La fragmentation de l’espace urbain postsocialiste en Albanie

Après 30 années d’un développement urbain maîtrisé et décentralisé, l’espace urbain albanais a été le théâtre d’une transition brutale. A la chute du régime en 1991, le réseau des villes petites et moyennes mis en place durant le communisme a tenu dans un premier temps, au prix d’une importante « ruralisation » des espaces urbains, alors que les grandes villes développaient un caractère dual, opposant centres et nouveaux quartiers informels aux compositions sociodémographiques bien différentes, en raison de séquences migratoires contrastées. Après une première décennie marquée par le boom des constructions informelles, le redéploiement du secteur de l’immobilier dans le Grand Tirana a produit une suburbanisation dense, qui est venue confirmer la ségrégation dessinée par le tissu informel, renforcée en cela par une réforme institutionnelle excluant les banlieues d’immigration du périmètre municipal. La formidable croissance de l’aire métropolitaine Tirana-Durrës a permis de remédier à la sous-urbanisation, mais ce miroir urbain de l’Albanie présente un visage plus fragmenté que jamais.After 30 years of controlled and decentralized urban development, the Albanian urban space has gone through a brutal transition. At the fall of the regime in 1991, the network of small and medium-sized cities set up during communism initially survived, at the cost of an important “ruralization” of urban spaces, while the big cities developed a dual character, opposing centers and new “informal” neighborhoods with very different socio-demographic compositions, due to contrasting migratory sequences. After a first decade of informal boom, the redeployment of the real estate market in Greater Tirana, in the form of a dense suburbanization, has confirmed the segregation drawn by the informal urban fabric, further reinforced by an institutional reform excluding immigration suburbs of the municipal territory. The tremendous growth of the Tirana-Durrës metropolitan area has allowed addressing the under-urbanization problem, but this urban mirror of Albania seems more fragmented than ever

L'Arc jurassien en perspective

L' Arcjurassien a mandaté la CEAT pour réaliser un petit atlas cartographique en vue de la deuxième édition de la plate-forme de concertation de l'Arc jurassien suisse qui s'est tenu le 25.03.2010. Les cartes et analyses de l’Arc jurassien en perspective sont autant de regards portés sur ce massif, scrutant successivement le paysage, l’urbanisation, les réseaux et les flux, la démographie, l’économie et ses spécialités, avec la volonté de produire une information aussi actuelle que le permettent les données disponibles, aussi transfrontalière que l’autorisent les définitions statistiques suisses et françaises, et aussi pertinente que l’exige la spécificité du contexte jurassien. La cartographie prend le pari de bouleverser certaines conventions pour faire de l’Arc jurassien le véritable objet du discours visuel

Measuring and Assessing Urban Sprawl: What are the Remaining Options for Future Settlement Development in Switzerland for 2030?

Transformation of land use in and around European cities is proceeding as fast as never before, and urban sprawl is a reality in Europe. This process is coming along with significant landscape changes that can even lead to the loss of landscape identity. Is it possible to find indications of which regions are prone to urban sprawl in order to curtail undesired future settlement developments in time? To answer this question we used settlement development scenarios for Switzerland, and analysed their spatial implications using a set of four metrics, which allow for comparing the degree of urban sprawl in different regions. Two aspects were explored: (1) by how much settlement development could potentially increase in Switzerland, and (2) the suitability of the metrics as indicators for characterizing and assessing the development of urban sprawl. The results show that overall in Switzerland the urban permeation and dispersion of settlement areas is likely to increase (in all scenarios), but to different degrees. However, the results differ very much between the various types of settlement and between the cantons, and even a decrease in urban dispersion is possible. In combination with scenarios of settlement growth, the metrics provide useful evidence on regional characteristics such as the overall pressure of settlement development and likely transformations of the respective settlement types that should be taken into account in spatial development concepts. There is a need for calibration of the indicators on a regional level to define specific thresholds to limit urban spraw

Mobilité des pendulaires EPFL - UNIL Analyse spatialisée des résultats de l'enquête RUMBA

Les Hautes Écoles lausannoises accueillent aujourd'hui quelque 25'000 étudiants et collaborateurs sur un site excentré dans l'Ouest lausannois. La gestion de la mobilité est devenue un enjeu majeur nécessitant la mise en œuvre d'un plan de mobilité commun. Dans ce contexte, la présente étude établit un diagnostic basé sur les résultats des enquêtes réalisées depuis 2003 sur le campus. Pour la première fois, l'origine des déplacements quotidiens a été codée pour permettre l'évaluation du bassin de la mobilité quotidienne, celle des distances et temps de parcours, leur évolution ainsi que celle des choix modaux. Les résultats mettent en valeur d'importantes différences entre EPFL et Unil, entre hommes et femmes, étudiants et employés. Ils laissent entrevoir également pour certains parcours un report modal vers les transports collectifs et la mobilité douce. Enfin, l'étude propose un "bilan carbone" de la mobilité quotidienne de la population de l'EPFL

Typologie des communes et définition des agglomérations en Albanie

Cet article propose une méthode de classification des communes albanaises basée sur les résultats du "Population and Housing Census 2001". Cette classification est un outil pour l'analyse territoriale et l'évaluation des politiques, ainsi que pour la planification urbaine et régionale. Cette classification pourra également être utilisée comme instrument de structuration d’enquêtes. Les résultats pourraient aussi servir de base à une classification s’appuyant sur les données du Recensement de 2011. Cette classification des communes se concentre sur deux résultats principaux: premièrement, une typologie des villes albanaises, ainsi que des types de communes rurales, et deuxièmement la définition des agglomérations albanaises constituées des villes centrales et de leurs communes suburbaines. Une attention particulière est accordée à la région métropolitaine de Tirana-Durrës. Ces classifications territoriales ont été développées dans le cadre de la coopération suisse-albanaise par le biais du programme triennal de développement des statistiques démographiques et sociales en Albanie (DESSA). La recherche a été menée par des chercheurs suisses expérimentés dans le domaine et des statisticiens albanais de l'Institut National de la Statistique (INSTAT) ayant une bonne connaissance de l'information statistique et des méthodes SIG

Szenarien für die nachhaltige Siedlungs- und Infrastrukturentwicklung in der Schweiz (2005-2030)

Spatial development patterns in Switzerland and future development trends and infrastructure requirements are not only the result of decisions at Swiss federal or cantonal levels, but also considerably influenced by developments in the EU. In the collaboration between two institutions at ETH Zurich and EPF Lausanne with the European Observatory Network ESPON, four spatial scenarios have been developed in this project. Two scenarios are affected by an individual, two scenarios by a cohesive value and distribution system. One scenario on each group takes place in a more dynamic economy and the other in a rather stagnating one. The project has used the methodology adopted by ESPON 3.2 by drawing up spatial scenarios based on an analysis of driving forces and trend projections. Furthermore, agent-based simulations have been used in an innovative way. Thematic scenarios have been designed around the broad topics of demography, economy and tourism, energy, socio cultural issues, transportation and mobility, and environment. These specific scenarios have been transformed into integrated scenarios and visualized by a sophisticated cartography

Development and evaluation of uncertainty quantifying machine learning models to predict piperacillin plasma concentrations in critically ill patients

Background: Beta-lactam antimicrobial concentrations are frequently suboptimal in critically ill patients. Population pharmacokinetic (PopPK) modeling is the golden standard to predict drug concentrations. However, currently available PopPK models often lack predictive accuracy, making them less suited to guide dosing regimen adaptations. Furthermore, many currently developed models for clinical applications often lack uncertainty quantification. We, therefore, aimed to develop machine learning (ML) models for the prediction of piperacillin plasma concentrations while also providing uncertainty quantification with the aim of clinical practice. Methods: Blood samples for piperacillin analysis were prospectively collected from critically ill patients receiving continuous infusion of piperacillin/tazobactam. Interpretable ML models for the prediction of piperacillin concentrations were designed using CatBoost and Gaussian processes. Distribution-based Uncertainty Quantification was added to the CatBoost model using a proposed Quantile Ensemble method, useable for any model optimizing a quantile function. These models are subsequently evaluated using the distribution coverage error, a proposed interpretable uncertainty quantification calibration metric. Development and internal evaluation of the ML models were performed on the Ghent University Hospital database (752 piperacillin concentrations from 282 patients). Ensuing, ML models were compared with a published PopPK model on a database from the University Medical Centre of Groningen where a different dosing regimen is used (46 piperacillin concentrations from 15 patients.). Results: The best performing model was the Catboost model with an RMSE and R-2 of 31.94-0.64 and 33.53-0.60 for internal evaluation with and without previous concentration. Furthermore, the results prove the added value of the proposed Quantile Ensemble model in providing clinically useful individualized uncertainty predictions and show the limits of homoscedastic methods like Gaussian Processes in clinical applications. Conclusions: Our results show that ML models can consistently estimate piperacillin concentrations with acceptable and high predictive accuracy when identical dosing regimens as in the training data are used while providing highly relevant uncertainty predictions. However, generalization capabilities to other dosing schemes are limited. Notwithstanding, incorporating ML models in therapeutic drug monitoring programs seems definitely promising and the current work provides a basis for validating the model in clinical practice

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO