8 research outputs found
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Tourism in contemporary cities. Proceedings of the International Tourism Studies Association Conference: University of Greenwich, London, UK 17â19 August 2016 Conference Proceedings
The 6th International Tourism Studies Association (ITSA) Biennial conference was held at the University of Greenwich, London, England from 17â19 August 2016. This was the first time that the conference had been held in Europe and it provided a unique opportunity to meet, hear from and network with tourism scholars and professionals from across Europe, Asia, Australasia, and North and South America. ITSA has a mission to encourage interaction and cooperation between developing and developed countries and the conference was successful in attracting 130 delegates from 29 countries.
The main theme of the conference was 'Tourism in Contemporary Cities' with four conference subâthemes of âTourism Cities and Urban Tourismâ, âThe Chinese Market for European Tourismâ, âRiver, Cruise and Maritime Tourismâ, and âHeritage Tourism in Citiesâ, The subthemes were chosen to reflect the unique location of the conference on the UNESCO Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, and London which is Europeâs most visited tourist destination. The conference also presented âDark Tourism and Citiesâ and âTourism and Communist Heritageâ as special sessions
Socio-Environmental Vulnerability Assessment for Sustainable Management
This Special Issue explores the cross-disciplinary approaches, methodologies, and applications of socio-environmental vulnerability assessment that can be incorporated into sustainable management. The volume comprises 20 different points of view, which cover environmental protection and development, urban planning, geography, public policymaking, participation processes, and other cross-disciplinary fields. The articles collected in this volume come from all over the world and present the current state of the worldâs environmental and social systems at a local, regional, and national level. New approaches and analytical tools for the assessment of environmental and social systems are studied. The practical implementation of sustainable development as well as progressive environmental and development policymaking are discussed. Finally, the authors deliberate about the perspectives of socialâenvironmental systems in a rapidly changing world
Benefit Sharing in the Arctic
This book provides a first-of-its-kind review and analysis of benefit sharing frameworks between extractive industries and Indigenous and local communities in different parts of the Arctic. The authors describe a wealth of case studies in order to examine predominant practices, policies, arrangements, mechanisms and impact assessment methodologies. They also discuss possible ways to improve and advance existing benefit sharing regimes, in order to attain fair and equitable benefit sharing and support sustainable development. Among the topics covered in the book are corporate social responsibility and social license to operate, principles and methodologies of determining compensation, legal and informal frameworks of benefit sharing, community response to extractive activities, and global-to-local linkages that shape benefit sharing processes. The book will be of interest to academics, industry experts, legal specialists, policymakers, community members concerned with industrial activities, and anyone interested in sustainable development in the Arctic
Prevention strategies and modifiable risk factors for sport-related concussions and head impacts:A systematic review and meta-analysis
Objectives: To evaluate prevention strategies, their unintended consequences and modifiable risk factors for sport-related concussion (SRC) and /or head impact risk. Design: This systematic review and meta-analysis was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42019152982) and conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Data sources: Eight databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, APA PsycINFO, Cochrane (Systematic Review and Controlled Trails Registry), SPORTDiscus, EMBASE, ERIC0 were searched in October 2019 and updated in March 2022, and references searched from any identified systematic review. Eligibility criteria: Study inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) original data human research studies, (2) investigated SRC or head impacts, (3) evaluated an SRC prevention intervention, unintended consequence or modifiable risk factor, (4) participants competing in any sport, (5) analytic study design, (6) systematic reviews and meta-analyses were included to identify original data manuscripts in reference search and (7) peer-reviewed. Exclusion criteria were as follows: (1) review articles, pre-experimental, ecological, case series or case studies and (2) not written in English. Results: In total, 220 studies were eligible for inclusion and 192 studies were included in the results based on methodological criteria as assessed through the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network high ('++') or acceptable ('+') quality. Evidence was available examining protective gear (eg, helmets, headgear, mouthguards) (n=39), policy and rule changes (n=38), training strategies (n=34), SRC management strategies (n=12), unintended consequences (n=5) and modifiable risk factors (n=64). Meta-analyses demonstrated a protective effect of mouthguards in collision sports (incidence rate ratio, IRR 0.74; 95% CI 0.64 to 0.89). Policy disallowing bodychecking in child and adolescent ice hockey was associated with a 58% lower concussion rate compared with bodychecking leagues (IRR 0.42; 95% CI 0.33 to 0.53), and evidence supports no unintended injury consequences of policy disallowing bodychecking. In American football, strategies limiting contact in practices were associated with a 64% lower practice-related concussion rate (IRR 0.36; 95% CI 0.16 to 0.80). Some evidence also supports up to 60% lower concussion rates with implementation of a neuromuscular training warm-up programme in rugby. More research examining potentially modifiable risk factors (eg, neck strength, optimal tackle technique) are needed to inform concussion prevention strategies. Conclusions: Policy and rule modifications, personal protective equipment, and neuromuscular training strategies may help to prevent SRC. PROSPERO registration number CRD42019152982.</p
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)
The 21st century is characterized as an era of natural resource depletion, and humanity is faced with several threats due to the lack of food, energy, and water. Climate change and sea-level rise are at unprecedented levels, being phenomena that make predicting the future of ocean resources more complicated. Oceans contain a limitless amount of water with small (but finite) temperature differences from their surfaces to their floors. To advance the utilization of ocean resources, this book readdresses the past achievements, present developments, and future progress of ocean thermal energy, from basic sciences to sociology and cultural aspects
Autonomous system control in unknown operating conditions
Autonomous systems have become an interconnected part of everyday life with the
recent increases in computational power available for both onboard computers and
offline data processing. The race by car manufacturers for level 5 (full) autonomy in
self-driving cars is well underway and new flying taxi service startups are emerging
every week, attracting billions in investments. Two main research communities,
Optimal Control and Reinforcement Learning stand out in the field of autonomous
systems, each with a vastly different perspective on the control problem. Controllers
from the optimal control community are based on models and can be rigorously
analyzed to ensure the stability of the system is maintained under certain operating
conditions. Learning-based control strategies are often referred to as model-free and
typically involve training a neural network to generate the required control actions
through direct interactions with the system. This greatly reduces the design effort
required to control complex systems. One common problem both learning- and model-
based control solutions face is the dependency on a priori knowledge about the system
and operating conditions such as possible internal component failures and external
environmental disturbances. It is not possible to consider every possible operating
scenario an autonomous system can encounter in the real world at design time. Models
and simulators are approximations of reality and can only be created for known
operating conditions. Autonomous system control in unknown operating conditions,
where no a priori knowledge exists, is still an open problem for both communities and
no control methods currently exist for such situations.
Multiple model adaptive control is a modular control framework that divides the
control problem into supervisory and low-level control, which allows for the
combination of existing learning- and model-based control methods to overcome the
disadvantages of using only one of these. The contributions of this thesis consist of
five novel supervisory control architectures, which have been empirically shown to
improve a systemâs robustness to unknown operating conditions, and a novel low-
level controller tuning algorithm that can reduce the number of required controllers
compared to traditional tuning approaches. The presented methods apply to any
autonomous system that can be controlled using model-based controllers and can
be integrated alongside existing fault-tolerant control systems to improve robustness
to unknown operating conditions. This impacts autonomous system designers by
providing novel control mechanisms to improve a systemâs robustness to unknown
operating conditions