141,285 research outputs found
Characterizing urban landscapes using fuzzy sets
Characterizing urban landscapes is important given the present and future projections of global population that favor urban growth. The definition of “urban” on a thematic map has proven to be problematic since urban areas are heterogeneous in terms of land use and land cover. Further, certain urban classes are inherently imprecise due to the difficulty in integrating various social and environmental inputs into a precise definition. Social components often include demographic patterns, transportation, building type and density while ecological components include soils, elevation, hydrology, climate, vegetation and tree cover. In this paper, we adopt a coupled human and natural system (CHANS) integrated scientific framework for characterizing urban landscapes. We implement the framework by adopting a fuzzy sets concept of “urban characterization” since fuzzy sets relate to classes of object with imprecise boundaries in which membership is a matter of degree. For dynamic mapping applications, user-defined classification schemes involving rules combining different social and ecological inputs can lead to a degree of quantification in class labeling varying from “highly urban” to “least urban”. A socio-economic perspective of urban may include threshold values for population and road network density while a more ecological perspective of urban may utilize the ratio of natural versus built area and percent forest cover. Threshold values are defined to derive the fuzzy rules of membership, in each case, and various combinations of rules offer a greater flexibility to characterize the many facets of the urban landscape. We illustrate the flexibility and utility of this fuzzy inference approach called the Fuzzy Urban Index for the Boston Metro region with five inputs and eighteen rules. The resulting classification map shows levels of fuzzy membership ranging from highly urban to least urban or rural in the Boston study region. We validate our approach using two experts assessing accuracy of the resulting fuzzy urban map. We discuss how our approach can be applied in other urban contexts with newly emerging descriptors of urban sustainability, urban ecology and urban metabolism.This research was partially supported by "Boston University Initiative on Cities Early Stage Urban Research Awards 2015-16" (Gopal & Phillips) and the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and their many insightful comments and suggestions. (Boston University Initiative on Cities Early Stage Urban Research Awards; Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2016.02.002Published versio
Spatial optimization for land use allocation: accounting for sustainability concerns
Land-use allocation has long been an important area of research in regional science. Land-use patterns are fundamental to the functions of the biosphere, creating interactions that have substantial impacts on the environment. The spatial arrangement of land uses therefore has implications for activity and travel within a region. Balancing development, economic growth, social interaction, and the protection of the natural environment is at the heart of long-term sustainability. Since land-use patterns are spatially explicit in nature, planning and management necessarily must integrate geographical information system and spatial optimization in meaningful ways if efficiency goals and objectives are to be achieved. This article reviews spatial optimization approaches that have been relied upon to support land-use planning. Characteristics of sustainable land use, particularly compactness, contiguity, and compatibility, are discussed and how spatial optimization techniques have addressed these characteristics are detailed. In particular, objectives and constraints in spatial optimization approaches are examined
From Smart Cities To Playable Cities. Towards Playful Intelligence In The Urban Environment
In the last decade, we have seen the rise of urban play as a tool for community building, and city-making and Western society is actively focusing on play/playfulness and intelligent systems as a way to approach complex challenges and emergent situations.
In this paper, we aim to initiate a dialogue between game scholars and architects. Like many creative professions, we believe that the architectural practice may benefit significantly from having more design methodologies at hand, thus improving lateral thinking. We aim at providing new conceptual and operative tools to discuss and reflect on how games and smart systems facilitate long-term the shift from the Smart Cities to the Playable one, where citizens/players have the opportunity to hack the city and use the smart city’s data and digital technology for their purposes to reactivate the urban environment
Smart Geographic object: Toward a new understanding of GIS Technology in Ubiquitous Computing
One of the fundamental aspects of ubiquitous computing is the instrumentation
of the real world by smart devices. This instrumentation constitutes an
opportunity to rethink the interactions between human beings and their
environment on the one hand, and between the components of this environment on
the other. In this paper we discuss what this understanding of ubiquitous
computing can bring to geographic science and particularly to GIS technology.
Our main idea is the instrumentation of the geographic environment through the
instrumentation of geographic objects composing it. And then investigate how
this instrumentation can meet the current limitations of GIS technology, and
offers a new stage of rapprochement between the earth and its abstraction. As
result, the current research work proposes a new concept we named Smart
Geographic Object SGO. The latter is a convergence point between the smart
objects and geographic objects, two concepts appertaining respectively to
Topology, homogeneity and scale factors for object detection: application of eCognition software for urban mapping using multispectral satellite image
The research scope of this paper is to apply spatial object based image
analysis (OBIA) method for processing panchromatic multispectral image covering
study area of Brussels for urban mapping. The aim is to map different land
cover types and more specifically, built-up areas from the very high resolution
(VHR) satellite image using OBIA approach. A case study covers urban landscapes
in the eastern areas of the city of Brussels, Belgium. Technically, this
research was performed in eCognition raster processing software demonstrating
excellent results of image segmentation and classification. The tools embedded
in eCognition enabled to perform image segmentation and objects classification
processes in a semi-automated regime, which is useful for the city planning,
spatial analysis and urban growth analysis. The combination of the OBIA method
together with technical tools of the eCognition demonstrated applicability of
this method for urban mapping in densely populated areas, e.g. in megapolis and
capital cities. The methodology included multiresolution segmentation and
classification of the created objects.Comment: 6 pages, 12 figures, INSO2015, Ed. by A. Girgvliani et al. Akaki
Tsereteli State University, Kutaisi (Imereti), Georgi
A paper waste prediction model
The aim of this paper is to develop a model predicting the collected amount of
waste paper at the regional level of municipalities. Leaming about the factors
that influence the amount of collected paper is a prerequisite for the evaluation
and reorganization of collection systems. We hypothesize that the amount of
collected paper depends on both, the waste potential and factors which influence
the convenience such as the density of collection sites.
For this study, we use a sample of 649 municipalities. The data show a high
variance in terms of the collected waste paper per person and year between the
municipalities. We develop a multivariate regression model providing valuable
insights about the relationship between demographic parameters and the amount
of collected waste paper. Furthermore, in this novel approach we found a
significant positive impact of the convenience of the collection system
Geoportals: an internet marketing perspective
A geoportal is a web site that presents an entry point to geo-products (including geo-data) on the web. Despite their importance in (spatial) data infrastructures, literature suggest stagnating or even declining trends in visitor numbers. In this paper relevant ideas and techniques for improving performance are derived from internet marketing literature. We tested the extent to which these ideas are already applied in practice through a survey among 48 geoportals worldwide. Results show in many cases positive correlation with trends in visitor numbers. The ideas can be useful for geoportal managers developing their marketing strateg
- …