ESPON TOWN spin-off Denmark. Small and medium sized towns in Denmark

This study “ESPON TOWN spin-off Denmark” provides supporting knowledge and evidence on the state and development of SMSTs in Denmark by using detailed datasets and by conducting an in-depth analysis of the local context . Based on a quantitative data-driven analysis, it describes the main characteristics of SMSTs in Denmark, how they differ from each other and what role various aspects including tourism and services play. Furthermore, it presents a short update of SMST research as well as a recap of recent Danish policies related to SMSTs. Finally, it provides perspectives on Denmark’s SMSTs within a European policy context

Binder Identification Using Pattern Recognition on Phantom Measurements

This paper proposes an automatic method for the identification of twisted pairs (TPs) sharing the same binder, based on the analysis of phantom circuit measurements. This type of circuit is often used for improving data transmission rates in communication systems, but in this paper, phantoming is used to reveal if a four-wire loop composed of two TPs is close enough and well balanced in order to be considered in the same binder. The method uses four features extracted from scattering parameter measures in phantom-mode between two TPs. These features are related to the presence of periodicities and impedance mismatch between the measurement device and the four-wire transmission line. The identification is done via application of two pattern recognition techniques, support vector machines and K-means, on scattering parameter obtained from the phantom-mode measurement of two TPs. This paper also describes a method to determine the length of the two TPs that share the same binder. Laboratory results confirm the accuracy of the proposed methods

Smart City Governance in the Geo-resources Planning Paradigm in the Metropolitan City of Cagliari (Italy)

The purpose of this paper is to identify environmental issues related to the geo-resources demand, which arises by the new context of the metropolitan city of Cagliari, in the framework of the existing environmental and place-based policies. This is achieved through the correlation of the main planning tools (the Regional Plan of Extractive Activities [RPEA] for geo-resources planning sector, and the urban masterplan [UMP] for urban planning sector), in order to identify environmental indicators, useful for monitoring and for decision support systems. This comparison defined a new integrated methodological approach between urban, place-based and environmental policies, referring to geo-resources planning, in line with the newest paradigm of smart region and of the panarchy process. This approach allowed to evaluate the delayed impacts of UMPs, and its environmental impacts, resulting from the quarry activities of geo-resources (such as natural aggregates). In fact, quarry activity is the leading effect in UMPs (because the materials of construction are obtained principally by it), and it simultaneously decreases the environmental sustainability, increasing the environmental debt

Stratégies pour le développement urbain durable et liens entre l'urbain et le rural

International audienceAn important driving force behind urban expansion is the growth of the urban population. But for Europe, this is not a sufficient explanation. The major trend is that European cities have become much less compact. Since the mid-1950s European cities have expanded on average by 78%, whereas the population has grown by only 33%. In the PLUREL project - an integrated project within the EU's 6th Research Framework Programme - more than 100 researchers from 15 countries analysed the impacts of urban land consumption at a pan-European level and, through six European and one Chinese case studies, identified how land use conflicts and the pressure towards peri-urban areas can be strategically managed in different development and regulatory contexts. To summarise, the following strategies were identified as important steps towards more sustainable urban-rural futures: (i) better coordination of transport, land use and open space planning; (ii) urban containment and densification - development of a green compact city; (iii) preservation of blue and green infrastructure; and (iv) preservation of agricultural land and the promotion of local production. The need also remains to strengthen governance at the regional level while at the pan-European level there is clearly a need for more policy attention to be given to urban-rural linkages

Environmental Law Tools for the Idea of a Compact City. Learning from the Dutch Case

The concept of a compact city is an important tool to support sustainable urban development. However, the intensified use of urban areas can also cause tension between environmental law and spatial planning policy. This chapter addresses the question as to what extent environmental law tools can support the idea of a compact city. It first discusses EU policy on this matter and then examines the Dutch approach on the idea of a compact city

Evolving Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems from data streams (eTS+).

It is a well known fact that nowadays we are faced with not only large data sets that we need to process quickly, but with huge data streams (Domingos and Hulten, 2001). Special requirements are also placed by the fast growing sector of autonomous systems where systems that can re-train and adapt ‘on-fly’ are required (Patchett and Sastri, 2007). Similar requirements are enforced by the advanced process industries for self-developing and self-maintaining sensors (Qin et al., 1997). Now they even talk about self-learning industries (EC, 2007). All of these requirements cannot be met by using off-line methods and systems that can only adjust their parameters and/or are linear (Astroem and Wittenmark, 1989). These requirements call for a new type of systems that assumes the structure of non-linear, non-stationary systems to be adaptive and flexible. The author of this chapter started research work in this direction around the turn of the century (Angelov and Buswell, 2001; Angelov, 2002) and this research culminated in proposing with Dr. D. Filev the so called evolving Takagi-Sugeno (eTS) fuzzy system (Angelov and Filev, 2003). Since then a number of improvements of the original algorithm has been done, which require a systematic description in one publication. In this chapter an enhanced version of the eTS algorithm will be described which is called eTS+. It has been tested on a data stream from real engine test bench (data provided courtesy of Dr. E. Lughofer, Linz, Austria). The results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed enhanced approach for modeling real data stream in precision, simplicity and interpretability, and computational resources used. (c) IEEE Press and John Wiley and Son