Assessment of meteorological settings on air quality modeling system - a proposal for UN-SDG and regulatory studies in non-homogeneous regions in Brazil

Air quality models are essential tools to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDG) because they are effective in guiding public policies for the management of air pollutant emissions and their impacts on the environment and human health. Despite its importance, Brazil still lacks a guide for choosing and setting air quality models for regulatory purposes. Based on this, the current research aims to assess the combined WRF/CALMET/CALPUFF models for representing SO2 dispersion over non-homogeneous regions as a regulatory model for policies in Brazilian Metropolitan Regions to satisfy the UN-SDG. The combined system was applied to the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region (RJMR), which is known for its physiographic complexity. In the first step, the WRF model was evaluated against surface-observed data. The local circulation was underestimated, while the prevailing observational winds were well-represented. In the second step, it was verified that all CALMET three meteorological configurations performed better for the most frequent wind speed classes, so that the largest SO2 concentrations errors occurred during light winds. Among the meteorological settings in WRF/CALMET/CALPUFF, the joined use of observed and modeled meteorological data yielded the best results for the dispersion of pollutants. This result emphasizes the relevance of meteorological data composition in complex regions with unsatisfactory monitoring given the inherent limitations of prognostic models and the excessive extrapolation of observed data that can generate distortions of reality. This research concludes with the proposal of the WRF/CALMET/CALPUFF air quality regulatory system as a supporting tool for policies in the Brazilian Metropolitan Regions in the framework of the UN-SDG, particularly in non-homogeneous regions where steady-state Gaussian models are not applicable.

TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH OF CULTURAL TOURIST RESOURCES IN THE ORADEA METROPOLITAN AREA (OMA), ROMANIA

Metropolitan regions/areas are NUTS 3 regions or a combination of NUTS 3 regions which represent all agglomerations of at least 250,000 inhabitants (Eurostat, 2021). Oradea Metropolitan Area (NUTS3ID RO111) was established in 9th of May 2005 and has a total number of 251.570 inhabitants. The purpose of the association is to stimulate and support the growth and prosperity of the area, focused on the continuous increase of the quality of life. Besides the economic boost, OMA emerged from the need for space and leisure expressed by the core urbanites and although the periurban area is teeming with valuable cultural resources, the latter being the focus of the current study, they are little known by many of the Oradea residents. In this purpose the cultural attractions of the rural OMA were inventoried, analysed and stored in an online open-access database so that tourists can enjoy them and entrepreneurs in tourism can use them as focal points for further tourist infrastructure development. The analysis highlighted the OMA periurban area with the highest cultural attractions’ potential based on the National Methodology regarding the evaluation of the tourist potential in the basic administrative-territorial units.

The problem of solid waste: origins, composition, disposal, recycling, and reusing

Solid waste disposal is a major challenge in many industrialized and developing nations, both in metropolitan regions as well as rural ones. The collection and disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a serious issue facing metropolitan areas in many nations today. An effective MSW management strategy must satisfy all of these criteria: financial viability; technical feasibility; social and legal acceptability; and ecological friendliness. Small and large cities alike have a major difficulty in dealing with solid waste management. One of the current study topics is the valuation of food organic waste. Existing waste disposal methods include the typical landfill, incineration, composting, and other methods of handling solid waste. Composting and anaerobic digestion have traditionally been the most widely employed methods for the treatment and exploitation of the organic part of MSW (AD). The amount of organic solid waste (OSW) being generated globally is rising at an astronomical rate. Agricultural waste, domestic food waste, human and animal wastes, etc. comprise the majority of OSW. They're often used as animal feed, disposed of in landfills, or burnt. OAWs are made up of protein-, mineral-, and sugar-rich components that may be employed as substrates or raw materials in other processes.

Pengaruh Strategi Pemasaran Asuransi Mikro terhadap Kesejahteraan UMKM di Indonesia

The purpose of this research is to explain a phenomena that happened in the Indonesian microinsurance business. Using the case study technique, we observed that microinsurance is still difficult to develop based on the overall population of Indonesians. If the main idea of micro insurance is applied, micro insurance products are still widely available in big cities but have yet to reach low-income individuals or UMKM. A breakthrough is necessary to produce microinsurance. This microinsurance business must be developed through a network of local communities, which are usually located in the lower middle class, or UMKM. Aside from that, marketers must have a set of tools at their disposal, such as a suitable ICT-based market (community) database. As a result, any microinsurance business formed must be targeted to the demands of the Indonesian government, such as microinsurance for agricultural, livestock, and fisherman, particularly in rural regions. Meanwhile, the most enticing micro insurance enterprises for metropolitan regions are personal accidents, property, and motor and vehicles. Keywords: Micro, UMKM, Insurance, Marketing.

Developing Evaluation Framework for Intelligent Transport System on Public Transportation in Bangkok Metropolitan Regions Using Fuzzy AHP

Public transportation has been encouraged as a significant solution to overcome traffic congestion. An advanced technology, known as advanced public transport system (APTS), was introduced to enhance the effectiveness of public transportation. To support appropriate decisions on selecting application development, significant indicators representing the impacts of the proposed projects are highlighted. This study aims to determine the desirable indicators of developing APTS to achieve smart mobility using the fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (fuzzy AHP) method and allocating weights to each indicator. The perception of a group of intelligent transport system (ITS) experts from three sectors in the Bangkok Metropolitan Regions (BMR) was examined to conduct a fuzzy AHP pairwise comparison. The ranking of 21 indicators categorized within six dimensions in accordance with the specific ITS master plan relating to APTS development is presented. The result presented that the safety dimension obtained the highest rank, and the three most important weight indicators are traffic accident reduction relating to public transportation, smart public transport network density and waiting time for public transportation. In addition, the perspectives towards APTS development and assessment framework development in BMR is highlighted to revise impediment of regulation and encourage integration among stakeholders. Then, the approaches of the APTS evaluation framework in BMR are proposed.

Possibilities and challenges for the shared management of solid waste in the Metropolitan Region of Natal (RN) considering Federal Law nº 12.305/2010

The National Solid Waste Policy emerged as a guideline for an environmental problem that was observed in Brazilian municipalities: the generation of solid waste combined with a prevalence of landfills. These problems largely became evident in metropolitan regions, which were characterized, among other aspects, by population concentration. Federal Law No. 12,305/2010 explicitly highlighted the issue of metropolitan management. The proposed study aimed to investigate the challenges for achieving the shared management of solid waste in the Metropolitan Region of Natal (RMN). To this end, documentary research and the systematization of secondary databases were undertaken, which enabled diagnostic research into the management of solid waste in the fifteen municipalities that make up the RMN. The study has revealed the difficulties in forming agreements between the municipal entities in the studied spatial profile, thereby influencing the outreach of an integrated management program in the RMN.

Industrial Structure and Economic Resilience of Non-Metropolitan Regions: An Empirical Base for the Smart Specialization Policies

In this paper, we aim to describe and explain the regional disparities in economic resilience in Slovakia in the period 1997–2017. We focus on the effects of economic structure in combination with the vertical (potential accessibility) and horizontal geographical location. Since the early 1990s, Slovak (non-)metropolitan regions exhibited deep changes in the sectoral structure of the economy that were followed by sharp unemployment increases. Due to the FDI-fueled economic growth in the last two decades, however, considerable progress in regional economic growth and reduction in unemployment were was recorded. Therefore, Slovak non-metropolitan regions provide valuable lessons for the analysis of regional economic resilience in a long-term period. We ask if, and to what extent were, the prospects of regional renewal after economic crises associated with the geographical location, economic diversity, firm size and sectoral structure of the economy. We employed spatial regression models to test the effects of the potential accessibility, horizontal geographical location and industrial diversity, and sectoral (agriculture, manufacturing) and firm size structure. The dependent variable, Economic Resilience, was measured by the Regional Development Index, combining the indicators of demographic ageing, net migration, income per capita and registered unemployment rate. Potential accessibility and horizontal geographical location were the key predictors of regional economic resilience. Districts with tertiarized and diversified industrial and firm size structures scored, on average, higher in RDI than specialized districts with large firms and/or a high share of agriculture/manufacturing in total employment.

Disparities in Dental Services Use Among Urban and Rural Adults in China’s Megacities

Using data from the ‘2019 New Era and Living Conditions in Megacities Survey’ that included 4,049 residents aged 18-65, we examined the urban-rural disparities in dental visits among adults living in China’s 10 megacities. All of China’s megacities are metropolitan regions that include urban, peri-urban and rural land, and all have rural populations within the city boundaries. The results show that 43.3% (n=595) rural and 23.8% urban (n=637) residents had never visited dentists. Urban residents were more likely to visit dentists than rural residents after controlling for covariates (OR=1.57, 95%CI=1.30 to 1.91). The rates of visits were similar across age groups. Higher socioeconomic status, having urban insurances, having positive attitudes towards healthy diets and visited physicians regularly, and having poorer oral health was associated with higher odds of visiting dentists (P<0.05). These findings can help develop policies to increase dental care access to underserved populations in Chinese megacities.

Scalable Vertiport Hub Location Selection for Air Taxi Operations in a Metropolitan Region

On-demand air mobility services, often called air taxis, are on the way to revolutionize our urban/regional transportation sector by lifting transportation to the third dimension and thus possibly contribute to solving the congestion-induced transportation deadlock many metropolitan regions face today. Although existing research mainly focuses on the design of efficient vehicles and specifically battery technology, in the near future, a new question will arise: Where to locate the vertiports/landing pads for such air taxis? In this study, we propose a vertiport location selection problem. In contrast to existing studies, we allow the demand to be distributed over the whole metropolitan area, modeled as a grid, and exclude certain grid cells from becoming hubs, for example, because of safety/geographical constraints. The combination of these two contributions makes the problem intriguingly difficult to solve with standard solution techniques. We propose a novel variable neighborhood search heuristic, which is able to solve 12 × 12 grid instances within a few seconds of computation time and zero gaps in our experiments, whereas CPLEX needs up to 10 hours. We believe that our study contributes toward the scalable selection of vertiport locations for air taxis. Summary of Contribution: The increasing interest in opening the third dimension, that is, altitude, to transportation inside metropolitan regions raises new research challenges. Existing research mainly focuses on the design of efficient vehicles and control problems. In the near future, however, the actual operation of air taxis will lead to new set of operations research problems for so-called air taxi operations. Our contribution focuses on the optimization of vertiports for air taxi operations in a metropolitan region. We choose to model the problem over a grid-like demand structure, with a novel side constraint: selected grid cells are unavailable as hubs, for example, because of environmental, technical, cultural, or other reasons. This makes our model a special case in between the two traditional models: discrete location and continuous location. Our model is inherently difficult to solve for exact methods; for instance, solving a grid of 12 × 12 grid cells needs more than 10 hours with CPLEX, when modeled as a discrete location problem. We show that a straightforward application of existing neighborhood search heuristics is not suitable to solve this problem well. Therefore, we design an own variant of mixed variable neighborhood search, which consists of novel local search steps, tailored toward our grid structure. Our evaluation shows that by using our novel heuristic, almost all instances can be solved toward optimality.