Mobility of the Chinese Urban Poor - A Case Study of Hefei City

In a rapid economic development environment with rising income, escalating motorization, and growing urbanization, it is natural for government policies to focus on solving congestion related problems caused by the increased car ownership and usage. The mobility needs of the urban poor have been traditionally neglected in policy and in practice, particularly in developing countries. This paper addresses the mobility challenges the urban poor are facing based on a household travel survey in the City of Hefei in China. It first presents travel behaviors, transportation costs and commuting problems of the urban poor. It then discusses the urban transportation policy implications and examines the prevailing trends of urban transportation policies and plans in Chinese cities. Policy recommendations are suggested to improve the mobility needs of the urban poor.Urban transportation, poverty, mobility

Spatio-temporal mapping of variation potentials in leaves of Helianthus annuus L. seedlings in situ using multi-electrode array.

Damaging thermal stimuli trigger long-lasting variation potentials (VPs) in higher plants. Owing to limitations in conventional plant electrophysiological recording techniques, recorded signals are composed of signals originating from all of the cells that are connected to an electrode. This limitation does not enable detailed spatio-temporal distributions of transmission and electrical activities in plants to be visualised. Multi-electrode array (MEA) enables the recording and imaging of dynamic spatio-temporal electrical activities in higher plants. Here, we used an 8 × 8 MEA with a polar distance of 450 μm to measure electrical activities from numerous cells simultaneously. The mapping of the data that were recorded from the MEA revealed the transfer mode of the thermally induced VPs in the leaves of Helianthus annuus L. seedlings in situ. These results suggest that MEA can enable recordings with high spatio-temporal resolution that facilitate the determination of the bioelectrical response mode of higher plants under stress