How to understand the global phenomenon of urban shrinkage at local level? comparison of urban areas in Romania and Serbia

As a global phenomenon, urban shrinkage is explained in the scientific literature through general characteristics, such as the economic and demographic decline of a city. Apart from these, it has also strong national, regional and local features. In most cases the particular aspects of each context are the main determinants for shrinkage. The aim of this paper is to determine how to understand the phenomenon at national level through a comparison of Romania and Serbia, both two post-socialist countries that share similarities and distinctions. The first step is to present the situation in each of these two countries; afterwards the same indicators will be used for comparison and conclusions. The result of the paper will be the overview of the urban shrinkage situation in both Romania and Serbia. Finally, some further recommendations are presented, such as the possibility to form a regional approach to the phenomenon

Spotlight on voices from the community: COVID-19 impacts on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in England

 “Spotlight on voices from the community” is a section of the International Journal of Roma Studies (IJRS) where interviews, experiences, initiatives and other news related with the Roma will be collected. This section aims to highlight and share the voices from the community, especially from the Roma People, in order to know more about how to improve the situation of this population and having more information and other points of view about Roma around the world. In this issue organisations and charities based in England reflect on their experiences of “Lockdown” and how they reacted to COVID-19 and the types of programmes or projects they set up to support their local communities

The Akima's fitting method for quartic splines

For the Hermite type quartic spline interpolating on the partition knots and at the midpoint of each subinterval, we consider the estimation of the derivatives on the knots, and the values of these derivatives are obtained by constructing an algorithm of Akima's type. For computing the derivatives on endpoints are also considered alternatives that request optimal properties near the endpoints. The error estimate in the interpolation with this quartic spline is generally obtained in terms of the modulus of continuity. In the case of interpolating smooth functions, the corresponding error estimate reveal the maximal order of approximation O(h^3). A numerical experiment is presented for making the comparison between the Akima's cubic spline and the Akima's variant quartic spline having deficiency 2 and natural endpoint conditions

Brexit’s Effect on Citizens, Human Rights & Immigration

This report records the roundtable on “Brexit’s Effect on Citizens, Human Rights and Immigration” organised by Dr Adrienne Yong on 11 June 2019 at City, University of London funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) 2018/19. Speakers included: • Hannah Wilkins (House of Commons Library) • Blanca Grey (Home Office)1 • Paul Erdunast (Immigration Law Practitioner’s Association - ILPA) • Christopher Desira (Seraphus Solicitors) • Nicole Masri (Rights of Women) • Ollie Persey (Public Law Project) • Katarzyna Zagrodniczek (East European Resource Centre) • Mihai Calin Bica (Roma Support Group) • Dr Adrienne Yong (City, University of London) • Dr Michaela Benson (Goldsmiths, University of London) • Madeleine Sumption (Migration Observatory) • Sheona York (Kent Law Clinic) A host of unique legal questions were raised in the aftermath of the UK’s referendum result where the electorate voted in favour of leaving the EU on the 23 June 2016. Opinion has been split as to whether the UK and EU have indeed struck a fair deal for citizens, with arguments that citizens have been used as bargaining chips throughout the process to achieve a deal. As negotiations progressed towards the original mandated date of withdrawal, 29 March 2019, various schemes emerged to handle post-Brexit immigration of EU citizens in the UK and reciprocal arrangements for British citizens in the EU. This is now reflected in the EU Settlement Scheme, the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination Bill, and the reciprocity agreed with EU Member States as to British citizens in the EU. These issues and more were discussed at the roundtable

Survey on the Numerical Methods for ODE's Using the Sequence of Successive Approximations

Here we present the error estimations in the numerical methods for Cauchy problems corresponding to ODE’s, which use the sequence of successive approximations and quadrature rules such as trapezoidal rule and perturbed trapezoidal rule

Periodic solution for a delay integro-differential equation in biomathematics

Sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of periodic solution of a delay integro-differential equation which arise in biomathematics are given. The results use a bidimensional variant of the Perov’s fixed point theorem

A Comparison of Urban Shrinkage? Romania and Serbia

In the scientific literature, urban shrinkage is seen as a process of demographic and economic decline of a city. It is seen as a global phenomenon because of its occurrence in many areas in the world. (Martinez-Fernandez et al, 2012). It also has a specific regional characteristic, being sensitive to local features and contexts. We need to adapt the general knowledge of urban shrinkage to these contextualized levels and compare different entities, a difficult task according to Wiechmann and Pallagst, 2012. It is an adequate approach that is in the need for more attention and that can contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon as a whole. This paper compares shrinking cities at a national level, aiming to understand the local adoptions and to compare neighboring cases. According to Athanasopoulou and Rink, 2013, 42% of European cities are shrinking. South Eastern Europe is a particular case because it has a common history with local characteristics. The countries can affirm their post-socialist present as a transition to a new economic and political situation, having a similar historic development and similar patterns of urban development. Because these similarities tend to overcome national specificities, we choose Romania and Serbia for comparison and present their main characteristics. Each country is presented through a brief history of urbanization, influenced by the recent socialist government. The analysis goes even further and, after highlighting the distinctions, we apply local adaptations to enable the qualitative analysis by uniform indicators, units and spatial limits. The result is an overview of the urban shrinkage situation in both countries. We use a uniform unit for comparison, in terms of urban definition, and this is the Functional Urban Area. Each FUA is characterized by at least 50.000 inhabitants in the recent past and urban hinterlands with at least 15% inhabitants working in the urban core area. Each country is presented by its most shrinking FUA, 8 in both Romania (Alexandria, Onesti, Drobeta Turnu Severin, Targu Jiu, Petrosani, Turda, Dej and Sfantu Gheorghe) and Serbia (Kikinda, Leskovac, Loznica, Pirot, Sombor, Vranje, Zajecar and Zrenjanin). The results show the situation of two countries with different situations. In Romania, the shrinking FUA are scattered all around the country, with no relation to the spatial array of the country. Here, the shrinkage is a result of the mono-functional politic applied to certain areas by the communist regime. On the other hand, in Serbia the shrinking FUA are placed at the periphery, as border regions. It means that the country is more centralized and has a weak national infrastructure. Here, the functions only influence the size of the urban areas, but the shrinkage cannot be necessary related to this aspect. The result also helps for further recommendations, emphasizing the need for special national approaches on the study of the phenomenon. There is a need for a deeper insight in the study of past urbanization in the region, in the context of the regional development. There is also a need for contemporary solutions in a cognitive way, through the intelligent urban governance, the use of simulation and modelling and a better decision-making process

Optimal Alternative to the Akima's Method of Smooth Interpolation Applied in Diabetology

It is presented a new method of cubic piecewise smooth interpolation applied to experimental data obtained by glycemic profile for diabetics. This method is applied to create a soft useful in clinical diabetology. The method give an alternative to the Akima's procedure of the derivatives computation on the knots from [Akima, J. Assoc. Comput. Mach., 1970] and have an optimal property

Three-Dimensional Scanning Accuracy of Intraoral Scanners for Dental Implant Scan Bodies—An Original Study

Background and Objectives: With the increased trend towards digitalization in dentistry, intraoral scanning has, to a certain extent, replaced conventional impressions in particular clinical settings. Trueness and precision are essential traits for optical impressions but have so far been incompletely explored. Materials and Methods: We performed a study to evaluate the differences in the three-dimensional spatial orientations of implant analogs on a stone cast when using an intraoral scanner compared to a dental laboratory scanner. We assessed the deviation of the intraoral scans compared to the laboratory scan for three standardized implant measurement plans and compared these results with control scans of the neighboring natural teeth. Results: We found no statistically significant correlation between the measurements at the scan body level and the landmarks chosen as controls on the neighboring natural teeth (p = 0.198). The values for the implant scans presented wider variation compared to the control scans. The difference between the implant and the control planes ranged from −0.018 mm to +0.267 mm, with a median of −0.011 mm (IQR: −0.001–0.031 mm). While most values fell within a clinically acceptable margin of error of 0.05 mm, 12.5% of the measurements fell outside of this acceptable range and could potentially affect the quality of the resulting prosthetic work. Conclusions: For single-unit implant-supported restorations, intraoral scanning might have enough accuracy. However, the differences that result when scanning with an intraoral scanner may affect the quality of prosthetic work on multiple implants, especially if they are screw-retained. Based on our results, we propose different adaptations of the prosthetic protocol to minimize the potential effect of errors that may occur during the digital workflow