Fractal Characteristic Evolution of Coastal Settlement Land Use: A Case of Xiamen, China

Coastal settlements in urban areas show certain degrees of spatial complexity. Understanding the evolution law of fractal settlements is practically important for marine engineering and urban planning. In this paper, we investigate the fractal evolution of coastal settlement land use based on fractal theory. The fractal dimensions of the land uses for three typically coastal settlements in Xiamen city, China, are obtained to quantify their spatial complexity. The results reveal the fractal characteristics and regional differences of the coastal settlements. Furthermore, nonlinear modeling is applied to describe the fractal dimension evolution of the coastal settlement land uses from 2000 to 2018. Three settlements in rapid urbanization show different nonlinear evolution equations of the fractal dimension due to their different land uses. This study might provide a theoretical basis for understanding the fractal characteristic evolution of coastal settlements in urban areas and show its potential application in urban geography.

The Effect of Urban Spatial Form on Energy Efficiency: A Cross-Sectional Study in China

Rational planning and optimization of urban spatial form to achieve the goal of energy efficient utilization and carbon emission reduction is one of the important ways to improve energy efficiency. We deconstruct urban spatial form into centrality, aggregation and complexity, and analyze net effect and its heterogeneity of urban spatial form on energy efficiency with OLS, quantile regression model as well as grouped regression model. The results show that the effects of urban spatial centrality and complexity on energy efficiency are nonlinear. For the vast majority of cities, strengthening urban spatial centrality will significantly improve energy efficiency, but the growth rate will gradually decrease. The impact effect of urban complexity on energy efficiency has the characteristics of U-shaped trend with an inflection point value of 0.429. And for the three-quarters of urban samples, enhancing urban spatial complexity will reduce energy efficiency. The positive effect of urban spatial aggregation on energy efficiency is only significant in cities with high quantile for energy efficiency. In terms of urban heterogeneity, the positive effects of spatial centrality and aggregation on energy efficiency are more obvious in megacities with a permanent population of more than 5 million, and the negative effect of spatial complexity on energy efficiency is more obvious in small and medium-sized cities. Whether it is promotion or inhibition, the urban samples with high energy efficiency are more affected by the change of urban spatial form. Optimizing the urban spatial form is one of the important ways to improve the energy efficiency, and the policy setting should give full consideration to the urban heterogeneity and classified policies.

FLEXIBLE HOUSING SCHEMES ON HOUSING TYPE 36 IN YOGYAKARTA

Flexible housing has the potential to be applied in housing type 36 in Indonesia, especially with a focus on the modeling of the flexible housing scheme. But beforehand, potential redundancies and trend patterns of occupant needs must be identified. The research stages are spaciousness, spatial complexity using statistics, and perceptual clarity using repeated modeling and evaluation. There are 28 research data samples taken from type 36 housing developed by Perum perumnas Regional V of Yogyakarta branches i.e. Perumnas Minomartani, Perumnas Condong Catur, Perumnas Guwosari, and Perumnas Trimulyo. The results of the research are change of rooms needs for the inhabitant, transformation of tipology from the house layout, the priority setting of rooms for the inhabitants, linkage among rooms that is efficient for the inhabitant, limitations of flexible housing, and flexible housing schemes.

LUGAR E ESPAÇO PÚBLICO: A PRESENÇA DA DIFERENÇA EM BATALHAS DE MC’S EM BELÉM, PARÁ

Resumo: Este artigo tem como objetivo estudar a relação entre lugar e espaço público no contexto da realização de Batalhas de MC em praças de Belém, Pará. Justificamos a realização deste trabalho pela necessidade de compreendermos as ações do movimento hip hop a partir das particularidades dos seus sujeitos, aqui analisadas com base nas suas diferenças, portadoras de identidades espaciais afetivas: seus lugares. A complexidade espacial das periferias de Belém sugere que as demandas que surgem das vivências desses sujeitos contêm riquíssimas informações acerca da potencialidade política desses encontros. Foi realizado um levantamento bibliográfico acerca do tema, com o objetivo de obter um panorama do campo de estudos, assim como trabalhos de campo de cunho etnográfico, o que permitiu perceber que o lugar possui destacada importância na realização destes eventos no espaço público, por serem fonte das particularidades que permitirão o encontro de diferenças no espaço, promovendo ações políticas que o definem e reafirmando suas próprias existências. Palavras-Chave: Lugar; Espaço Público; Batalhas de MC. PLACE AND PUBLIC SPACE: THE PRESENCE OF DIFFERENCE IN MC BATTLES IN BELÉM, PARÁ Abstract: This article aims to study the relationship between place and public space in the context of the performance of MC Battles on the streets of Belém, Pará. The accomplishment of this work is justified by the need to understand the actions of the hip hop movement from the particularities of their subjects, in this piece analyzed based on their differences, carrying spacial affective identities: their places. Belém periphery spatial complexity suggests that the demands that arise from the experiences of these subjects hold informations about the political potential of these meetings. Bibliographic survey was carried out about the topic in order to obtain an overview of the field of study and field of ethnographic nature, which allowed us to realize that the place has highlighted importance on achievement of these events in the public space, because they are source of the particularities which allow the differences in space, promoting political actions that defines them and reaffirming their own existance. Keywords: Place; Public Space; MC battles. LUGAR Y ESPACIO PÚBLICO: LA PRESENCIA DE LA DIFERENCIA EN LAS BATALLAS DE MC EN BELÉM, PARÁ Resumen: Este artículo tiene como objetivo estudiar la relación entre lugar y espacio público en el contexto de Batallas de MCs en plazas de Belém, Pará. Justificamos este trabajo por la necesidad de comprender las acciones del movimiento hip hop desde las particularidades de sus sujetos, aquí analizados a partir de sus diferencias, portadoras de identidades espaciales afectivas: sus lugares. La complejidad espacial de las periferias de Belém sugiere que las demandas que surgen de las experiencias de estos sujetos contienen información muy rica sobre el potencial político de estos encuentros. Se realizó un levantamiento bibliográfico sobre el tema, con el objetivo de obtener una visión general del campo de estudio, así como un trabajo de campo de carácter etnográfico, que permitió darnos cuenta que el lugar tiene una importancia destacada en la realización de estos eventos en el espacio público, pues son fuente de las particularidades que permitirán el encuentro de diferencias en el espacio, impulsando acciones políticas que los definan y reafirmando su propia existencia. Palabras clave: Lugar; Espacio Público; Batallas de MC.

Dual Crisscross Attention Module for Road Extraction from Remote Sensing Images

Traditional pixel-based semantic segmentation methods for road extraction take each pixel as the recognition unit. Therefore, they are constrained by the restricted receptive field, in which pixels do not receive global road information. These phenomena greatly affect the accuracy of road extraction. To improve the limited receptive field, a non-local neural network is generated to let each pixel receive global information. However, its spatial complexity is enormous, and this method will lead to considerable information redundancy in road extraction. To optimize the spatial complexity, the Crisscross Network (CCNet), with a crisscross shaped attention area, is applied. The key aspect of CCNet is the Crisscross Attention (CCA) module. Compared with non-local neural networks, CCNet can let each pixel only perceive the correlation information from horizontal and vertical directions. However, when using CCNet in road extraction of remote sensing (RS) images, the directionality of its attention area is insufficient, which is restricted to the horizontal and vertical direction. Due to the recurrent mechanism, the similarity of some pixel pairs in oblique directions cannot be calculated correctly and will be intensely dilated. To address the above problems, we propose a special attention module called the Dual Crisscross Attention (DCCA) module for road extraction, which consists of the CCA module, Rotated Crisscross Attention (RCCA) module and Self-adaptive Attention Fusion (SAF) module. The DCCA module is embedded into the Dual Crisscross Network (DCNet). In the CCA module and RCCA module, the similarities of pixel pairs are represented by an energy map. In order to remove the influence from the heterogeneous part, a heterogeneous filter function (HFF) is used to filter the energy map. Then the SAF module can distribute the weights of the CCA module and RCCA module according to the actual road shape. The DCCA module output is the fusion of the CCA module and RCCA module with the help of the SAF module, which can let pixels perceive local information and eight-direction non-local information. The geometric information of roads improves the accuracy of road extraction. The experimental results show that DCNet with the DCCA module improves the road IOU by 4.66% compared to CCNet with a single CCA module and 3.47% compared to CCNet with a single RCCA module.

Aberrant Temporal-Spatial Complexity of Intrinsic Fluctuations in Major Depression

Accumulating evidence suggested that the brain is highly dynamic, thus investigation of brain dynamics especially in brain connectivity would provide crucial information that stationary functional connectivity could miss. This study investigated temporal expressions of spatial modes within the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN) and cognitive control network (CCN) using a reliable data-driven co-activation pattern (CAP) analysis. We found reduced number of CAPs, as well as transitions between different CAPs of the DMN and CCN, in patients with MDD. These results suggested reduced variability and flexibility of these two brain networks in the patients. By contrast, we also found increased number of CAPs of the SN in the patients, indicating enhanced variability of the SN in individuals with MDD. In addition, the patients were characterized by prominent activation of mPFC and insula. More importantly, we showed that our findings were robust and reproducible with another independent data set. Our findings suggest that functional connectivity in the patients may not be simply attenuated or potentiated, but just alternating faster or slower among more complex patterns. The aberrant temporal-spatial complexity of intrinsic fluctuations reflects functional diaschisis of resting-state networks as characteristic of patients with MDD.

Sudden cessation of fluoxetine before alcohol drinking reinstatement alters microglial morphology and TLR4/inflammatory neuroadaptation in the rat brain

Preclinical studies on the effects of abrupt cessation of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a medication often prescribed in alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients with depression, results in alcohol consumption escalation after resuming drinking. However, a potential neuroinflammatory component on this escalation remains unexplored despite the immunomodulatory role of serotonin. Here, we utilized a rat model of 14-daily administration of the SSRI fluoxetine (10 mg/kg/day) along alcohol self-administration deprivation to study the effects of fluoxetine cessation on neuroinflammation after resuming alcohol drinking. Microglial morphology and inflammatory gene expression were analyzed in prelimbic cortex, striatum, basolateral amygdala and dorsal hippocampus. Results indicated that alcohol drinking reinstatement increased microglial IBA1 immunoreactivity and altered morphometric features of activated microglia (fractal dimension, lacunarity, density, roughness, and cell area, perimeter and circularity). Despite alcohol reinstatement, fluoxetine cessation modified microglial morphology in a brain region-specific manner, resulting in hyper-ramified (spatial complexity of branching), reactive (lower heterogeneity and circularity)-like microglia. We also found that microglial cell area correlated with changes in mRNA expression of chemokines (Cx3cl1/fractalkine, Cxcl12/SDF1α, Ccl2/MCP1), cytokines (IL1β, IL6, IL10) and the innate immune toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in dorsal hippocampus. Specifically, TLR4 correlated with microglial spatial complexity assessed by fractal dimension in striatum, suggesting a role in process branching. These findings suggest that alcohol drinking reinstatement after fluoxetine treatment cessation disturbs microglial morphology and reactive phenotype associated with a TLR4/inflammatory response to alcohol in a brain region-specific manner, facts that might contribute to alcohol-induced damage through the promotion of escalation of alcohol drinking behavior.

Action Video Gaming Experience Related to Altered Resting-State EEG Temporal and Spatial Complexity

Action video gaming (AVG) places sustained cognitive load on various behavioral systems, thus offering new insights into learning-related neural plasticity. This study aims to determine whether AVG experience is associated with resting-state electroencephalogram (rs-EEG) temporal and spatial complexity, and if so, whether this effect is observable across AVG subgenres. Two AVG games – League of Legends (LOL) and Player Unknown’s Battle Grounds (PUBG) that represent two major AVG subgenres – were examined. We compared rs-EEG microstate and omega complexity between LOL experts and non-experts (Experiment 1) and between PUBG experts and non-experts (Experiment 2). We found that the experts and non-experts had different rs-EEG activities in both experiments, thus revealing the adaptive effect of AVG experience on brain development. Furthermore, we also found certain subgenre-specific complexity changes, supporting the recent proposal that AVG should be categorized based on the gaming mechanics of a specific game rather than a generic genre designation.

Numerical Analysis of the Flow Effect of the Menger-Type Artificial Reefs with Different Void Space Complexity Indices

Based on fractal theory, a regular fractal is used to construct symmetrical reef models (e.g., cube and triangle reef models) with different fractal levels (n = 1, 2, 3). Using the concept of fractal dimension, we can better understand the spatial effectiveness of artificial reefs. The void space complexity index is defined to quantify the complexity of the internal spatial distribution of artificial reefs models under different levels. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) flow simulation approach was used to investigate the effects of void space complexity on the flow field performances of the symmetrical artificial reef models. The upwelling convection index (Hupwelling/HAR, Vupwelling/VAR), wake recirculating index (Lwake/LAR, Vwake/VAR) and non-dimensionalized velocity ratio range were used to evaluate the efficiency of the flow field effect inside or around artificial reefs. The surface area and spatial complexity index of artificial reefs increase with increasing fractal level. The numerical simulation data shows that the Menger-type artificial reef models with a higher spatial complexity index have better flow field performances in the upwelling and wake regions. Compared to the traditional artificial reef models, the upwelling convection index (Vupwelling/VAR) and recirculating index (Vwake/VAR) of n = 3 fractal cube artificial reef increase by 37.5% and 46.8%, respectively. The efficiency indices of the upwelling region and wake region around the fractal triangle artificial reef model are 2–3 times those of the fractal cube artificial reef model when the fractal level is 3.