Outdoor PM10 source apportionment in metropolitan cities—a case study

Within the paradigm of the smart and playable city, the urban landscape and street furniture have provided a fertile platform for pragmatic and hedonic goals of urban liveability through technology augmentation. Smart street furniture has grown from being a novelty to become a common sight in metropolitan cities, co-opted for improving the efficiency of services. However, as we consider technologies that are increasingly smarter, with human-like intelligence, we navigate towards uncharted waters when discussing the consequences of their integration with the urban landscape. The implications of a new genre of street furniture embedded with artificial intelligence, where the machine has autonomy and is an active player itself, are yet to be fully understood. In this article, we analyse the evolving design of public benches along the axes of smartness and disruption to understand their qualities as playful, urban machines in public spaces. We present a concept-driven speculative design case study, as an exploration of a smart, sensing, and disruptive urban machine for playful placemaking. With the emergence of artificial intelligence, we expand on the potential of urban machines to partake an increasingly active role as co-creators of play and playful placemaking in the cities of tomorrow.

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An Integrated Method for Factor Number Selection of PMF Model: Case Study on Source Apportionment of Ambient Volatile Organic Compounds in Wuhan

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos9100390 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (10) ◽

pp. 390 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Fenjuan Wang ◽

Zhenyi Zhang ◽

Costanza Acciai ◽

Zhangxiong Zhong ◽

Zhaokai Huang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Volatile Organic Compounds ◽

Source Apportionment ◽

Correlation Coefficient ◽

Organic Compounds ◽

Industrial Emissions ◽

Integrated Method ◽

Pmf Model ◽

Volatile Organic ◽

Measurement Period

The positive matrix factorization (PMF) model is widely used for source apportionment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The question about how to select the proper number of factors, however, is rarely studied. In this study, an integrated method to determine the most appropriate number of sources was developed and its application was demonstrated by case study in Wuhan. The concentrations of 103 ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were measured intensively using online gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) during spring 2014 in an urban residential area of Wuhan, China. During the measurement period, the average temperature was approximately 25 °C with very little domestic heating and cooling. The concentrations of the most abundant VOCs (ethane, ethylene, propane, acetylene, n-butane, benzene, and toluene) in Wuhan were comparable to other studies in urban areas in China and other countries. The newly developed integrated method to determine the most appropriate number of sources is in combination of a fixed minimum threshold value for the correlation coefficient, the average weighted correlation coefficient of each species, and the normalized minimum error. Seven sources were identified by using the integrated method, and they were vehicular emissions (45.4%), industrial emissions (22.5%), combustion of coal (14.7%), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) (9.7%), industrial solvents (4.4%), and pesticides (3.3%) and refrigerants. The orientations of emission sources have been characterized taking into account the frequency of wind directions and contributions of sources in each wind direction for the measurement period. It has been concluded that the vehicle exhaust contribution is greater than 40% distributed in all directions, whereas industrial emissions are mainly attributed to the west southwest and south southwest.

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Edwards the Mentor

10.1093/oso/9780190221201.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Rhys S. Bezzant

Keyword(s):

Jonathan Edwards ◽

Modern World ◽

Human Beings ◽

Face To Face ◽

Cultural Engagement ◽

Mentoring Relationship ◽

The Enlightenment ◽

Metropolitan Cities ◽

The One

Among his many accolades, Jonathan Edwards was an effective mentor who trained many leaders for the church. Though his pastoral work is often overlooked, this book investigates the background, method, theological rationale, and legacy of his mentoring ministry. He does what mentors normally do—meeting with individuals to discuss ideas and grow in skills—but undertakes these activities in a distinctly modern or affective key. His correspondence is composed in an informal style, his understanding of friendship and conversation takes up the conventions of the great metropolitan cities of Europe of his day, his pedagogical commitments are surprisingly progressive, and his aspirations for those he mentors are bold and subversive. The practice of mentoring is presented in this book as the exchange between authority and agency, in which the more experienced person in the mentoring relationship empowers the one in the position of a learner, whose own character and competencies are nurtured. When Edwards explains his mentoring practice theologically, he expounds the theme of seeing God face to face, which recognizes that human beings learn through the example of friends as well as the exposition of propositions. The book is a case study in cultural engagement, for Edwards deliberately takes up certain features of the modern world in his mentoring and yet resists other pressures that the Enlightenment generated. If his world witnessed the philosophical evacuation of God from the created order, Edwards’s mentoring is designed to draw God back into an intimate connection with human experience.

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An evaluation of source apportionment of fine OC and PM2.5 by multiple methods: APHH-Beijing campaigns as a case study

Faraday Discussions ◽

10.1039/d0fd00095g ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jingsha Xu ◽

Deepchandra Srivastava ◽

Xuefang Wu ◽

Siqi Hou ◽

Tuan V. Vu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Source Apportionment ◽

Multiple Source ◽

Multiple Methods ◽

Apportionment Methods

This paper reports an evaluation of multiple source apportionment methods for OC and PM2.5.

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“Aesthetic regime” in urban entrepreneurialism: public art venues in Shanghai

Asian Education and Development Studies ◽

10.1108/aeds-03-2017-0026 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 109-125

Author(s):

Jane Zheng

Keyword(s):

Recent Decade ◽

Cultural Development ◽

Social Mechanisms ◽

Content Type ◽

Urban Policies ◽

Purposeful Sampling ◽

Metropolitan Cities ◽

New Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand urban sculpture venues that emerged in the recent decade and their connections to the on-going entrepreneurial urban policies and urban strategies in Shanghai. How does this phenomenon relate to Shanghai’s urban policies? How does urban sculpture development reflect the nature and characteristics of the urban sculpture authority? Design/methodology/approach Case study is the major research method used to achieve an in-depth understanding of the developmental processes, mechanisms and characteristics of urban sculpture projects. Three cases were selected and studied using purposeful sampling methods, including Duolun Road Sculpture Project (2002), the Shanghai International Sculpture Center (2006) and the Jing’an Sculpture Park (2009). Findings A twofold main argument is established in this paper. Urban sculpture venues emerged as a new type of instrument to advance urban entrepreneurial policies; the use of this instrument, however, also involves politics in that art politically transforms the features and functions of open spaces in Shanghai. Originality/value Although scholarly interest in exploring cultural development through urban planning in the Chinese context is evident, urban sculpture planning (termed as “urban sculpture” in the Chinese ideological context) in Chinese metropolitan cities, in particular, is an unexplored topic, and thus leaves a gap in the knowledge. This paper introduces a new conceptual model, i.e., “aesthetic regime,” to describe the role of the urban sculpture authority in the development of the urban sculpture scene. It looks at the artistic representation of artworks, design of the sculpture venues, functionality of the artworks and social mechanisms for the actualization of these projects. An evolutional trend of the three sites across the decade is concerned.

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