A GIS based planning support system for assessing financial feasibility of urban redevelopment

Urban densification trends combined with redevelopment increasingly moving away from large former industrial and transport sites toward existing town centres and corridors indicate redevelopment is becoming increasingly complex, difficult to plan for and undertake. The interplay between land and property markets and planning frameworks suggest city planners and urban researchers need new tools and methodologies to gain insights into ways to deliver effective responses. Despite the need, there is a limited availability of comprehensive models to fulfil the task. This paper describes a GIS-based tool to assess parcel-level financial feasibility and housing supply associated with urban redevelopment within a precinct. The tool incorporates existing and potential built form and parameters associated with the planning framework and land and property markets. Using a real case study in a workshop, tool performance was evaluated by professional urban planners in terms of its capacity to produce metrics and visualisations of potential scenarios of redevelopment. Results indicate the usefulness of the tool for emulating land market conditions and testing scenarios of planning regulation and market changes for strategic planning purposes.     

Influence of plastic fines content on the liquefaction susceptibility of sands: monotonic loading

Acta Geotechnica - The paper presents an experimental study on the effect of plastic fines content on the undrained behavior and liquefaction susceptibility of sand–fines mixtures under...     

Food security,remoteness and consolidation of supermarket distribution centres: Factors contributing to food pricing inequalities across Queensland,Australia

There is a clear association between food prices, affordability and issues of food security. Australian food supply chains have lengthened in recent years in response to consolidation policies of the dominant supermarkets, which have reduced the number of distribution centres in order to maximise economic efficiencies. This study presents a spatial analysis of a healthy food basket survey undertaken across Queensland, Australia in order to identify the primary determinants of food pricing. Ambiguity in the academic literature on this subject is largely due to limitations of the utilised methods. Our results indicate that food price variability is directly related to the type of store surveyed, and the distance of the surveyed store to the supermarket distribution centres in Brisbane, or urban centres on the east coast of Australia. Population size of towns and the level of social disadvantage observed in communities were indirect determinants of food prices. Therefore, in order to lessen the disadvantage already encountered by communities located in outer regional and remote areas who pay increasingly more for food than their urban counterparts, policy interventions need to move beyond subsiding food costs and consider the relationship between fuel prices and the lengthening of dominant food supply chains, in addition to the capacity of local supply chains.     

On the applicability of viscosity-based capillary bundle concepts to predict the penetration behaviour of polymer solutions into sand

Acta Geotechnica - The increasing use of polymer solutions as support fluids in pile drilling, diaphragm walling or tunnelling applications demands a more detailed discussion of their penetration...     

Report of the IAU/IAG/COSPAR working group on cartographic coordinates and rotational elements of the planets and satellites: 1991

Every three years the IAU/IAG/COSPAR Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements of the Planets and Satellites revises tables giving the directions of the north poles of rotation and the prime meridians of the planets and satellites. Also presented are revised tables giving their sizes and shapes.     

Report of the IAU/IAG/COSPAR Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements of the Planets and Satellites: 1994

Every three years the IAU/IAG/COSPAR Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements of the Planets and Stallites revises tables giving the directions of the north poles of rotation and the prime meridians of the planets, satellites, and asteroids. Also presented are revised tables giving their sizes and shapes.