Strategic planning in the Paris region and French urban policy

Many of the imbalances which the successive strategic plans for the Paris region sought to correct have persisted, whether in employment location, transport access or structure and location of the housing stock. The reasons for these relative failures can be found, in part, in the content of the strategies, in housing, land and transport policies and in shortcomings of the urban planning and economic planning systems. The weakness of the Paris Region as the strategy's executor in relation to the central and local governments and public corporations cannot, however, be underestimated. In the first part, French strategic planning is assessed within the urban planning system, followed in the second part by a detailed study of the failures of plan implementation in transport policy and housing and office location.     

Environmental pollution and bio-politics: The epistemological constitution in Japan’s 1960s

This article examines the epistemological reconstitution in Japan—from Eisei (hygiene) to Kankyo (environment and ecology)—in the 1960s, particularly focusing on Yokkaichi city in the Mie prefecture that was infamous for environmental pollution. Post World War II, Yokkaichi port and its petrochemical industrial complexes were regarded as a symbol of Japan’s development. Referred to as ‘a million dollar night’s view’ for its ability to provide light the entire day, it played a central role in the country’s industrial reconstruction. Due to its reputation for ‘nature’-filled countryside, many enjoyed swimming at Yokkaichi despite the presence of the nearby industrial plants. Both these facts imply that people did not realize the risks posed by the dirtiness of the wastewater and the fumes emitted by the plants, an ignorance that may be traced back to the epistemic constitution of hygiene in Japan at the time. Since modernization, the government had adopted the idea of hygiene to control infectious and venereal diseases. The Department of Interior in 1873, and later, the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1938 were also instituted to discipline human aesthetics through bio-politics. In the 1960s, when diseases of unknown origins began to appear and ‘scientific’ researches made the risks of wastewater and fumes visible, a new idea, Kankyo (which included but went beyond that of hygiene), was implemented to mitigate these risks. This transition saw the landscape of ‘a million dollar night’s view’ being transformed into a symbol of injustice and became a basis for grassroots political acts.     

超然于时代的写作——论曹聚仁二十世纪五六十年代的随笔散文

20世纪50年代和60年代是曹聚仁随笔散文写作的高峰期。这一时期,无论是内地还是港台,政治气氛都十分浓厚。而作为国共两党的联系人的曹聚仁疏离政治,可以自由地往来于大陆和港台之间,仍然保持与母体文化联系,从而使他在写作上保持一定的文化优势。曹聚仁在随笔写作中重在对所游之地、所读之书的文史挖掘,显示出深厚的文化底蕴。曹聚仁以随笔散文的方式传承着民族文化的血脉,独自守望着古老而深厚的民族文化,具有十分重要的意义。     

The southern agglomeration zone of the GDR — Regional structure and development

Agglomeration areas in the GDR are those regions, which are characterized by an above average level of regional concentration of productive forces and their conditions of reproduction. The economic potential concentrated in these regions represents a large part of the national economy. It is possible to describe the territorial structure of these agglomeration areas by general indices (agglomeration core — agglomeration field — agglometation fringe; polycentric node-band-structure), but also the individual features of each one of these regions are to be attended. They are expressed for the first time by several forms of localization of plants and by the structure of settlements and settlement networks. The present main tendencies in the development of the agglomeration regions are:

They succeeded in minimizing the regional disparities of productivity between different agglomeration regions and within them, and in stabilizing the economic position of these regions by systematic measures for investment and rationalization and the hereby influenced structural changes.

At present and up to 1990 the completion of housing programme is of foremost importance by which the main activities will shift from the urban fringe to the centres of the cities; provincial towns and smaller settlements will also participate in this programme.

The main target of these activities is to remove imperfect structures and other burning problems of the agglomeration regions step by step. Geographical Institutes are dealing with the management of these tasks too.     

Core periphery in metropolitan development and planning: Socio-economic change in Lyon since 1960

The paper begins with an evaluation of the nature of social and economic change which has affected Lyon, France's second-largest city, since the early 1960's. Change in the strucure and spatial characteristics of Lyon's population and economy have served to highlight the internal contrasts between core and periphery which have been the hallmark of the city's expansion. This evaluation serves as the basis for a detailed appraisal of the specific policy measures and development schemes, which have sought to reinforce the position of the central and inner city in the face of the challenge from the outer suburbs. In conclusion, attention is focused on the contribution made by planning policy to the city's contemporary development.     

Re-orientation of the city plan: Strategic planning and design competition in China

Rather than being abandoned along with the demise of the centrally planned economy, city planning as a profession is flourishing in China. New hybrid plans such as strategic development plans (concept plans) have been invented, and the planning procedure has become more flexible. Design competition and planning consultancy are widespread. This paper examines the development of new strategic development plans and design competition. It is argued that city planning has been re-orientated from a technical rationale, i.e. allocating state development projects to the city, to the imperative derived from market-oriented development, i.e. consolidating competitiveness during inter-city competition. The contradiction between market and planning is that while the status of city planning has been raised and its approach is becoming more strategic, the actual functionality of city planning has become more instrumental.     

The geography of the coal industry in the United Kingdom in the 1970s: changing directions?

Conclusion This paper has described some of the changes that have occurred in the geography of the UK's coal industry in a period when decline was the keynote, and attempted to illustrate some of the developments that are occurring in the late 1970s with implementation of the Plan for Coal. Launched at a time when the complete collapse of European energy supply seemed a distinct possibility, that Plan is encountering many problems in its implementation, and its unmodified completion must remain in doubt. The Plan 1974 and its successor embody a fundamental change of direction for the coal industry — from contraction to expansion.But although there is a change of direction at the national scale, at the inter- and intra-regional scales the direction remains largely the same. The dominance of the central coalfields is likely to increase further, while within these areas the trend towards large-scale deep mines in the concealed sections remains strong. Indeed achievement of the new desired direction at the national level, based as it must be on an industry that is price-competitive with other energy sources, may be dependent upon an intensification of these regional trends towards concentration of investment in areas where mining conditions are favourable and high-productivity, low-cost production can be achieved. It is also being recognized that removal of the burden of high-cost inefficient collieries in less favoured, mainly peripheral fields may also be vital to the competitive position:-the overall competitiveness of the industry is ... at present adversely affected by a small proportion of capacity where productivity is low and costs are high, mainly as a result of difficult working conditions. Closure of uneconomic pits as they became worked out will improve the industry's ability to compete with other fuels, (Secretary of State for Energy 1978).It thus appears that in the last quarter of the twentieth century the coal industry in the UK will become more and more focused on especially favoured areas in the central parts of the country, through the twin process of shedding loss-making activities in less favoured peripheral fields, and investing in the ample resources that underline the English lowlands.     

吉林省矿产资源“十二五”规划战略构想

总结了吉林省“十一五”期间地质勘查、矿产资源领域取得的成就和存在的问题,研究了“十二五”地质矿产供需形势,提出了全省“十二五”矿产资源规划指导思想、规划目标、主要任务和保证措施.     

The Swedish Deep Drilling Program: the quest for the Earth's inner secrets

The Swedish Deep Drilling Program (SDDP) has been initiated to study fundamental problems of the dynamic Earth system, its natural history and evolution. Many key scientific questions can be addressed through in situ investigations only, requiring deep continental drilling. Some are unique to Scandinavia, most are of international interest and significance. At present, five core projects ( Fig. 1 ) with international teams are integrating scientific problems with societal and industrial applications. If SDDP succeeds to attract the funding required, Sweden will have a number of world‐class boreholes at key locations by 2020.

Figure 1 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint Locations of SDDP drilling project proposals. PFDP—Postglacial Fault Drilling Project; PaMVAS—Palaeoproterozoic mineralized volcanic arc systems: the Skellefte District; COSC—Collisional Orogeny in the Scandinavian Caledonides; DRL—The Dellen Impact Crater, a geoscientific deep rock laboratory; SELHO—Svecofennian accretion, an example of the early structural evolution in a large hot orogen; CISP—Concentric Impact Structures in the Palaeozoic: the Lockne and Siljan craters. Background and inset image from Blue Marble Next Generation data set (NASA Earth Observatory, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BlueMarble/ ).     

Mine ventilation planning in the 1980s

Conclusions In this paper, the author has attempted to trace the development of mine ventilation planning from the traditional, manual and largely empirical methods of the past to the numerate computer-based techniques of the 1980s.The computer revolution has changed the face of many engineering disciplines, not least mine environmental engineering. Nevertheless, the mining industries of the world have not all been equally progressive in adapting to the flexibility, power and practical utilization of the new methodologies. It is, for example, incongruous that current textbooks on mine ventilation separate completely the topics of network analysis and ventilation planning with very little cross-referencing. Many of the current generation of mine ventilation engineers recognize the need to know about computers but find difficulty in translating this into their daily work. The growing availability of self-teaching, friendly software for personal microcomputers, coupled with interactive graphics, will assist greatly in promoting uncomplicated but powerful usage of computers.Young engineers now graduating from universities and colleges have been brought up in a computer-oriented environment and are competent in interacting with these machines. Indeed, they wonder how the job was ever done without magnetic data bases and high-speed computation aid.     

The city of Moscow and the Moscow agglomeration

Lower rainfall and a longer dry season appear to have characterised SE Asia during the Quaternary Glacials. This had an important effect on vegetation and on landform development, particularly on weathering, river regimen, coastal features and planation. The low Glacial sea levels are generally thought not to have caused river incision and deposition of rather coarse-textured materials is considered more characteristic. Incision was mainly tied to the Interglacial and Holocene humic tropical conditions when vegetation interfered with non-concentrated surface wash. Clay blankets were deposited off-shore and also above the waterline. This concept has consequences for the Quaternary chronology in SE Asia.     

‘We promise you a warm welcome’: tourism to Malta since the 1960s

Tourism is an important element in the Malta economy. This paper traces its development since the 1960s with discussion focussing on the nature of the tourism product, marketing initiatives, arrivals patterns and changes in the accommodation sector. Problems such as an over-dependence on British visitors, the inadequacies of the infrastructure and the limited impact of planning are highlighted. Recent efforts to improve the quality of Maltese tourism are reviewed.     

Erosion balance in the watersheds of the western Paris Basin by high-frequency monitoring of discharge and suspended sediment in surface water

An accurate quantification of erosion, based on high-frequency monitoring of river discharge and suspended sediment fluxes is proposed for two watersheds in the western Paris Basin, a sensitive area with respect to erosion phenomena. This continuous monitoring makes it possible to include flood events of short duration, but significant erosion potential. The obtained erosion rate (16 and 21 t?km^?2?yr^?1) is among the weakest of the planet (3.5 to 18?000 t?km^?2?yr^?1). However, this annual balance does not reflect the behaviour of these rivers which can be torrential in certain cases. To cite this article: B. Laignel et al., C. R. Geoscience 338 (2006).     

Shore protection structures: Effects on recession rates and beaches from the 1870s to the 1970s along the Ohio shore of lake Erie

Shore-protection structures—largely groins and seawalls—have increased in number along the 300-km-long mainland Ohio shore of Lake Erie from about 60 in 1876–77, to about 1,400 in the late 1930s, to about 3,600 in the mid 1970s. Recession rates, on the other hand, have decreased from the early period (1876–1877 to the late 1930s) to the later period (late 1930s to 1973). Forexample, the length of shore that receded at the intermediate rate (0.3 to 0.9 m/yr) decreased from 76 to 54 km and the length of shore that receded at the lowest rate (less than 0.3 m/yr) increased from 151 to 171 km. Beach widths also have decreased; the length of shore fronted by wide (greater than 15 m) beaches decreased from 64 km to 35 km between 1876–1877 and 1968. Furthermore, the length of shore without a beach increased from 84 km in 1876–1877 to 112 km in 1968. The decreases in recession rates have been caused by the shore-protection structures, which have directly armored the shore from waves (seawalls) or reduced the wave energy reaching the shore by trapping sand (groins). Moreoever, because the shore is a major source of sand for the beaches, the decrease in recession has led to a reduced sand supply and narrower beaches. Ironically, by protecting the shore, the structures apparently have more than compensated for the loss of the best natural form of shore protection, beach sand.     

The solubility of copper in high-temperature magmatic vapors: A quest for the significance of various chloride and sulfide complexes

We conducted experiments to determine the effect of various chemical components (NaCl, KCl, HCl, FeCl₂, H₂S, SO₂) on the solubility of Cu in single phase aqueous vapors at 1000 °C and 150 MPa. The experiments were conducted in Au₉₇Cu₃ alloy capsules buffering Cu activities at 0.01. The volatile phase was sampled at run conditions by the entrapment of synthetic fluid inclusions in quartz. To test if the volatile phase had reached equilibrium before the isolation of the inclusions by fracture healing, we trapped two inclusion generations, one in an initially prefractured chip and another in a quartz chip that was fractured in situ during the experiments. The synthetic fluid inclusions were subsequently analyzed by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. In pure water, the apparent solubility of Cu is below the limits of detection of 6 μg/g, showing the low stability of hydroxy Cu complexes at our experimental conditions. The presence of alkali chlorides supports modest Cu solubility likely in the form of NaCuCl₂ and KCuCl₂ complexes. In the H₂O-H₂S (+SiO₂ and Au₉₇Cu₃) system at an fH₂S of 10.4 MPa the apparent solubility of Cu is lower by a factor of ∼5 than that in a S-free 0.5 m NaCl solution, showing that copper hydrosulfide complexes are only moderately stable at these conditions. Addition of 4.7 mol% of sulfur to the H₂O-NaCl system at an fO₂ of 0.4 log units below the Ni-NiO buffer, yielding dominantly H₂S species, results in only a moderate increase in apparent Cu solubility, which diminishes in the presence of HCl. The addition of KCl results in a strong increase of apparent Cu solubility in the presence of H₂S. The solubility of Cu increases with the fugacity of oxygen in both the H₂O-NaCl and the H₂O-S-NaCl system following an approximately fourth root relationship as expected based on the stoichiometry of the involved redox reactions. Replacement of NaCl by FeCl₂ exerted only a minor effect on the Cu solubility.Results of our experiments, combined with thermochemical data obtained by ab initio quantum chemical calculations, suggest dissolution of Cu dominantly as Na(/K)CuCl₂, Na(/K)Cu(HS)_2, H₂SCuHS, and Na(/K)ClCuHS, the relative abundance of which are dictated by the H₂S/total chloride and HCl/alkali chloride ratios.     

Temporal and spatial variation of the main water balance components in the three rivers source region, China from 1960 to 2000

The three rivers source region (TRSR) is the most sensitive region of global climate change in China. The temporal and spatial variations of main water balance components (precipitation, snowmelt, actual evaporation, runoff, etc.) during the period from 1960 to 2000 in the TRSR were analyzed by hydrologic simulation and statistical detection. The results showed that: when compared with the components in 1960s, (1) the variation of precipitation from 1970s to 1990s was not significant in the whole TRSR though it increased slightly in the Yellow River Source Region (YeSR) and Yangtze River Source Region (YaSR), but decreased slightly in the Lancang River Source Region (LcSR); (2) the snowmelt increased in most regions of TRSR except the downstream of YeSR and YaSR, but the trend was statistically significant only in the YeSR; (3) the actual evaporation increased continually in the whole TRSR, but the trends were significant in the middle stream of the YeSR and YaSR, and the YeSR was the greatest; (4) Although the runoff depth decreased gradually in the TRSR, the trends were significant only in the middle stream of the YeSR and YaSR and the YeSR was the greatest. Inevitably, the discharge decreased in the TRSR but the trend was not statistically significant. Climate change (i.e., the slightly decreasing of precipitation and the increasing of air temperature) was the most important factor to affect the variations of water balance components. The most sensitive region to climate change was YeSR, followed by YaSR, and the least one was LcSR. This study was expected to provide the foundation and a reference to analyze the water resources evolution and test the climate change impacts in TRSR as well as the whole China.