Regional Differences of China′s Urban Expansion from Late 20th to Early 21st Century Based on Remote Sensing Information

This study investigated the regional differences of China′s urban land expansion from the late 1980s to the year of 2008, based on the spatio-temporal analysis of CLCD (China′s land cover/land use database) datasets which were mainly produced from remote sensing imagery data. A newly defined urbanization level index (UI), based on urban land area, is proposed to describe Chinese urban expansion process at 1 kilometer, provincial, regional, and na-tional scales, together with the absolute urban expansion index (UEa) and the relative urbanization expansion index (UEr). The results indicate that the percentages of total land area occupied by urban in the late 1980s, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2008 were approximately 0.25%, 0.32%, 0.33%, 0.43% and 0.52% of China′s total land area, respectively. Between the late 1980s and 2008, the total urban expansion in the mainland of China was 2.645 × 104 km2, resulting in an annual urban expansion area of about 1322.7 km2/yr, with the UEr of 111.9%. This study also finds that there has been an obvious spatial gradient of urbanization ratio running from the east coast to the west inland, and the urbanization gaps among different regions have persisted over the past two decades. The study also reveals obvious temporal varia-tions of the urbanization rates. There was very little urban growth during the period of 1995-2000 due to the governmental policy factors.

Urban Construction Land Suitability Evaluation Based on Improved Multi-criteria Evaluation Based on GIS(MCE-GIS): Case of New Hefei City,China

Urban construction land suitability evaluation(UCLSE)is a complex system engineering and the basis for rational use of the limited urban land resources in China.It has an important practical value on urban construction land use planning and management from the angle of methodology.As a widely used technique,traditional multi-criteria evaluation based on GIS(MCE-GIS),is not suitable for UCLSE.This study develops an improved MCE-GIS method which could be more suitable for UCLSE based on urban complex ecological system theory and the summary of the shortcomings of traditional MCE-GIS.The improvements include three aspects:a composite evaluation index system rather than natural indexes alone,an index weight calculated by using fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP)method rather than the common AHP method,and the integrated overlay rule,which includes selecting the minimum value,weighted linear combination(WLC)and simple summation.The main advantage of this improved technique is that it can make UCLSE more comprehensive,more operational and more reasonable.It can provide a scientific basis for decision making in the planning and management of urban construction land use.The improved MCE-GIS system has been adopted in the New Hefei City,Anhui Province,China.Based on the results of UCLSE in New Hefei,three functional areas including construction-appropriate areas,construction-restricted areas and construction-forbidden areas could be worked out,in which 36.90%of the total study area could be developed as urban construction land and the remaining 63.10%should be protected as reserves land or as ecological land.Furthermore,the results can provide scientific decision support for spatial planning and eco-environment protection in New Hefei.

A Theoretical Framework and Methodology for Urban Activity Spatial Structure in E-society: Empirical Evidence for Nanjing City, China

The existing researches on the influence of information and communication technology(ICT) are mainly focused on human activity, whilst with few efforts on urban space. In the e-society, the widespread adoption of ICT devices not only affects almost every aspect of people′s daily life and thereby reshapes the spatial development of regions and cities, but also generates a large amount of real-time activity data with location information. These georeferenced data, however, have relatively recently attracted attention from geographers. Adapted from Lynch′s framework based on people′s perceptions, this paper proposes a framework of urban spatial structure based on people′s actual activity, including five elements, namely activity path, activity node, central activity zone(CAZ), activity district, and activity edge. In the empirical study, by using one week′s check-in tweets(from February 25 to March 3 in 2013) collected in Nanjing City, the five elements are recognized and analyzed. Through the comparison between our results and urban spatial structure based on population(and land use), we argue that ICT uses: 1) lead to polarize, rather than to smooth, the urban structural hierarchy, due to the dual role of distance; 2) enable a partial decoupling of activity and activity space node, which challenges our conventional understanding of the role of home and the utility of travel; 3) blur the boundaries of activity districts and hence may play a positive role in enriching districts′ functions, which should not be overlooked in the current urban transformation in China.

Elaborating Spatiotemporal Associations Between the Built Environment and Urban Vibrancy:A Case of Guangzhou City,China

This study applies multi-source datasets(i.e.,Baidu Heat Map data,points of interest(POIs)data,and floor area and land use data)and geographically and temporally weighted regression(GTWR)models to elaborate the spatiotemporal relationships between the built environment and urban vibrancy on both weekdays and weekends,using Guangzhou City as a case.First,we verified the spatially and temporally nonstationary nature of the built environment correlates,which have been largely ignored in previous studies based on local regression techniques.The spatially and temporally heterogeneous effects of the built environment on urban vibrancy are then presented and visualized,based on the GTWR results.We found that the elasticity of location(i.e.,distance),land use mix(i.e.,diversity),building intensity and numbers of POIs with various functions(i.e.,density)are different across time(2-h intervals within a day)and space(grids),due to people’s everyday lifestyle,time-space constraints,and geographical context(e.g.,spatial structure).The findings highlight the importance of a better understanding of the local geography on the spatiotemporal relationships for urban planners and local governments so as to put forward decision-making support for fostering and maintaining urban vibrancy.

The Role and Heterogeneity of Visual Pollution on the Quality of Urban Landscape Using GIS;Case Study: Historical Garden in City of Maraqeh

The urban landscape heterogeneity has been influenced by the visual, unpleasant and unacceptable face of which there is no charm in it. The present study is formed according to visual pollution and its impact on the appearance and vitality of a city. Preliminary studies and theoretical studies led to the hypothesis with the following themes: 1) There is relationship between the pollution, heterogeneity and visual disturbances urban landscape and urban vitality;2) Improving the quality, aesthetics and identity of public spaces will increase urban vitality. Therefore, the design process within the theoretical principles, concepts, television and urban landscape, urban art, visual pollution aspects (color, light, and visual symbol) and the quality of urban vitality and explain causal relationships, analytical framework developed and more samples case (garden historic town of Maraqeh1) and the area under study were selected using GIS. After designing the questionnaire to evaluate the objectives, assumptions and questions of research and its analysis, the results indicate that the relationship between visual pollution and urban vitalitys, as well as proving hypotheses and vitality after the final analysis, model was introduced based on the components of comfort visual editing and proposed at three levels: micro, middle and macro for objectives, strategies and policies to regulate visual pollution and improve the aesthetic quality of the environment and the promotion of vitality.

A mega-event approach to glurbanization: Insights from Expo 2010, Shanghai

This paper contributes to an in-depth understanding of how the mega- event contributes glurbanization of entrepreneurial city through a case study of Expo 2010 in Shanghai. It argues that spatial-related transformation is central to mega-event approach to glurbanization yet the soft power building is uncertain. It implies that the domestic impacts of mega- events are likely to be more profound than their global influences. This corresponds to the capitalist transformation from Fordist-Keynesianism to neoliberalism, in which mega-events such as Olympic Games and World Exposition have increasingly been incorporated into urban development plan to boost urban agenda. Although the profile of world fairs is reduced and does not have the international impacts that they used to have, Shanghai Expo 2010, the first Expo ever held in a developing country, is pinned hope on as the “Turn to Save the World Expo” and is unusually ambitious to bring opportunities in urban transformation. With a well-developed framework of glurbanization entailed by entrepreneurial city, this research enriches glurbanization theory by a thorough examination of Shanghai Expo. It finds that Expo-led landscape reconfiguration, spatial restructuring, and new sources provision effectively transformed Shanghai, propelling glurbanization in diminutive spatial scale. Yet, it remains powerless to impress the world as the voice of domestic propaganda is limited in the Western mainstream media. In all, the Expo case well exemplifies the power of mega-event approach to advancing local agenda, especially in spatial transformation per se, as well as its constraints in (re)shaping a global discourse.

State Restructuring and Urban Innovation Development in Post-re­form China:Shanghai’s Innovation Action in Review

Given the ample evidences from present studies on national-level innovation policies evolution and mechanisms,this paper contributes to a city-level understanding towards innovation-related state restructuring,the consequent innovation policy change and its relational performance with urban development in post-reform Shanghai,China from an input-output perspective.It unfolds that state restructuring relinquishing state power to the market has revived non-government innovation activities and a synchronous,though a bit backward,firms-oriented transition towards innovation development in Shanghai throughout 1990s has been observed.Though scholars are reluctant to label the party-state in post-reform China as a developmental state due to dysfunctionality of state intervention in corporate sectors,in the field of technological upgrading,such top-down,elite driven and state-sponsored mode giving priority to innovation competitiveness well captures the developmental state model at local level,thus exhibits elements of local developmental state.Impacts of this restructuring and policy change are substantial,which can be observed in the soaring increase of science and technology expenditures and patents applications in Shanghai.Additional analysis further unveils that in most circumstances,innovation growth kept paces with urban development,yet its synergy with economic development and permanent residents is more significant than with other aspects.

Novel Hybrid X GBoost Model to Forecast Soil Shear Strength Based on Some Soil Index Tests

When building geotechnical constructions like retaining walls and dams is of interest,one of the most important factors to consider is the soil’s shear strength parameters.This study makes an effort to propose a novel predictive model of shear strength.The study implements an extreme gradient boosting(XGBoost)technique coupled with a powerful optimization algorithm,the salp swarm algorithm(SSA),to predict the shear strength of various soils.To do this,a database consisting of 152 sets of data is prepared where the shear strength(τ)of the soil is considered as the model output and some soil index tests(e.g.,dry unit weight,water content,and plasticity index)are set as model inputs.Themodel is designed and tuned using both effective parameters of XGBoost and SSA,and themost accuratemodel is introduced in this study.Thepredictionperformanceof theSSA-XGBoostmodel is assessedbased on the coefficient of determination(R2)and variance account for(VAF).Overall,the obtained values of R^(2) and VAF(0.977 and 0.849)and(97.714%and 84.936%)for training and testing sets,respectively,confirm the workability of the developed model in forecasting the soil shear strength.To investigate the model generalization,the prediction performance of the model is tested for another 30 sets of data(validation data).The validation results(e.g.,R^(2) of 0.805)suggest the workability of the proposed model.Overall,findings suggest that when the shear strength of the soil cannot be determined directly,the proposed hybrid XGBoost-SSA model can be utilized to assess this parameter.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Soft Computing Techniques in Materials Science and Engineering

Soft computing(SC)refers to the ability of a digital computer or robot to perform functions that are normally associated with intelligent individuals,such as reasoning and problem-solving.An example of this would be a project aimed at creating systems capable of reasoning,discovering meaning,generalising,or learning from past experience.Science and engineering problems that are both non-linear and complex can be solved using these methodologies.It has been proven that these algorithms can be used to solve numerous real-world problems.The techniques outlined can be used to increase the accuracy of existing models/equations,or they can be used to propose a newmodel that can address the problem.

Structural Damage Identification Using Ensemble Deep Convolutional Neural Network Models

The existing strategy for evaluating the damage condition of structures mostly focuses on feedback supplied by traditional visualmethods,which may result in an unreliable damage characterization due to inspector subjectivity or insufficient level of expertise.As a result,a robust,reliable,and repeatable method of damage identification is required.Ensemble learning algorithms for identifying structural damage are evaluated in this article,which use deep convolutional neural networks,including simple averaging,integrated stacking,separate stacking,and hybridweighted averaging ensemble and differential evolution(WAE-DE)ensemblemodels.Damage identification is carried out on three types of damage.The proposed algorithms are used to analyze the damage of 4585 structural images.The effectiveness of the ensemble learning techniques is evaluated using the confusion matrix.For the testing dataset,the confusion matrix achieved an accuracy of 94 percent and a minimum recall of 92 percent for the best model(WAE-DE)in distinguishing damage types as flexural,shear,combined,or undamaged.

Pedestrian street and its effect on economic sustainability of a historical Middle Eastern city:The case of Chaharbagh Abbasi in Isfahan,Iran

Pedestrianization is an urban revitalization strategy to enhance sustainability and livability in car-oriented cities.Despite many studies in this research field,the effects of pedestrianization on the economy of cities in developing countries still need further investigation.Additionally,the impact of this strategy on the tenant mix of com-mercial and historical areas in Middle East countries is nebulous.To address these inadequacies,we considered Chaharbagh Abbasi street,located in the heart of Isfahan,Iran,and investigated the impact of a pedestrianization project with particular emphasis on how it affects the economic sustainability of existent commercial fabric.Pre-and post-project data along with field observations and quantifications used to assess structural replacements in trade,were analyzed with SPSS and ArcGIS software.The results revealed unexpected outcomes,such as the closure of some traditional businesses(27.5%),a stagnation in sales(69%)and a decrease in job offers(84%)leading the local economy to a fragile situation.Conversely,it was found that the footfall volume increased by 64% and 73% from the retailers’and pedestrians’viewpoints.This evolution along with a wide opening of food and beverage stores(approximately 60%)makes the post-pedestrianization results more promising than earlier predictions.In conclusion,these findings reinforce the importance of pedestrian streets in revitalizing economic activities in historical and commercial areas from the perspective of economic sustainability.Due to the lack of similar investigations in Middle East countries,these findings can support decision-makers and urban planners to take preventive measures in preserving the diversity of individual small shops for upcoming urban rehabilitation projects in terms of pedestrianization.

Daylighting the Role of Soil Ecosystem Services (SoESs) for Climate Change Adaptation

Soil plays a critical role in providing various Ecosystem Services (ESs) that are beneficial to humanity. Services such as clean air, water, and food production are directly or indirectly provided through soils. The soil ecosystem is considered as the most important Carbon (C) sink in terrestrial systems, and human activities, particularly land use, impact ESs and increase carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Mapping ESs and assessing the risks associated with climate-related hydro-meteorological hazards and soil degradation can contribute to making spatial decisions for planning more climate-resilient. Indeed, strategies based on soil ecosystem services provide valuable insight for enhancing the resilience of spatial decision-making in adapting to climate change. The aim of this article is to illuminate the significance of SoES in the spatial planning decision-making for better integration and adaptation into climate change adaptation policies as a decision support tool. In this regard, ESs related to climate change were highlighted and mapped, and their suitability for settlement development decisions and relation with ESs’ integrity were assessed through weighted multi-criteria analysis, while discussing the contributions of this process to climate change adaptation. Incorporating Social-Ecological Systems (SoESs) factors into suitability analysis is crucial for comprehensive urban planning, particularly in the context of climate change adaptation and environmental protection. In this study, two settlement suitability analyses were conducted. The first analysis considered various factors, such as land use, soil classification, DEM (Digital Elevation Model), and slope. The second analysis utilized weighted climate-related SoES indicators, including soil depth, soil carbon sequestration capacity, soil loss, flood risk, temperature, and precipitation. The results revealed that the SoES-based suitability analysis was more stringent in identifying suitable areas for urban development and offered a more holistic perspective for urban planners.

Smart Elevator Systems

Effective vertical mobility is a crucial element in the design and construction of tall buildings.This paper reviews recent“smart”developments in elevator technologies and analyzes how they affect the construction and operation of tall buildings.In an approachable and non-technical discourse,it maps out,arranges,and compiles complicated and dispersed information on various elements of elevator design.It discusses hardware-based innovations,such as AC and gearless motors,machine-room-less(MRL)elevators,regenerative drives,elevator ropes,and LED lighting,as well as software-based solutions,such as destination dispatching systems,people flow solutions,standby mode,and predictive maintenance applications.Future vertical transportation models are also discussed,including multi-directional elevators and circulating multi-car elevators.Lastly,the paper suggests fruitful avenues for further studies on the subject,such as robotics,3D printing,and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on elevator design.

Urban spatial cluster structure in metro travel networks:An explorative study of Wuhan using big and open data

Rail transit plays a crucial role in improving urban sustainability and livability.In many Chinese cities,the planning of rail transit routes and stations is focused on facilitating new developments rather than revitalizing existing built-up areas.This approach reflects the local governments’expectations of substantial growth to reshape the urban structure.However,existing research on transit-oriented development(TOD)rarely explores the spatial interactions between individual transit stations and investigates how they can be integrated to achieve synergistic effects and balanced development.This study proposes that rail transit systems impact urban structure through two“forces”:the provision of additional and reliable carrying capacity and the reduction of travel time between locations.Metro passenger flow is used as a proxy for these forces,and community detection techniques are employed to identify the actual and optimal spatial clusters in Wuhan,China.The results reveal that the planned sub-centers align reasonably well with the optimal spatial clusters in terms of spatial configuration.However,the actual spatial clusters tend to have longer internal travel times compared to the optimal clusters.Further exploration suggests the need for equalizing land use density within planned spatial clusters served by the metro system.Additionally,promoting concentrated,differentiated,and mixed functional arrangements in metro station areas with low passenger flows within the planned clusters could be beneficial.This paper presents a new framework for investigating urban spatial clusters influenced by a metro system.

Effects of the urban landscape on heatwave-mortality associations in Hong Kong: comparison of different heatwave definitions

Despite increased attention given to potential modifiers of temperature-mortality associations, evidence for variations between different urban landscape characteristics remains limited. It is in this context that in this paper effect modifications of multiple urban landscape characteristics are explored under different heatwave definitions for different age groups and gender in Hong Kong, China. Daily meteorological data and heatwave-related mortality counts from 2008 to 2017 were collected from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, China. A case-only design was adopted, combined with logistic regression models to examine the modification effects of five urban landscape characteristics under six heatwave definitions. Stratified analyses were conducted to investigate age- and gender-specific effect modifications. It is found that individuals living in greener areas experienced lower levels of mortality during or immediately after heatwaves. In contrast, a higher building density and nighttime land surface temperature (LST) were associated with a higher heatwave-related mortality risk. Pronounced effect modifications of these urban landscape characteristics were observed under hotter and longer heatwaves, and in older adults (age ≥ 65 years) and males. The findings provide a scientific basis for policymakers and practitioners when considering measures for coping with hotter, longer, and more frequent heatwaves in the context of global climate change.

A Social Network Analysis on Organizational Innovation and Its Effects: A Case Study on the Practice of Changzhou Municipal Bureau of Urban Planning,Xinbei Branch

Using Xinbei Branch of Changzhou Municipal Bureau of Urban Planning as a case,this study carefully examines how organizations innovate in China's urban planning management.The study builds itself upon a network analysis of the data collected through a survey of all the relevant members about their working relationships after their organizational reform.It shows that,with regional competition for economic development,the local government departments in developed areas tend to actively seek opportunities for organizational innovation in order to ensure planning management effectiveness and promote planning implementation efficiency.The reform measures and their effects are carefully examined for identifying lessons and experiences in planning implementation in China.

Changing Connectivities of Chinese Cities in the World City Network,2010–2016

Against the backdrop of the sizable economic growth of China in recent years, this paper uses the most recent data gathering of the Globalization and World Cities(Ga WC) research network to update and supplement earlier research on the shifting global connectivity of Chinese cities. The update consists of an evaluation of the connectivity of Chinese cities in 2016, the supplement of an analysis of the changing position of Chinese cities in the world city network between 2010 and 2016. To this end, we build on a specification of the world city network as an ‘interlocking network' in which producer services firms play the crucial role in city network formation. Information about the presence of leading producer services firms in cities in 2010 and 2016 is used as the input to a bipartite network projection algorithm in order to measure cities' network connectivity. The first set of results discusses the geographies of urban connectivity in the world city network in 2016. The second set of results discusses standardized measures of change to reveal the major dimensions of the transformations between 2010 and 2016. We find that, with the exception of Hong Kong, Macao and Kaohsiung of Taiwan, all Chinese cities record connectivity gains. This wholesale rise in connectivity is nonetheless geographically uneven, with above all Beijing, Chengdu/Chongqing and Changsha/Wuhan becoming more connected. We conclude that the wholesale rise of Chinese cities in the world city network and their changing trajectories in the post-crisis era are embedded in shifting external and internal political economies.