Strategic Project Management to Use the Grand Challenge Scholars Program to Address Urban Infrastructure

Throughout the world, infrastructure to support cities is critical to support sustainable and responsible economic development. This can include new infrastructure projects in the case of growing areas. It can also include the renewal and upgrading of existing infrastructure in areas that have been inhabited and already developed. Infrastructure includes roads, bridges and transportation systems; power grids and energy service;internet and telecommunications; and water and sewer services. This development can be part of a system of systems, in which government, industries, and universities can contribute knowledge, skills, and abilities. This paper will investigate the strategic project management taken by one university to provide an academic experience that will prepare engineering students to address several of the Grand Engineering Challenges of the 21 st Century, as identified by the US National Academy of Engineering.The challenges relating to energy, water, information, and urban infrastructure can be approached using the functions of teaching, research, and service. By approaching the challenges strategically, resources of faculty time, student effort and laboratory facilities can be leveraged to achieve greater results. This case study will describe the efforts and results to date and identify opportunities for future growth.

The Development of Intelligent Operation Method of Urban Public Infrastructure Driven by Accurate Spatio-temporal Information

Urban public infrastructure is an important basis for urban development.It is of great significance to deepen the research on intelligent management and control of urban public infrastructure.Spatio-temporal information contains the law of state evolution of urban public infrastructure,which is the information base of intelligent control of infrastructure.Due to the needs of operation management and emergency response,efficient sharing and visualization of spatio-temporal information are important research contents of comprehensive management and control of urban public infrastructure.On the basis of summarizing the theoretical research and application in recent years,the basic methods and current situation of the acquisition and analysis of spatio-temporal information,the forecast and early warning,and the intelligent control of urban public infrastructure are reviewed in this paper.

Delivery Invoice Information Classification System for Joint Courier Logistics Infrastructure

With the growth of the online market,demand for logistics and courier cargo is increasing rapidly.Accordingly,in the case of urban areas,road congestion and environmental problems due to cargo vehicles are mainly occurring.The joint courier logistics system,a plan to solve this problem,aims to establish an efficient logistics transportation system by utilizing one joint logistics delivery terminal by several logistics and delivery companies.However,several courier companies use different types of courier invoices.Such a system has a problem of information data transmission interruption.Therefore,the data processing process was systematically analyzed,a practically feasible methodology was devised,and delivery invoice information processing standards were established for this.In addition,the importance of this paper can be emphasized in terms of data processing in the logistics sector,which is expected to grow rapidly in the future.The results of this study can be used as basic data for the implementation of the logistics joint delivery terminal system in the future.And it can be used as a basis for securing the operational reliability of the joint courier logistics system.

Dynamic Analysis on Ecological Infrastructure Quality in Coal-based Cities:A Case Study of Huainan City

Urban ecological infrastructure is the ecological background of urban sustainable development and is the basic guarantee for the construction of ecological cities. According to the characteristics of the ecological infrastructure of coal-based cities, the ecological infrastructure is divided into two subsystems:natural infrastructure subsystem and artificial infrastructure subsystem. According to each subsystem and its main components(such as atmosphere, green space, hydrology, traffic and transportation), 36 indicators were selected to establish the evaluation system. In addition, the evaluation model was established by means of mean square deviation method and composite index method, and a dynamic analysis was carried out on the ecological infrastructure quality of Huainan City in 2006-2015. The results show that the composite index of ecological infrastructure in Huainan City in 2006-2015 remained at the medium level, and the natural infrastructure at the worse and poor levels, while the artificial infrastructure remained at the medium and excellent levels.

The Implications of Population Decline and Fiscal Austerity on Public Nature:Insights From the Evolution of Urban Park Management System in Japan

Facing challenges of population decline and fiscal austerity,Japan has implemented a series of initiatives to promote public-private partnerships(PPP)to ensure the sustainability of urban parks and revitalize urban spaces.These initiatives,while alleviating the government’s financial burdens on parks,have also raised concerns about the potential erosion of publicness and public interests resulted from the commercialization of public assets.This paper reviews the evolution of Japan’s urban park management system after World War II—including three phases of being purely public goods,initiating marketization,and diversifying management entities.The functions of parks have continuously enriched,and the construction,management,and operational modes have shifted from government-led towards multi-stakeholder participation,along with expanded funding sources.By examining the PPP types,driving forces,implementation mechanisms and challenges in urban park management,this paper points out that,in different eras and social contexts,the Japanese government has kept adjusting its role to maximize public interests.This has proactively updated the implications of publicness in infrastructure like urban parks,from a post-war opposite of publicness versus privateness on ownership,to the participation of private capital for a higher efficiency,and finally to a community for a stronger regional competitiveness.The reforms of urban park management system in Japan offer significant lessons and insights for urban infrastructure management in other countries and regions.

What India Can Learn from China and Vice Versa

A partial convergence of the Indian and Chinese growth models is likely. Judging from China＇s experience, sustaining India＇s impressive economic performance of recent years will require a significant further opening of its economy （externally and internally）, higher savings and investments, especially in physical infrastructure and social services, and stronger labor absorption in the modern sectors. The base of India＇s current economic boom - software, IT-related services and high-end manufacturing - is narrow compared to China ＇s. Poor performance in agriculture is responsible for still significant poverty in many parts of rural lndia. Bilateral lndia-China ties, including trade and investment, are increasing rapidly and could help to bring about the structural economic changes India needs. Through its exports to China, lndia is becoming linked to global supply chains centered on China. The notion that India-China relations are, or are bound to become, fundamentally antagonistic, held by many in the USA, is mistaken and potentially dangerous.

Advancing index-based climate risk assessment to facilitate adaptation planning:Application in Shanghai and Shenzhen,China

One of the key issues in climate risk management is to develop climate resilient infrastructure so as to ensure safety and sustainability of urban functioning systems as well as mitigate the adverse impacts associated with increasing climate hazards.However,conventional methods of assessing risks do not fully address the interaction of various subsystems within the city system and are unable to consolidate diverse opinions of various stakeholders on their assessments of sector-specific risks posed by climate change.To address this gap,this study advances an integrated-systems-analysis tool-Climate Risk Assessment of Infrastructure Tool(CRAIT),and applies it to analyze and compare the extent of risk factor exposure and vulnerability over time across five critical urban infrastructure sectors in Shanghai and Shenzhen,two cities that have distinctive geo-climate profiles and histories of infrastructure development.The results show significantly higher level of variation between the two cities in terms of vulnerability levels than that of exposure.More specifically,the sectors of critical buildings,water,energy,and information&communication in Shenzhen have significantly higher vulnerability levels than Shanghai in both the 2000s and the 2050s.We further discussed the vulnerability levels of subsystems in each sector and proposed twelve potential adaptation options for the roads system based on four sets of criteria:technical feasibility,flexibility,co-benefits,and policy compatibility.The application of CRAIT is bound to be a knowledge co-production process with the local experts and stakeholders.This knowledge co-production process highlights the importance of management advancements and nature-based green solutions in managing climate change risk in the future though differences are observed across the efficacy categories due to the geographical and meteorological conditions in the two cities.This study demonstrates that this knowledge co-creation process is valuable in facilitating policymakers'decision-making and their feedback to scientific understanding in climate risk assessment,and that this approach has general applicability for cities in other regions and countries.

Sustainable regional development through knowledge networks:Review of case studies

This study focuses on the importance of knowledge management in the process of development.The goal is to build a regional knowledge network for regional sustainable improvement.The method used in this study stands on two theoretical and experimental balks.The study also provides feasible outcomes by suggesting a model for knowledge-based cities.The model assists regional/urban planners in managing knowledge productions,organizing regional knowledge institutions,and developing cities by utilizing the advantages of the network.Results of this applied research support the creation of knowledge networks in similar cities.

Optimizing Response Strategies of Healthcare System in a Large-scale Disaster

Urban infrastructures are invariably constituted by social and technical components whose capacity to withstand crisis is determined by the resilience of their sociotechnical structures.This study aims to apply the principles of sociotechnical resilience in modeling and simulating disaster response in urban areas.Drawing on a case study of Jakarta,Indonesia,our study focuses on the role of hospitals as part of healthcare infrastructure in response to a large-scale disaster.Each hospital is modeled as a coordinated location with a certain amount of resources,primarily in terms of medical staff.We perform sensitivity analysis through Monte Carlo simulations to observe the impacts of various response strategies,disaster severity,and communication duration on system resilience.The results show that centralized systems are generally more suitable for dealing with low disaster severity,while the decentralized strategy performs better during a disaster with worse impacts.Additionally,the time taken for communication and coordination can significantly affect the performance of centralized systems.By simulating various scenarios,parameters,and recovery protocols,the model we developed can help policymakers,city planners,and other stakeholders design proper response strategies suitable to their structural conditions and available resources during a large-scale disaster in urban cities.

Enriching Farmers through Sharing: Improving People’s Livelihood and Well-Being in the Modernization of Agriculture and Rural Areas in China

Shared development is an important means by which to improve people’s livelihood and well-being in the new era. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016–2020), China has made great achievements in the three major aspects of targeted poverty alleviation through industrial development, development of special rural areas, and equalization of urban and rural infrastructure and basic public services. In addition, the important experience of multi-agent participation, multi-mode guidance, and multi-line promotion has been accumulated in the individual, regional and urbanrural dimensions. However, there remain some deficiencies, such as low policy efficiency, poor matching ability, and prominent structural problems. At the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025), the task of enriching farmers through sharing has been faced with many challenges, such as major changes in the focus of poverty governance, greater numbers of restraints on the development of special rural areas, and heavy responsibilities of equalizing urban and rural infrastructure and basic public services. Therefore, it is necessary to acquire a profound understanding of the new development concept, and to continuously enrich farmers through sharing in terms of accelerating the improvement of the institutionalized poverty reduction system in the new era, actively building a green development system of agriculture and animal husbandry in special rural areas, and striving to create a fair and complementary urban and rural infrastructure and basic public service system.