Privatising public space in post-apartheid South African cities through neighbourhood enclosures

In the past five years the numbers of enclosed neighbourhoods have significantly increased in South Africa. These are existing neighbourhoods that are closed off through gates and booms across the roads. Many of these neighbourhoods are fenced or walled off as well, with a limited number of controlled entrances/exits, manned by security guards in some cases. The roads within these neighbourhoods were previously, or still are public property and in most cases the local council is still responsible for public services to the community within the enclosed neighbourhoods. In this way public urban space is privatised, whether formally or informally. I will explore the distribution of enclosed neighbourhoods in South Africa on a national scale and within two metropolitan municipalities, viz., the cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane. Then I proceed to highlight the nature and impact of these neighbourhoods on the privatisation of public space and draw on a wide basis of empirical data obtained through a national survey and in-depth case studies. Finally I will conclude with examples of lessons learnt from South Africa and how these may relate to international experience and future research on gated communities.     

Breadth and depth in research on health disparities: commentary on the work of Nancy Krieger

Geocoding and spatial analysis of data describing populations and health events are important methods in health social science now carried out using GIS technology. This commentary considers Nancy Krieger’s work on health disparities in light of the various ways individuals and organizations use geocoded population and health data: analyzing spatial patterns of health and disease including health disparities, aggregating data spatially, assessing health status of individuals based on characteristics of aggregates, modeling neighborhood contextual factors affecting health, designing observation and intervention studies, and delivering health interventions and services. The extent to which her work addresses each of these purposes is considered. The strengths and limitations of the research including choice of spatial analytic units and techniques as reported in the published work are discussed. Krieger’s work, with her colleagues, has used standard methods of spatial analysis to raise the profile of GIS and spatial analysis in the public health community.     

Ambient nanoparticles/nanominerals and hazardous elements from coal combustion activity:Implications on energy challenges and health hazards

Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel in the world. Because of the growth of coal mining, coal-fired power plants and coal-burning industries, the increase of the emission of particulates(coarse, fine or ultrafine)is of great concern. There is a relationship between increasing human morbidity and mortality and progressive environmental air pollution caused by these types of particles. Thus, the knowledge of the physico-chemical composition and ambient concentrations of coal-derived nanoparticles will improve pollution control strategy. Given the current importance of this area of research, the advanced characterization of this coal combustion-derived nanoparticles/nanominerals as well as hazardous elements is likely to be one of the hottest research fields in coming days. In this review, we try to compile the existing knowledge on coal-derived nanoparticles/nanominerals and discuss the advanced level of characterization techniques for future research. This review also provides some of aspects of health risks associated with exposure to ambient nanoparticles. In addition, the presence of some of the hazardous elements in coal and coal combustion activities is also reviewed.     

Environmental geochemistry in disaster response and planning

Large volumes of solid, gaseous, or liquid materials that are of potential concern from an environmental or public health perspective are commonly produced by natural or anthropogenic disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, urban fires, landslides, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, industrial spills, and terrorist attacks. Geochemical processes play key roles in the environmental and health impacts of these materials. Yet, process-focused environmental geochemistry expertise and characterization methods are often underutilized in disaster response and planning. In part, the scientific studies needed for detailed process characterization are difficult to plan and implement while the events are still underway, and delayed responses can miss key transient processes and byproducts. Further, emergency responders are focused primarily on identifying the types, amounts, and health hazards of contaminants produced by the event, thus the responders do not have the time or the need to collect the full range of appropriate geological, geochemical, microbiological and other data necessary to understand the full range of physical and chemical processes that influence contamination from these extreme events. A thorough characterization and understanding of geochemical and environmental processes that occur during specific disasters can be used to better anticipate effects of and plan for similar future disasters. A broad spectrum of environmental geochemistry capabilities can be applied to help emergency response authorities and the public health community in their initial hazardous materials assessments immediately following disasters.     

海相页岩气储层特征研究进展与发展动态

富有机质泥页岩复杂的沉积成岩过程、细粒特征,以及远小于常规储层的以微米—纳米级为主的孔隙空间,给海相页岩气储层特征研究带来了极大的挑战。近年来借助多项先进技术方法的推广运用,在海相页岩气储层的多个方面形成了重要认识,页岩有机质与其成熟度关系密切,岩石矿物组分判定方法向定量化发展,岩相预测与建模技术得以应用,但成岩作用对储层的影响尚有待进一步探知,物性变化趋势的认识尚存在不同见解,孔隙结构实现了从定性到定量表征的跨越,页岩力学性质的解析能够有效指导压裂改造。通过进一步分析海相页岩气储层研究的发展动态,就页岩气储层孔隙结构系统表征、区域尺度上成岩与岩相变化的时空配置关系、成岩演化—岩相—孔隙系统—有机质丰度潜在的多元关系等研究方向作出了展望,以期推进储层特征研究在深度和广度上向前发展。     

Enclosure of the urban commons

This is an essay about the territorial enclosure of urban neighbourhoods. It develops the argument that the shared public realms that became regarded as normal in the cities of the 20th century are inherently unstable. More particularly, they are an unstable form of co-ownership domain (condominium). In many different cultures and economies new forms of local territorial governance are emerging to make joint consumption more sustainable. Most of the essay is devoted to exploring this evolutionary argument and is theoretically oriented and illustrated with historical examples. We end with illustrations of urban enclosure from China, a country that has had to discover almost overnight new forms of organisational, institutional and spatial order.     

Exploring the links between health and housing: The limitations of population health surveys

While it is intuitively attractive to link health status and the quality of housing, it is methodologically complex to identify the relative importance of housing because individual characteristics and environmental variables act as confounders. A secondary issue is that the data sets which contain detailed data on health status and environmental variables often contain only limited data on housing. Similarly, housing surveys rarely contain detailed data on health and environmental variables. Respondents from Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver in the public use micro-data files of the 1996/97 cycle of the National Population Health Survey make up the data sets for a series of logistic regression models where health status, allergies, asthma, arthritis, migraines and bronchitis/emphysema act as the dependent variables. Sets of variables which measure housing, the environment (smoking and alcohol consumption) and the socio-economic status of individuals are used as independent variables. The issues of confounders and the limitations of the data are illustrated by the results of the analysis. If we are to go beyond local area surveys and carry out broader analyses of the links between health status and the quality of housing, researchers and data collection agencies will need to re-think the artificial divisions between these two critical aspects of peoples' lives.     

Multivariate Spatial Outlier Detection Using Robust Geographically Weighted Methods

Outlier detection is often a key task in a statistical analysis and helps guard against poor decision-making based on results that have been influenced by anomalous observations. For multivariate data sets, large Mahalanobis distances in raw data space or large Mahalanobis distances in principal components analysis, transformed data space, are routinely used to detect outliers. Detection in principal components analysis space can also utilise goodness of fit distances. For spatial applications, however, these global forms can only detect outliers in a non-spatial manner. This can result in false positive detections, such as when an observation’s spatial neighbours are similar, or false negative detections such as when its spatial neighbours are dissimilar. To avoid mis-classifications, we demonstrate that a local adaptation of various global methods can be used to detect multivariate spatial outliers. In particular, we account for local spatial effects via the use of geographically weighted data with either Mahalanobis distances or principal components analysis. Detection performance is assessed using simulated data as well as freshwater chemistry data collected over all of Great Britain. Results clearly show value in both geographically weighted methods to outlier detection.     

Nuances of neighbourhood: Children’s perceptions of the space between home and school in Auckland, New Zealand

This paper examines primary school children’s experiences of travelling between home and school within three neighbourhoods. Our investigation is set in Auckland, New Zealand, where parental practices such as chauffeuring are commonplace, yet are increasingly recognised as limiting children’s physical fitness and environmental awareness. Drawing on children’s voices, writing and photographs, we investigate how children currently travel to school, how they would like to travel, and how their perspectives on neighbourhood space vary by age, socio-economic status and school location. Findings reveal that over half of the participants did not like the way they travelled to school. Most desire to travel independently within public space, but are limited in their ability to do so, given the fears and obstacles that prevail within their neighbourhoods. We contend that restricted use of public space diminishes children’s agency in inner suburbs. Our analysis reveals that children favour ‘active travel’ for many of the same reasons as health professionals and transport planners. We conclude that as long as children are seen as innocents in need of protection, they will have limited agency in travel decisions and highly contingent access to public space.     

Hot spot analysis based on network spatial weights to determine spatial statistics of traffic accidents in Rize,Turkey

The increased numbers of vehicles using roads in the world today are cause of traffic-related problems, and in this respect, road traffic accidents are an important topic relating to public health. Especially on the road connecting two border provinces, traffic accidents are increasing substantially in parallel with the quantity of transport facilities. By determining areas where traffic accidents result in deaths or injuries, accident prevention strategies can be developed. This study applies the spatial statistics techniques using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to determine the intensity of traffic accidents (hot-spot regions) over 45 km of main routes in Rize Province, Turkey. Traffic accidents recorded in data spanning 5 years are combined with a geographical dataset for evaluation using hot spot statistical analysis. Unlike other studies, this study used hot spot analysis based on network spatial weights (an innovative review in the methods of determining traffic accident hot spots: “novel application of GIScience”) to identify black spots for traffic safety. To perform the analysis using Hot Spot Analysis: Getis-Ord Gi*, a generated network dataset and the spatial weights of the road data are used to generate network spatial weights. Then, Kernel Density method is used to define traffic accident black spots. Finally, these two methods are compared each other with visually.     

Social epidemiology as medical geography: Back to the future

There is something very traditional about Nancy Krieger’s decidedly modern work. She advances a social epidemiology that is multidisciplinary, advancing a “quantitative population science” that is also spatial in its approach and method of analysis. Many geographers see their work as affirming the potential of medical cartography and geography as disciplines critical to public health studies of disease incidence. This article argues that the history of epidemiology and public health are historically spatial and geographic, a link lost in the research of many twentieth century health researchers. A review of the history of medical geography, and of public health, insists upon the spatiality of disease studies as a critical groundwork not simply for contemporary disease studies but for the history of disease studies as they have slowly developed over for more than 200 years.     

“Functional localities: an integrated spatial approach towards health care locality definition”

This paper demonstrates a spatial approach towards the definition of localities for health care planning. Recent international decentralisation of health care provision, and more specifically devolution within the United Kingdom, emphasises the need to develop a geographical focus in the delimitation of local structures for health care planning. Geographers, but most especially those applying Geographical Information Science (GIS) techniques, have made enormous contributions in this field and more generally in research related to health services. This paper considers some of these previous approaches and moves on in the light of new technologies, and more importantly the availability of appropriate data, to create localities that reflect dynamic spaces of social interaction, administration and policy. The paper’s focus is placed on the importance of flow data that reflects␣the spatial interaction between services and the population. This data, divided into three sub-groups of administration, education and health, allows us to identify the population’s allegiance to place and ultimately create spatially bounded functional localities that reflect this. Whilst the approach is largely technology driven, it also incorporates the expertise of local health care professionals thus recognising the importance of collaboration and multi-sectoral engagement. Although this combined approach impacted upon the way in which the final localities were defined, crucially it enabled us to incorporate features of both rigorous spatial analysis and a wealth of local knowledge.     

An application of Bayesian spatial statistical methods to the study of racial and poverty segregation and infant mortality rates in the US

The infant mortality rate is a fundamental measure of population health used internationally. In the United States, the infant mortality rate is higher than what would be expected for a country of its affluence. We present an analysis of US county infant mortality rates using modern Bayesian spatial statistical methodologies. Our key predictors in our statistical analysis are residential racial and poverty segregation, measured by the dissimilarity, interaction and spatial proximity indexes. We use both Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis methods and Hierarchical Bayesian spatial regression models to examine the influences of these segregation measures on the infant mortality rate for each county, net of income inequality, degree of rurality and relative socioeconomic deprivation. The spatial measures of racial segregation suggest that when blacks live in close proximity to each other, this tends to increase the infant mortality rate. The results for poverty segregation suggest the same pattern, when poor populations live in close proximity to one another this is generally detrimental to the county infant mortality rate. However, interaction between blacks and whites and poor and non-poor residents of an area is protective for infant mortality.     

Combining advanced NMR techniques with ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry: A new strategy for molecular scale characterization of macromolecular components of soil and sedimentary organic matter

Molecular level characterization of complex biopolymers in nature is a key element to understanding the composition of natural organic matter (NOM) and fossil organic matter formation, such as kerogen and coal. Characterization of such geopolymers is difficult due to their heterogeneity and insolubility in common aqueous or organic solvents. Here, a strategy for extracting a representative sample is presented using the combined techniques of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS) for chemical analysis and characterization of NOM. A variety of NOM samples (wood, kerogen, bitumen, whole sediments) are shown as examples for implementing the strategy, which include solvent extractions using pyridine. For most samples, the extracts are confirmed to be chemically representative of the insoluble solid, by comparing the liquids NMR spectrum of the extract to that of the whole, unfractionated NOM utilizing high resolution magic angle spinning (HRMAS) NMR. To assist in unambiguous peak assignment, a technique for post acquisition spectral denoising, using wavelet transformation (WT), is also employed on the 1D and 2D NMR spectra. The findings from the NMR data lay a foundation for the subsequent electrospray ionization FTICR-MS analysis of the pyridine extracts, since this instrument has the limitation of only analyzing liquid samples. The FTICR-MS analyses can, therefore, be used to molecularly represent the structural components of the NOM. Various compositional insights have been obtained on these samples, indicating the efficacy of the analytical techniques used.     

Social justice in coastal erosion management: The temporal and spatial dimensions

Coastal erosion management is primarily based on economic considerations (cost-benefit analysis). From the perspective of social justice (as a particular expression of the wider concept of human rights), however, several arguments can be advanced regarding public intervention in coastal defence management when private property is threatened by coastal erosion. In this paper we examine these arguments at both the short-term local scale and the long-term large spatial scale and consider the merits of inclusion of a social justice dimension in coastal erosion management. The coast provides a range of resources that benefit society as a whole. Coastal residents and property owners face a direct financial loss from coastal erosion but the general public also stands to incur losses other than purely financial if it there is public intervention for the benefit of these property owners. The arguments for public intervention are strongest at the local and short-term scales but they weaken (and even reverse) at geographically larger and longer time scales. At larger scales, the costs to society increase as intergenerational equity, non-coastal residents, climate and sea level change, and the environment are considered. Because of the intensity of interest involved at the local level, we argue that the necessary hard decisions must be made nationally if a sustainable policy is to be adopted. Social justice considerations provide a potential improvement on the traditional economic cost/benefit-based decision-making process of coastal erosion management but they only contribute to sustainability if viewed at the national level.     

黄河三角洲滨海湿地健康条件评价

以黄河三角洲滨海湿地系统为研究对象,基于描述滨海湿地健康条件的4项功能,充分考虑滨海湿地生态地质环境系统的特征及其健康响应因素,建立了黄河三角洲滨海湿地健康条件评价的概念模型和指标体系。以统计监测和遥感数据为基础,采用RS和GIS技术,通过栅格化实现分区评价及其结果的优化整合,探讨了黄河三角洲滨海湿地健康的时空分布规律。结果显示：黄河三角洲滨海湿地现状健康条件处于健康的占14.2%,亚健康的占61.9%,一般病态的占23.9%;近期（2010－2015年）,河口三角洲湿地生境质量会逐步改善,向健康方向发展,而北部和南部部分滩涂区及神仙沟流路等局部地区在自然和人为因素的共同作用下,环境质量会有一定的降低;影响黄河三角洲滨海湿地健康条件的主要因素是全球气候变化背景下的区域水循环关键过程及其时空变化、湿地开发等人类负面干扰和黄河下游生态调度。应继续加大黄河下游生态调度的力度、积极实施生态修复工程,以促进黄河三角洲滨海湿地持续健康发展。     

Geospatial analyses of alcohol and drug problems: empirical needs and theoretical foundations

Over the past four decades geospatial analyses of alcohol and drug problems have moved to the forefront of ecological studies of the correlates and determinants of drug addictions in community health. These advances have been predicated upon the expanding computational capabilities of geographic information systems, advancement of statistical tools for the analysis of spatial data, and the formulation of suitable social ecological theory. This paper provides an introduction to the study of drug markets in the US as a model social problem for geospatial research and analysis. Market and epidemic models of the growth of the methamphetamine abuse and dependence in California are used as examples of two fruitful approaches to understanding the social processes that underlie use of this dangerous substance. Data on the growth of the epidemic are described and used to motivate theoretical and empirical concerns regarding further analyses of the development of drug markets over space and time. These concerns, in turn, begin to be addressed by the remaining four papers in this series, each providing some examples and insights into avenues of geospatial research which can be profitably explored in the future.     

Placing sexuality in health policies: feminist geographies and public health nursing

Despite the increasing public profile of same-sex issues, health policies are often shaped by heteronormative assumptions. The health concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual/transgender, two-spirit, intersex, queer and questioning (LGBTTTIQQ) people are complex and require broadening from an often exclusively sexual health and risk focus to a more holistic approach. In this context, this paper illustrates how a critical feminist geography of health, with its focus on the mutual construction of gender relations, space and place, potentially enhances and extends current understandings of public health policy and practice. Moreover, the use of a policy lens foregrounding gender and other power relations suggests that feminist research and coalitions facilitate participatory processes that address “the politics of discourse.” In particular, public health nursing practice can enhance the construction of spaces of resistance that challenge heteronormative discourse through research strategies focused on sexual minority communities’ health experiences and their visions for supportive care. In this respect, two strategies consistent with public health priorities to increase knowledge and participate in alliances are described. Ethnographic research with childbearing lesbians demonstrates that attention to institutional dynamics that foster safe spaces can facilitate access to public health services. Public health nurses’ involvement in community coalitions can enhance dissemination of community knowledges. The implications for gender inclusive and place-sensitive public health nursing practice include the development of sensitive educators, meaningful educational curriculum and related program planning, explicit policies, community partnerships and political leadership in institutional and research venues.     

The impact of health financing and CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emission on health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-country analysis

The current paper examines the relationship between health financing (public and out-of-pocket health financing), CO₂ emission and health outcomes in 35 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period of 1995–2012. The panel unit root and cointegration tests are conducted as pre-tests, followed by the estimation of the parameters using the FM-OLS and DOLS techniques. The findings of the study show the importance of public health financing as one of the major factors that lead to better health outcomes, whereas the out-of-pocket expenditure is found to be harmful to population health since it leads to increase under-5 mortality rate. Although the results show a negative relationship between CO₂ and health outcomes, still these results remain inclusive. In addition, the findings reveal the importance of socioeconomic factors such as income and education as key determinants of health outcomes.     

Joint Consistent Mapping of High-Dimensional Geochemical Surveys

Geochemical surveys often contain several tens of components, obtained from different horizons and with different analytical techniques. These are used either to obtain elemental concentration maps or to explore links between the variables. The first task involves interpolation, the second task principal component analysis (PCA) or a related technique. Interpolation of all geochemical variables (in wt% or ppm) should guarantee consistent results: At any location, all variables must be positive and sum up to 100 %. This is not ensured by any conventional geostatistical technique. Moreover, the maps should ideally preserve any link present in the data. PCA also presents some problems, derived from the spatial dependence between the observations, and the compositional nature of the data. Log-ratio geostatistical techniques offer a consistent solution to all these problems. Variation-variograms are introduced to capture the spatial dependence structure: These are direct variograms of all possible log ratios of two components. They can be modeled with a function analogous to the linear model of coregionalization (LMC), where for each spatial structure there is an associated variation matrix describing the links between the components. Eigenvalue decompositions of these matrices provide a PCA of that particular spatial scale. The whole data set can then be interpolated by cokriging. Factorial cokriging can also be used to map a certain spatial structure, eventually projected onto those principal components (PCs) of that structure with relevant contribution to the spatial variability. If only one PC is used for a certain structure, the maps obtained represent the spatial variability of a geochemical link between the variables. These procedures and their advantages are illustrated with the horizon C Kola data set, with 25 components and 605 samples covering most of the Kola peninsula (Finland, Norway, Russia).