Measuring the vulnerability of populations susceptible to lead contamination in the Dominican Republic: evaluating composite index construction methods

There are several suspected sources of lead contamination in the Dominican Republic (DR) to which populations, to a greater or lesser extent, may be exposed. These sources include: a lead battery recycling plant, a gold mine and vehicles using leaded gasoline. In this paper we create and compare indices of spatial vulnerability using different index construction methods including: the weighted average, ordered weighted average, and Data Envelopment Analysis. The vulnerability attributes used to create these indices include: exposure to lead effluents in water from the gold mine as measured by distance from potentially contaminated water, point source lead air emissions from the battery recycling plant estimated by air plume analysis; and mobile source exposure to lead emissions from road transportation measured by potential traffic impacts. The intensities of vulnerability to lead of the towns and cities in the DR, produced by each of the different index construction methods, are compared and evaluated.     

Global airline networks and nodal regions

Transportation infrastructure has always played an important role in the economic fate of regions. In particular, airline networks have dramatically decreased the geographic and temporal constraints of moving people, goods and information; all of which are increasingly crucial inputs for the information economy. As a result, regions have become more concerned with both the quantity and quality of airline connections. The purpose of this paper is to examine the emerging global hierarchy of airline network connectivity. Using a proprietary database of nearly 900 airline carrier schedules from 2006, we examine regional connectivity between 4,650 worldwide origins and destinations. Through the use of network analysis and graph theoretical techniques, results indicate an increasingly complex web of nodal hierarchies in North America, Europe and Asia.

Airline data for global city network research: reviewing and refining existing approaches

Information on air passenger flows is potentially a prime data source for assessing spatial patterns in the global city network, but previous analyses have been hampered by inadequate and/or partial data. The ensuing analytical deficiencies have reduced the overall value of these analyses, and this paper examines how some of these deficiencies may be rectified. First, we review the rationale for using airline data to analyse the global city network. Second, we assess the data problems encountered in previous research. Third, we elaborate on the construction of datasets that may circumvent some of these problems. The proposed refinements include the omission of the hub function of major airports and ways to extract relevant business flows from the data.

A framework for economic loss estimation due to seismic transportation network disruption: a spatial computable general equilibrium approach

This paper presents a framework for assessing the economic impact of disruption in transportation that can relate the physical damage to transportation networks to economic losses. A spatial computable general equilibrium (SCGE) model is formulated and then integrated with a transportation model that can estimate the traffic volumes of freight and passengers. Economic equilibrium under a disruption in the transportation network is computed subject to the condition that the adjustment of labor and capital inputs is restricted; the model reflects slow adjustment of these linked to the state of recovery. As a case study, the model reviews the large Niigata-Chuetsu earthquake of 2004. Considering the damage to the transportation infrastructure, the model indicates the extent of the economic losses arising from the earthquake distributed over regions as a consequence of the intra- and interregional trade in a regional economy. The results show that 20% of the indirect losses occur in the Niigata region directly affected by the earthquake, whereas 40% of the total losses are experienced in the Kanto region and non-negligible losses reach rather remote zones of the country such as Okinawa.     

Geographic characteristics of a network interdiction problem

The protection of critical infrastructure from natural and intentional events is a key component of any national security agenda. Protection schemes need to be readily identifiable and adaptable to complex changing environments. In this paper, we identify strategic geographic characteristics that impact the location of detection resources (e.g. sensors) towards the defense of regional critical infrastructure. Specifically, we seek to estimate the relationship between the results of a variation of the traditional shortest path network interdiction problem and geographical characteristics of the transportation infrastructure and the urban environment. Experiments conducted on three distinct transportation networks of different shapes and granularities (New York City—grid, Houston—radial, Boston—hybrid) underline the importance of geographic characteristics such as the proximity to resource location, attacker entry points as well as network coverage. Insights gained from this work are relevant to policy and decision makers to facilitate the development of analytical and decision-support tools capable of identifying resource allocation strategies. We discuss a heuristic-based framework that prioritizes the selection of detection resources, reflecting the importance of geographic characteristics. The findings underline the importance of geographical characteristics for the allocation of resources in a regional setting.     

应用GRNN神经网络模型计算西北干旱区内陆河流域出山径流

根据全球变化对2030年降水量和气温的预测结果,设置不同的气候变化情景,应用GRNN模型对黑河出山径流进行了预测。结果表明,到2030年,黑河出山径流将有小幅度的增加。随着气温的不断上升,出山年径流量最终将减少。     

基于水流阻力与图论的河网连通性评价

河网连通是区域防洪、供水和生态安全的重要基础。基于图论将河网概化为图模型,考虑不同类型河道输水能力差异,以河道水流阻力倒数表征水流通畅度,并以河道水流通畅度为权值,借助ArcGIS平台建立河网图模型加权邻接矩阵,再利用MATLAB工具进行顶点水流通畅度计算和河网连通度分析,从而实现对河网连通性的定量化分析。以太湖流域嘉兴平原河网为例,进行河道疏浚前后的河网连通程度定量评价,结果表明河道疏浚后河网连通度明显增加。     

Estimating traveler populations at airport and cruise terminals for population distribution and dynamics

In recent years, uses of high-resolution population distribution databases are increasing steadily for environmental, socioeconomic, public health, and disaster-related research and operations. With the development of daytime population distribution, temporal resolution of such databases has been improved. However, the lack of incorporation of transitional population, namely business and leisure travelers, leaves a significant population unaccounted for within the critical infrastructure networks, such as at transportation hubs. This paper presents two general methodologies for estimating passenger populations in airport and cruise port terminals at a high temporal resolution which can be incorporated into existing population distribution models. The methodologies are geographically scalable and are based on, and demonstrate how, two different transportation hubs with disparate temporal population dynamics can be modeled utilizing publicly available databases including novel data sources of flight activity from the Internet which are updated in near-real time. The airport population estimation model shows great potential for rapid implementation for a large collection of airports on a national scale, and the results suggest reasonable accuracy in the estimated passenger traffic. By incorporating population dynamics at high temporal resolutions into population distribution models, we hope to improve the estimates of populations exposed to or at risk to disasters, thereby improving emergency planning and response, and leading to more informed policy decisions.     

Identifying China’s leading world city: a network approach

This paper reports our research on China’s world cities. Formal network analysis of air passenger linkages for recent years among China’s most populous cities and among many of the world’s largest cities allows us to identify the country’s leading world city from among the leading Mainland candidates, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. We theorize our findings about China’s world cities in relation to both global forces (and China’s increasing entanglement with them) and the policies and actions of the national state. We examine the national and global urban network through a longitudinal, two-level analysis of airline passenger travel for four time points between about 1990 and 2005. We show that Beijing was China’s leading world city at the beginning of the time period, a status it lost nationally in as early as 1995, and then globally 10 years later. On the other hand Shanghai became China’s leading world city, and it acquired this status first nationally in 2000, and then globally in 2005. The changing status of the Chinese capital corresponds to the country’s increasing involvement with the capitalist world economy. Shanghai’s ascendance as the leading world city in China may indicate that global forces have come to play an increasingly important role relative to that of the developmental state.

Integration prospects of the Hungarian transport network into the more advanced European networks

In spite of the advantageous transport-geographic situation of Hungary, the four decades of the so called planned socialist economy, neglecting the transportational infrastructure, made the country lag behind the rest of Europe. The two main points in the current development of the Hungarian transportation system are the establishment of proper links with the more developed western European transportational network, and starting a substantial technical development in all respects of domestic transportation in order to approach the standards of the more developed countries. The paper reviews the main characteristics of the project of the Hungarian development of transport by road and rail.     

The vulnerability of the European air traffic network to spatial hazards

The 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano had a devastating effect on the European air traffic network, preventing air travel throughout most of Europe for 6 days (Oroian in ProEnvironment 3:5–8, 2010). The severity of the disruption was surprising as previous research suggests that this type of network should be tolerant to random hazard (Albert et al. in Nature 406(6794):378–382, 2000; Strogatz in Nature 410(6825):268–276, 2001). The source of this hazard tolerance lies in the degree distribution of the network which, for many real-world networks, has been shown to follow a power law (Albert et al. in Nature 401(6749):130–131, 1999; Albert et al. in Nature 406(6794):378–382, 2000). In this paper, we demonstrate that the ash cloud was unexpectedly disruptive because it was spatially coherent rather than uniformly random. We analyse the spatial dependence in air traffic networks and demonstrate how the combination of their geographical distribution and their network architectures jeopardises their inherent hazard tolerance.     

Airline Network Carbon Emission Model and the Analysis of External Factors

In the face of the challenges posed by low-carbon aviation development to the aviation industry and the transformation of the emission reduction mechanism, based on the external perspective, firstly, the general expression of the environment damage model of aviation carbon emission and the element about the damage factors of carbon emission environment and the application of sensitivity analysis method were introduced and analyzed. Then, the external factors of carbon emissions in the airline network were analyzed systematically—The influence of the flight operation stage (LTO phase and cruise phase), the sector distance, the flight type and the terminal area airspace. The existing research showed that the two types of airline network model about the environment damage of aviation carbon emission were in different ways and sizes, and the city-pairs was lower than the hub-spoke; the environment damage of aviation carbon emission was the formation of the above four elements with the aircraft type and airline type. The hub airport’s carbon emissions triggered a challenge to the hub-spoke airline network model. In the low-carbon economy, corresponding suggestions on the airline network model were also faced with the hinterland market.     

基于 BP 人工神经网络算法的临沂市土地利用集约状况探析

通过对2009—2012年度临沂市9县3区统计年鉴和变更调查中11个相关指标数据的搜集,借助 MATLAB7．0软件平台,利用 BP 人工神经网络算法,算出2009—2012年度各县区土地利用集约度,并利用 BP 人工神经网络的预测功能,预测了2013年和2014年度土地利用集约度值,结果表明临沂市平均土地利用集约度水平正逐步从粗放利用发展到中度集约,兰山区土地利用集约度水平一直为高度集约,集约度居全市之首,罗庄区一直为中度集约,稳中有进。预计到2014年底,大部分县区在中度集约或以上,仅有费县、蒙阴2县为粗放利用。。     

Web-cam’s potential for collaborative activities in the Earth sciences

We report here our experiences from using easily acquired web-cam components for collaborative ventures in the Earth sciences. We have used a variety of hardware and different software. We demonstrate from various locations in the U.S.A. the feasibility of using web-cam in multitudinous activities, relevant for conducting research and knowledge dissemination. We summarize the quality of the connections from the various combinations of communicating parties. Today, web-cams can be utilized as an economical and viable means of point-to-point communication in the Earth science community. Greater bandwidth is sorely needed for activities such as multi-party conferencing on the present internet network. We propose that web-cam can be readily deployed as a web-service for facilitating collaborative research over the GRID infrastructure, using the middleware Narada-Brokering. Web-cam will play an important role in the emerging field of geoinformatics.     

地铁抗震设防水准的研究及北京地铁工程典型地段地震小区划

地铁作为人口密集且遭受地震破坏后难以修复的重要生命线工程,如何确保其地震安全具有越来越重要的意义。本文将以北京具有典型意义的地铁线路北京地铁五号线作为研究目标,在对沿线地震、地质条件分析的基础上,通过分析研究在不同场地条件、不同风险水平和不同深度条件下的地震动参数和反应谱变化规律,确定了地铁工程的抗震设防概率风险水平为50 a超越概率63%、10%、2%,设计地震动参数取地表计算值。并通过北京地铁五号线工程地震小区划及分区反应谱特征研究,确定北京地铁五号线工程的抗震设防要求。     

The Asia-Pacific Rim's transport and telecommunications systems: spatial structure and corporate control since the mid-1980s

There is a need to move from discussing the Asia-Pacific Rim's leading port cities as shipping centres measured by container throughput. This shift in focus involves examining how different transport and telecommunications systems are interacting with each other at an international scale under the power and control of major world operators. Using a three-level network framework an attempt is made to illustrate and explain the formation of multilayered trade/communications corridors and hubs/headquarters in the Asia-Pacific Rim since the mid-1980s and to identify the factors affecting them. From this examination of spatial structure and corporate control three levels of cities in the Asia-Pacific Rim are recognised: first level cities with strong corporate representation in container shipping, air cargo, air passenger and telecommunications; second level cities with marked corporate representation in one but not all four modes; and third level cities with no marked corporate representation in any mode but with strong throughput. The third level includes the Asia-Pacific Rim's ‘true’ port cities. Perhaps the ambiguous category ‘port city’ should be reserved for them. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Croatia in the continental traffic network of Europe

Croatia is located on the southeastern edge of Central Europe (Ruppert 1995), between the navigable Danube River and the Adriatic Sea, so that participates not only in continental traffic, but in the maritime and river traffic of Europe as well.Although the transit position of Croatia is very favorable, transportation itself has unfortunately not been developed in accordance with these advantages. This is a result of the social-economic, especially political, development of the region in the course of its history. Unfortunately, politics also influences the selection of transit routes in this part of Europe today. With the break-up of socialist states, particularly the former Yugoslavia, new states have appeared which are seeking their place in the European traffic network. Because of the momentarily uncertain political circumstances, the construction of some transit routes in Croatia have not been foreseen in international developmental plans for continental transit, despite the fact that they would be logically expected given the advantages of their position.     

Third world cities and the environment of poverty

This paper examines environmental problems associated with Third World cities. It concentrates on environmental problems as they relate to health and living conditions, especially for lower income groups. After an outline of urban growth trends, these problems are discussed on three different geographic scales. At the regional level, the paper discusses how cities draw on a wider area for natural resources (and usually for labour) and have environmental impacts which stretch far beyond their boundaries, although the most pressing impacts tend to be on their immediate hinterland. At the city-wide level there are problems of disposing of household, human and industrial wastes and of associated problems of air and water pollution. At the level of the home or workplace there are problems of inadequate space and ventilation, inadequate infrastructure and basic services, and lack of provision for the safeguarding of human health. The final section discusses how governments might tackle the causes of these environmental problems on each of these scales.     

Real-world emissions of gasoline passenger cars in Macao and their correlation with driving conditions

Using a portable emissions measurement system, 16 gasoline passenger cars were tested on a fixed route consisting of different types of roads in Macao and the data were normalized with the vehicle-specific power bin method. The normalized HC, CO and NO _X emission levels of the seven passenger car samples with model year older than 2000 were 3.19 ± 5.04, 14.59 ± 22.88, 2.57 ± 2.12 g/km, respectively. The HC, CO and NO _X emission levels of other newer samples were 0.02 ± 0.02, 0.23 ± 0.29 and 0.10 ± 0.13 g/km, respectively. The scrappage of old passenger cars in Macao should be a high priority to control the total emissions of motor vehicles. Based on relative emission levels, a clear and similar pattern for gaseous pollutants and fuel consumption with driving conditions was identified. The emissions of HC, CO and NO _X are best fitted to average speed with inverse functions. Fuel consumption is best fitted to average speed with a power function. Compared to the average driving conditions, the emission factors of HC, CO and NO _X and fuel consumption of gasoline passenger cars during the rush hours on the Macau Peninsula will be increased by 61, 55, 45 and 90 %, respectively. This situation will deteriorate by 2015 if no further transportation management strategies are implemented in Macao. To save energy and mitigate the air pollutant emissions in the urban area, improved traffic planning and travel demand management are also necessary.     

西安都市圈道路网络化对景观格局的影响

在快速城市化过程中,道路网络快速扩张对区域生态景观的分割、隔离、破坏等是导致生态景观过程与格局演变的重要原因。研究道路网络化对景观格局的影响可为快速城市化地区生态、道路建设和区域可持续发展规划提供参考。本文以西安都市圈为例,利用GIS和RS技术,基于西安都市圈TM遥感影像和Arcgis 10.1、Fragstats 4.2软件平台,通过构建道路网空间指数,定量评价了路网空间结构和景观格局变化,并从空间上分析了道路网络化对景观格局的影响。结果表明:1)1985—2015年,西安都市圈路网发育不断成熟,基本呈现以西安市区为中心、空间指数向四周递减(除杨陵区和阎良区外)且东高西低的趋势。2)随着城市化进程的不断推进,西安都市圈景观呈现多样化、复杂化和破碎化。其中:园地、林地和建设用地规模扩大,景观聚集度上升;耕地、水域及滩涂景观破碎化程度不断加深。3)30年间,高等级道路的修建、低等级道路的不断完善以及市内环路打通等,使得西安都市圈路网逐渐完善,景观优势度下降,破碎化程度上升,形状趋于规则化。此外,路网发育的程度不同对不同地类的影响各不相同:路网成熟的区域,建设用地面积较多,形状较规则,呈聚集状态,林地面积较少,且零星分布,破碎化程度较高;道路结构简单的区域,林地聚集成片,聚集度较高,耕地、水域及滩涂在路网空间指数各等级影响域内均呈现破碎化状态,且形状较不规则。