Grounding the virtual: The material effects of electronic grocery shopping

This paper addresses the materiality of computer-mediated retailing. The paper uncovers the “hidden geography” of e-commerce, considering how the seemingly simple act of doorstep food delivery is explicated in urban form, and in transportation and communication infrastructures. The paper categorises electronic grocery shopping (EGS) enterprises into three types: “bricks and clicks”, “pure-play” and the “infomediary”, and examines how each type of operation has been materialised in the urban landscape, and the infrastructure upon which each draws. The paper then considers the strategies EGS operations have used to offset the “killer costs” of logistics for electronic commerce. The paper concludes by considering how electronic grocery shopping is embedded within broader trends in consumer behaviour, and how these trends are manifested in the materiality of urban life. The paper argues that online grocers are in the vanguard of ventures habituating customers to the remote ordering and delayed delivery of products to the home. Through controlling this “last mile”, online retailers hope to extend the product offer to higher-margin and more problematic products, which are in themselves unprofitable to distribute direct to the customer, but which can be profitably combined with a grocery shop.     

城市地震灾害风险评价方法研究

风险管理研究已成为防灾减灾工作从“被动救灾”到“主动预防”转化的热门课题。本文回顾了地震灾害风险评价研究进展,指出了现有评价方法的不足。提出了基于地震小区划的城市地震危险性评价方法、基于城市用地类型的城市地震易损性评价方法以及基于专家打分法的城市防震减灾能力评价方法。最后设计了城市地震灾害风险评价流程,并给出了城市地震灾害风险区划算法。     

Transfer processes in a simulated urban street canyon

The transfer processes within and above a simulated urban street canyon were investigated in a generic manner. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to aid understanding and to produce some simple operational parameterisations. In this study we addressed specifically the commonly met situation where buoyancy effects arising from elevated surface temperatures are not important, i.e. when mechanical forces outweigh buoyancy forces. In a geophysical context this requires that some suitably defined Richardson number is small. From an engineering perspective this is interpreted as the important case when heat transfer within and above urban street canyons is by forced convection. Surprisingly, this particular scenario (for which the heat transfer coefficient between buildings and the flow is largest), has been less well studied than the situation where buoyancy effects are important. The CFD technique was compared against wind-tunnel experiments to provide model evaluation. The height-to-width ratio of the canyon was varied through the range 0.5–5 and the flow was normal to the canyon axis. By setting the canyon’s facets to have the same or different temperatures or to have a partial temperature distribution, simulations were carried out to investigate: (a) the influence of geometry on the flow and mixing within the canyon and (b) the exchange processes within the canyon and across the canyon top interface. Results showed that the vortex-type circulation and turbulence developed within the canyon produced a temperature distribution that was, essentially, spatially uniform (apart from a relatively thin near-wall thermal boundary layer) This allowed the temperatures within the street canyon to be specified by just one value T _can , the canyon temperature. The variation of T _can with wind speed, surface temperatures and geometry was extensively studied. Finally, the exchange velocity u _E across the interface between the canyon and the flow above was calculated based on a heat flux balance within the canyon and between the canyon and the flow above. Results showed that u _E was approximately 1% of a characteristic wind velocity above the street canyon. The problem of radiative exchange is not addressed but it can, of course, be introduced analytically, or computationally, when necessary.     

A microscale three-dimensional urban energy balance model for studying surface temperatures

A microscale three-dimensional (3-D) urban energy balance model, Temperatures of Urban Facets in 3-D (TUF-3D), is developed to predict urban surface temperatures for a variety of surface geometries and properties, weather conditions, and solar angles. The surface is composed of plane-parallel facets: roofs, walls, and streets, which are further sub-divided into identical square patches, resulting in a 3-D raster-type model geometry. The model code is structured into radiation, conduction and convection sub-models. The radiation sub-model uses the radiosity approach and accounts for multiple reflections and shading of direct solar radiation. Conduction is solved by finite differencing of the heat conduction equation, and convection is modelled by empirically relating patch heat transfer coefficients to the momentum forcing and the building morphology. The radiation and conduction sub-models are tested individually against measurements, and the complete model is tested against full-scale urban surface temperature and energy balance observations. Modelled surface temperatures perform well at both the facet-average and the sub-facet scales given the precision of the observations and the uncertainties in the model inputs. The model has several potential applications, such as the calculation of radiative loads, and the investigation of effective thermal anisotropy (when combined with a sensor-view model).     

城市小区规划对大气环境影响的评估研究

不同城市小区规划方案对大气环境的影响不同。本文在已建城市小区尺度气象和污染扩散模式的基础上,针对城市小区规划对气象及大气环境的影响,提出了一套以人为本的客观、科学、可操作的影响评估指标及方法,并以北京市某小区两种规划方案为例,具体评估了它们对气象及大气环境的不同影响。结果表明:由于第二种规划方案在小区中部有一条较宽的东西向道路,并且道路中绿化较多,这条道路是气流东西向流动的重要通道,道路附近风速较大、气温较低、污染较轻,并且对整个小区的气象和大气环境都有改善。由此可见,基于城市小区尺度模式,对城市小区规划对大气环境的影响进行评估是必要和可行的。本文提出的人体舒适度、行人舒适度、地面污染物浓度、最高建筑高度以下污染物浓度、建筑物表面污染物浓度及扩散能力等六项评估指标,并分别给予该6种指标的权重系数为0.2,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1及0.4,然后再加权平均的评估方法是合理可行的。     

Spatio-temporal GIS和GPS优化集成在城市交通管制中的应用研究

本文基于城市交通日益恶化现状和3S集成的迅速发展,表述了Spatio-temporal GIS的定义、时空路径、人类活动的四种时空关系及其坐标系统模型的建立;并根据GPS空间定位、空间导航的原理和模型,将Spatio-temporal GIS和GPS的功能优化集成,阐述了其对城市交通信息的收集、分析、显示等功能;最后论述了Spatio-temporal GIS和GPS的集成对城市交通预警、报警、协调等管制作用。     

加拿大的城市旅游开发评述

旅游业是加拿大发展最快的产业之一,加拿大也是国际上开展城市旅游比较成熟的国家,其城市和地方政府都把旅游业看作创造就业机会和增加税收的源泉。加拿大的城市旅游开发包括文化旅游、体育旅游、会议旅游三个主要方面。文章指出加拿大城市在城市吸引旅游者方面采取和其他商业活动类似的竞争手段,如参与市场促销、创建城市形象和建设基础设施等。30多年来城市增加了博物馆、体育运动场、会议中心和大型节事活动等项目吸引旅游者。这些投资重新塑造了城市结构,城市旅游景观也已经有了雏形。本文对此作出了评述。     

简析城市地貌环境脆弱带

论述了城市地貌的脆弱性,分析了其脆弱带的特点,认为环境的变异敏感度高、持续利用性降低和对灾变的承受弹性减小是城市地貌环境脆弱带的重要特征。     

市域城镇化土地利用扩展机制与规律分析

以乐清市为例,对沿海经济发达区县域城镇化带型扩展的动因机制及其规律进行了初步探讨,并通过运用城镇化综合度指标,在城镇体系结构研究的基础上,建立了县域城镇化扩展域模型。揭示了城镇化带型发展与区域经济实力和人口规模之间的相关性。对于城镇建设规划决策,实现土地利用优化配置目标具有重要的指导作用。     

Holocone paleovegetation and paleohydrology of a prairie pothold in southern Saskatchewan, Canada

The Andrews site represents one of countless prairie potholes found in areas of hummocky moraine on the northern Great Plains. Sediments from a depth of 5.8 to 3.1 m at this 'kettle-fill' site in the Missouri Coteau upland of southern Saskatchewan, Canada, provides a record of vegetation, climate, and hydrologic changes within a small, ca 30 m diameter, closed-drainage basin from ca 10.2 to 5.8 ka. Plant macrofossil analyses of 67 samples, 6 ¹⁴C ages, and stratigraphy were used to identify 5 zones, representing the paleohydrological changes that followed deglaciation in southern Saskatchewan.Results of this study indicate that with the melting of residual stagnant ice a pond (>2 m deep) with abundant aquatic, emergent, and shoreline plants developed in the basin at ca 10.2 ka and persisted until at least ca 8.8 ka. During this time there was a shift in upland vegetation from a white spruce forest (Zone II) to a deciduous parkland at ca 10 ka (Zone III). As climate warmed, brackish and alkaline conditions developed coincident with shallowing of the pond at the end of Zone III. The perennial water phase ended at ca 8.8 ka and was followed by a low-water stand lasting ca 1100 years. Prairie fires and slopewash from unstable slopes were dominant sedimentological processes until ca 7.7 ka (Zone IV). Water levels began to rise and between ca 7.7 and 5.8 ka a semi-permanent pond was established in a grassland setting (Zone V). After ca 5.8 ka this prairie pothole wetland became ephemeral, to the point that plant macrofossils could not be preserved, a situation continuing today. Interactions between climate change, variability in local groundwater supply, and sedimentological processes likely account for the paleohydrologic events reconstructed at the Andrews site.