The implications of alternative developer decision-making strategies on land-use and land-cover in an agent-based land market model

Land developers play a key role in land-use and land cover change, as\ud they directly make land development decisions and bridge the land and housing\ud markets. Developers choose and purchase land from rural land owners, develop\ud and subdivide land into parcel lots, build structures on lots, and sell houses to residential households. Developers determine the initial landscaping states of developed parcels, affecting the state and future trajectories of residential land cover, as well as land market activity. Despite their importance, developers are underrepresented in land use change models due to paucity of data and knowledge regarding their decision-making. Drawing on economic theories and empirical literature, we have developed a generalized model of land development decision-making within a broader agent-based model of land-use change via land markets. Developer’s strategies combine their specialty in developing of particular subdivision types, their perception of and attitude towards market uncertainty, and their learning and adaptation strategies based on the dynamics of the simulated land and housing markets. We present a new agent-based land market model that includes these elements. The model will be used to experiment with these different development decision-making methods and compare their impacts on model outputs, particularly on the quantity and spatial pattern of resultant land use changes. Coupling between the land market and a carbon sequestration model, developed for the larger SLUCE2 project, will allow us, in future work, to examine how different developer’s strategies will affect the carbon balance in residential\ud landscape

Some clinical aspects of prolonged clinostatic hypokinesia

Attendant problems which arise with prolonged confinement of patients to bed are discussed. These disorders are of a hyperkinesic nature, and the symptoms are treated with pharmacological substances

Remote sensing-based proxies for urban disaster risk management and resilience: A review

© 2018 by the authors. Rapid increase in population and growing concentration of capital in urban areas has escalated both the severity and longer-term impact of natural disasters. As a result, Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and reduction have been gaining increasing importance for urban areas. Remote sensing plays a key role in providing information for urban DRM analysis due to its agile data acquisition, synoptic perspective, growing range of data types, and instrument sophistication, as well as low cost. As a consequence numerous methods have been developed to extract information for various phases of DRM analysis. However, given the diverse information needs, only few of the parameters of interest are extracted directly, while the majority have to be elicited indirectly using proxies. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the proxies developed for two risk elements typically associated with pre-disaster situations (vulnerability and resilience), and two post-disaster elements (damage and recovery), while focusing on urban DRM. The proxies were reviewed in the context of four main environments and their corresponding sub-categories: built-up (buildings, transport, and others), economic (macro, regional and urban economics, and logistics), social (services and infrastructures, and socio-economic status), and natural. All environments and the corresponding proxies are discussed and analyzed in terms of their reliability and sufficiency in comprehensively addressing the selected DRM assessments. We highlight strength and identify gaps and limitations in current proxies, including inconsistencies in terminology for indirect measurements. We present a systematic overview for each group of the reviewed proxies that could simplify cross-fertilization across different DRM domains and may assist the further development of methods. While systemizing examples from the wider remote sensing domain and insights from social and economic sciences, we suggest a direction for developing new proxies, also potentially suitable for capturing functional recovery

A Review of Remote Sensing-Based Proxies and Data Processing Methods for Urban Disaster Risk Management

Disaster risk management (DRM) and reduction has been gaining in importance as a result of increasing impacts of natural disasters. Reliable and informative data are the foundation of any comprehensive and effective DRM. Synoptic and multi-type remote sensing has become an essential tool for rapid acquiring of geospatial data, particularly for complex and dynamic urban areas. Accordingly, it has been used for the assessment of all components of the disaster risk cycle, ranging from disaster preparedness to rapid damage assessment. However, due to the complex and multifaceted characteristics of many urban elements, in particular social and economic activities and functions, accurate risk assessment that takes account of the varied and complex set of vulnerabilities and their associated dynamics continues to be very difficult, and direct remote sensing observations are frequently insufficient. Therefore, methods have been developed to indirectly estimate the risk, utilizing image-based proxies. In recent years, using proxies has become a predominant way for such measurements in the DRM field for both pre- and post-disaster phases, at times with similar proxies being used for both situations. For example, the presence of vegetation in urban areas is used as a proxy for both pre-event social vulnerability and for post-disaster recovery assessments. In addition, existing proxies do not sufficiently address all assessment requirements, e.g. there is no proxy for building-based functional damage assessment. Another persistent challenge is the extraction those proxies as a basis for automating the urban DRM process. Although several remote sensing data processing methods have been developed to derive information for DRM in recent years, extracting proxies from remote sensing data requires more accurate results in detecting objects and features. In this study we carried out a comprehensive review of remote sensing-based proxies for different urban DRM phases, identified duplications on efforts, inconsistencies in terminology, but also remaining gaps. With a specific focus on post-disaster recovery assessment, which particularly relies on measures to assess the progress in functions and processes, the review was then used as a basis for the development of new proxies and indicators. The focus is on developing robust proxies to go beyond the physical evaluation perspective, and to extract socio- economic information and functional assessment of urban areas using new strategies, such as multiple-proxies approach, and fusing object- and pattern-based proxies from various remote sensing data, including very-high resolution satellite and aerial images, drone data, LiDAR data. In addition, the reliability of current remote sensing data processing methods in extracting proxies will be discussed, and accordingly how remote sensing data processing methods can contribute to developing reliable proxies will be demonstrated (e.g. using new pattern recognition, texture, and object detection methods)

Actors and factors - bridging social science findings and urban land use change modeling

Recent uneven land use dynamics in urban areas resulting from demographic change, economic pressure and the cities’ mutual competition in a globalising world challenge both scientists and practitioners, among them social scientists, modellers and spatial planners. Processes of growth and decline specifically affect the urban environment, the requirements of the residents on social and natural resources. Social and environmental research is interested in a better understanding and ways of explaining the interactions between society and landscape in urban areas. And it is also needed for making life in cities attractive, secure and affordable within or despite of uneven dynamics.\ud The position paper upon “Actors and factors – bridging social science findings and urban land use change modeling” presents approaches and ideas on how social science findings on the interaction of the social system (actors) and the land use (factors) are taken up and formalised using modelling and gaming techniques. It should be understood as a first sketch compiling major challenges and proposing exemplary solutions in the field of interest

Climate change-driven losses in ecosystem services of coastal wetlands: A case study in the West coast of Bangladesh

© 2018 The Authors Climate change is globally recognized as one of the key drivers of degradation of coastal wetland ecosystems, causing considerable alteration of services provided by these habitats. Quantifying the physical impacts of climate change on these services is therefore of utmost importance. Yet, practical work in this field is fragmented and scarce in current literature, especially in developing countries which are likely to suffer most from the adverse climate change impacts. Using a coherent scenario-based approach that combines assessment of physical impacts with economic valuation techniques, here we quantify potential climate change driven losses in the value of wetland ecosystems services due to relative sea-level rise (RSLR)-induced inundation in the vulnerable Western coastal area of Bangladesh in 2100. The results show a small inundation area in 2100 under the three IPCC climate scenarios of RCP2.6 (with 0.25 m of RSLR), RCP6.0 (with 1.18 m of RSLR), and RCP8.5 (with 1.77 m of RSLR) for the coastal wetland ecosystems including the Sundarbans mangrove forest, neritic system and aquaculture ponds. In all scenarios, RSLR will drive a loss in the total value of ecosystem services such as provision of raw materials, and food provision, ranging from US$0–1 million to US$ 16.5–20 million, respectively. The outcomes of this study reveal that RSLR-induced inundation on its own, is unlikely to be a major threat to the wetland ecosystems in Western coast of Bangladesh. This would suggest that other climate change impacts such as coastal erosion, increase in frequency of cyclone events, and sea temperature rise might be the likely primary drivers of change in the value of wetland ecosystems services in this area

"AHIMSA" principle in the religious and cultural practices of ancient and contemporary India

The paper is focused on the development of the ahimsa principle and its specifics in the ideology of ancient and contemporary India, in its religious and cultural practice

A study of professional motivation of students in the process of pastoral care

The article deals with the problem of studying professional motivation of students-defectologists in the process of pastoral work. In order to change the attitude towards people with disabilities on the part of society, the state implements the “Accessible Environment” program, within which social adaptation of people with disabilities takes place. One of the areas of activity under this program presupposes training of high-quality defectological personnel capable of ensuring the highest quality training and the most effective inclusion of people with disabilities in society. At the moment, there are certain requirements that are imposed on higher education institutions in training defec­tologists.В статье представлены методики изучения профессиональной мотивации студентов-дефек­тологов в процессе воспитательной работы в вузе

Study of the Effect of Low-Temperature Plasma Exposure on Mould Fungi Colonizing Paper

The influence of radiofrequency cold plasma in ambient air at 200 Pa pressure on mould fungi of the genus Aspergillus was studied. It was shown that 20 min plasma treatment of paper with mould and contamination reduced the number of colony forming units but didn't lead to complete suppression of fungal viability. Strains of A. versicolor after plasma treatment lost the ability to excrete pink pigment to the environment. A. niger strains were more resistant and kept acidification ability. One of the possible plasma inactivation factors was formation of reactive hydroxyl (OH) radical