Extensive Sclerosing Mesenteritis of the Rectosigmoid Colon Associated with Erosive Colitis

Sclerosing mesenteritis is a rare, idiopatic, usually benign, inflammatory process of the mesenteric adipose tissue. The most common site of involvement is the small bowel mesentery. We present a case of sclerosing mesenteritis of the rectosigmoid colon as a cause of severe abdominal pain, abdominal obstruction, and ischemic colic mucosal lesions. Contrast enema, colonoscopy, angiography, and CT were the imaging modalities used. A 20 cm diameter, fibrotic mass causing extensive compression of rectosigmoid colon was found at laparotomy. Histological examination showed extended fibrosis, inflammatory cells infiltration, lipophages, and granulomas within the mesenteric adipose tissue associated with erosive colitis. Clinical presentation and treatment are discussed

Smart Eco-CityDevelopment in Europe and China: Opportunities, Drivers and Challenges

The policy pointers presented in this report are the result of a three-year (2015-18) research project led by Federico Caprotti at the University of Exeter. The project, Smart Eco-Cities for a Green Economy: A Comparative Analysis of Europe and China, was delivered by a research consortium comprising scholars and researchers in the UK, China, the Netherlands, France, and Germany. The aim of the project was to investigate the way in which smart city and eco-city strategies are used to enable a transition towards digital and green economies. While previous work has considered smart cities and eco-cities as separate urban development models, the project considers them together for the first time. We use the term ‘the smart eco-city’ to focus on how green targets are now included in smart city development policies and strategies. This report presents a summary of policy pointers, or ‘lessons’, learned through our work on the cities we studied in the UK, China, the Netherlands, France and Germany. Specifically, we studied, in depth, the cities of Manchester, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Bordeaux, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningbo and Wuhan. This work included interviews with policymakers, urban municipal authorities, tech firm executives, and grassroots and community representatives and stakeholders. Our work also included intensive and in-depth qualitative analysis of documentary sources including policy and corporate reports and other materials.The research undertaken to produce this report was supported by funding from: the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through research grant ES/ L015978/1; the National Natural Science Foundation of China, project number 71461137005; the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) through research grant 467-14-153 and the Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) through research grant 530-6CD108; the French National Research Agency (ANR) through research grant ANR-14-02; and the German Research Foundation DFG through research grant SP 1545/1-1

Smart Cities: Towards a New Citizenship Regime? A Discourse Analysis of the British Smart City Standard

Growing practice interest in smart cities has led to calls for a less technology-oriented and more citizen-centric approach. In response, this articles investigates the citizenship mode promulgated by the smart city standard of the British Standards Institution. The analysis uses the concept of citizenship regime and a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to discern key discursive frames defining the smart city and the particular citizenship dimensions brought into play. The results confirm an explicit citizenship rationale guiding the smart city (standard), although this displays some substantive shortcomings and contradictions. The article concludes with recommendations for both further theory and practice development

Beyond the Grid: The Micropolitics of Off-Grid Energy in Qandu-Qandu, South Africa

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordIn this paper, we argue using smart technologies beyond the grid disrupts the access and use of existing energy sources, with profound impacts on everyday social life. We show how off-grid smart energy solutions constitute their own politics when considering existing conceptualisations of urban infrastructures in geography and the social sciences. To expose its politics, or “micropolitics”, we consider how tensions occur at the interface between infrastructures, where there are additions and modifications. We draw on an empirical example of Qandu-Qandu, an informal settlement in South Africa, to highlight how the placement, technical capabilities, and flexible financing options associated with off-grid solar energy create micropolitics with profound implications for everyday life. To conclude, we reflect on the value of using disruptions for understanding and enhancing equity in off-grid settings, contributing to the broader sustainability transitions narrative, and its “liveliness”

Smart and disruptive infrastructures: Re-building knowledge on the informal city

This is the final version. Available on open access from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this recordSmart urbanism is an established research area in geography and the social sciences. We draw on ‘worlding-provincialising’ strategies identified in an Urban Studies Special Issue from February 2021 to explore how smart infrastructures, a form of smart urbanism, disrupt representations of informality and urban development in new and productive ways. Focussing on the disruptive or troublesome implications of smart infrastructures reveals site-level considerations for developing policy and practice, where acknowledging the nuanced context for its use can present opportunities for not only understanding energy transitions in the Global South, but also creates opportunities for cross-learning. Drawing on our collective insights on a solar mini-grid project in Qandu-Qandu, Cape Town, we sketch out three ways the disruptive aspects of solar energy can be helpful for re-building knowledge on the informal city by: (i) re-positioning notions of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ infrastructure(s) in urban planning and policymaking; (ii) highlighting new avenues for citizen autonomy; and (iii) recasting the informal city as a site for continuous innovation and learning.British AcademyUK Newton Fun

The New Urban Agenda: key opportunities and challenges for policy and practice

The UN-HABITAT III conference held in Quito in late 2016 enshrined the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) with an exclusively urban focus. SDG 11, as it became known, aims to make cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable through a range of metrics, indicators, and evaluation systems. It also became part of a post-Quito ‘New Urban Agenda’ that is still taking shape. This paper raises questions around the potential for reductionism in this new agenda, and argues for the reflexive need to be aware of the types of urban space that are potentially sidelined by the new trends in global urban policy

Debating the urban dimension of territorial cohesion

The Territorial Cohesion goal was only included in the EU Treaty by 2009, with a view to promote a more balanced and harmonious European territory. One year earlier (2008), the European Commission (EC) published the ‘Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion—Turning territorial diversity into strength’. Neither one, nor the other, clearly defines the meaning of the Territorial Cohesion concept. The later, however, proposes three main policy responses towards more balanced and harmonious development: (i) Concentration: overcoming differences in density; (ii) Connecting territories: overcoming distance; and (iii) Cooperation: overcoming division. Although not explicitly, this document identifies several ‘urban questions’ to be dealt when promoting territorial cohesive policies: avoiding diseconomies of very large agglomerations and urban sprawl processes, combating urban decay and social exclusion, avoiding excessive concentrations of growth, promoting access to integrated transport systems and creating metropolitan bodies. In this light, this chapter proposes to debate the importance of the urban dimension to achieve the goal of territorial cohesion at several territorial levels.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Cochlea sarmatica n. sp.?? (per una lettura critica dell\u27immaginario)

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