2,557 research outputs found
The evolving nature of town centre management internationally and my advocacy for a strategic global-local approach to practice and research in this profession
Town centre management (TCM) as a practice-based concept has existed in the UK, North America and much of Western Europe for over twenty five years. TCM was first defined by Wells (1991, p. 24) in the academic literature as “a comprehensive response to competitive pressures, which involves development, management and promotion of both public and private areas within town centres, for the benefit of all concerned”. Yet, this concept has evolved considerably since its first inceptions in the 1980s as the public-private partnerships that manage high streets, districts, town centres, quarters and other place formats have themselves faced a period of unprecedented environmental and socio-economic changes in the matrix of our towns and cities. This DProf by Public Works project explores the author’s contribution to this evolving paradigm over a ten year period by advocating a global-local approach to the town centre management profession. Specific knowledge gaps addressed by the author over this period include the contribution of small and medium sized retailers to the vitality, diversity and viability of town centres in a number of European countries, a pan-European classification tool (typology) of town centre management schemes, the development of the UK’s first ever professional and academic qualifications in place management and the founding of the first-ever practice-based international interdisciplinary publication on the management of towns and cities – the Journal of Town and City Management. The author’s transformational learning experience over this period serves as a backdrop for reflection throughout. Finally, insights into the future of town centres are offered along with some of the key strategic challenges that the town centre management profession will need to address in the medium term in order to continue to thrive into the future
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Written evidence submitted to "High streets and town centres in 2030 inquiry" parliamentary select committee
The current state of high streets and town centres in England and much of the UK can be probably best described as “being at a crossroads” in terms of central government’s policy making as well as the effectiveness of their management. Although online retail is progressively undermining the viability of many traditional high street retail formats, it could also be argued that there are a number of avenues that remain underdeveloped by town centres and high streets. These include the management of the visitor economy, the development of attractive evening and night-time economy formats, the innovative use of traditional markets (for instance, as platforms for innovation and local entrepreneurship) and the strategic positioning of town centres and high streets as competitive place brands that build on the local DNA of the area to offer a unique selling proposition that is not limited to retail
Approaches to Biosemiotics
Approaches to Biosemiotics is the first issue in the Biosocial World collection, and contains a series of articles on what biosemiotics does, how it does it and what its long-term objectives may be. As a more specialized discipline in the boundaries of linguistics, the biosociology, the philosophy of biology and the sciences, we hope to offer a point of entry into the world of biosemiotics through articles that deal with general topics from within the field. Our aim is, thus, to contribute to the biosemiotic landscape by opening a door to its recurring themes, problems and descriptions
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"High Streets and Town Centres in 2030" inquiry - oral evidence submitted on 10th September 2018
This full HANSARD transcript includes the full content of the oral evidence session held on 10th September 2018 as part of the "High Streets and Town Centres in 2030" inquiry led by the Housing, Communities and Local Government parliamentary select committee, which Assoc. Prof. J. Andres Coca-Stefaniak was invited to participate in as an expert witness
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National high street retail and town centre policy at a cross roads in England and Wales
For eighty years, UK government policy related to urban sprawl, town centres and high streets in England and Wales has been dominated by planning/land-use control. In the post-war period, retail developments have often been discussed in the literature on planning for places – but the wide range of pressures for retail change are rarely brought together. This review of policy discusses many of these pressures: many of which fall beyond the urban planning remit. For example, although retail planning regulations have been influenced by Central Place Theory, this theoretical framework offers no insight on those private sector businesses that interface with urban planning. Worse, few (if any) professional town planners study retailing before formulating plans. Furthermore, the willingness of successive governments to exert meaningful influence through planning rules has ebbed and flowed, leaving town centres at a potential crossroads. This study addresses the vital missing link to business operations – and the rising pressures upon them – using Institutional Theory. Building on the findings of this analysis as well as earlier studies from other parts of the world, this article outlines implications for the management of town and city centres in England and Wales
El complejo karstico-yesifero subterráneo "Pedro Fernández" (Estremera, provincia de Madrid)
[Resumen] Se han analizado los factores originales de este morfosistema kárstico subterraneo, detallan do los procesos responsables de su gĂ©nesis, asĂ como la morfolmgĂa interior. Diferenciando los tipos de galerias y su evoluciĂłn. Al mismo tiempo, se aportan determinadas consideraciones acerca de la sedimentaciĂłn interior de la cavidad, su tipologĂa e interpretaciĂłn de su significado[ResumĂ©] On a analysĂ© les facteurs qui ont originĂ© ce morphosysthĂ©me karstique souterrain, en detallant le procesus responsable de leur genĂ©re, ainsi que leur morphilogie intĂ©rieure. En distinguant les types de galeries et leur Ă©volution. Eu mĂ©me temps, on apporte certaines considerations donnĂ©es á propos de la sĂ©dimentation, sa typologie et interprĂ©tation de sa signification
Kinetic description of avalanching systems
Avalanching systems are treated analytically using the renormalization group
(in the self-organized-criticality regime) or mean-field approximation,
respectively. The latter describes the state in terms of the mean number of
active and passive sites, without addressing the inhomogeneity in their
distribution. This paper goes one step further by proposing a kinetic
description of avalanching systems making use of the distribution function for
clusters of active sites. We illustrate application of the kinetic formalism to
a model proposed for the description of the avalanching processes in the
reconnecting current sheet of the Earth magnetosphere.Comment: 9 page
Retrieving leaf area index from multi-angular airborne data
This work is aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of a methodology for retrieving bio-geophysical variables
whilst at the same time fully accounting for additional information on directional anisotropy. A model-based approach
has been developed to deconvolve the angular reflectance into single landcovers reflectances, attempting
to solve the inconsistencies of 1D models and linear mixture approaches. The model combines the geometric optics
of large scale canopy structure with principles of radiative transfer for volume scattering within individual
crowns. The reliability of the model approach to retrieve LAI has been demonstrated using data from DAISEX-
99 campaign at Barrax, Spain. Airborne data include POLDER and HyMap data in which various field plots
were observed under varying viewing/illumination angles. Nearly simultaneously, a comprehensive field data set
was acquired on specific crop plots. The inversions provided accurate LAI values, revealing the model potential
to combine spectral and directional information to increase the likely accuracy of the retrievals. In addition, the
sensitivity of retrievals with the angular and spectral subset of observations was analysed, showing a high consistency
between results. This study has contributed to assess the uncertainties with products derived from satellite
data like SEVIRI/MSG
Coastal altimetry products in the strait of Gibraltar
This paper analyzes the availability and accuracy of coastal altimetry sea
level products in the Strait of Gibraltar. All possible repeats of two sections
of the Envisat and AltiKa ground-tracks were used in the eastern and western
portions of the strait. For Envisat, along-track sea level anomalies (SLAs) at
18-Hz posting rate were computed using ranges from two sources, namely, the
official SGDRs and the outputs of a coastal waveform retracker, the ALES
retracker; in addition, SLAs at 1 Hz were obtained from CTOH, France. For
AltiKa, along-track SLA at 40 Hz was also computed both from SGDR and ALES
ranges. The quality of these altimeter products was validated using two tide
gauges located on the southern coast of Spain. We observed an improvement of
about 20% in the accuracy of the Envisat SLAs from ALES compared to the
standard (SGDR) and the reprocessed CTOH data sets. AltiKa shows higher
accuracy, with no significant differences between SGDR and ALES
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