CHANGING INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR SPATIAL PLANNING IN THE WESTERN BALKAN REGION. EVIDENCES FROM ALBANIA, BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA AND CROATIA

The contribution aims at providing a preliminary insight on the evolution of the institutional framework for spatial planning in the Western Balkan Region since 1989. It does so by proposing a conceptualization of spatial planning domestic contexts as dynamic objects subject to continuous change, and by identifying the main driving forces that contribute to shaping their patterns of change in the geographical area at stake: (i) domestic transition from a centrally planned economic model to a decentralized model based on free market rules, (ii) process of European integration and the Europeanization mechanisms triggered by the latter. On this basis, the authors explore the territorial administration reforms and evolution of spatial planning legislation specific for Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia in the last 25 years in more detail manner, highlighting and discussing both similarities and differences

Scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy of nanoscale twisted bilayer graphene

Nanoscale twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) is quite instable and will change its structure to Bernal (or AB-stacking) bilayer with a much lower energy. Therefore, the lack of nanoscale TBG makes its electronic properties not accessible in experiment up to now. In this work, a special confined TBG is obtained in the overlaid area of two continuous misoriented graphene sheets. The width of the confined region of the TBG changes gradually from about 22 nm to 0 nm. By using scanning tunnelling microscopy, we studied carefully the structure and the electronic properties of the nanoscale TBG. Our results indicate that the low-energy electronic properties, including twist-induced van Hove singularities (VHSs) and spatial modulation of local density-of-state, are strongly affected by the translational symmetry breaking of the nanoscale TBG. Whereas, the electronic properties above the energy of the VHSs are almost not influenced by the quantum confinement even when the width of the TBG is reduced to only a single moire spot.Comment: 4 Figure

Studies on the mechanism of retinoid-induced pattern duplications in the early chick limb bud: temporal and spatial aspects.

All-trans-retinoic acid causes striking digit pattern changes when it is continuously released from a bead implanted in the anterior margin of an early chick wing bud. In addition to the normal set of digits (234), extra digits form in a mirror-symmetrical arrangement, creating digit patterns such as a 432234. These retinoic acid-induced pattern duplications closely mimic those found after grafts of polarizing region cells to the same positions with regard to dose-response, timing, and positional effects. To elucidate the mechanism by which retinoic acid induces these pattern duplications, we have studied the temporal and spatial distribution of all-trans-retinoic acid and its potent analogue TTNPB in these limb buds. We find that the induction process is biphasic: there is an 8-h lag phase followed by a 6-h duplication phase, during which additional digits are irreversibly specified in the sequence digit 2, digit 3, digit 4. On average, formation of each digit seems to require between 1 and 2 h. The tissue concentrations, metabolic pattern, and spatial distribution of all-trans-retinoic acid and TTNPB in the limb rapidly reach a steady state, in which the continuous release of the retinoid is balanced by loss from metabolism and blood circulation. Pulse-chase experiments reveal that the half-time of clearance from the bud is 20 min for all-trans-retinoic acid and 80 min for TTNPB. Manipulations that change the experimentally induced steep concentration gradient of TTNPB suggest that a graded distribution of retinoid concentrations across the limb is required during the duplication phase to induce changes in the digit pattern. The extensive similarities between results obtained with retinoids and with polarizing region grafts raise the possibility that retinoic acid serves as a natural "morphogen" in the limb

A Study of Chinese Traditional Wetland Island Settlement Combining Morphological and Narrative Analyses

[EN] The Lixiahe region, a low-lying wetland located to the eastern side of the Huaiyang section of the Grand Canal, is characterized by a complex hydrological environment and has changed slowly in the urbanization process. The historical town of Shagou, a representative case of island settlements in this region, has a recorded history of continuous morphological change over six hundred years. Regarding Shagou as a cultural-geographical entity, this article aims at combining morphological analysis and narrative-based cognitive mapping to reveal the characteristic townscape that strongly depends on cultural-geographic complexity. Based on survey work, this article will first define distinguishable plan elements that underpin the spatial form of Shagou: 1) natural context; 2) streets system, and then investigate diachronically different phases of the formation of its spatial structure. On the other hand, based on archiving and data analysis of the oral history study, this article will generate a narrative cognitive map, in terms of paths, nodes, landmarks and areas. In conjunction with fieldwork and documentary records, this study testifies that the method derived from the plan analysis developed by Conzen is applicable to the study of wetland island settlement form in China and that narrative spatial analysis provides important supplemental spatial information. A careful combination of these methods might be used for understanding culturally embedded settlement forms in ChinaLei, D.; Lu, A. (2018). A Study of Chinese Traditional Wetland Island Settlement Combining Morphological and Narrative Analyses. En 24th ISUF International Conference. Book of Papers. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1423-1429. https://doi.org/10.4995/ISUF2017.2017.5895OCS1423142

Identification of spatial and temporal patterns of Australian daily rainfall under a changing climate

Rainfall is a highly variable component of the climate system. There are substantial spatial and temporal variations in the frequency and spatial distribution of rainfall events. Little attention has been paid to the slow but ongoing variations of the spatial patterns of daily rainfall, especially over broad spatial scales. A better understanding of these variations and their long term trends would reduce uncertainty in environmental and natural resource models and improve assessment of ongoing climate change. This study examined the spatial cross-correlations of daily rainfall at 2322 high quality long run rainfall stations across Australia from 1910 to 2011, and assessed their spatial and temporal patterns. It was found that: 1) There has been a long term continuous strengthening in the spatial cross-correlation of daily rainfall across Australia over this period. Most of this strengthening has occurred since the 1970s; 2) The strengthening is more consistent in winter and spring but has occurred in all four seasons; 3) Southeastern Australia has had the most stable strengthening pattern over a broader spatial scale; 4) The strengthening suggests an increase in the broad scale coherence of daily rainfall, such as found in frontal rainfall; 5) These findings are consistent with recent reported changes in synoptic scale climatic driving processes, especially the increasing frequency of frontal systems and the decreasing frequency of storm events in the Australian region. An increase in the broad scale coherence of rainfall is likely to improve the accuracy of daily rainfall interpolation and influence dependent hydrological modelling. Interactions of data quality with the derived correlation patterns are also discussed