scholarly journals Degradation Prediction of Rail Tracks: A Review of the Existing Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Najwa Elkhoury ◽  
Lalith Hitihamillage ◽  
Sara Moridpour ◽  
Dilan Robert
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Complex Matrix ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
The Past ◽  
Operational Costs ◽  
Railway Infrastructure ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

In the past few decades, the railway infrastructure has been widely expanded in urban and rural areas, making it the most complex matrix of rail transport networks. Safe and comfortable travel on railways has always been a common goal for transportation engineers and researchers, and requires railways in excellent condition and well-organized maintenance practices. Degradation of rail tracks is a main concern for railway organizations as it affects the railway’s behaviour and its parameters, such as track geometry, speed, traffic and loads. Therefore, the prediction of the degradation of rail tracks is very important in order to optimise maintenance needs, reduce maintenance and operational costs of railways, and improve rail track conditions.This paper provides a comprehensive review of rail degradation prediction models, their parameters, and the strengths and weaknesses of each model. A comprehensive discussion of existing research and a comparison of different models of degradation of rail tracks is also provided. Finally, this review presents concluding remarks on the limitations of existing studies and provides recommendations for further research and appraisal practices.

scholarly journals Public Spending and Poverty Reduction in Indonesia: The Effects of Economic Growth and Public Spending on Poverty Reduction in Indonesia 2009-2018

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Hendrawan Toni Taruno
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Poverty Rate ◽  
Single Digit ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Poverty is a complex and multidimensional issue. Over the past four decades, the number of poor in Indonesia has experienced a significant decline, from 40.10 percent in 1976 to 9.82 percent in March 2018. Nevertheless, the disparity of poverty rates between provinces is still quite high. The poverty rate in several provinces in Java Island, for example, is already at the single-digit level, while in Eastern Indonesia, is still more than double-digit level. As it is known, public spending and economic growth are two crucial instruments on poverty reduction programs. This study aims to investigate the role of economic growth and public spending, particularly education, health, and social protection on poverty reduction in Indonesia. By using panel data from 31 provinces during 2009-2018 period, this study used two regression models to analyze the effects of these two variables on poverty reduction, both in urban and rural areas. This study shows that public spending on health and education sectors has a slightly different effect on poverty reduction between urban and rural areas. Convincingly, spending allocation on health and education has had a significant effect to reduce poverty rate in rural areas, while the decline of poverty rates in urban is likely more influenced by spending on health. This study also shows that over the past ten years, economic growth and social protection spending did not have a significant effect on reducing poverty rates. Therefore, in order to reduce poverty more effectively, it would be better for the government to focus its poverty reduction programs on investment in health and education sectors.

scholarly journals Complete elimination of iodine deficiency-induced diseases in the Republic of Serbia through overall salt iodination

2003 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-40
Author(s):  
M. Simic ◽  
M. Banisevic ◽  
Z. Andjelkovic ◽  
G. Zivic ◽  
L. Zikic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iodine Deficiency ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Detection Rate ◽  
Control Program ◽  
Iodine Deficiency Disorders ◽  
Dietary Salt ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ultrasound Study ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

The territory of Serbia has been long known to be an iodine de­ficiency area. The surveys conducted in the past 50 years have shown that iodine deficiency disorders ranged from small goiters to endemic cretinism. The iodine deficiency control program has been implemented in Serbia since 1951, in so doing, the salt con­centration of iodine (as potassium iodide) has been gradually in­creased and at present it is 20 mg/kg. Just in the mid- 1960s, io­dine prophylaxis led to cessation of new cases of cretinism and large goiters.This survey was undertaken to determine the iodine provision in Serbia. The survey was conducted in accordance with the WHO, UNICEF, and ICCIDD guidelines and it covered 4598 school­children aged 7 to 15 years from the urban and rural areas of 44 municipalities of Central Serbia and Vojvodina. Among all the examinees, the detection rate of the enlarged thyroid was 2.35% (as evidenced by ultrasound study) and the median urinary io­dine concentration was 158 μg/l. The findings suggest that iodine deficiency has been completely eliminated in Serbia due to the ef­fective program of the overall dietary salt iodination.

scholarly journals Accelerating the Provision of Safe Water Supply in Urban and Rural Areas of Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumengen Sutomo ◽  
Salord Sagala ◽  
Bebi Sutomo ◽  
Sri Winarti ◽  
Gelant Sanjaya
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Safe Water ◽  
The Past ◽  
Communication Layer ◽  
Technological Issue ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
Low Coverage ◽  
Very High

Over the past 100 years, the provision of a safe water supply to drink in Indonesia has been slowly progressed with low coverage. The majority of the population does not have access to safe water. Morbidity and mortality of water-related diseases, including diarrhea, are very high. The provision of safe water is not a technological issue but good water management that comprises content, institutional, and communication layer. This paper provided information for strategic and operational decisions to accelerate the provision of safe water services in urban and rural areas. Benchmarking good water management with the characteristics of the water supply location is required to improve the health status of the population, mainly the poor urban and rural areas with limited resources, including time and cost.

scholarly journals Measurements of Economic Growth and Development of Various Sized Central Place Areas in Pennsylvania, 1960-70

1972 ◽  
Vol 1 (01) ◽  
pp. 336-347
Author(s):  
R. Gar Forsht ◽  
J. Dean Jansma
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Economic Growth And Development ◽  
The Past ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

There has been increasing concern over the past decade about the lack of economic activity in a number of major cities, many intermediate and small sized cities, and a significant number of rural areas within various regions of the United States. This concern about the depressed conditions in these urban and rural areas, relative to the nation, has attracted country-wide attention.

scholarly journals Comparison of the specific mortality rates in town and country districts of Scotland since 1871

1940 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. Barclay ◽  
W. O. Kermack ◽  
A. G. McKendrick
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Specific Mortality ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
The Town

1. An analysis by the “generation mortality” method of the specific mortality rates of the urban and rural areas of Scotland for various calendar periods from 1871 onwards shows that the “diagonal law” previously demonstrated for the population of Scotland as a whole, as well as for certain other European countries, holds for these two subdivisions of the community.2. Reasons are given for the assumption that the normalized “generation mortality coefficients” (α values) may be taken as a rough measure of the “healthiness” of the environmental conditions which obtained during the childhood of the generation to which they refer. This affords a basis for the comparison of the “healthiness” of the environment of town and country at different periods in the past.3. Whereas in the earlier half of the nineteenth century the ratio of the α values of country to town was in the neighbourhood of 0·6, indicating that the health conditions in the country might be said to be almost twice as good as in the towns, in 1931 it had risen to almost unity, showing that by that time the town had almost if not quite made up on the country. During this period both town and country conditions showed remarkable improvements, which are reflected in falls of the respective α (× 1000) values in the country from about 12 and in the town from over 20 in 1841, to a common level of about 4·7 in 1931.4. The essential vagueness of the conception of the “healthiness” of an environment is emphasized. It is consequently necessary not to attach too great importance to the estimate of the date, but the figures given in Table 5 confirm the conclusion that, as regards “healthiness”, between 1930 and 1935 conditions in town and country had become nearly equal.

scholarly journals Difference in PM2.5 Variations between Urban and Rural Areas over Eastern China from 2001 to 2015

Atmosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changqing Lin ◽  
Alexis Lau ◽  
Ying Li ◽  
Jimmy Fung ◽  
Chengcai Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Population Exposure ◽  
Spatial Difference ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
Pm2.5 Concentration

To more effectively reduce population exposure to PM2.5, control efforts should target densely populated urban areas. In this study, we took advantage of satellite-derived PM2.5 data to assess the difference in PM2.5 variations between urban and rural areas over eastern China during the past three Five-Year Plan (FYP) periods (2001–2015). The results show that urban areas experienced less of a decline in PM2.5 concentration than rural areas did in more than half of the provinces during the 11th FYP period (2006–2010). In contrast, most provinces experienced a greater reduction of PM2.5 concentration in urban areas than in rural areas during the 10th and 12th FYP periods (2001–2005 and 2011–2015, respectively). During the recent 12th FYP period, the rates of decline in PM2.5 concentration in urban areas were more substantial than in rural areas by as much as 1.5 μg·m−3·year−1 in Beijing and 2.0 μg·m−3·year−1 in Tianjin. These results suggest that the spatial difference in PM2.5 change was conducive to a reduction in the population exposure to PM2.5 in most provinces during recent years.

scholarly journals Reversing the Shrinking of Civic Spaces: Insights for Strategies to Expand and Strengthen Activism and Organizations in Mozambique

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Marcio Pessôa ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Civic Spaces ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
State And Market ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

How can the shrinking of civic spaces be reversed? This article suggests an analytical approach to identify mechanisms that cause the shrinking of civic spaces in Mozambique, and presents a starting point for building strategies to react to this process. Based on interviews and participative observation in the field, it explores events and episodes where crucial issues or activists’ groupings were neutralised, and visits the theory of defiance in civil society, power and contentious politics to explain how the shrinking of civic spaces has been taking place in Mozambique in the past ten years. It is reasonable to state that activists need to cope with cultural and cognitive barriers in order to face the various expressions of state and market power in Mozambique. Civil society organizations need to work with their donors to create new forms of relationship together, where issues such as accountability, for example, do not put at risk civic spaces and projects that have made a positive difference to people’s lives. In addition, activists need to establish a joint lobbying focus for constructing a legal framework that facilitates the emergence of new civic spaces in urban and rural areas.

ABOUT THE LEVELS OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITY IN THE REPUBLIC OF BASHKORTOSTAN

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-164
Author(s):  
R.B. Shaykhislamov ◽  
O.A. Bureeva
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Traditional Religions ◽  
Republic Of Bashkortostan ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
Close Relatives

Over the past three decades, both in Russia as a whole and in its regions, the number of believers representing different faiths has increased. Most Russian regions are multi-confessional. Relations of mutual respect and tolerance have evolved over the centuries between the adherents of traditional religions. It should be noted that in the traditional way of life, representatives of confessional groups formed separate settlements. Today the representatives of different confessions live in the same locality urban and rural areas, often are neighbors, and colleagues. Moreover, representatives of confessional groups become distant or close relatives. In other words, there is a reduction in the social distance between representatives of different faiths. Therefore, it is essential to find ways not only of good-neighbourly coexistence, not only tolerance, but also trust and cooperation between different groups of believers at the macro-, meso- and micro levels.

Emerging evolution trends of studies on age-friendly cities and communities: a scientometric review

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Liqun Xiang ◽  
Geoffrey Q. P. Shen ◽  
Yongtao Tan ◽  
Xuan Liu
Keyword(s):  
Large Volume ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
World Health ◽  
Citation Networks ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
Global Population

Abstract Population ageing, together with urbanisation, has become one of the greatest challenges throughout the world in the 21st century. Approximately one million people turn 60 each month worldwide. By 2050, more than 20 per cent of the global population is predicted to be 60 years old or above. Thus, an increasing need is evident for age-friendly communities, services and structures. Numerous studies on age-friendly cities and communities (AFCCs) have been conducted over the past decade. The large volume literature makes it necessary to figure out key areas and the evolution trends of studies on AFCCs. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of existing literature pertaining to AFCCs. A total of 231 collected publications are analysed and visualised by CiteSpace. According to the keywords and document co-citation networks that are generated, the foundation, hot topics and domains of AFCC research are grouped. Three major themes, namely the characteristics of AFCCs, the application of the World Health Organization's framework in urban and rural areas worldwide, and the measurement of cities’ and communities’ age-friendliness, are identified. In addition, a roadmap of AFCC research is developed. The results of this research will therefore benefit researchers and practitioners.

scholarly journals Surface and Aerodynamic Parameters Estimation for Urban and Rural Areas

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Roberto Sozzi ◽  
Giampietro Casasanta ◽  
Virginia Ciardini ◽  
Sandro Finardi ◽  
Igor Petenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Roughness Length ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Parameters Estimation ◽  
Urban Site ◽  
Displacement Height ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Numerical weather prediction models require an accurate parametrization of the energy budget at the air-ground interface, that can be obtained only through long-term atmospheric boundary layer measurements at different spatial and temporal scales. Despite their importance, such measurements are still scarce even in well-characterized areas. In this paper, a three-year dataset from four micrometeorological stations run by the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection of Lazio was analyzed to estimate albedo, zero-displacement height, roughness length and surface properties over Rome and its suburbs, characterizing differences and interconnections between urban, suburban and rural areas of the same municipality. The integral albedo coefficient at the zenith for the urban station was found to be almost twice that for suburban and rural stations. The zero-displacement height of the urban site was strongly dependent on wind direction, with values varying between 12.0 and 17.8 m, while the roughness length (≈1.5 m) was almost independent of upwind direction, but it was significantly higher than the typical values calculated for rural stations (≈0.4 m). The apparent thermal capacities and thermal conductivity at all the non-urban sites were in fair agreement with each other and typical of soils with relatively low water content, as expected for a relatively dry Mediterranean area like Rome, while the apparent thermal diffusivity reflected the presence of different soil types.

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