Environmental, health, wellbeing, social and equity effects of urban green space interventions: A meta-narrative evidence synthesis

© 2019 The Authors Background: As populations become increasingly urbanised, the preservation of urban green space (UGS) becomes paramount. UGS is not just dedicated recreational space such as public parks, but other types of informal green space are important, for example, street trees and roof gardens. Despite the potential from cross-sectional evidence, we know little about how to design new, or improve or promote existing UGS for health, wellbeing, social and environmental benefits, or known influencing factors such as physical activity. Objectives: To perform a meta-narrative review of the evidence regarding the health, wellbeing, social, environmental and equity effects, or known influencing factors of these outcomes, of UGS interventions. Data sources: Eight electronic databases were searched ((Medline, PsycINFO, Web of Science (Science and Social Science Citation Indices), PADDI (Planning Architecture Design Database Ireland), Zetoc, Scopus, Greenfiles, SIGLE (System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe)), and reference lists of included studies and relevant reviews were hand searched for further relevant studies. Study eligibility criteria, participants, and interventions: Eligibility criteria included: (i) evaluation of an UGS intervention; and (ii) health, wellbeing, social or environmental outcome(s), or known influencing factors of these outcomes, measured. Interventions involving any age group were included. Interventions must have involved: (a) physical change to green space in an urban-context including improvements to existing UGS or development of new UGS, or (b) combination of physical change to UGS supplemented by a specific UGS awareness, marketing or promotion programme to encourage use of UGS. Study appraisal and synthesis methods: Following a meta-narrative approach, evidence was synthesised by main intervention approach, including: (i) park-based; (ii) greenways/trails; (iii) urban greening; (iv) large green built projects for environmental purposes. Outcomes such as economic (e.g. cost effectiveness and cost–benefit analyses), adverse effects and unintended consequences were also extracted. Evidence was synthesised following the RAMESES guidelines and publication standards, the PROGRESS-plus tool was used to explore equity impact, and risk of bias/study quality was assessed. The findings from the evidence review were presented at an expert panel representing various disciplines in a workshop and these discussions framed the findings of the review and provide recommendations that are relevant to policy, practice and research. Results: Of the 6997 studies identified, 38 were included. There was strong evidence to support park-based (7/7 studies) and greenway/trail (3/3 studies) interventions employing a dual-approach (i.e. a physical change to the UGS and promotion/marketing programmes) particularly for park use and physical activity; strong evidence for the greening of vacant lots (4/4 studies) for health, wellbeing (e.g. reduction in stress) and social (e.g. reduction in crime, increased perceptions of safety) outcomes; strong evidence for the provision of urban street trees (3/4 studies) and green built interventions for storm water management (6/7 studies) for environmental outcomes (e.g. increased biodiversity, reduction in illegal dumping). Park-based or greenway/trail interventions that did not employ a dual-approach were largely ineffective (7/12 studies showed no significant intervention effect). Overall, the included studies have inherent biases owing to the largely non-randomized study designs employed. There was too little evidence to draw firm conclusions regarding the impact of UGS interventions on a range of equity indicators. Limitations; conclusions and implications of key findings: UGS has an important role to play in creating a culture of health and wellbeing. Results from this study provide supportive evidence regarding the use of certain UGS interventions for health, social and environmental benefits. These findings should be interpreted in light of the heterogeneous nature of the evidence base, including diverging methods, target populations, settings and outcomes. We could draw little conclusions regarding the equity impact of UGS interventions. However, the true potential of UGS has not been realised as studies have typically under-evaluated UGS interventions by not taking account of the multifunctional nature of UGS. The findings have implications for policymakers, practitioners and researchers. For example, for policymakers the trajectory of evidence is generally towards a positive association between UGS and health, wellbeing, social and environmental outcomes, but any intervention must ensure that negative consequences of gentrification and unequal access are minimised

Separating Agent-Functioning and Inter-Agent Coordination by Activated Modules: The DECOMAS Architecture

The embedding of self-organizing inter-agent processes in distributed software applications enables the decentralized coordination system elements, solely based on concerted, localized interactions. The separation and encapsulation of the activities that are conceptually related to the coordination, is a crucial concern for systematic development practices in order to prepare the reuse and systematic integration of coordination processes in software systems. Here, we discuss a programming model that is based on the externalization of processes prescriptions and their embedding in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). One fundamental design concern for a corresponding execution middleware is the minimal-invasive augmentation of the activities that affect coordination. This design challenge is approached by the activation of agent modules. Modules are converted to software elements that reason about and modify their host agent. We discuss and formalize this extension within the context of a generic coordination architecture and exemplify the proposed programming model with the decentralized management of (web) service infrastructures

In Search of a Common European Approach to a Healthy Indoor Environment

Increasingly, policymakers in Europe and around the world are realizing the importance of healthy indoor environments for public health. Certain member states of the European Union (EU) have already achieved successes in improving indoor environmental quality, such as controlling certain contaminants (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke) or developing nationwide policies that address indoor air generally. However, a common European approach to achieving healthy indoor environments is desirable for several reasons including providing a broader recognition of the problem of unhealthy indoor air, setting a policy example for all 27 EU member states, and achieving greater public health equity across the different European nations. In this article we address the question “Why is it so difficult in the EU to develop a coherent approach on indoor environment?” We identify and describe four main barriers: a) the subsidiarity principle in EU policymaking, introducing decentralization of decision making to the member states; b) fragmentation of the topic of the indoor environment; c) the differences in climate and governance among different member states that make a common policy difficult; and d) economic issues. We discuss potential lessons and recommendations from EU and U.S. successes in achieving healthier indoor environments through various policy mechanisms

The APEX framework: prototyping of ubiquitous environments based on Petri Nets

The user experience of ubiquitous environments is a determining factor in their success. The characteristics of such systems must be explored as early as possible to anticipate potential user problems, and to reduce the cost of redesign. However, the development of early prototypes to be evaluated in the target environment can be disruptive to the ongoing system and therefore unacceptable. This paper reports on an ongoing effort to explore how model-based rapid prototyping of ubiquitous environments might be used to avoid actual deployment while still enabling users to interact with a representation of the system. The paper describes APEX, a framework that brings together an existing 3D Application Server with CPN Tools. APEX-based prototypes enable users to navigate a virtual world simulation of the envisaged ubiquitous environment. The APEX architecture and the proposed CPN-based modelling approach are described. An example illustrates their use.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - bolsa de doutoramento SFRH/BD/41179/200

Urban planning for healthy cities a review of the progress of the european healthy cities programme

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the progress made by European cities in relation to Healthy Urban Planning (HUP) during Phase IV of the World Health Organization's Healthy Cities programme (2003-2008). The introduction sets out the general principle of HUP, identifying three levels or phases of health and planning integration. This leads on to a more specific analysis of the processes and substance of HUP, which provide criteria for assessment of progress. The assessment itself relies on two sources of data provided by the municipalities: the Annual Review Templates (ARTs) 2008 and the response to the Phase IV General Evaluation Questionnaire. The findings indicate that the evidence from different sources and questions in different sections are encouragingly consistent. The number of cities achieving a good level of understanding and activity inHUP has risen very substantially over the period. In particular, those achieving effective strategic integration of health and planning have increased. A key challenge for the future will be to develop planning frameworks which advance public health concerns in a spatial policy context driven often by market forces. A health in all policies approach could be valuable. © 2012 The New York Academy of Medicine

Semantic Web Services for Multi-Agent Systems Interoperability

Agent-based technologies are often used including existing web services. The outputs of some services are also frequently used as inputs for other services, including other MAS. However, while agent-based technologies can be used to provide services, these are not described using the same semantic web technologies web services use, which makes it difficult to discover, invoke and compose them with web services seamlessly. In this paper, we analyse different agent-based technologies and how these can be described using extensions to OWL-S. Additionally, we propose an architecture that facilitates these services’ usage, where services of any kind can be registered and executed (semi-)automatically.The present work has been developed under the PIANISM Project (ANI|P2020 40125) and has received funding from FEDER Funds through NORTE2020 program and from National Funds through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under the project UID/EEA/00760/2019. Gabriel Santos is supported by national funds through FCT PhD studentship with reference SFRH/BD/118487/2016.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Congenital deficiency reveals critical role of ISG15 in skin homeostasis

Ulcerating skin lesions are manifestations of human ISG15 deficiency, a type I interferonopathy. However, chronic inflammation may not be their exclusive cause. We describe two siblings with recurrent skin ulcers that healed with scar formation upon corticosteroid treatment. Both had a homozygous nonsense mutation in the ISG15 gene, leading to unstable ISG15 protein lacking the functional domain. We characterized ISG15(-/-) dermal fibroblasts, HaCaT keratinocytes, and human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived vascular endothelial cells. ISG15-deficient cells exhibited the expected hyperinflammatory phenotype, but also dysregulated expression of molecules critical for connective tissue and epidermis integrity, including reduced collagens and adhesion molecules, but increased matrix metalloproteinases. ISG15(-/-) fibroblasts exhibited elevated ROS levels and reduced ROS scavenger expression. As opposed to hyperinflammation, defective collagen and integrin synthesis was not rescued by conjugation-deficient ISG15. Cell migration was retarded in ISG15(-/-) fibroblasts and HaCaT keratinocytes, but normalized under ruxolitinib treatment. Desmosome density was reduced in an ISG15(-/-) 3D epidermis model. Additionally, there were loose architecture and reduced collagen and desmoglein expression, which could be reversed by treatment with ruxolitinib/doxycycline/TGF-beta 1. These results reveal critical roles of ISG15 in maintaining cell migration and epidermis and connective tissue homeostasis, whereby the latter likely requires its conjugation to yet unidentified targets

Urban public health, a multidisciplinary approach

Urban environment is a highly complex interactive socio-physical system, with competing expectations and priorities. Public health interventions have always had a fundamental role in the control of diseases in cities. WHO considers urbanization as one of the key challenges for public health in the twenty-first century, since cities offer significant opportunities to improve public health if health-enhancing policies and actions are promoted. A multidisciplinary approach is required, but the basic differences existing between technical and health disciplines make the interaction difficult. The multidisciplinary collaboration is still at a very early stage of development, and needs to be further understood and planned. The author concludes stressing the need for a transversal training, but also for sharing knowledge, instruments and methods, involving all the actors in the planning process, to develop a real multidisciplinary approach