Praxitopia : How shopping makes a street vibrant

During recent decades, shopping’s geographical manifestations have altered radically and the presumed ‘death’ of town centre retailing has become a public concern. The social, cultural, and economic backgrounds of this decentralisation of retail and its effects on city life have been studied comprehensively. However, to date, few studies have examined the changing dynamics of non-mainstream shopping geographies, particularly local shopping streets. How shopping is enacted in such places, and shopping’s part in shaping them, has been largely overlooked. Aspiring to fulfil this knowledge gap, this dissertation examines shopping activities on Södergatan, a local shopping street in a stigmatized ‘super-diverse’ district of Helsingborg, Sweden known as Söder, and contributes to the literature on shopping geographies by drawing on a sociocultural perspective.The study draws on practice theory and focuses on shopping as the main unit. The analysis is built on a sensitivity to the interrelationships existing between social practices and place, emerging from the epistemic positioning resulting from the identification of 'modes of practices'. In order to grasp the enmeshed character of shopping, which is complicated by cultural, spatial, temporal, material, and sensorial layers, video ethnography was employed as the primary research collection method, in combination with go-along interviews, observation and mental-mapping.The research reveals five major modes of shopping practice which jointly represent a typology for understanding shopping in terms of being enacted in the street; i.e. convenience shopping, social shopping, on-the-side shopping, alternative shopping, and budget shopping. This thesis also shows that the bundling of these modes of shopping shapes the street into a vibrant part of the city by interrelating with the shopping street’s sensomaterial and spatiotemporal dimensions in complex and multifaceted directions. Consequently, the local shopping street is conceptualized as a praxitopia, a place co-constituted through social practices

Intrinsic Inter-Subject Variability in Functional Neuroimaging: Verification Using Blind Source Separation Features

The holy grail of brain imaging is the identification of a biomarker, which can identify an abnormality that can be used to diagnose disease and track the effectiveness of treatment and disease progression. Typically approaches that search for biomarkers start by identifying mean differences between groups of patients and healthy controls. However, combining data from different subjects and groups to be able to make meaningful inferences is not trivial. The structure of the brain in each individual is unique in size and shape as well as in the relative location of anatomical landmarks (e.g. sulci and gyri). When looking for mean differences in functional images, this issue is exacerbated by the presence of variability in functional localization, i.e. variability in the location of functional regions in the brain. This is notably an important reason to focus on looking for inter-individual differences or variability. Inter-subject variability in neuroimaging experiments is often viewed as noise. The analyses are setup in a manner to ignore this variability assuming that a global spatial normalization brings the data into the same space. Nonetheless, functional activation patterns can be impacted by variability in multiple ways for e.g., there could be spatial variability of the maps or variability in the spectral composition of the timecourses or variability in the connectivity between the activation patterns identified. The overarching problem this thesis seeks to contribute to, is seeking improved measures to quantify biologically significant spatial, spectral and connectivity based variability and to identify associated cognitive or behavioral differences in the distribution of brain networks. We have successfully shown that different (spatial and spectral) measures of variability in blind source separated functional activation patterns underline previously unexplained characteristics that help in discerning schizophrenia patients from healthy controls. Additionally, we show that variance measures in dynamic connectivity between networks in healthy controls can justify relationship between connectivity patterns and executive functioning abilities

Novel Approaches for Structural Health Monitoring

The thirty-plus years of progress in the field of structural health monitoring (SHM) have left a paramount impact on our everyday lives. Be it for the monitoring of fixed- and rotary-wing aircrafts, for the preservation of the cultural and architectural heritage, or for the predictive maintenance of long-span bridges or wind farms, SHM has shaped the framework of many engineering fields. Given the current state of quantitative and principled methodologies, it is nowadays possible to rapidly and consistently evaluate the structural safety of industrial machines, modern concrete buildings, historical masonry complexes, etc., to test their capability and to serve their intended purpose. However, old unsolved problematics as well as new challenges exist. Furthermore, unprecedented conditions, such as stricter safety requirements and ageing civil infrastructure, pose new challenges for confrontation. Therefore, this Special Issue gathers the main contributions of academics and practitioners in civil, aerospace, and mechanical engineering to provide a common ground for structural health monitoring in dealing with old and new aspects of this ever-growing research field

Sustainable Agriculture and Advances of Remote Sensing (Volume 1)

Agriculture, as the main source of alimentation and the most important economic activity globally, is being affected by the impacts of climate change. To maintain and increase our global food system production, to reduce biodiversity loss and preserve our natural ecosystem, new practices and technologies are required. This book focuses on the latest advances in remote sensing technology and agricultural engineering leading to the sustainable agriculture practices. Earth observation data, in situ and proxy-remote sensing data are the main source of information for monitoring and analyzing agriculture activities. Particular attention is given to earth observation satellites and the Internet of Things for data collection, to multispectral and hyperspectral data analysis using machine learning and deep learning, to WebGIS and the Internet of Things for sharing and publishing the results, among others

Interpretive structural model of key performance indicators for sustainable manufacturing evaluation in automotive companies

This paper aims to analyze the interrelationships among the key performance indicators of sustainable manufacturing evaluation in automotive companies. The initial key performance indicators have been identified and derived from literature and were then validated by industry survey. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology is applied to develop a hierarchical structure of the key performance indicators in three levels. Of nine indicators, there are five unstable indicators which have both high driver and dependence power, thus requiring further attention. It is believed that the model can provide a better insight for automotive managers in assessing their sustainable manufacturing performance

Development of tools and paradigms to assess brain cortical activity during cognitive tasks

Monitoring brain cortical activity is essential to decipher and understand neurophysiological behaviour. A wide amount of tools and experimental setups has been developed to stimulate, record and analyze brain activity. The identification of quantitative metrics to assess this activity during specific tasks remains an essential requirement, as it could lead to improve diagnostics, describe objectively self-assessed condition, or track variation during long-term studies. This thesis introduces the development of tools and paradigms to assess brain cortical activity during cognitive tasks. It introduces a complete set of analyses based on EEG signals, under two main scopes, schizophrenia and postural control. The first part of the work evaluates the impact of a potential therapeutic solution for patients with schizophrenia. A longitudinal study case is introduced, where psychometrics data are compared with three types of analysis from EEG data: temporal, spectral and connectivity. The small sample size prevents us to draw definitive conclusion, however, this work reveals the interest to use EEG-based metrics to complete the standard psychometrics assessment. The second part of the work focuses on postural control, using a novel measurement setup, called BioVRSea, combining virtual reality and a moving platform. The brain cortical activity of more than 150 healthy individuals have been investigated during this experiment. A robust neurophysiological reference has been identified using power spectral density. Moreover, combining brain connectivity and microstate segmentation, network dynamics reveal a coherent brain remodeling throughout the acquisition, strengthening our current knowledge regarding complex postural control. The current work highlights the concrete benefit of using EEG signal to decipher brain cortical activity. The tools developed in this thesis are of interest to build a neurophysiological signature of specific cognitive tasks, that will be crucial for a further understanding of neurodegenerative disease.Að fylgjast með starfsemi heilaberki er nauðsynlegt til að útskýra og skilja tauga-lífeðlisfræðilega hegðun. Fjölbreytt útval af tólum og tilraunauppsetningum hefur verið þróað til að örva, vista og greina heilastarfsemi. Það er nauðsynleg krafa að finna magnmælingu til að greina þessa starfsemi í ákveðnu verkefni, því það gæti leitt að beturumbættu greiningarferli, útskýrt hlutlægu sjálfsmats ástandi, eða fylgst með breytingum í lang-tíma rannsóknum. Þessi ritgerð kynnir þróunn tóla og hugmyndafræði til að meta heilaberka starfsemi við vitræn verkefni. Ritgerðinn kynnir heilt safn af greiningum byggt á EEG merkj- um, í tvem megin sviðum, geðklofa og líkamsstöðustjórnun. Fyrsti hluti verkefnisins metur áhrifin af mögulegum meðferðarlegum lausnum fyrir sjúklinga með geðklofa. Kynnt er langtímarannsóknartilvik, þar sem þar sem sálfræðigögn eru borin saman við þrenns konar greiningar úr heilarita gögnum: tímabundnum, litrófs- og tengingum. Lítil úrtaksstærð kemur í veg fyrir að við getum dregið endanlegar ályktanir, en þessi vinna sýnir áhugann á því að nota heilalínuritaða mælikvarða til að ljúka stöðluðu sálfræðimati. Annar hluti verksins fjallar um líkamsstöðustýringu, með því að nota nýja mæling- aruppsetningu, sem kallast BioVRSea, sem sameinar sýndarveruleika og hreyfanlegan vettvang. Heilabarkarvirkni af meira en 150 heilbrigðra einstaklinga hefur verið rann- sökuð í þessari tilraun. Öflug taugalífeðlisfræðileg tilvísun hefur fundist með því að nota kraftrófsþéttleika. Þar að auki, með því að sameina heilatengingu og örstöðu- skiptingu, sýnir netverkun samfellda endurgerð heilans í gegnum tökuna, sem styrkir núverandi þekkingu okkar varðandi flókna líkamsstöðustjórnun. Þessi rannsókn undirstrikar raunverulegan ávinning af því að nota EEG merki til að ráða virkni heilabarka. Tólin sem þróuð eru í þessari ritgerð eru mikilvæg til að byggja upp taugalífeðlisfræðilega undirskrift ákveðinna vitræna verkefna, sem mikilvæg eru fyrir frekari skilning á taugahrörnunarsjúkdómum

Forest landscapes and global change. New frontiers in management, conservation and restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference

This volume contains the contributions of numerous participants at the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference, which took place in Bragança, Portugal, from 21 to 24 of September 2010. The conference was dedicated to the theme Forest Landscapes and Global Change - New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. The 128 papers included in this book follow the structure and topics of the conference. Sections 1 to 8 include papers relative to presentations in 18 thematic oral and two poster sessions. Section 9 is devoted to a wide-range of landscape ecology fields covered in the 12 symposia of the conference. The Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference register the growth of scientific interest in forest landscape patterns and processes, and the recognition of the role of landscape ecology in the advancement of science and management, particularly within the context of emerging physical, social and political drivers of change, which influence forest systems and the services they provide. We believe that these papers, together with the presentations and debate which took place during the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference – Bragança 2010, will definitively contribute to the advancement of landscape ecology and science in general. For their additional effort and commitment, we thank all the participants in the conference for leaving this record of their work, thoughts and science