scholarly journals Urban Sustainability at the Cost of Rural Unsustainability

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5466
Author(s):  
Guangwei Huang

Urban sustainability refers to building and maintaining cities that can continue to function without running out of resources. However, growing cities require more land and urban sprawl has transformed surrounding rural areas into urbanized settlements. Furthermore, the prosperity of large cities depends on the supply of both natural and human resources from rural areas, either nearby or remote. On the other hand, the use of resources of rural areas by cities may cause negative externalities to rural areas, affecting their sustainability. Therefore, a critical, but very much neglected issue, is how unban sustainability should be pursued without affecting rural sustainability. In this study, cases in Japan and China were analyzed from resources and population migration perspectives to provide evidence for the possibility that urban sustainability might have been pursued at the cost of rural unsustainability. It was intended to develop a better understanding of urban sustainability through the lens of externalities. Based on the analysis, a new framework for urban sustainability study was proposed, which consists of three new pillars. Namely, externality, vulnerability, and population instability.

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Homan ◽  
Catherine Searle

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has meant that an increasing number of chronically ill people need ongoing assistance with care and support. Programs providing home-based care (HBC) services are a key component of the response to HIV/AIDS. However, few programs are using operations research, including cost studies, to decide what services to provide and how to structure their services. In 2004, the Horizons Program undertook a study of six HBC programs from different South African provinces to provide key information to NGOs, government ministries, donors, and the programs themselves to inform decisions about service delivery. The study analyzed the cost of HBC services, the best use of resources, and how well programs are able to meet the needs of beneficiaries and their families. The sample represents programs that operate in rural areas and informal settlements. This brief focuses on the coverage, organization, volume, and costs of the services and on findings from two of the methods of data collection: financial records and service statistics, and interviews with financial officers, program managers, and caregivers.


Author(s):  
Yu. Kozlov ◽  
R. Serebryakov

A new coronavirus pandemic is raging all over the world, especially in densely populated areas. Unlike most countries, more than half of the territory of Russia is not used by humans — which means that it is possible to settle large cities to avoid crowding people on a small area. The authors of the article consider wind power, namely vortex wind power plants, as a new source of energy that can be quickly and with less harm built in rural areas. The article also discusses the possibilities of an alternative Autonomous non-volatile installation "Air spring" for obtaining fresh water from atmospheric air.


Author(s):  
NA Moiseeva ◽  
IL Kholstinina ◽  
MF Knyazeva ◽  
TV Mazhaeva ◽  
OL Malykh ◽  
...  

Introduction: Implementation of the Federal Public Health Promotion Project should raise awareness and develop skills of healthy nutrition in children, thus contributing to disease prevention. Our objective was to evaluate the results of pilot nutrition monitoring in school-aged children of the Sverdlovsk Region as part of the Federal Public Health Promotion Project and the National Demography Project. Results: We established that school meals were generally satisfactory: the rations complied with physiological needs of children in terms of their nutritional value, basic nutrients, energy, and distribution of calories by main meals. We noted differences in the cost and nutritional value of meals and the variety of dishes and foodstuffs used between urban and rural areas. As a rule, pupils have one or two school meals a day. Outside of school, their consumption of dairy products and fruit is limited. Conclusions: Our findings may promote the elaboration of municipal programs aimed, inter alia, at changing the amount of sugar and salt used in the manufacture of public catering products, the cost of dishes with a high content of sugar, saturated fats, and salt, and subsidies on healthy nutrition.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. e043791
Author(s):  
Jan Bauer ◽  
Dieter Moormann ◽  
Reinhard Strametz ◽  
David A Groneberg

ObjectivesThis study wants to assess the cost-effectiveness of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with automated external defibrillators (AED) in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA). Especially in rural areas with longer response times of emergency medical services (EMS) early lay defibrillation could lead to a significant higher survival in OHCA.Participants3296 emergency medical stations in Germany.SettingRural areas in Germany.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThree UAV networks providing 80%, 90% or 100% coverage for rural areas lacking timely access to EMS (ie, time-to-defibrillation: >10 min) were developed using a location allocation analysis. For each UAV network, primary outcome was the cost-effectiveness using the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) calculated by the ratio of financial costs to additional life years gained compared with current EMS.ResultsCurrent EMS with 3926 emergency stations was able to gain 1224 life years on annual average in the study area. The UAV network providing 100% coverage consisted of 1933 UAV with average annual costs of €43.5 million and 1845 additional life years gained on annual average (ICER: €23 568). The UAV network providing 90% coverage consisted of 1074 UAV with average annual costs of €24.2 million and 1661 additional life years gained on annual average (ICER: €14 548). The UAV network providing 80% coverage consisted of 798 UAV with average annual costs of €18.0 million and 1477 additional life years gained on annual average (ICER: €12 158).ConclusionThese results reveal the relevant life-saving potential of all modelled UAV networks. Furthermore, all analysed UAV networks could be deemed cost-effective. However, real-life applications are needed to validate the findings.


Author(s):  
Jun Zhang ◽  
Xiaodie Yuan ◽  
Xueping Tan ◽  
Xue Zhang

As one of the most important methods for limiting urban sprawl, the accurate delineation of the urban–rural boundary not only promotes the intensive use of urban resources, but also helps to alleviate the urban issues caused by urban sprawl, realizing the intensive and healthy development of urban cities. Previous studies on delineating urban–rural boundaries were only based on the level of urban and rural development reflected by night-time light (NTL) data, ignoring the differences in the spatial development between urban and rural areas; so, the comprehensive consideration of NTL and point of interest (POI) data can help improve the accuracy of urban–rural boundary delineation. In this study, the NTL and POI data were fused using wavelet transform, and then the urban–rural boundary before and after data fusion was delineated by multiresolution segmentation. Finally, the delineation results were verified. The verification result shows that the accuracy of delineating the urban–rural boundary using only NTL data is 84.20%, and the Kappa value is 0.6549; the accuracy using the fusion of NTL and POI data on the basis of wavelet transform is 93.2%, and the Kappa value is 0.8132. Therefore, we concluded that the proposed method of using wavelet transform to fuse NTL and POI data considers the differences between urban and rural development, which significantly improves the accuracy of the delineation of urban–rural boundaries. Accurate delineation of urban–rural boundaries is helpful for optimizing internal spatial structure in both urban and rural areas, alleviating environmental problems resulting from urban development, assisting the formulation of development policies for urban and rural fringes, and promoting the intensive and healthy development of urban areas.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110278
Author(s):  
Gentian Qejvanaj

Social assistance is a cash transfer program targeting the poorest households. China has created the Dibao (DB), meaning minimum livelihood guarantee, the most extensive unconditional cash transfer program globally with over 70 million people covered, whereas in Albania, the Ndhime Ekonomike (NE) meaning financial help covers around 15% of the total working-age population. Both programs are means-tested, have strict requirements for eligibility, and have been enlarged and modified in time to improve targeting and tackling leakage. In this article, we will look at similarities and common issues first, and then calculate the cost of enlarging both programs to all working-age population with no means-testing. We argue that a UBI (universal basic income) can increase private expenditure in health and education while costing less than 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in both countries’ rural areas. We will conclude by looking at how the COVID-19 outbreak is pushing developing countries toward a UBI by first adopting a temporary basic income (TBI).


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Sola Aluko-Arowolo, ◽  
Saheed Akinmayowa Lawal ◽  
Isaac A. Adedeji ◽  
Ebun O. Oduwole ◽  
Victor Kolo

In connection with the global prevalence of prostate cancer, the incidence of prostate cancer in Nigeria is an emerging burden that requires urgent attention. While most health policies have focused on the female gender and children, it has left most men at significant risk of health problems and challenges which are dire. In the general context of cancer and its predominance in the population of people aged 40 and over, middle aged and older men have been found to be increasingly at risk. Hence the paper examines the dimension of prostate cancer in rural Nigeria. Although socio-cultural and economic factors play significant role in the health-related decisions of the human population, the paper discusses the cultural interpretations associated with prostate cancer. It also engages previous studies being a review paper on the cost and care for people affected with the disease. In conclusion, the lack of commensurate coping resources, rural dwellers are disproportionally impacted, both by the disease and the socio-economic burdens of prostate cancer, hence the need for more policies/action to address prostate cancer prevalence and incidence in rural areas of Nigeria


2016 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tommaso Diaco ◽  
Geremia Milanesi ◽  
Daniela Zaniboni ◽  
Massimo Gritti ◽  
Gianna Zavatteri ◽  
...  

weight on social cost. An improved resources utilization could promote a reduction of the new hospitalization and a of medical costs. Working hypotesis: To analyze a model of increased utilization of our Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) Unit, aiming at improving the cost/profit ratio through a better use of resources and a better assignment of care. With a reduction of average length of stay in the Operative Units for acute patients, we could promote a demand of post-acute hospitalization of 950.7 days of hospitalization that could be assigned to Cardiologic Rehabilitation Unit. Results: With the transfer of patients the utilization rate of CR would increase to 97%. With a mean period in bed of 15.3 days we could hospitalize 62 additional patients and the total margin of contribution would became positive: 69.817 euro. The break even analysis applied to costs and returns of the Unit shows a further indication to increase the hospitalization number in CR Unit with patients transfered from acute patient units. Under the same costs the recovery of efficiency leads to a reduction of variable costs. In the same time there is an increase of returns due to an increase of mean value for case and an increase of services. Conclusion: The increase in the efficiency in the utilization of CR Unit leads to an increase of the Hospital efficiency. The transfer of patients from acute units to CR Unit would allow an increased hospitalization rate for acute patients without requiring additional resources.


Author(s):  
Akyene Tetteh ◽  
Sarah Dsane-Nsor

Background: Although the Internet boosts business profitability, without certain activities like efficient transportation, scheduling, products ordered via the Internet may reach their destination very late. The environmental problems (vehicle part disposal, carbon monoxide [CO], nitrogen oxide [NOx] and hydrocarbons [HC]) associated with transportation are mostly not accounted for by industries.Objectives: The main objective of this article is to minimising negative externalities cost in e-commerce environments.Method: The 0-1 mixed integer linear programming (0-1 MILP) model was used to model the problem statement. The result was further analysed using the externality percentage impact factor (EPIF).Results: The simulation results suggest that (1) The mode of ordering refined petroleum products does not impact on the cost of distribution, (2) an increase in private cost is directly proportional to the externality cost, (3) externality cost is largely controlled by the government and number of vehicles used in the distribution and this is in no way influenced by the mode of request (i.e. Internet or otherwise) and (4) externality cost may be reduce by using more ecofriendly fuel system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 552-569
Author(s):  
Viktor V. Fauzer ◽  
Andrey V. Smirnov ◽  
Galina N. Fauzer

Since the dissolution of the USSR and advent of market relations, small and medium-sized Russian cities have experienced many economic and social problems due to their peripheral status. At the same time, they form the main framework for the settlement of the northern territories. The research aims to reveal the importance of small and medium-sized cities in the set- tlement system of 13 regions of the Russian North by studying their demographic dynamics. We examined the hypothesis that the demographic sustainability of these cities depends on the time of their formation. A proposed methodology for assessing the demographic sustainability of cities is based on five groups: demographically sustainable, relatively sustainable, unsustainable, critically unsustainable, instability. Four periods of the formation of small and medium-sized cities are defined: colonisation of the Russian North (1584–1917); industrialisation and urbanisation of the northern territories (1918–1959); from coercion to encouragement — northern romance (1960–1989); from settlement to abandonment — depopulation (1990–2020). For each period, the cities were assessed in terms of their demographic sustainability. The current sustainability of the cities was shown to be dependent on the period of their formation. Compared with the rest of Russia, the structure of settlements in the North revealed both similarities (concentration of the population in large cities) and differences (the proportion of the population living in small and medium-sized cities is higher, but lower in rural areas). Future research will focus on developing a methodology for assessing the «saturation» of small and medium-sized cities in the Russian North.


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