Ha-mim Ebne Alam, Md. Nizam Uddin, Kazi Tawkir Ahmed
et al.
Segmentation of remotely sensed satellite images is obligatory for multifarious earth observation studies, including land use and land cover (LULC) analysis. It is also inherent in environment, ecosystem, and urban development in analytical perspectives and complex inputs for modeling urban planning and disaster management. Assessment of LULC pattern uses different segmentation methods for assigning specific given classes to pixels of bands containing an image of natural color composite to define land use land cover classes such as water body, vegetation, bare soil, and built-up areas. The process of assigning classes to pixels varies from one to another, and thus, different accuracy levels are obtained. The accuracy of frequently used methods for LULC classification was assessed in this study, where the Dhaka metropolitan area has been taken as a sample to observe the LULC. The classification was conducted by using three methods where the Support vector machines classification (SVMC) produced the best accuracy results of 83.2% overall accuracy and overall kappa coefficient value of 0.74 than both random forest classification (RFC) and maximum likelihood classification (MLC) methods with 86.34% and 83% spatial similarity rate respectively. Besides, RFC and MLC are roughly equivalent in kappa and overall accuracy values, though MLC revealed less capability at classifying vegetation. However, MLC showed a high spatial similarity with RFC and dissimilarity with SVMC. This study on segmentation methods in classifying LULC will help users make an informed choice in selecting the best method for relevant studies.
This article explores the persistent exclusion of certain informal settlements in Portugal from legal urban recognition, focusing on areas characterized by both historical informality and current legal invisibility, here termed by “doubly marginal”. Despite the existence of legal frameworks aimed at integrating Informally Originated Urban Areas (AUGI), a significant number remain outside the scope of regularization, revealing deep-rooted structural, social, and legal constraints. These cases exemplify the systemic limitations of existing urban governance models and underscore the inadequacy of one-size-fits-all planning laws. By proposing a conceptual typology grounded in social, legal, and environmental dimensions, the article exposes how overlapping vulnerabilities perpetuate urban marginality. The findings point to a critical mismatch between legal norms and the lived realities of affected communities, many of which face barriers that existing legislation is ill-equipped to resolve. The article advocates for a more comprehensive legal framework that responds to the diversity and complexity of informal settlements, particularly in municipalities with limited administrative capacity. This reconceptualization challenges dominant paradigms in urban policy and calls for a rethinking of territorial justice and the right to remain in place.
Wesley dos Reis Bezerra, Lais Machado Bezerra, Carlos Becker Westphall
There are currently many communication options in the Internet of Things, even in particular areas such as constrained and battery-powered devices, such as Low Power Wide Area Networks. Understanding the differences and characteristics of each option is a challenge, even for professionals and researchers in the field. To meet this need, this work analyses the qualitative characteristics of Low Power Wide Area Network protocols and the challenges and opportunities of using constrained devices for sparse networks based on long-life batteries. For this study, a bibliographic survey of the literature was carried out as an analysis of three protocols (LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, and Sigfox), and a detailing of the first one. As a result, there is a discussion about the chosen network protocol and its use in IoT solutions with sparse sensors.
The Pythagorean Theorem has been proved in hundreds of ways, yet it inspires fresh insights through geometry and trigonometry. In this paper, we offer a new proof based on three circles that circumscribe the sides of a right triangle. Rather than invoke coordinate geometry, the argument relies purely on classical Euclidean constructions, trigonometric identities independent of the theorem itself, and a careful analysis of the areas of circular segments. The key idea is to evaluate the area of the semicircle built on the hypotenuse in two distinct ways: directly and as a combination of areas formed by overlapping circular segments and triangles constructed on the legs of the triangle, as shown in Figure 10. Thales' Theorem, inscribed angle theorem, basic trigonometric identities, and segment area formulas all play a role in a derivation that is both elementary and rigorous. To the author's knowledge, this specific approach, which combines circular symmetry, angle decomposition, and area comparison, has not appeared in the prior literature, including Loomis' comprehensive catalog [3] and the extensive database at Cut-the-Knot [4]. As such, it provides both a new perspective on an ancient theorem and an example of how classical tools can still yield original insights.
Objective: This article presents a longitudinal analysis of COVID-19 infection and vaccination coverage in Melbourne metropolitan local government areas (LGAs) during the 2021 Delta wave. Methods: COVID-19 vaccination and infection data from 12 July to 27 November 2021 were sourced from government websites. Summary statistics and associated 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were compared by LGA ranked according to socioeconomic status: total “burden” (total infections per thousand), “peak” (highest weekly infection rate), “lag” (interval between peak and 70% double vaccination). Results: LGAs in the bottom five deciles for social advantage experienced higher infection rates (39.0 per thousand [95% CI: 38.5, 39.5] vs. 14.8 [14.7, 14.9]), and had lower two-dose vaccination coverage (23.8% [23.6, 23.9] vs. 32.7% [32.6, 32.7]) compared with LGAs in the top five deciles. LGAs that achieved 70% coverage two weeks or more after the infection peak experienced nearly twice the total infection burden (27.7 per 1000 [27.3, 28.0] compared with 14.9 [14.7, 15.0]) than LGAs with a shorter lag. Conclusions: Exposure and transmission risk factors cluster within disadvantaged LGAs. The potential for large local outbreaks is heightened if vaccination uptake trails in these communities. Implications for Public Health: In a pandemic, decision-makers must prioritise disease control and harm reduction interventions for at-risk LGAs.
Resumo É marcante o intenso crescimento das cidades brasileiras caracterizado pela periferização e pelas desigualdades socioespaciais. Porém, ainda são escassas pesquisas que enfoquem a dimensão temporal quanto à compreensão da segregação espacial. Este artigo visa compreender o papel do tempo de deslocamento na explicação do processo de segregação espacial na metrópole de São Paulo. Para tanto, sua metodologia baseia-se em dados estatísticos das áreas de ponderação da amostra do Censo Demográfico, através da variável tempo de deslocamento habitual para o trabalho, combinada com outras variáveis socioeconômicas, de renda e raça. Busca-se contribuir para o entendimento da segregação espaço-temporal, demonstrando que o tempo de deslocamento une os mais pobres e os negros, separando-os dos mais ricos e dos brancos na referida metrópole.
The flooding extent area in a river valley is related to river gauge observations. The higher the water elevation, the larger the flooding area. Due to synthetic aperture radar\textquoteright s (SAR) capabilities to penetrate through clouds, radar images have been commonly used to estimate flooding extent area with various methods, from simple thresholding to deep learning models. In this study, we propose a physics-guided neural network for flooding area detection. Our approach takes as input data the Sentinel 1 time-series images and the water elevations in the river assigned to each image. We apply the Pearson correlation coefficient between the predicted sum of water extent areas and the local water level observations of river water elevations as the loss function. The effectiveness of our method is evaluated in five different study areas by comparing the predicted water maps with reference water maps obtained from digital terrain models and optical satellite images. The highest Intersection over Union (IoU) score achieved by our models was 0.89 for the water class and 0.96 for the non-water class. Additionally, we compared the results with other unsupervised methods. The proposed neural network provided a higher IoU than the other methods, especially for SAR images registered during low water elevation in the river.
Aram Heidari-Maleni, Amin Taheri-Garavand, Mehdi Rezaei
et al.
Currently, finding a renewable source for energy production and also the problems caused by the production and disposal of municipal solid waste have led researchers to think of ways to generate energy from waste. To produce biogas from waste, anaerobic digestion method is used. In developing countries, including Iran, the production of biogas from municipal solid waste in metropolitan areas is being studied and developed. In turn, this study investigates the potential of biogas production from municipal solid waste in Iran. First, the amount of municipal solid waste produced in Iran was estimated. Then, the biogas production potential and the generated electric power were calculated through mathematical relations. The recorded physical properties of the waste and the volume of the biogas produced by it (PCV, Pdegradable, Pdry, Pmax, Prad, Prl were calculated) showed that Iran has a high potential for biogas production from municipal solid waste. PCV, Pdegradable, Pdry, Pmax, Prad, Prl values for this type of waste in the most populous provinces of Iran (Tehran, Khorasan Razavi, Khuzestan, Fars, East Azerbaijan, Esfahan, Mazandaran, West Azerbaijan and Gilan) were 2171.02, 900.2, 356.35, 1256.45, 262.43, 315.05 MW, respectively.
Agriculture (General), Nutrition. Foods and food supply
The presence of emerging pharmaceutical pollutants in the aquatic environment is generally related to anthropogenic activities such as domestic, industrial and hospital wastewater discharges and landfills. Special attention should be paid to the contamination of surface waters, as they are partly used for drinking water supply, since they directly collect partly untreated wastewater from wastewater treatment plant. Within this paper, the identification, quantification and distribution of pharmaceutical micropollutants, from different complex environmental matrices, respectively: surface water, sediment and biota in the river basins of Arges-Vedea, Buzau-Ialomita and Dobrogea-Litoral and of the Danube River, were achieved. Also, preliminary investigations were carried out regarding the contamination of lakes with active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) the metropolitan area of the municipality of Bucharest. Among the pharmaceutical micropollutants identified in the Arges-Vedea river basin, the most frequently detected was paracetamol with a frequency of 69% and antibiotics with a frequency of 65.52%, in the Dobrogea-Litoral basin paracetamol was detected with a frequency of 74.2% and antibiotics with a frequency of 54.84%, while antibiotics were identified in all surface water samples and paracetamol with a frequency of 80% in the Buzau-Ialomita river basin. Considering the contamination of sediments with pharmaceutical residues, these were identified in all studied areas and in biota samples (fish) up to 18.21 ng/g were detected. The preliminary identification of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from Lakes Plumbuita, Carol, Morii, Alexandru Ioan Cuza (IOR), Herastrau and Tei indicated the frequent presence of several items, such as paracetamol, tinidazole, carbamazepine, moxifloxacin, clarithromycin, and caffeine.
IntroductionSegregation is one of the undeniable realities in urban communities. One of the contexts for occurrence of this phenomenon at metropolitan areas is socio-economic distinctions, which lead to unequality allocations of resources, opportunities, and services. For this reason, measuring the degree of segregation has been one of the most controversial topics discussed by urban reseachers over the last few years. Through these topics, they wish to be able to study and analyze this phenomenon and reduce its negative consequences. Isfahan metropolis is the third most populous city in Iran (National Statistical Center of Iran, 2016) and has 15 municipal districts, as well as residents with different religions (Isfahan City Statistics, 2017). The city consists of neighborhoods with different and sometimes conflicting qualities of life. Its different socio-economic conditions and characteristics has led to segregation and polarization phenomenon in this city. Since major occupational and educational groups can represent socio-economic differences in cities, this study aimed to measure the segregation between the major occupational and educational groups in the metropolitan neighborhoods of Isfahan. Materials & MethodsThis study was categorized as an applied research in terms of purpose and as a descriptive-analytical researchin terms of method. In this study, the degree of segregation was measured according to the 5 dimensions proposed by Massey and Denton (1988). These dimensions included evenness, exposure, concentration, clustering, and centralization. The latest census data released by the National Statistical Center of Iran in 2011 were applied to measure the segregation indices by using the variables of education and occupation in 192 neighborhoods of Isfahan City. For this purpose, 13 one-group indices were first calculated using Geo Segregation Analyzer software. Then, 7 multi-group indices were measured with the help of the same software. The variables were categorized in GIS software. Also, Location Quotients (LQs) were utilized to identify the spatial accumulations of the occupational and educational groups. Discussion of Results & ConclusionsThe results indicated a high degree of segregation among all the occupational and educational groups in the neighborhoods of Isfahan according to the one-group and multi-group indices. However, the degrees of segregation varied based on the different dimensions. In Table 4, the value of each dimension is separately specified for the related indicators based on the occupational and educational groups. In addition, the LQ index for the occupational groups represented spatial accumulation of the low occupational group in the suburbs and far from the city center. Furthermore, this index showed spatial accumulation of the high educational group in the southern neighborhoods of the city and both sides of Zayandehrood River. Therefore, these groups were more segregated in comparison with two other occupational/ educational groups.It is worth noting that by moving from the central districts to the suburbs, the high educational group had a very low distribution and the low educational group was very intense. This fact was true for the occupational groups as well. This meant that the distributions of the high and low occupational groups decreased and increased by moving to the suburbs, respectively. Despite the high rate of segregation of the occupational and educational groups in the neighborhoods of Isfahan, this separation had not yet reached the stage of city polarization. It seemd that the spatial structure and configuration of Isfahan City, including the vertical axis of Chaharbagh and the horizontal axis of Zayandehrood, had been effective in not polarizing the socio-spatial structure of the city.However, continuation of this trend could lead to complete segregations of the high educational and low occupational groups, especially in the southern areas of the city, including Districts 5 and 6, and some areas of Districts 2, 11, and 14, respectively.
Sandra Oliveira, Ana Isabel Ribeiro, Paulo Nogueira
et al.
Commuting flows and long-distance travel are important spreading factors of viruses and particularly airborne ones. Therefore, it is relevant to examine the association among diverse mobility scenarios and the spatial dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 cases. We intended to analyze the patterns of virus spreading linked to different mobility scenarios, in order to better comprehend the effect of the lockdown measures, and how such measures can be better informed. We simulated the effects of mobility restrictions in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 amongst the municipalities of two metropolitan areas, Lisbon (LMA) and Porto (PMA). Based on an adapted SEIR (Suscetible-Exposed-Infected-Removed) model, we estimated the number of new daily infections during one year, according to different mobility scenarios: restricted to essential activities, industrial activities, public transport use, and a scenario with unrestricted mobility including all transport modes. The trends of new daily infections were further explored using time-series clustering analysis, using dynamic time warping. Mobility restrictions resulted in lower numbers of new daily infections when compared to the unrestricted mobility scenario, in both metropolitan areas. Between March and September 2020, the official number of new infections followed overall a similar timeline to the one simulated considering only essential activities. At the municipal level, trends differ amongst the two metropolitan areas. The analysis of the effects of mobility in virus spread within different municipalities and regions could help tailoring future strategies and increase the public acceptance of eventual restrictions.
Introduction: Rural health services face greater challenges in managing infectious patients due to lack of specialty beds and longer lengths of stay. The pressures of seasonal influxes of influenza patients with a heavy burden of chronic disease and an ageing population result in an increased demand for hospital beds. During these peak periods it is common for rural hospitals to experience bed block. The result is that patients may be placed into any available bed or ward at the time, increasing the need for transfer and the risk of spreading hospital-acquired respiratory illnesses to other patients and staff across the hospital. This further exacerbates bed block, with patients then requiring more specialised treatment and longer lengths of stay. This places additional strain on already existing workforce shortages and limited resources that must accommodate higher-than-normal patient loads. The objective of this study was to examine rural hospital bed management practices with a focus on the transfer of patients who are actively diagnosed with influenza (either on admission or during their stay in hospital) and to investigate the association of increased bed movement with the rate of nosocomial transmission and staff workload.
Methods: The rates of patients admitted to a rural hospital in New South Wales, Australia, during the yearly peak influenza season (July to September) during 2016-2019 with either community-acquired or hospital-acquired influenza were examined using an infection control surveillance program. Bed management practices related to these inpatients were audited to examine their contribution towards nosocomial transmissions and staff workload during these periods.
Results: A total of 229 patients presented to this hospital with an influenza diagnosis over the study period and generated 175 bed transfers. Forty percent of community-acquired and 70% of hospital-acquired influenza inpatients experienced one or more intrahospital bed transfers during their active infection period. Half of all bed transfers involved patients being transferred to another ward (interward) and the other half consisted of those transferred within the same ward (intraward). These transfers impacted staff workload, requiring a total of 245 extra hours from nursing and cleaning staff to facilitate - time not included when allocating staff at the start of each shift.
Conclusion: Findings from this study indicate that there is no active strategy for influenza containment during high-occupancy periods for this rural facility. This resulted in multiple bed transfers occurring during the active phase of influenza infection. This then led to an exacerbation of bed block and thus further inappropriate placement of newly admitted patients. The development of an optimal bed management plan for future surges of influenza and other highly infectious respiratory illnesses is essential to reduce nosocomial infection and staff workload, especially given the limited resources available in rural areas compared to metropolitan centres.
Special situations and conditions, Public aspects of medicine
Maria Lucia Refinetti Martins, Douglas Tadashi Magami
Resumo O Solo Criado enquanto conceito tem cada vez mais colocado questões para o urbanismo e para o direito. O presente artigo tem por objetivo apresentar e problematizar, sob as perspectivas urbanística e jurídica, a natureza, as dimensões e os desdobramentos do Solo Criado na cidade de São Paulo. A importância da abordagem consiste em fomentar uma discussão sobre a mercantilização dessa terra virtual que, utilizada com propósito redistributivo, tem risco de funcionar às avessas por meio da geração e transferência de renda.
In this paper we analyse, classify and discuss some ethical considerations and challenges related to pursuing exploratory and interdisciplinary research projects in the area of ICT, especially those involving older adults. First, we identify spotlight areas, which are especially prominent in these fields. Next, we explore possible pitfalls interdisciplinary researchers may stumble onto when planning, conducting and presenting exploratory research activities. Finally, some of these are selected and discussed more closely, while related open questions are posed.
Estimating characteristics of domains (referred to as small areas) within a population from sample surveys of the population is an important problem in survey statistics. In this paper, we consider model-based small area estimation under the nested error regression model. We discuss the construction of mixed model estimators (empirical best linear unbiased predictors, EBLUPs) of small area means and the conditional linear predictors of small area means. Under the asymptotic framework of increasing numbers of small areas and increasing numbers of units in each area, we establish asymptotic linearity results and central limit theorems for these estimators which allow us to establish asymptotic equivalences between estimators, approximate their sampling distributions, obtain simple expressions for and construct simple estimators of their asymptotic mean squared errors, and justify asymptotic prediction intervals. We present model-based simulations that show that in quite small, finite samples, our mean squared error estimator performs as well or better than the widely-used \cite{prasad1990estimation} estimator and is much simpler, so is easier to interpret. We also carry out a design-based simulation using real data on consumer expenditure on fresh milk products to explore the design-based properties of the mixed model estimators. We explain and interpret some surprising simulation results through analysis of the population and further design-based simulations. The simulations highlight important differences between the model- and design-based properties of mixed model estimators in small area estimation.
Accurately locating key nodes and corridors of an urban heat island (UHI) is the basis for effectively mitigating a regional surface UHI. However, we still lack appropriate methods to describe it, especially considering the interaction between UHIs and the role of connectivity (network). Specifically, previous studies paid much attention to the raster and vector perspective—based on standard landscape configuration metrics that only provide an overall statistic over the entire study area without further indicating locations where different types of pattern and fragmentation occur. Therefore, by reverse thinking, here we attempt to propose a new method from the graph perspective which integrates morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA)—which is used to characterize binary patterns with emphasis on connections between their parts as measured at varying analysis scales, and habitat availability indices to evaluate and mitigate regional surface UHI. We selected the Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRDR), one of the most rapidly urbanized regions in the world as the case study (1995–2015). The results of the case study showed: (1) the core (UHI) type accounts for the vast majority of the MSPA model, with the relative land surface temperature (LST) rises, the proportion of the core type will increase, and it could influence the edge (UHI) type significantly; (2) the branch, bridge, and islet (UHI) types have similar results to the lower temperature (4 < Relative LST ≤ 6) area and account for the majority, indicating that these types are more susceptible to their surrounding environment; (3) the importance and extreme importance area (node) from 1995 to 2015 have increased significantly and mainly distributed in the urbanized areas, which means cooling measures need to be implemented in these areas in order of priority. Shifting the research logic of UHI evaluation and mitigation from “patch” to “network”, we hold the point that the method (reverse thinking) has significant theoretical and practical implications for mitigating regional UHI and urban climate-resilience.
We propose "aquanims" as new design metaphors for animated transitions that preserve displayed areas during the transformation. Animated transitions are used to facilitate understanding of graphical transformations between different visualizations. Area is key information to preserve during filtering or ordering transitions of area-based charts like bar charts, histograms, treemaps, or mosaic plots. As liquids are incompressible fluids, we use a hydraulic metaphor to convey the sense of area preservation during animated transitions: in aquanims, graphical objects can change shape, position, color, and even connectedness but not displayed area, as for a liquid contained in a transparent vessel or transferred between such vessels communicating through hidden pipes. We present various aquanims for product plots like bar charts and histograms to accommodate changes in data, in the ordering of bars or in a number of bins, and to provide animated tips. We also consider confusion matrices visualized as fluctuation diagrams and mosaic plots, and show how aquanims can be used to ease the understanding of different classification errors of real data.
Edith Gabriel, Francisco J. Rodríguez-Cortes, Jérôme Coville
et al.
Seismic networks provide data that are used as basis both for public safety decisions and for scientific research. Their configuration affects the data completeness, which in turn, critically affects several seismological scientific targets (e.g., earthquake prediction, seismic hazard...). In this context, a key aspect is how to map earthquakes density in seismogenic areas from censored data or even in areas that are not covered by the network. We propose to predict the spatial distribution of earthquakes from the knowledge of presence locations and geological relationships, taking into account any interaction between records. Namely, in a more general setting, we aim to estimate the intensity function of a point process, conditional to its censored realization, as in geostatistics for continuous processes. We define a predictor as the best linear unbiased combination of the observed point pattern. We show that the weight function associated to the predictor is the solution of a Fredholm equation of second kind. Both the kernel and the source term of the Fredholm equation are related to the first-and second-order characteristics of the point process through the intensity and the pair correlation function. Results are presented and illustrated on simulated non-stationary point processes and real data for mapping Greek Hellenic seismicity in a region with unreliable and incomplete records.
Liudmila Tumash, Carlos Canudas-de-Wit, Maria Laura Delle Monache
This paper addresses the problem of a boundary control design for traffic evolving in a large-scale urban network. The traffic state is described on a macroscopic scale and corresponds to the vehicle density, whose dynamics are governed by a two-dimensional conservation law. We aim at designing a boundary control law such that the throughput of vehicles in a congested area is maximized. Thereby, the only knowledge we use is the network's topology, capacities of its roads and speed limits. In order to achieve this goal, we treat a 2D equation as a set of 1D equations by introducing curvilinear coordinates satisfying special properties. The theoretical results are verified on a numerical example, where an initially fully congested area is driven to the state with maximum possible througput.
Suman Kumar, Kazi Amanul Islam Siddiqui, Mukesh Kumary
A new class of sensing paradigm known as lab-onskin where stretchable and flexible smart sensor devices are integrated into the skin, provides direct monitoring and diagnostic interfaces to the body. Distributed lab-on-skin wireless sensors have the ability to provide continuous long term assessment of the skin health. This paper proposes a distributed skin health monitoring system using a wireless body area network. The system is responsive to the dynamic changes in the skin health, and remotely reports on the same. The proposed algorithm detects the abnormal skin and creates an energy efficient data aggregation tree covering the affected area while putting the unnecessary sensors to sleep mode. The algorithm responds to the changing conditions of the skin by dynamically adapting the size and shape of the monitoring trees to that of the abnormal skin areas thus providing a comprehensive monitoring. Simulation results demonstrate the application and utility of the proposed algorithm for changing wound shapes and sizes.