Turning the shelves: empirical findings and space syntax analyses of two virtual supermarket variations

The spatial structure of a virtual supermarket was systematically varied to investigate human behavior and cognitive processes in unusual building configurations. The study builds upon experiments in a regular supermarket, which serve as a baseline case. In a between-participant design a total of 41 participants completed a search task in two different virtual supermarket environments. For 21 participants the supermarket shelves were turned towards them at a 45° angle when entering the store, giving high visual access to product categories and products. For 20 participants the shelves were placed in exactly the opposite direction obstructing a quick development of shopping goods dependencies. The obtained differences in search performance between the two conditions are analyzed using space syntax analyses and comparisons made of environmental features and participants’ actual search path trajectories

International urban agendas and sustainable integrated urban development in developing countries: The case of Brazil

Due to the rapid and unrestrained growth of urbanization worldwide since the second half of the twentieth century, the global community is confronted with a broad spectrum of challenges. In response, the request for more sustainable cities developed in recent decades. Urban agenda setting, like the foundation of the UN-Habitat, emerged subsequently in the public policy process to countervail the negative impacts of the progress, especially in developing countries. The article wants to provide the reader with a brief introduction to global urban agendas in general and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) in specific, especially how they approach urban challenges. The analysis offers an overview of the context of the implementation of urban agendas and definitions of sustainability in its setting. Furthermore, it is examined, how non-binding doctrinaire documents like the NUA should be implemented on the regional and national levels. The challenges in implementing these urban agendas, the definition of sustainable urban agendas, and common international challenges are deconstructed and compared with the guiding principles of the NUA. The research question highlights potential approaches, how to improve the implementation of these agendas, and contributes to reducing the research gap of the global south in this regard. Therefore, as a case study, a closer look at the exemplary situation of the developing country Brazil, the local urban evolution, planning policies, and the local challenges are undertaken. To conclude, the challenges of the new urban era identified will be briefly reflected and possible pathways through alternative mechanisms, recommended by the NUA and other international guidelines, pointed out to foster implementation to the detriment of traditional local hard policy mechanisms

„Da geht es nicht nur um Energiesparen!“: Sozial-ökologische Transformationsprozesse in der Produktion partizipativ und interdisziplinär gestalten

Im vorliegenden Artikel stellen wir einen Ansatz zur Befähigung von Produktionsbeschäftigten zum Nachhaltigkeitshandeln im Betrieb vor. Mit einer zu generierenden Nachhaltigkeitskompetenz wird die ökologische wie soziale Dimension von Nachhaltigkeit adressiert: Ökologisch handelnde Beschäftigte können einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Nachhaltigkeit von Betrieben leisten und zugleich kann der strikt bottom-up-orientierte Ansatz Gestaltungsspielräume der Beschäftigten eröffnen und adressiert so die im Nachhaltigkeitsdiskurs häufig vernachlässigte Dimension sozialer Prozesse. This paper presents an approach to enable production employees to act for sustainability in manufacturing companies. The idea is to generate a sustainability competence that addresses both the ecological and the social dimension of sustainability. Ecological employee action can offer an important contribution to the sustainability of enterprises, and at the same time the bottom-up approach is apt to open up new scopes of action for the employees, thus addressing the often-neglected social dimension of sustainability. (editorial reviewed

PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE NEW URBAN AGENDA: THE BRAZIL CASE STUDY

The following analytical exercise wants to provide the reader with a brief introduction into the New Urban Agenda, an international guideline elaborated by UN-Habitat and agreed by all UN member countries, including Brazil. It should off er a broad overview about the context of the document, how the agenda is structured, what the principal appeals for action are, what the interconnections with other international guidelines are, how the agenda should be implemented on the regional & national level as well as what the UN-Habitat wants to achieve with it. The study will subsequently present exemplary the challenges to institutionalize the New Urban Agenda in general, and specifi cally in the context of Brazilian metropolitan. The information obtained in this text was contextualized for the territory of the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre / RS, focusing on the approach of sustainable urban development based on the relations between the rural and the urban and the challenges faced by the metropolis of Rio Grande do Sul. The research indicates that the institutional arrangements for metropolitan governance in Brazil do not yet have several structural elements for the application of the guidelines proposed by the NAU, thus hampering the advancement of urban development policies in the country.The following analytical exercise wants to provide the reader with a brief introduction into the New Urban Agenda, an international guideline elaborated by UN-Habitat and agreed by all UN member countries, including Brazil. It should offer a broad overview about the context of the document, how the agenda is structured, what the principal appeals for action are, what the interconnections with other international guidelines are, how the agenda should be implemented on the regional & national level as well as what the UN-Habitat wants to achieve with it. The study will subsequently present exemplary the challenges to institutionalize the New Urban Agenda in general, and specifically in the context of Brazilian metropolitan territories through the approach in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre/RS

International urban agendas and sustainable integrated urban development in developing countries

Due to the rapid and unrestrained growth of urbanization worldwide since the second half of the twentieth century, the global community is confronted with a broad spectrum of challenges. In response, the request for more sustainable cities developed in recent decades. Urban agenda setting, like the foundation of the UN-Habitat, emerged subsequently in the public policy process to countervail the negative impacts of the progress, especially in developing countries. The article wants to provide the reader with a brief introduction to global urban agendas in general and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) in specific, especially how they approach urban challenges. The analysis offers an overview of the context of the implementation of urban agendas and definitions of sustainability in its setting. Furthermore, it is examined, how non-binding doctrinaire documents like the NUA should be implemented on the regional and national levels. The challenges in implementing these urban agendas, the definition of sustainable urban agendas, and common international challenges are deconstructed and compared with the guiding principles of the NUA. The research question highlights potential approaches, how to improve the implementation of these agendas, and contributes to reducing the research gap of the global south in this regard. Therefore, as a case study, a closer look at the exemplary situation of the developing country Brazil, the local urban evolution, planning policies, and the local challenges are undertaken. To conclude, the challenges of the new urban era identified will be briefly reflected and possible pathways through alternative mechanisms, recommended by the NUA and other international guidelines, pointed out to foster implementation to the detriment of traditional local hard policy mechanisms

Helical Figure-of-Eight Loop Dicopper(I) Compounds: Syntheses, Structures, and Dynamics

The synthesis of a series of nine large macrocyclic ligands with two N2S2 (thioether and Schiff-base imine) binding sites each, with different bridges between the donor atoms of each site (ethylene, o-xylylene, propylene, butylene) and different spacer groups between the two binding sites (p-xylylene, 2,5-dimethyl-p-xylylene, 2,5-dimethoxy-p-xylylene), and the synthesis of a similar ligand with a preorganized double-helical geometry, based on a paracyclophane spacer group, are reported, together with the syntheses and characterizations of the corresponding dicopper(I) compounds. The solid state structures of the dicopper(I) complexes have two tetrahedral copper(I) sites, separated by ca. 8 Angstrom, and a figure-of-eight loop configuration of the ligand with a parallel arrangement of the two substituted benzene spacer groups (benzene ... benzene distance of ca. 3.5 Angstrom). All the dicopper(I) compounds have the same double-helical configuration (&quot;twisted ring figure-of-eight loop&quot;). NMR spectroscopy indicates that the monocyclic metal-free ligands have an open, cyclic structure in solution, while the dicopper(I) compounds are folded as in the solid. In acetonitrile there is a fast dynamic equilibrium between two enantiomeric forms of the double-helical dicopper(I) compounds. The fact that copper(I)-donor atom bond breaking is involved in this process is supported by H-1 NMR data and by the X-ray crystal structure analysis of a putative intermediate with each of the two copper(I) centers coordinated to one acetonitrile and three donors of the macrocycle. A second fast dynamic, solvent independent process (epimerization) has been identified in nitromethane and acetonitrile, involving helix inversion with full conservation of the copper(I) coordination.</p