Making Thessaloniki Resilient? The Enclosing Process of the Urban Green Commons

In the global hegemonic resilience discourse, green infrastructure is projected as a “win-win” approach to urban planning. Following the trend of adopting resilience as the new silver bullet for urban development, and in the midst of the recent financial crisis, Thessaloniki, Greece, joined the 100 Resilient Cities network of the Rockefeller Foundation in 2014. This event marked a shift in the city’s public space production and governance programme, introducing new private actors in decision-making processes, an emphasis on green space economic benefits, and an extensive regeneration programme heavily focused on the city centre. The article scrutinises these changes to uncover the policy implications of the turn to resilience in green public space production. Based on data on green public space spatial distribution; semi-structured interviews with municipal representatives and senior employees and representatives of the government, civil society, and local professional associations; policy document analysis; and comparative analysis of all relevant development and planning documents, and drawing on Brenner and Theodore’s (2005) conceptualisation of neoliberalism, the article argues that greening policies in Thessaloniki form an ongoing enclosing process of the urban green commons that articulates in a threefold manner: their discursive construction as “natural assets,” the implementation of spatially selective policies, and the post-politicisation of decision-making processes

Open house: extending the housing program; learning from the "extreme"

The current thesis is both a research & design project on how the collective housing of tomorrow is shaped. It takes as reference Covid-19 pandemic- as a period of time that both collective and domestic were challenged- in order to document and analyze -under this extreme condition of living- what new characteristics have emerged in terms of practice, typology, operation and initiative. The documentation is conducted through a designed building of collective housing (La Borda, Barcelona) and a collection of photos showcasing the collective activity developed in the existing housing building stock. The mapping and analysis of the new, incoming elements among with 3 selected study cases -using different approaches on the topic- will provide the design tools in order to shape an extended and more collective vision for the housing program inside the existing building stock

Evidence For Non-Linear Causality Between Public Spending And Income In The European Union Countries

This paper deploys the non-linear Granger causality methods in order to determine the causal relationship between national income and government expenditure in the European Union countries over the post-war time period. For this purpose, six alternative functional forms of Wagner’s law have been adopted. The empirical results indicate support for non-linear causality between income and government expenditure and they may prove useful theoretical and empirical research for the regulators and the policy makers

Towards Evidence Based M-Health Application Design in Cancer Patient Healthy Lifestyle Interventions

Cancer is one of the most prevalent diseases in Europe and the world. Significant correlations between dietary habits and cancer incidence and mortality have been confirmed by the literature. Physical activity habits are also directly implicated in the incidence of cancer. Lifestyle behaviour change may be benefited by using mobile technology to deliver health behaviour interventions. M-Health offers a promising cost-efficient approach to deliver en-masse interventions. Smartphone apps with constructs such as gamification and personalized have shown potential for helping individuals lose weight and maintain healthy lifestyle habits. However, evidence-based content and theory-based strategies have not been incorporated by those apps systematically yet. The aim of the current work is to put the foundations for a methodologically rigorous exploration of wellness/health intervention literature/app landscape towards detailed design specifications for connected health m-apps. In this context, both the overall work plan is described as well as the details for the significant steps of application space and literature space review. Both strategies for research and initial outcomes of it are presented. The expected evidence based design process for patient centered health and wellness interventions is going to be the primary input in the implementation process of upcoming patient centered health/wellness m-health interventions.ENJECT COST-STSM-ECOST-STSM-TD1405-220216-07045

Testing Wagner's Law For The European Union Economies

This paper examines the validity of Wagner’s law in the EU-15 member-states for the time period 1949-1998. For investigating the existence of a long run and causal relationship between government expenditure and national income, three of the most advanced econometric methods, the Engle-Granger cointegration test, the Johansen maximum likelihood method and the Granger causality test have been applied to six alternative functional interpretations of the law. The results are very ambiguous and our main findings suggest that the validity or invalidity of Wagner’s law is very sensitive to the method applied

Δοκιμασίες αξιολόγησης φυσικών και τεχνικών ικανοτήτων καλαθοσφαιριστών με αμαξίδιο

Η βοήθεια, που προσφέρει ο αθλητισμός στα άτομα με κινητικές αναπηρίες (ΑΚΑ), όσον αφορά την αποδοχή της κινητικής τους αναπηρίας και την αυτοπεποίθηση τους, συγκριτικά με αυτά που δεν ασχολούνται με τον αθλητισμό είναι σημαντική (Robinson, 1975). Το γεγονός αυτό ώθησε τους ερευνητές από νωρίς ακόμα στην αξιολόγηση των ψυχολογικών τους χαρακτηριστικών (Jacobs, 1975). Ακολούθως, η μεγάλη συμμετοχή ατόμων με κινητικές αναπηρίες σε αθλητικές δραστηριότητες, δημιούργησε την ανάγκη εξεύρεσης επιστημονικών μεθόδων, παρόμοιων με αυτές που χρησιμοποιούνται στους αθλητές χωρίς κινητικές αναπηρίες (ΑΧΚΑ), για την καταγραφή και αξιολόγηση εκείνων των παραμέτρων βιολογικών και τεχνικών, που χαρακτηρίζουν τον αθλητή με αναπηρίες (Emes, 1977; Brasile, 1984). Αναλυτικότερα, όσον αφορά τις βιολογικές προσαρμογές το ενδιαφέρον των ερευνητών εστιάστηκε στην: α) καταγραφή και αξιολόγηση της αερόβιας και αναερόβιας ικανότητας των αθλητών (Coutts et al., 1983; Veeger et al., 1991), β) σύγκριση των διαφόρων οργάνων μέτρησης, σχετικά με την εγκυρότητα και αξιοπιστία (Glaser et al., 1979; Gass and Camp, 1984; Arabi et al., 1997), γ) διαφορά στην επίδοση, ανάλογα με το είδος και το εύρος της αναπηρίας (Coutts et al., 1983; Hoffman, 1986), δ) σύγκριση των αποτελεσμάτων με τα αντίστοιχα των αθλητών χωρίς κινητικές αναπηρίες, κατά την άσκηση των άνω άκρων (Flandrois et al., 1986) και ε) δυνατότητα βελτίωσης της απόδοσης των αθλητών μέσω της άσκησης (Kofsky et al., 1983; Glaser, 1989; Van Der Woude et al., 1999). Ακόμα, σχετικά με την αξιολόγηση και βελτίωση των τεχνικών χαρακτηριστικών των καλαθοσφαιριστών με αμαξίδιο οι ερευνητές εφάρμοσαν δοκιμασίες στο γήπεδο παρόμοιες με αυτές που χρησιμοποιούνται σε καλαθοσφαιριστές χωρίς κινητικές αναπηρίες (Brasile, 1984, 1986 a&b; Vanlerberghe and Slock, 1987; Αναστασιάδης, 1996). Όλα τα ανωτέρω αποσκοπούσαν στην αρτιότερη κατάρτιση κατάλληλων προπονητικών προγραμμάτων, που θα βασίζονται εκτός από την προσωπική εμπειρία, στην επιστημονική γνώση και θα έχουν ως σκοπό την αποτελεσματικότερη προετοιμασία των αθλητών με κινητικές αναπηρίες. Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας ήταν να καταγράψει τι δοκιμασίες αξιολόγησης των φυσικών και τεχνικών ικανοτήτων καλαθοσφαιριστών με αμαξίδιο