scholarly journals E-micromobilities and their role in improving air quality and public health: A roundtable discussion in Leeds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gemma Bridge

BackgroundElectric micromobility vehicles such as e-bikes ande-scooters are increasing in popularity. E-bikes, in particular, represent a significantopportunity for promoting more active forms of travel, as they enable a widerrange of people to access individual mobility, whilst also having many of thehealth benefits associated with non-power assisted cycling. Beyond the fitnessbenefits, e-micromobilities offer community level benefits including reduced roadcongestion and reduced noise and air pollution. As a city, Leeds has committed to achieving net zero by 2030. In order to achieve that ambition, there is aneed for rapid, large-scale action, with increased active travel and e-micromobility use key to that shift. Despite their benefits, many questions relating to the use and growth of e-micromobilites remain unanswered. For instance, what infrastructurewould be needed? Should regulations be developed and applied? Will drivers require insurance, licencing or road tax? What impact will e-micromobilities have on transport inequalities? How will an increase in use of e-micromobilityvehicles impact existing travel behaviours? Exploring these questions at alocal and national level will be key to planning for the potential impacts,both positive and negative, that new powered modes of travel will have onstreets.MethodTo explore the questions posed above, a roundtablediscussion will be hosted in Leeds. Leeds is a city in the north of Englandthat has committed to achieving net zero by 2030. The roundtable will include adiverse sample of people from across the city, including policy makers, travelplanners, town planners, members of the public, and academics working in activetravel and micromobility research. To develop the questions asked, a literature reviewwill be conducted. The questions will be shared with key stakeholders tocomment on and finalise. The final list of questions will be shared with registeredparticipants ahead of the roundtable. During the roundtable, there will be timeprovided for open ended discussions about the key issues highlighted. All participants will be invited via email, with aninformation sheet provided to them. All participants will be asked to provideconsent before taking part and will be able to withdraw at any point up untildata analysis. Depending on the availability of participants 1 to 3 roundtableswill be hosted, each lasting up to 60 minutes. The roundtable will befacilitated to ensure all questions are explored and that everyone has a voice.The facilitator will act objectively. The discussion will be recorded andtranscripts produced. The transcripts will be thematically analysed to identifykey themes discussed.Possible outcomesA report will be produced from the roundtablediscussions. The report will be shared with key stakeholders across the cityand wider region. Based on the discussions, recommendations for the city willbe developed. The report and recommendations could be used to facilitatefurther discussion and inform future research.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gamze Dane ◽  
Aloys Borgers ◽  
Tao Feng

Cities are increasingly exploiting new activities such as large-scale cultural events in public open spaces. Investigating the subjective immediate experiences of visitors is valuable to reflect on these events and their configuration in the city. Therefore the aim of this study is twofold: (i) to demonstrate a data collection methodology to measure subjective immediate experiences of visitors and (ii) to test different types of factors that influence visitors’ subjective immediate experiences at cultural events by means of the new methodology. A quantitative research that is enabled by geotagging, paper surveys and secondary data (location characteristics and weather conditions) is applied at the Dutch Design Week event in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. After data collection, a binary logit model is estimated. It is found that apart from age and intended duration of stay, visitor characteristics do not influence the subjective immediate experiences while temporal, physical environmental and weather conditions do. Specifically, it is found that subjective immediate experiences at outdoor locations are mainly influenced by location characteristics. This study shows that the proposed data collection methodology is useful for gathering insights especially on the influence of physical characteristics on subjective immediate experiences. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research and with suggestions to policy makers and event managers.


Slavic Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 907-930
Author(s):  
Igor Fedyukin

This article uses the materials of the Drezdensha affair, a large-scale investigation of “indecency” in St. Petersburg in 1750, to explore unofficial sociability among the Imperial elite, and to map out the institutional, social, and economic dimensions of the post-Petrine “sexual underworld.” Sociability and, ultimately, the public sphere in eighteenth century Russia are usually associated with loftier practices, with joining the ranks of the reading public, reflecting on the public good, and generally, becoming more civil and polite. Yet, it is the privately-run, commercially-oriented, and sexually-charged “parties” at the focus of this article that arguably served as a “training ground” for developing the habits of sociability. The world of these “parties” provides a missing link between the debauchery and carousing of Peter I's era and the more polite formats of associational life in the late eighteenth century, as well as the historical context for reflections on morality, sexual licentiousness, foppery, and the excesses of “westernization.”


2021 ◽  
Vol 167 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariane Wenger ◽  
Michael Stauffacher ◽  
Irina Dallo

AbstractLimiting global warming to 1.5 °C requires negative emission technologies (NETs), which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and permanently store it to offset unavoidable emissions. Successful large-scale deployment of NETs depends not only on technical, biophysical, ecological, and economic factors, but also on public perception and acceptance. However, previous studies on this topic have been scarce. In 2019, Switzerland adopted a net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 target, which will require the use of NETs. To examine the current Swiss public perception and acceptance of five different NETs, we conducted an online survey with Swiss citizens (N = 693). By using a between-subjects design, we investigated differences in public opinion, perception, and acceptance across three of the most used frames in the scientific literature — technological fix, moral hazard, and climate emergency. Results showed that the public perception and acceptance of NETs does not differ between the frames. The technological fix frame best reflected participants’ opinion, whereas participants perceived the moral hazard frame the least credible and the climate emergency frame the most unclear. Moreover, our findings confirm the public’s unfamiliarity with NETs. We found no strong opposition, as participants indicated a moderate acceptance and a neutral evaluation of all five NETs, with afforestation standing out as the most accepted and positively evaluated NET. We conclude that, in the future, the public debate on NETs should be intensified, and the public perception should be monitored regularly to inform the development of NETs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (40) ◽  
pp. 617-656
Author(s):  
Mohammed S. Mahan ◽  
Ghassan Muslim Hamza

       Babylon during Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) was a great city. It had been a large city since Old Babylonian times, but Nebuchadnezzar’s expansion of the city and large-scale rebuilding of important buildings with good baked brick instead of the traditional unbaked mudbrick created something exceptional. Babylon now was larger than Nineveh had been and larger than any of the cities in the known world. The political and economic base for this development was of course that it was the centre of the Neo-Babylonian empire created by Nebuchadnezzar’s father Nabopolassar (625–605 BC) and succeeding the Neo Assyrian empire as the main political entity in the Middle East.         An attempt for the first time to bring together the main results of the German excavations in Babylon with the main results from the Iraqi excavations there and thereby make use of the available cuneiform documentation and a selected use of the best of the classical tradition. With the help of a GIS software (QGIS) and a BIM program (ArchiCAD) the use of satellite images and aerial photos combined with inspection on the site, the historical development of the site has been studied and a digital research model of Babylon for different periods of the city’s history has been created.          Only main buildings and constructions have been considered and placed in the appropriate historical and archaeological context. Part 1 includes some information about the historical development of buildings and nature in Babylon, the rivers and groundwater in Baybylon, as well as basics about the building materials used in Babylon. Part 2 discuss the city walls and city gates, introductory matters about the history, excavation and other documentations of the walls and gates. The chapter also includes presentation of the walls and gates during Nabopolassar followed by a detailed discussion of the walls and gates during Nebuchadnezzar. The Ištar gate and the area around it with the different levels and the upper level glazed decoration have been treated separately. Detailed interpretations about the palaces, development of the main traditional South Palace and the new constructed North are discussed in part 3. Reasonable suggestions for the Hanging Gardens in the North Palace have be provided.          The temples are discussed in part 4 detailing the Marduk temple and the zikkurrat. The historical development of the four temples reconstructed on the site in Babylon on their old foundations, i.e. Nabû, Ištar, Ašratum, and Ninmaḫ temples, is discussed with indication which levels have been used for the reconstructions. The historical development of the other excavated temples, i.e. the Ninurta and Išḫara temples, are discussed in a similar way. Attention will be paid to the remains of wall decorations in the temples.  


Author(s):  
M. I. Rodriguez-Laiton ◽  
H. A. León-Vega ◽  
E. Upegui

Abstract. The following article describes the implementation of a methodology for the structural reconstruction of the Heroes monument and the statue on the north side of Simon Bolivar Ecuestre located between the intersection of the north highway and 80th Street in Bogota (Colombia) from the acquisition of SFM photogrammetry methods and images, using low-cost sensors for this process and making use of drones from the obtaining of frames of a video to for areas with lower altimetric reach, and thereby creating an analysis in their accuracy, sizing and quality within the framework of appropriation and documentation of the cultural assets in the public space of the city Bogotá taking this data as a starting point for future developments in the process of 3D reconstructions Colombia.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Houseman

Istanbul and Bucharest are major European cities that face a continuing threat of large earthquakes. The geological contexts for these two case studies enable us to understand the nature of the threat and to predict more precisely the consequences of future earthquakes, although we remain unable to predict the time of those events with any precision better than multi-decadal. These two cities face contrasting threats: Istanbul is located on a major geological boundary, the North Anatolian Fault, which separates a westward moving Anatolia from the stable European landmass. Bucharest is located within the stable European continent, but large-scale mass movements in the upper mantle beneath the lithosphere cause relatively frequent large earthquakes that represent a serious threat to the city and surrounding regions.


Author(s):  
Bryan Acheampong ◽  
Ibrahim Bedi

While there has been some considerable investment in information systems implementation and usage in the public sector, success has often been limited. Attempts by researchers to address this situation has been diverse and often inconclusive. A publication by the MIS Quarterly journal offers some direction. The study, which focused on information systems development (ISD), highlighted the need to explore how mutual understanding among key stakeholders is created, or the extent to which they have a shared conception of the ISD project, and further how such mutual understanding is changing, develops, or deteriorates over time. On the tenets of the study, this chapter attempts to chart a path for future research in interoperable financial management systems implementation and usage in the public sector. It presents a viewpoint that establishes the need to explore the creation and sustenance of mutual understanding between stakeholders in the implementation and usage of interoperable or integrated financial management systems in the public sector.


Author(s):  
Bantu L. Morolong

This chapter introduces the reader to the idea of city marketing. This idea has developed over time, globally, as cities continue to grow rapidly. The chapter assesses how city marketing as a concept and a practice has generally developed with particular reference to Botswana, Southern Africa. Using evidence from documented material this chapter critically reviews city marketing as perceived and applied by planners and policy makers. The chapter looks at how Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) can be used to market cities such as Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana. Literature and experiences from other parts of the world are used to underscore city growth as a serious development issue. City dwellers are identified as key stakeholders in city marketing because they have a more permanent association with the city in contrast to those who come into the city to visit or for business, tourism, and other purposes.


Author(s):  
Nicholas Allen

Stewart Parker’s play, Northern Star, begins with the character of Henry Joy McCracken reciting his seaborn heritage as a descendant of Huguenots and Covenanters, his mongrel inheritance ‘natural’ to his Belfast birth, the city a port of refuge from ‘the storm of history’. McCracken is remembered now as a United Irishman who was executed for his part in the 1798 rebellion, an insurrection that lingers still in the public consciousness of the city and its past. Northern Star was first performed in 1984 and through it Parker created a space for expressions of identity and place beyond the Troubles; that he did so in metaphors of storms and sea suggests the imaginative depth of the city’s maritime attachments, which form the basis of this chapter’s readings of mid-twentieth-century cultural production in the north of Ireland, including Seamus Deane, Medbh McGuckian, Sinead Morrissey, Glenn Patterson, and Ciaran Carson.


1999 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
ET Bloom ◽  
AD Moulton ◽  
J McCoy ◽  
LE Chapman ◽  
AP Patterson

Clinical use of xenotransplants is a potential way to provide care for a population of seriously ill patients and alleviate the demand for human organs. However, xenotransplantation also presents a spectrum of concerns, not only for individual patients but also for the public health, that must be discussed and dealt with in a science-based and public manner. Such discussions should take place on a national level and should include scientists, physicians, and policy makers from all countries in which the clinical use of xenografts is being considered.


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