scholarly journals Transformative Urban Living Labs: Towards a Circular Economy in Amsterdam and Turin

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7651
Author(s):  
Federico Cuomo ◽  
Stefania Ravazzi ◽  
Federico Savini ◽  
Luca Bertolini
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Urban Living ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Systemic Impact ◽  
Living Labs ◽  
Over Time

The circular economy is becoming a field of experimentation to trigger site-specific laboratories oriented towards connecting material flows and citizens’ practices. Despite their wide use, a critical perspective of the transformative paths of these Urban Living Labs (ULLs) is still missing. This paper compares the paths followed by two such experiments, one in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and the other in Turin (Italy). To this end, we build an analytical framework that targets three dimensions: unconventionality, autonomy, and systemic impact on policies. We conclude that ULLs can take very different transformation paths over time due to a wide range of enablers and barriers. In Amsterdam there has been an assimilation in the neighbourhood as well as a transformative effect on an urban scale; while the case of Turin has turned out to be potentially transformative but also at risk of marginalization.

scholarly journals Urban Living Labs, Circular Economy and Nature-Based Solutions: Ideation and Testing of a New Soil in the City of Turin Using a Multi-stakeholder Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grazia Sveva Ascione ◽  
Federico Cuomo ◽  
Nicole Mariotti ◽  
Laura Corazza
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
Stakeholder Management ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Urban Living ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Living Labs ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
The City

AbstractIn the attempt to foster circular economy (CE), cities are increasingly adopting urban living labs (ULLs) as sites of co-production aimed at testing alternative solutions based on the reuse of products, reduction of consumption and recycling of materials. Taking this perspective, our study adopts an exploratory research design to discover the pragmatic implications emerging from a case study. The City of Turin joined proGIreg, a European project that entails the regeneration of former industrial districts by means of nature-based solutions (NBS). Ranging from aquaponics to green roofs, seven NBS have been experimented in Turin, which rely on the use of natural systems to tackle social, economic and environmental challenges efficiently and sustainably. Among them, the most promising is related to the production and test of the ‘new soil’, a blend obtained by mixing earth materials coming from construction sites with compost, zeolites and mycorrhizae. The case herein presented is interesting to analyse for the multi-stakeholder management setting used, where public institutions, private companies, research institutions, citizens and associations collaborated in the co-creation and testing phase of the NBS. Consequently, the data collected through participant observation and direct interviews allow researchers to describe multi-stakeholders’ dynamics and how they work. Thus, this paper narrates a micro-contextual experience while providing a critique. Results include an analysis of the unique combination of different stakeholders, which strongly impacted on the management and the effectiveness of the entire project. By consequence, the paper offers both theoretical contributions to the relational branch of stakeholder theory and practical evidence in demonstrating the importance of the relational branch of the theory over a more traditional transactional view.

A TOPSIS extension framework for re-conceptualizing sustainability measurement

Kybernetes ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Afful-Dadzie ◽  
Eric Afful-Dadzie ◽  
Charles Turkson
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Measuring System ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sustainability Performance ◽  
Target Values ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sustainability Measurement ◽  
Composite Scores ◽  
Over Time

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability measurement and scoring system for assessing the efforts of organizations at meeting sustainability targets. Using technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) as the basic framework, the proposed method incorporates all three sustainability dimensions – economic, environmental and social – to establish a threshold below which an organization is considered to have failed a sustainability test. In Addition, an introduction of a time-independent threshold enables a clearer comparison of performance of organizations over time. The proposed method includes plots for visualizing the sustainability performance of organizations under review. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method first assigns target values to a hypothetical organization. TOPSIS is then used to generate composite scores in which the score of the hypothetical organization is set as the threshold below which organizations are deemed to have failed a sustainability test. Using the square of the closeness coefficient of TOPSIS, the final composite score is decomposed into three components to reflect the contribution of the three dimensions of sustainability to serve as a guide to determining which dimension to focus on for improvement. A relative comparison score is then proposed to track the performance of organizations over time. Findings – The proposed method with its ability to set a threshold is able to determine organizations that have passed a sustainability test from those that have failed. The tracking of organizational performance over time also serves to highlight progress being made by organizations to meet an agreed sustainability target. Results from the application of the proposed method for evaluating sustainability of banks under the three dimensions of sustainability highlight its practical applicability. The proposed method can also be applied to a wide range of comparison problems including make-or-by decisions and award selection. Practical implications – As most industries and organizations become conscious of the pressure to adopt sustainable practices, the proposed measuring system would help identify those that are meeting sustainability targets as well as to track their progress over time. Originality/value – Most sustainability measurement indicators rarely have thresholds to determine whether an organization has met or failed to meet a sustainability test other than ranking them from top to bottom. The proposed method provides a threshold as well as a procedure for tracking the sustainability performance of organizations over time.

scholarly journals Urban Living Lab as a Circular Economy Ecosystem: Advancing Environmental Sustainability through Economic Value, Material, and Knowledge Flows

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2811
Author(s):  
Anil Engez ◽  
Seppo Leminen ◽  
Leena Aarikka-Stenroos
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Knowledge Flows ◽  
System Level ◽  
Ecosystem Structure ◽  
Dominant Type ◽  
Urban Living ◽  
Living Lab ◽  
Living Labs

Environmental sustainability is an increasingly relevant aspect of urban living labs. The objective of this study is to examine an urban living lab through ecosystem approach lenses and reveal the actor activities and diverse flows between them, enabling sustainable urban development. The study examines an urban area through four living lab projects in the Hiedanranta district in Tampere in Finland. We apply a qualitative research design strategy including semi-structured interviews reinforced with the project reports and websites. The collaboration and co-creation nature of living labs resembles an ecosystem structure, as both include diverse complementary actors and have distinctive coordination mechanisms, shared goals, and system-level outcomes. Building on the ecosystem analogy and circular economy ecosystem typology, our study examines living labs as ecosystems, enabling the economic value flow, material flow, and knowledge flow and pursuing the shared goal of improved environmental sustainability. The findings of the study demonstrate how the different ecosystem types manifest in urban living labs, and the actors, flows, and outcomes in these ecosystems. The study concludes that urban sustainability-oriented living labs comprise all main types of circular economy ecosystems. The dominant type of the activities (biased to economic value, material, or knowledge) determines the ecosystem type in an urban living lab, highlighting a key topic for future research: The contribution of collaborative projects to environmental sustainability in urban living labs realized through diverse ecosystem types.

The Blue-Green Urban Living Labs of Kuala Lumpur

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (13) ◽  
pp. 359-367
Author(s):  
Jamalunlaili Abdullah ◽  
Raziah Ahmad ◽  
Muhammad Hafiz Zainal
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Urban Living ◽  
The Public ◽  
Societal Challenges ◽  
Private Citizen ◽  
Living Labs ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
Open Access Article

The extraordinary societal challenges demand cities to be innovative and adaptable to the needs of urban citizens. In the Malaysian context, the Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) has not been well incorporated into the ULLs. This paper seeks to address this gap by exploring the potential of the Blue-Green Urban Living Labs (BGULLs) at the Sungai Bunus catchment area. Using Google Form, survey questionnaire is conducted among professionals and the public. Findings of this unprecedented study suggest the BGULLs offer beyond beautification works, and it is voicing the virtual idea of the BGULLs into a real setting that reflects the public-private-citizen partnerships.Keywords: Urban living labs; Blue-Green Infrastructure; Innovation; societal challengeseISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.2072

Anti-corruption in History

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Wellbeing ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Legitimate Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Over Time

Anticorruption in History is the first major collection of case studies on how past societies and polities, in and beyond Europe, defined legitimate power in terms of fighting corruption and designed specific mechanisms to pursue that agenda. It is a timely book: corruption is widely seen today as a major problem, undermining trust in government, financial institutions, economic efficiency, the principle of equality before the law and human wellbeing in general. Corruption, in short, is a major hurdle on the “path to Denmark”—a feted blueprint for stable and successful statebuilding. The resonance of this view explains why efforts to promote anticorruption policies have proliferated in recent years. But while the subjects of corruption and anticorruption have captured the attention of politicians, scholars, NGOs and the global media, scant attention has been paid to the link between corruption and the change of anticorruption policies over time and place. Such a historical approach could help explain major moments of change in the past as well as reasons for the success and failure of specific anticorruption policies and their relation to a country’s image (of itself or as construed from outside) as being more or less corrupt. It is precisely this scholarly lacuna that the present volume intends to begin to fill. A wide range of historical contexts are addressed, ranging from the ancient to the modern period, with specific insights for policy makers offered throughout.

scholarly journals Separate Universe calibration of the dependence of halo bias on cosmic web anisotropy

2020 ◽  
Vol 499 (3) ◽  
pp. 4418-4431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujatha Ramakrishnan ◽  
Aseem Paranjape
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
High Precision ◽  
Gaussian Distribution ◽  
Initial Perturbation ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Web Environment ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Galaxy Assembly ◽  
Very High ◽  
Good Agreement

ABSTRACT We use the Separate Universe technique to calibrate the dependence of linear and quadratic halo bias b1 and b2 on the local cosmic web environment of dark matter haloes. We do this by measuring the response of halo abundances at fixed mass and cosmic web tidal anisotropy α to an infinite wavelength initial perturbation. We augment our measurements with an analytical framework developed in earlier work that exploits the near-lognormal shape of the distribution of α and results in very high precision calibrations. We present convenient fitting functions for the dependence of b1 and b2 on α over a wide range of halo mass for redshifts 0 ≤ z ≤ 1. Our calibration of b2(α) is the first demonstration to date of the dependence of non-linear bias on the local web environment. Motivated by previous results that showed that α is the primary indicator of halo assembly bias for a number of halo properties beyond halo mass, we then extend our analytical framework to accommodate the dependence of b1 and b2 on any such secondary property that has, or can be monotonically transformed to have, a Gaussian distribution. We demonstrate this technique for the specific case of halo concentration, finding good agreement with previous results. Our calibrations will be useful for a variety of halo model analyses focusing on galaxy assembly bias, as well as analytical forecasts of the potential for using α as a segregating variable in multitracer analyses.

scholarly journals Living lab on sharing and circular economy: The case of Turin

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 146045822098727
Author(s):  
Federico Cuomo ◽  
Nadia Lambiase ◽  
Antonio Castagna
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Swot Analysis ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Production Cycle ◽  
Living Lab ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Living Labs ◽  
Past Experiences

Cities with their innovative capacity are key places to address critical climate, environmental and health challenges. Urban experimentations, such as Living Labs, can represent a starting point to reintroduce resources into the production cycle and reduce environmental impacts, embracing the paradigm of the circular economy (CE). According to recent studies, Living Labs at a city scale could generate significant environmental benefits, improvements in quality of life and positive impacts on citizens’ health.1 This paper aims at presenting the case of the Torino Living Lab on Sharing and Circular Economy (LLSC) to point out possible future scenarios of urban sustainable policies. The case study is analysed in five sections: (1) the description of the new permanent laboratory proposed by the City of Turin; (2) the past experiences of Living Labs in Turin; (3) the birth of LLSC and the involvement strategy; (4) the introduction of the eight admitted experimentations. In the light of the results collected, the last paragraph (5) came up with the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Treaths (SWOT) analysis in the LLSC. Eventually, it deals with the research question by offering a common ground for global and local policies focused on sustainability and CE.

Turbulent three-dimensional dielectric electrohydrodynamic convection between two plates

2012 ◽  
Vol 696 ◽  
pp. 228-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kourmatzis ◽  
J. S. Shrimpton
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Data ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Reynolds Numbers ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Energy Budgets ◽  
Turbulent Regime ◽  
Scalar Flux ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Scalar Variance

AbstractThe fundamental mechanisms responsible for the creation of electrohydrodynamically driven roll structures in free electroconvection between two plates are analysed with reference to traditional Rayleigh–Bénard convection (RBC). Previously available knowledge limited to two dimensions is extended to three-dimensions, and a wide range of electric Reynolds numbers is analysed, extending into a fully inherently three-dimensional turbulent regime. Results reveal that structures appearing in three-dimensional electrohydrodynamics (EHD) are similar to those observed for RBC, and while two-dimensional EHD results bear some similarities with the three-dimensional results there are distinct differences. Analysis of two-point correlations and integral length scales show that full three-dimensional electroconvection is more chaotic than in two dimensions and this is also noted by qualitatively observing the roll structures that arise for both low (${\mathit{Re}}_{E} = 1$) and high electric Reynolds numbers (up to ${\mathit{Re}}_{E} = 120$). Furthermore, calculations of mean profiles and second-order moments along with energy budgets and spectra have examined the validity of neglecting the fluctuating electric field ${ E}_{i}^{\ensuremath{\prime} } $ in the Reynolds-averaged EHD equations and provide insight into the generation and transport mechanisms of turbulent EHD. Spectral and spatial data clearly indicate how fluctuating energy is transferred from electrical to hydrodynamic forms, on moving through the domain away from the charging electrode. It is shown that ${ E}_{i}^{\ensuremath{\prime} } $ is not negligible close to the walls and terms acting as sources and sinks in the turbulent kinetic energy, turbulent scalar flux and turbulent scalar variance equations are examined. Profiles of hydrodynamic terms in the budgets resemble those in the literature for RBC; however there are terms specific to EHD that are significant, indicating that the transfer of energy in EHD is also attributed to further electrodynamic terms and a strong coupling exists between the charge flux and variance, due to the ionic drift term.

scholarly journals Site‐specific nitrogen balances based on spatially variable soil and plant properties

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Mittermayer ◽  
August Gilg ◽  
Franz-Xaver Maidl ◽  
Ludwig Nätscher ◽  
Kurt-Jürgen Hülsbergen
Keyword(s):  
Soil Properties ◽  
N Uptake ◽  
Nitrate Content ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Nitrate Losses ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Combine Harvester ◽  
Digital Methods ◽  
Collection Methods

AbstractIn this study, site-specific N balances were calculated for a 13.1 ha heterogeneous field. Yields and N uptake as input data for N balances were determined with data from a combine harvester, reflectance measurements from satellites and tractor-mounted sensors. The correlations between the measured grain yields and yields determined by digital methods were moderate. The calculated values for the N surpluses had a wide range within the field. Nitrogen surpluses were calculated from − 76.4 to 91.3 kg ha−1, with a mean of 24.0 kg ha−1. The use of different data sources and data collection methods had an impact on the results of N balancing. The results show the need for further optimization and improvement in the accuracy of digital methods. The factors influencing N uptake and N surplus were determined by analysing soil properties of georeferenced soil samples. Soil properties showed considerable spatial variation within the field. Soil organic carbon correlated very strongly with total nitrogen content (r = 0.97), moderately with N uptake (sensor, r = 0.60) and negatively with N surplus (satellite, r = − 0.46; sensor, r = − 0.56; harvester, r = − 0.60). Nitrate content was analysed in soil cores (0 to 9 m) taken in different yield zones, and compared with the calculated N surplus; there was a strong correlation between the measured nitrate content and calculated N surplus (r = 0.82). Site-specific N balancing can contribute to a more precise identification of the risk of nitrate losses and the development of targeted nitrate reduction strategies.

scholarly journals A Newfangled Collagenase Inhibitor Topical Formulation Based on Ethosomes with Sambucus nigra L. Extract

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 467
Author(s):  
Ana Henriques Mota ◽  
Inês Prazeres ◽  
Henrique Mestre ◽  
Andreia Bento-Silva ◽  
Maria João Rodrigues ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Activities ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Release Profile ◽  
Health Claims ◽  
Topical Formulation ◽  
Sambucus Nigra ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

Sambucus nigra L. (S. nigra) is a shrub widespread in Europe and western Asia, traditionally used in medicine, that has become popular in recent years as a potential source of a wide range of interesting bioactive compounds. The aim of the present work was to develop a topical S. nigra extract formulation based on ethosomes and thus to support its health claims with scientific evidence. S. nigra extract was prepared by an ultrasound-assisted method and then included in ethosomes. The ethosomes were analyzed in terms of their size, stability over time, morphology, entrapment capacity (EC), extract release profile, stability over time and several biological activities. The prepared ethosomes were indicated to be well defined, presenting sizes around 600 nm. The extract entrapment capacity in ethosomes was 73.9 ± 24.8%, with an interesting slow extract release profile over 24 h. The extract-loaded ethosomes presented collagenase inhibition activity and a very good skin compatibility after human application. This study demonstrates the potential use of S. nigra extract incorporated in ethosomes as a potential cosmeceutical ingredient and on further studies should be performed to better understand the impact of S. nigra compounds on skin care over the time.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document