Cellular automata for population growth prediction: Tripoli-Libya case

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonDue to obstruction in the national plan of urbanization in Tripoli (Libya) and population growth, serious problems have emerged in the form of random settlements, overcrowding and poor infrastructure. After more than two decades of inertia, the government has created a national plan in order to resolve the problems, hence it has enforced the demolition of some zones and modified other (irregularly built) ones, however the process is extremely costly. This research introduces a solution through cellular automata (CA) model to predict growth trends; size of residential, industrial and utilities areas; and to project future population. The model is implemented using digitized land use maps of Tripoli to indicate each areas as group of cells to predict their growth. The model incorporates two types of fuzzy rules bases, the first of which is based on the inputs population and area, and the second of which is based on the three inputs of population, area and density. The population prediction is performed using three scenarios, namely decreasing, fixed and increasing growth rates, such that all possibilities of growth are covered. In addition, the residential area prediction is performed based on two cases: normal density and low density. The former is introduced since new areas tend to have more open spaces and bigger houses. Furthermore, the model considers the growth of the industrial areas to be slower than that of residential areas. The model is developed and validated for the period of 1980 to 2010. The prediction is performed for thirty years from 2010 to 2040. In addition to the CA model, a regression model is developed and tested on the three growth scenarios for the same period (30 years). The prediction results are very close for 2040 in terms of population. The model incorporates the introduction of public services areas that are distributed equally on the growth areas, which occupy about 15-20% of the total area. This model can help the government to develop areas in a proper way and controls the expansion to have well layout and planned of the city, improving people's standard of living sustainably, while protecting the environment with better planning

Integrated evaluation of air flow and gas dispersion for underground station safety strategies based on subway climatology

PhD ThesisRail underground systems are seen as a way to overcome traffic congestion in city environments. Many new subways are being built in China and developing countries. Recent studies have however shown that the ventilation of subway systems is poorly understood. There is significant danger to life if a fire occurs or toxins such as chemical or biological agents are released in a subway. Understanding the air flow inside a subway and how this is affected by the local environment is key in establishing effective evacuation strategies. A series of tracer gas experiments conducted as part of this research have been carried out. To expand the subway climatology from an experimental framework into a virtual and simulation environment, 3D Computational Fluid Dynamic models have been developed, which include the simulation of local microclimate and air movement inside the station respectively. The station CFD model has allowed the analysis of the air flow inside the station under the prevailing external weather condition. Results show promising links between external climatic factors, the subway climatology and the ability to predict the dispersal of smoke/toxins. The local weather pattern has a large influence on the background airflow inside a station and dominated the flow direction at station exits which is been used to evaluate the efficiency of pedestrian evacuation and also determine the safer evacuation route and exit. The possibilities of integrating these findings will allow for a more holistic safety assessment to be carried out that could reduce the loss of life or mitigate harmful effects on public health. It also fills a knowledge gap in design guidelines from a safety perspective underground station construction and ventilation

Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Conference of the International Institute for Infrastructure Renewal and Reconstruction

Proceedings of The 9th Annual International Conference of the International Institute for Infrastructure Renewal and Reconstruction. The conference was held at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia from 8-10 July 2013. The event title for the 9th Annual Conference was: Risk-informed Disaster Management: Planning for Response, Recovery and Resilience. All papers were double blind peer reviewed and the Proceedings were published online in March 2015

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

Play Among Books

How does coding change the way we think about architecture? Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an “infinite flow” of real books

SBE16 Brazil & Portugal - Sustainable Urban Communities towards a Nearly Zero Impact Built Environment

Vol. IThe organizers of SBE 16 Brazil & Portugal were challenged to promote discussions and the development of solutions for an important and, at the same time, very ambitious topic ? Sustainable Urban Communities towards a Nearly Zero Impact Built Environment. This is the main focus of the international conference SBE16 Brazil & Portugal; the only event of the SBE16/17 conference series being held in Latin America, more precisely, in Vitória (Espírito Santo), Brazil, from the 7th until the 9th of September 2016. The conference offered a unique opportunity to bring together researchers from all over the world to share evidence-based knowledge in the field and succeeded to achieve its goals since many contributions from various parts of the planet were received, addressing a tiny part of the problem or trying to perform the difficult task of making the sum of the parts a coherent whole.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Esa 12th Conference: Differences, Inequalities and Sociological Imagination: Abstract Book

Esa 12th Conference: Differences, Inequalities and Sociological Imagination: Abstract Boo

SBE16 Brazil & Portugal - Sustainable Urban Communities towards a Nearly Zero Impact Built Environment

Vol. IThe organizers of SBE 16 Brazil & Portugal were challenged to promote discussions and the development of solutions for an important and, at the same time, very ambitious topic ? Sustainable Urban Communities towards a Nearly Zero Impact Built Environment. This is the main focus of the international conference SBE16 Brazil & Portugal; the only event of the SBE16/17 conference series being held in Latin America, more precisely, in Vitória (Espírito Santo), Brazil, from the 7th until the 9th of September 2016. The conference offered a unique opportunity to bring together researchers from all over the world to share evidence-based knowledge in the field and succeeded to achieve its goals since many contributions from various parts of the planet were received, addressing a tiny part of the problem or trying to perform the difficult task of making the sum of the parts a coherent whole.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio