered in depth. In the case of Spain, some global visions complement more specific approaches, such as the ones focused on the obsolescence of dwelling typologies and urban forms. In addition to this, there are consolidated teams working on some cities, especially Madrid and Barcelona, which continue developing previous studies started some decades ago. Our starting point is that Spanish collective housing (polígonos) constitutes a huge legacy which needs accurate diagnosis. Our research has been developed from an urban design perspective, focusing on urban forms and free open spaces. The goal is to add some nuances to some excessively generic interpretations, trying to find ‘indicators’ (such as density, urban integration, diversity…) that allow a suitable evaluation of ‘each’ case, besides a qualitative approach. Although there are common factors that have led to a general loss of urban quality, it is necessary to take into account the specificities of each city, context, transformation processes, etc. In this way, future necessary interventions could provide more appropriate knowledge for the regeneration, recovery or reactivation of these estates. This paper addresses with a comparative perspective some case studies of Spanish polígonos built in Madrid, Barcelona and Zaragoza between 1950 and 1975. Contrasting the original situation at the time of their construction with their current state, the quality of the urban projects (classified in ‘Best’, ‘Good’, ‘Standard’, ‘Poor’) and the resilience or the obsolescence processes has been tested.
Preferred urban public spaces through social media: historic cities of the province of Alicante (Spain).
Authors: Martí Pablo , Serrano-Estrada Leticia , Nolasco-Cirugeda Almudena
Published: July 2018

Understanding the role of urban public spaces in today’s historic Spanish Mediterranean cities is a key priority for researchers and urban professionals. Increasingly, social media showcases users’ preferences, a trend that can provide an indication as to why some urban public spaces are preferred over others. This research focuses on preferred urban public spaces in historic cities in the province of Alicante (Spain) and has two objectives: to identify their urban morphological features; and, to recognise similar traits in terms of their location within the urban structure. The method involved: first, analysing Foursquare social media data on user preferences about urban public spaces; second, studying spatial and functional urban attributes; and third, recognising their role within the city structure. The results demonstrate that the preferred urban spaces share morphological attributes; a central position in the urban structure; mixed-use ground floor activities; and the presence of relevant urban public facilities.
URBAN TRACES: revitalization strategies for abandoned villages.
Authors: Gorgo Letizia , Riggi Gloria
Published: July 2018

Letizia Gorgo¹, Gloria Riggi² ¹Dipartimento di Architettura e progetto. Dottorato in Architettura e costruzione, Sapienza, Università di Roma, Via Gramsci, 53. 00197 Roma ² Dipartimento di Architettura e progetto. Dottorato in Architettura e costruzione, Sapienza, Università di Roma, Via Gramsci, 53. 00197 Roma E-mail: letiziagorgo@hotmail.it, gloriariggi@libero.it, Keywords : abandoned villages, urban morphology, scattered hotel, existing fabric, revitalization strategies Conference topics and scale: City transformations       In Italy today, one can count more than 6000 villages that have been abandoned(deserted) for a variety of causes. This negletc state produces a serious problem related to a wider phenomenon of abandonment of entire portions of italian territories. Realities that differ form the city because of their morphology: Does urban shape represent an urban limit? or is it an alternative testimony to the city? Research purpose is to understand how relationship, between these cases and the territory, works; in particular during the absence of the main component: the human one. The case study Santo Stefano di Sessanio, an ancient village in the center of Italy, inhabited until 90's, shows how the examination of urban shape represents the potentiality of his own revitalization. By relating his historical identity to the scattered hotel projectual approach, it contributes to combine conservation, valorization and sustainability of the existing building fabric, in order to claim the authenticity of these villages declaring their own autonomy and dimension to major urban centers polarization. In this example transformation is meant as conscious project that grow up from the built reality not from the project itself, transformation as knowledge of urban facts, tool to approach to the structure of this reality.   References Rossi A., (1966 ) ‘L’architettura della città’, Quodlibet, Macerata Muratori S., (1967) ‘Civiltà e territorio’, Centro studi di storia e urbanistica, Roma Cartei, G. F., (2007) ‘Convenzione europea del paesaggio e governo del territorio’, Il Mulino, Bologna Caravaggi L.,  (2014) ‘La montagna resiliente’, Quodlibet, Macerata, Strappa, G., Carlotti, P., Camiz, A., (2016) ‘Urban Morphology and Historical Fabrics’, Gangemi Editore, Rome
Urban form in the tourist cities of the coast of the Canary Islands. The morphologies of leisure
Authors: Temes Córdovez Rafael R. , Simancas Cruz Moisés , García Amaya Alicia , Peñarrubia Zaragoza María Pilar
Published: July 2018

The tourist city has been a space with few and weak reflections from the urban discipline. The developed planning, at best, has been uncritically exported from the residential city. However, in these cities, almost 12% of Spanish GDP is generated. The vast majority of Spanish coasts, especially on the Mediterranean coast and in the archipelagos, are occupied by large areas of holiday cities. Many of them were born in the first boom of Spanish tourism in the 60's. The mass tourism model, predominant in our coast, also generates a mass city. The morphology of this city does not follow the common and more consolidated patterns of the residential city. Today many of these tourist destinations begin to show of obsolescence. For this reason, the analysis of its urban form is a valuable tool in the face of its renovation project. In this work, we propose the analysis of the tourist micro-destinations of the Canarian archipelago. In order to this we will identify the main morphological patterns and characterize them from the analysis of a set of descriptive indicators related to public and private space.   References Gaja, F. (ed.) (2012) DeCoastruction (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia). Pié, R. and Rosa, C. (eds.) (2013) Turismo líquido (Instituto Hábitat Turismo Territorio, UPC and UM, Barcelona). Simancas Cruz, M. R. and Hernández Martín R. (Eds.) (2015) Reinventando alojamientos turísticos.  Casos de éxito y soluciones innovadoras (Cátedra de Turismo de Cajacanarias - ASAHOTEL - Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife Simancas Cruz, M. R. and García Cruz, J. I. (2015): ‘La modelización territorial de un espacio urbano-turístico de litoral: una propuesta para el plan de rehabilitación de las infraestructuras turísticas de Puerto de la Cruz (España)’, in GeoFocus, nº 15, p 105-132. Temes R. and Tuset, J., R. (eds.) (2015) Orilla marítima. Territorio litoral (General de ediciones de Arquitectura, Valencia).
A study on the history of urban morphology in China based on discourse analysis
Authors: Zhang Limeng , Lu Andong
Published: July 2018

A study on the history of urban morphology in China based on discourse analysis Limeng Zhang¹, Andong Lu¹ ¹School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University. Nanjing University Hankou Road 22#, Gulou District, Nanjing, China E-mail: 554361151@qq.com, andonglu@gmail.com Key words: urban morphology, terminology, discourse analysis Conference topics and scale: Literature review   (Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant No.: 51478215)   Urban morphology is a method widely used in China in the field of urban design and urban conservation. Since its first introduction to the Chinese context about 20 years ago, the key ideas and concepts of urban morphology underwent a significant phenomenon of ‘lost in translation’. Different origins of morphological thoughts, different versions of translation, as well as different disciplinary context, have all together led to a chaotic discourse. This paper reviews the key Chinese articles in the field of urban morphology since 1982 and draws out a group of persistent keywords, such as evolution, axis, urban fringe belt, plan unit and plot, that characterize the morphological approach to urban issues. By reviewing the transformation of the definition of these keywords, this paper aims to generate an evolutionary map of landmark ideas and concepts, based on which, four stages in the development of urban morphology in China can be identified: emergence, growth, maturity, practice. The mapping methodology could be extrapolated to other words, and the obtained evolutionary map could be a basic tool for further study.   References Conzen M. R. G.,  Alnwick, Northumberland: A Study in Town-plan Analysis [M] 1960. ( London, George Philip). J. W. R. Whitehand, and Kai Gu. ‘Urban conservation in China: Historical development, current practice and morphological approach’ [J], Town Planning Review, 2007 (5), 615-642. Duan Jin, and Qiu Guochao. 'The Emergence and Development of Overseas Urban Morphology Study' [J], Urban Planning Forum, 2008(5):34-42. M. P. Conzen, Kai Gu, J. W. R. Whitehand. Comparing traditional urban form in China and Europe: a fringe belt approach [D]. Urban Geography, 2011.
Redefining the Smart City concept: the importance of humanizing ‘Intelligent’ Cities
Authors: Del Hoyo Raquel Pérez , Lees Megan
Published: July 2018

Within the context of the changes provoked by globalization and over-urbanization in recent decades, cities face the challenge of conceiving new and more competitive and sustainable development models. To this effect, the Smart City is proposed as a new model of urban development. However, the concept of Smart City has developed in such a way (in most cases completely alien to the area of Urbanism) that, in a way, cities have begun to face the risk of losing their soul. Clear examples of this are the new 'intelligent' cities created from scratch as mere efficient functional structures, without history and even without inhabitants, and lacking understanding of the very complexity and nature of cities, which are first and foremost dynamic places to be experienced. This is why, one of the main challenges with which Urbanism of the 21st century is confronted, is to work on redefining the concept of Smart City, redirecting its development to humanize and give soul back to these near future 'intelligent' cities. In this direction, the main objective of this research is to contribute as urban planners in this redefinition of the concept of Smart City as a new model of urban development. From the work carried out, the proposal of a model, sensitive to the environment (natural, cultural and urban) but above all a model focused on people, their preferences, opinions and needs is concluded.
Heterotopic space characteristics of urban village in China: Take Guandongdian district in Beijing as an example
Authors: LU Tingying , LI Jiali , PENG Ning
Published: July 2018

Heterotopic space characteristics of urban village in China: Take Guandongdian district in Beijing as an example Lu Tingying¹, Li Jiali2, Peng Ning2 ¹Center of Architecture Research and Design. University Of Chinese Academy Of Sciences. UCAS Youth Apartment, No. 80 Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing, China 2Center of Architecture Research and Design. University Of Chinese Academy Of Sciences. UCAS Youth Apartment, No. 80 Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing, China E-mail: 1102684155@qq.com, lijiali020020@163.com, pengning18@sina.com Keywords: Heterotopias, space characteristics, urban village, Guandongdian, diversification Conference topics and scale: Urban form and social use of space     For the first time in the history of China, more of its mainland population are living in cities than in rural villages. The land acquisition and real estate development have caused rapid disappearance and decline of a large number of traditional villages, resulting in "urban villages" in China. They seem chaotic, but contain rich and colorful social life. The living environment is really harsh, but people always maintain close relationship with each other. They are different from neither the modern urban nor traditional villages, but they have their own unique vitality. Such heterogeneous space is always a symbol of historical change and cultural collision which, according to the French philosopher Michel Foucault, can be called Heterotopias. In order to study this heterotopic phenomenon, the triangular area of Guandongdian district in Beijing has been chosen as the object of this case study. With the in-depth investigation of interviews, observation, statistics and sketches, this paper is trying to interpret the characteristics of the heterotopic state of the urban village from three aspects of social form, urban morphology and architectural feature. Eventually, in order to keep the complexity and diversification of urban village, several strategies are put forward for reference to future transforming practice.   References Foucault, M. (1967) Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, Trans. Miskoviec, J.(1984), Architecture /Mouvement /Continuité (http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html) Selina Abraham. (2013) ‘The heterotopic space of Chirag Delhi’, unpublished research paper, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi. WANG Su. (2013) ‘Heterotopias versus Cultural Imagination: An Interpretation of the Metropolitan Space of Tianjin from the Perspective of Michel Foucault’ s Of Other Spaces (Heterotopias)’ Journal of Nanyang Normal University 12, 50-53.