scholarly journals Evaluating Dual Ecological and Well-Being Benefits from an Urban Restoration Project

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siân de Bell ◽  
Hilary Graham ◽  
Piran C. L. White

The degradation of urban natural spaces reduces their ability to benefit human populations. Restoration can support urban sustainability by improving both the ecological health of these spaces and the public benefits they provide, but studies rarely combine both perspectives. We assessed the ecological and social benefits of an urban river restoration project relative to an unrestored river on the basis of the following four principles: Increasing ecological integrity; benefitting and engaging society; taking account of the past and future; and sustainability. Ecological health at each site was assessed by analyzing macroinvertebrate samples. The social benefits were measured by conducting focus groups with local users of green spaces surrounding the two rivers and comparing their responses. Restoration increased the ecological health of the river and was viewed positively by users, enhancing the river as a space to visit for psychological benefits. However, there were concerns over the erasure of the cultural heritage of the area. Our findings indicate that the long-term sustainability of restoration projects, particularly in urban areas, can be enhanced by integrating ecological and social dimensions. Although short-term ecological improvements may be small, they have the potential to provide a range of benefits for human populations.

Author(s):  
Sigit Arifwidodo ◽  
Orana Chandrasiri

Public Park is considered one of the essential settings for physical activity, especially in urban areas. Parks support physical activity through their accessibility, their provision to facilitate active pursuits; their capacity to provide opportunities to a wide range of users; and their semi-permanent nature. The paper explores the design intervention assessment of Benchakitti Park, which serves as the pilot project for active park and showcase during the past ISPAH 2016 conference. The objective of the paper is to understand the health and well-being benefits of an urban park in increasing PA levels of urban population and promoting a healthy and active lifestyle. Keywords: Public park; physical activity; urban landscape design; public health; SOPARC


Climate change is a profoundly social and political challenge with many social justice concerns around every corner. A global issue, climate change threatens the well-being, livelihood, and survival of people in communities worldwide. Often, those who have contributed least to climate change are the most likely to suffer from its negative consequences and are often excluded from the policy discussions and decisions that affect their lives. This book pays particular attention to the social dimensions of climate change. It examines closely people’s lived experience, climate-related injustice and inequity, why some groups are more vulnerable than others, and what can be done about it—especially through greater community inclusion in policy change. A highlight of the book is its diversity of rich, community-based examples from throughout the Global South and North. Sacrificial flood zones in urban Argentina, forced relocation of United Houma tribal members in the United States, and gendered water insecurities in Bangladesh and Australia are just some of the in-depth cases included in the book. Throughout, the book asks social and political questions about climate change. Of key importance, it asks what can be done about the unequal consequences of climate change by questioning and transforming social institutions and arrangements—guided by values that prioritize the experience of affected groups and the inclusion of diverse voices and communities in the policy process.


2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-108
Author(s):  
A.F. Jităreanu ◽  
Elena Leonte ◽  
A. Chiran ◽  
Benedicta Drobotă

Abstract Advertising helps to establish a set of assumptions that the consumer will bring to all other aspects of their engagement with a given brand. Advertising provides tangible evidence of the financial credibility and competitive presence of an organization. Persuasion is becoming more important in advertising. In marketing, persuasive advertising acts to establish wants/motivations and beliefs/attitudes by helping to formulate a conception of the brand as being one which people like those in the target audience would or should prefer. Considering the changes in lifestyle and eating habits of a significant part of the population in urban areas in Romania, the paper aims to analyse how brands manage to differentiate themselves from competitors, to reposition themselves on the market and influence consumers, meeting their increasingly varied needs. Food brands on the Romanian market are trying, lately, to identify new methods of differentiation and new benefits for their buyers. Given that more and more consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about what they eat and the products’ health effects, brands struggle to highlight the fact that their products offer real benefits for the body. The advertisements have become more diversified and underline the positive effects, from the health and well - being point of view, that those foods offer (no additives and preservatives, use of natural ingredients, various vitamins and minerals or the fact that they are dietary). Advertising messages’ diversification is obvious on the Romanian market, in the context of an increasing concern of the population for the growing level of information of some major consumer segments.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 813
Author(s):  
Hui Dang ◽  
Jing Li ◽  
Yumeng Zhang ◽  
Zixiang Zhou

Urban green spaces can provide many types of ecosystem services for residents. An imbalance in the pattern of green spaces leads to an inequality of the benefits of such spaces. Given the current situation of environmental problems and the basic geographical conditions of Xi’an City, this study evaluated and mapped four kinds of ecosystem services from the perspective of equity: biodiversity, carbon sequestration, air purification, and climate regulation. Regionalization with dynamically constrained agglomerative clustering and partitioning (REDCAP) was used to obtain the partition groups of ecosystem services. The results indicate that first, the complexity of the urban green space community is low, and the level of biodiversity needs to be improved. The dry deposition flux of particulate matter (PM2.5) decreases from north to south, and green spaces enhance the adsorption of PM2.5. Carbon sequestration in the south and east is higher than that in the north and west, respectively. The average surface temperature in green spaces is lower than that in other urban areas. Second, urban green space resources in the study area are unevenly distributed. Therefore, ecosystem services in different areas are inequitable. Finally, based on the regionalization of integrated ecosystem services, an ecosystem services cluster was developed. This included 913 grid spaces, 12 partitions, and 5 clusters, which can provide a reference for distinct levels of ecosystem services management. This can assist urban managers who can use these indicators of ecosystem service levels for planning and guiding the overall development pattern of green spaces. The benefits would be a maximization of the ecological functions of green spaces, an improvement of the sustainable development of the city, and an improvement of people’s well-being.


Author(s):  
Ace Dimitrievski ◽  
Sonja Filiposka ◽  
Francisco José Melero ◽  
Eftim Zdravevski ◽  
Petre Lameski ◽  
...  

Connected health is expected to introduce an improvement in providing healthcare and doctor-patient communication while at the same time reducing cost. Connected health would introduce an even more significant gap between healthcare quality for urban areas with physical proximity and better communication to providers and the portion of rural areas with numerous connectivity issues. We identify these challenges using user scenarios and propose LoRa based architecture for addressing these challenges. We focus on the energy management of battery-powered, affordable IoT devices for long-term operation, providing important information about the care receivers’ well-being. Using an external ultra-low-power timer, we extended the battery life in the order of tens of times, compared to relying on low power modes of the microcontroller.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Guochun Liu ◽  
Jian Zheng ◽  
Lin Jiang ◽  
Karthik Chandran ◽  
Beenu Mago

The signal analysis helps us derive useful knowledge from biological processes to analyze, describe, and understand their origin mechanisms. However, biomedical signals are not immune and have time-consuming statistics. The major challenges of signal analysis of sportsperson are reliability and accuracy. Sports psychology uses psychological skills to discuss the optimum success and well-being of sports athletes, the developmental and social dimensions of the sport and sports facilities, and structural problems. The signal detection tool is used to detect the best combination of long-term practice predictors for active, sedentary adults’ signal. This paper proposed the wearable assisted signal detection method (WASDM) to find the sportspersons’ behavior signal analysis. This method performs an IoT based heart rate monitoring using a wearable device named intelligent bracelet mounted on the sportsperson to track the variations in his/her human heart rate. The wearable signal detector method analysis the heart rate abnormality and predicts health status, followed by an alarm to the physician and the respective personnel while performing activity session. In this research, various machine learning algorithms have been tried to perform signal analysis and prediction and compared their results to suggest the best in this application scenario. Finally, the experimental analysis shows better outcomes for the sportspersons’ psychological behavior signal analysis than the conventional methods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 823-824
Author(s):  
Mark Brennan-Ing ◽  
Michael Plankey ◽  
Deborah Gustafson

Abstract In 1984, the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) was started to identify factors in the HIV epidemic related to disease risk and treatment progression among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in four urban areas in the US: Baltimore, MD/Washington, D.C.; Chicago, IL; Pittsburgh, PA, and Los Angeles, CA. MACS participants complete biannual study visits involving HIV testing, biometric screenings, and psychosocial data collection. In 2015 a MACS sub-study, the Understanding Patterns of Healthy Aging among MSM Project (HAMSM), was started to better understand resiliencies promoting well-being among MSM age 40 and older, including those with HIV. HAMSM has helped us to understand aging trajectories among MSM, and provides a unique combination of physiological and psychosocial data that can inform efforts to support MSM in healthy aging. This symposium will present emerging findings from the HAMSM study. Our first paper examines the relationships between psychological connection to the gay community (PSOC) and developmental regulatory strategies associated with health behaviors and more positive self-appraisals. The second paper examines how PSOC is related to HIV risk reduction behaviors, and if there are differences in such behaviors based on HIV status. Our third paper considers how self-perceptions of aging (age discrepancy, aging satisfaction) are related to frailty and frailty transitions, and if these relationships differ by HIV status. The final paper examines the relationship of social support to frailty among MSM by HIV status. Implications of these findings for research, policy, and programs targeting MSM will be discussed.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zi Wang

Abstract The coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing lockdown affected social life in every regard. In critical times, the well-being of vulnerable groups is often at stake. Migrants represent a case in point because language barriers and the lack of social networks impede their seeking help from public institutions and information access. In migration policy and research, current attention overwhelmingly focusses on COVID-19’s impact on travel restrictions and healthcare. This article contributes a new perspective by demonstrating how migrants’ well-being needs (understood as emotions and sense of achievement) in education during the COVID-19-induced school closure were addressed by community educational organisations. Focussing on the Chinese community in Germany, data were collected in Chinese heritage language (CHL) schools from three urban areas. This article argues that CHL schools’ reaction to public schools’ closure had a positive impact on their members’ well-being. Such organisations achieved this by expanding their educational programmes during and after the lockdown. These measures ensured continuity in migrant children’s education beyond the realm of heritage language instruction, while enabling migrant parents to seek employment as the economy reopened. Overall, the results of this study underscore the potential of community organisations’ educational programmes in maintaining migrants’ well-being, especially in trying times.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan A. Brown ◽  
Daniel L. Dickerson ◽  
David J. Klein ◽  
Denis Agniel ◽  
Carrie L. Johnson ◽  
...  

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth exhibit multiple health disparities, including high rates of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, violence and delinquency, and mental health problems. Approximately 70% of AI/AN youth reside in urban areas, where negative outcomes on behavioral health and well-being are often high. Identity development may be particularly complex in urban settings, where youth may face more fragmented and lower density AI/AN communities, as well as mixed racial-ethnic ancestry and decreased familiarity with AI/AN lifeways. This study examines racial-ethnic and cultural identity among AI/AN adolescents and associations with behavioral health and well-being by analyzing quantitative data collected from a baseline assessment of 185 AI/AN urban adolescents from California who were part of a substance use intervention study. Adolescents who identified as AI/AN on their survey reported better mental health, less alcohol and marijuana use, lower rates of delinquency, and increased happiness and spiritual health.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Walker ◽  
T. K. Logan

Research typically compartmentalizes health and justice as separate areas of study. However, the current health literature on inequality suggests the two concepts are overlapping. For victims of partner violence, procedural justice (defined in this article as access to protective orders and enforcement of protective orders) potentially provides a step toward improved health and well-being by improving safety. There has been limited research examining these factors in rural compared with urban areas. This study examines the impact of procedural justice on health and well-being through interviews with rural and urban women 6 months prior to, and 6 months after, obtaining a protective order. Consistent with other literature, rural women who were victims of partner violence reported worse health, higher stress, and higher Stress-Related Consequences Scale scores compared with urban women. Women’s reported health consequences were related to the interaction of perceived ineffectiveness of the protective orders and their rural/urban environment. Thus, the perceived effectiveness of procedural justice may play an important role in alleviating victims’ safety, health, and well-being, all of which are components of contemporary views of justice.


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