Twin Cities A Matter of Identity and Belonging

The term ＂twin cities＂ refers to a program in which cities from different places in the world form a ＂twinning＂ alliance that serves as a setting for educational, cultural, political, and social collaborations （Grosspietsch 2009）. The purpose of the program is to promote the twin cities in all aspects of life （Jayne, Hubbard, and Bell 2013） and facilitate a feeling of belonging and identity among their residents （Ogawa 2012）. In the current study, the cities of Beer Sheva and Nahariya were taken as case studies for examining the contribution of the program to promoting residents＇ feeling of belonging to their Jewish identity. Specifically, the current study attempted to examine the effect of town of residence and age group on feeling of belonging, and whether familiarity with the Twin Cities program affected the feeling of belonging to Jewish identity, in the assumption that residents familiar with the program would report a stronger feeling of belonging than residents not familiar with it. The study included 147 participants aged 17-64, of them 80 residents of Beer Sheva and 67 of Nahariya. All the participants were recruited to the study voluntarily and were requested to complete an online self-report questionnaire examining feeling of belonging to Jewish identity. Moreover, an interview was conducted with the representative of the delegations at the Amal school in Nahariya, to reaffirm the findings. The research findings refuted the main research assumption that the Twin Cities program would influence the feeling of belonging. In fact, the current study indicates that no correlation was found between feeling of belonging and any of the research measures, aside from religiosity. Furthermore, and in contrast to the hypothesis, the research findings indicate that participants who were not familiar with the program reported a stronger feeling of belonging than participants who were familiar with it. Due to the surprising findings, the current study raises the possibility that the Twin Cities program is undergoing a process of change and thus promotes individual values more than collective values. This contention changes the essential purpose of the program and this is the significance of the current study.

City Digital Twins: their maturity level and differentiation from 3D city models

The emerging field of City Digital Twins has advanced in recent years with the help of digital infrastructure and technologies connected to the Internet of Things(IoT).However,the evolution of this field has been so fast that a gap has opened in relation to systematic reviews of the relevant literature and the maturation of City Digital Twins on an urban scale.Our work bridges this gap by highlighting maturity in the field.We conducted a systematic literature review with bibliometric and content analysis of 41 selected papers published in Web of Science and Scopus data-bases,covering five areas:data types and sources,case studies,applied technologies and methods,maturity spectrum,and appli-cations.Based on maturity indicators,the majority of the reviewed studies(90%)were at initial to medium stages of maturity(up to element 3),most of them focused on 3D modelling,monitoring and visualisation.However,digital twins cannot be limited to 3D models,monitoring and visualisation,for they can be developed to include two-directional interactions between humans and com-puters.Such a high level of maturity,which was not found in the reviewed studies,requires advanced technologies and methods such as cloud computing,artificial intelligence,BIM and GIS.We also found that further studies are essential if the field is to handle the complex urban challenges of multidisciplinary digital twins.While City Digital Twins extend by definition beyond mere 3D city modelling,some studies involving 3D city models still refer to their subjects as City Digital Twins.Among the research gaps we identified,we’d like to highlight the need for near-real-time data analytics algorithms,which could furnish City Digital Twins with big data insights.Other opportunities include public participation capabilities to increase social collaboration,integrating BIM and GIS technologies and improving storage and computation infrastructure.

Countries’ Contact & Peoples’ Closeness from Shenyang to Tokyo(Twin City Exhibition) Exhibition Opened in Shenyang

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan,and next year will usher in the 40th anniversary of the forging of a peace and friendship treaty between the two countries.To celebrate the anniversaries,the Shenyang People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Japanese consulate in