Mapping and measuring urban-rural inequalities in accessibility to social infrastructures

Equal access to social infrastructures is a fundamental prerequisite for sustainable development,but has long been a great challenge worldwide.Previous studies have primarily focused on the accessibility to social infras-tructures in urban areas across various scales,with less attention to rural areas,where inequality can be more severe.Particularly,few have investigated the disparities of accessibility to social infrastructures between urban and rural areas.Here,using the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration,China,as an example,we investigated the inequality of accessibility in both urban and rural areas,and further compared the urban-rural difference.Accessibility was measured by travel time of residents to infrastructures.We selected four types of social infrastructures including supermarkets,bus stops,primary schools,and health care,which were funda-mentally important to both urban and rural residents.We found large disparities in accessibility between urban and rural areas,ranging from 20 min to 2 h.Rural residents had to spend one to two more hours to bus stops than urban residents,and 20 min more to the other three types of infrastructures.Furthermore,accessibility to multiple infrastructures showed greater urban-rural differences.Rural residents in more than half of the towns had no access to any infrastructure within 15 min,while more than 60%of the urban residents could access to all infrastructures within 15 min.Our results revealed quantitative accessibility gap between urban and rural areas and underscored the necessity of social infrastructures planning to address such disparities.

Are public‒private partnerships still an answer for social infrastructure?A systematic literature review

Social infrastructure has become an important element for measuring national economic development and social benefits that are usually financed in the form of government grants,private investment,and public‒private partnerships(PPPs).However,social infrastructure PPPs have attracted considerable public debate due to their low profitability and complex operational demands.This study aims to answer the question,“are PPPs still an answer for social infrastructure?”,from the perspectives of the body of knowledge,application status,and prospects.Initially,an iterative search and review procedure and a scientometric analysis were performed to systematically screen the literature and to structure the body of knowledge of the social infrastructure PPPs literature.Furthermore,the application status and trends were analyzed to further explore the studied countries/regions,application sectors,and research topics.Results show that PPPs still have valuable application potential for delivering social infrastructure despite their mixed results across different topics.Six main research themes and the corresponding research trends were also identified,namely,financing and economics viability,risk management,performance management,contract and relationship management,governance and regulation,and facilitating and hindering factors.These findings offer practitioners and researchers a comprehensive overview and constructive guidance on social infrastructure PPPs.

New Estimates of China＇s Infrastructure and Non- Infrastructure Capital Stocks and Their Output Elasticities

This paper classifies total fixed capital into three categories,namely,economic infrastructure capital,social infrastructure capital and non-infrastructure capital,and then offers complete and detailed estimates of the national time series data(1981-2012) and the provincial panel data of 31 administrative regions(1997-2012).On this basis,this paper estimates the output elasticities of the three categories of capital and then tests whether or not the production function of China shows constant returns to scale.

International Telecommunication Union Standardization for Trust Provisioning in Information, Communication and Technology Infrastructure toward Achieving United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals

The advancement of the fourth industrial revolution has shaped the integration and interaction of different information, communication and technologies (ICTs) in the merging cyber, physical, and social infrastructures. The impact of ICT has accelerated the progress of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and influenced the evolution of smart, sustainable, stable society development. Making the trustworthy information and communication technologies infrastructure widely available will promote the community innovation needed to stimulate domestic economics, provide decent work, and reduce inequalities. This article attempts to outline a big picture about the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s trust provisioning framework, including its motivation, current status, and application for achieving the UN SDGs by 2030. This article first describes the purpose of the UN SDGs and the evolution of the industrial revolution, then demonstrates the challenges of global risks affecting the fourth industrial revolution and the need for trustworthy ICT infrastructures. Subsequently, the article evaluates the ITU trust provisioning framework and assesses its applications in the future knowledge society, trust provisioning ecosystem, and cyber, physical, and social infrastructure toward achieving UN SDGs. Use cases are also presented in this article to show the effectiveness of the ITU trust provisioning framework on achieving UN SDGs.

Investigating Evacuation Trends and Restoration Processes from Serious Earthquake Damage in Japan

Japan has experienced many large-scale natural disasters, such as earthquakes, typhoons accompanied by heavy rain, and landslides. Based on data for the damage caused by four recent major earthquakes in Japan, we investigate the trends in the number of evacuees and evacuation centres after these disasters as well as the restoration processes for public utilities such as electricity, gas, water, and communication lines. We compare the restoration speeds and trends of the damaged infrastructure systems. We also propose various mathematical models to approximate the recovery trends using both evacuee-related data and damage recovery process data. These results can be used to design natural disaster mitigation policies not only in Japan, but also in other countries. The results of various statistical data analyses and mathematical modelling techniques are applied to provide policy suggestions.