This paper investigates the way that lexical semantic properties of linguistic expressions influence vagueness, focusing on the interpretation of the positive (unmarked) form of gradable adjectives. ...I begin by developing a semantic analysis of the positive form of 'relative' gradable adjectives, expanding on previous proposals by further motivating a semantic basis for vagueness and by precisely identifying and characterizing the division of labor between the compositional and contextual aspects of its interpretation. I then introduce a challenge to the analysis from the class of 'absolute' gradable adjectives: adjectives that are demonstrably gradable, but which have positive forms that relate objects to maximal or minimal degrees, and do not give rise to vagueness. I argue that the truth conditional difference between relative and absolute adjectives in the positive form stems from the interaction of lexical semantic properties of gradable adjectives—the structure of the scales they use—and a general constraint on interpretive economy that requires truth conditions to be computed on the basis of conventional meaning to the extent possible, allowing for context dependent truth conditions only as a last resort.
The evolution of great world cities Kennedy, Christopher
The evolution of great world cities,
c2011, 2011, 2014, 2016-04-15, 2011-08-09
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"Some cities seem destined to become major financial capitals, yet never do - Seville, for instance, was the centre of Spain's opulent New World Empire, but failed to become a financial metropolis. ...Others, like former colonial backwater Hong Kong, defy the odds by growing into major trading centres. What are the key factors distinguishing those cities that become wealthy from those that don't? Christopher Kennedy illuminates how geography, technology, and especially the infrastructure of urban economies allow cities to develop and thrive."
The Evolution of Great World Cities unfolds through the tales of several urban centres-including Venice, Amsterdam, London, and New York City - at key junctures in their histories. Kennedy weaves together significant insights from urbanists such as Jane Jacobs and economists such as John Maynard Keynes, drawing striking parallels between the functioning of ecosystems and of wealthy capitals. The Evolution of Great World Cities offers an accessible introduction to urban economies that 'will change the way you think about cities.'-- Publisher's description.
The objective of this paper is to explain the cause and proceedings of the 1930s Great Depression from a biophysical economic perspective. The Depression was a painful episode in the ...socio‐technological transition from a coal/railroad regime to one based on hydrocarbons, motor vehicles, and electricity. The beginning—the Great Crash of October 1929—corresponded with drastic cuts in oil prices and announcement of oil supply certainty, following discovery of huge oilfields in the US Southwest. The Depression principally centered on a change from railroads to motor‐vehicle‐based transportation, but was long and drawn‐out due to the hegemonic power that the railroads held over the US economy. The late 1920s saw increased use of hydrocarbon‐based technologies, but the emerging technologies were still reliant on the old technological system. Methods of biophysical economics, mapping energy flows to capital formation, show the critical role of railroads in the Depression. In 1929, railroads accounted for 24% of the non‐residential capital stock; they delivered between 70% and 76% of energy needs; and 69% of energy required for capital formation. Thus a hypothesis emerges that dwindling investment in the railroads was a major constraint on the economy. In biophysical terms, the US economy's main energy delivery system—coal carried by railcars—was hamstrung. Energy flow Sankey diagrams for 1929 and 1939 show the gradual change in energy systems that occurred over the Depression.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Transportation systems, being real-life examples of networks, are particularly interesting to analyze from the viewpoint of the new and rapidly emerging field of network science. Two particular ...concepts seem to be particularly relevant: scale-free patterns and small-worlds. By looking at 33 metro systems in the world, this paper adapts network science methodologies to the transportation literature, and offers one application to the robustness of metros; here, metro refers to urban rail transit with exclusive right-of-way, whether it is underground, at grade or elevated. We find that most metros are indeed scale-free (with scaling factors ranging from 2.10 to 5.52) and small-worlds; they show atypical behaviors, however, with increasing size. In particular, the presence of transfer-hubs (stations hosting more than three lines) results in relatively large scaling factors. The analysis provides insights/recommendations for increasing the robustness of metro networks. Smaller networks should focus on creating transfer stations, thus generating cycles to offer alternative routes. For larger networks, few stations seem to detain a certain monopole on transferring, it is therefore important to create additional transfers, possibly at the periphery of city centers; the Tokyo system seems to remarkably incorporate these properties.
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•We developed a novel framework for the optimal planning of urban renewable systems.•Systems’ emissions and economic considerations are included for planning.•Impact of different load ...profiles on the systems’ life-cycle cost is studied.•Cost-benefit analysis of integrating natural gas with urban renewables is assessed.•The developed approach is applied to a model city (Victoria, Canada).
Urban electrification with renewables is a crucial strategy for achieving low-carbon and climate-resilient communities. Given the different types of power customers (e.g., residential, commercial and industrial), this work develops a systematic and straightforward framework for the optimal planning of urban solar/wind/biomass (/natural gas) systems at neighbourhood scale using the actual real-time hourly electric loads. In achieving this objective, we defined three power scenarios (i) 100% natural gas; (ii) natural gas and renewables; (iii) 100% renewables (e.g., solar/wind/biomass) and identified the hybrid systems with the least NPC for each of the three power scenarios. Our results indicate that providing per kilowatt-hour renewable electricity to the industrial sector (0.385 USD/kWh) costs 4% less than the commercial (0.399 USD/kWh) and about 5% less than the residential sector (0.418 USD/kWh) at neighbourhood scales. The more significant cost of electricity (COE) of the residential system is primarily due to the greater batteries to solar PV fractions. Also, COE of solar/wind/biomass plant showed to be three times less than the equivalent solar/wind power system. Likewise, by integrating a low-emission natural gas (NG) generator to the hybrid solar/wind/biomass plant, the system's COE reduced by 30% while resulting in close to three order-of-magnitude higher annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To address the model accuracy concerning the uncertainty and variations associated with input variables, we further conducted the sensitivity analysis of the systems' COE address the model accuracy concerning the uncertainty and variations associated with input variables by changes in the discount rate and capital cost of the PV panels and batteries. As a result, systems’ COE was detected to be more sensitive to the capital cost of batteries than solar panels. This study can help decision-makers in developing more effective policies and mechanisms to support the urban hybrid renewable energy systems.
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Microparticles (MPs) are small (0.1-1.0 µm) vesicles shed from the surface of cells in response to stress. Whether podocytes produce MPs and whether this production reflects glomerular injury are ...unclear. We examined MP formation in cultured human podocytes (hPODs) and diabetic mice. hPODs were exposed to cyclical stretch, high glucose (HG; 25 mM), angiotensin II, or TGF-β. Urinary podocyte MPs were assessed in three mouse models of diabetic nephropathy: streptozotocin (STZ)-treated, OVE26, and Akita mice. Cyclic stretch and HG increased MP release as assessed by flow cytometry (P<0.01 and P<0.05, respectively, versus controls). Inhibition of Rho-kinase (ROCK) with fasudil blocked HG-induced podocyte MP formation. STZ-treated (8 weeks) mice exhibited increased urinary podocyte MPs compared with age-matched nondiabetic mice. Similarly, 16-week-old OVE26 mice had elevated levels of urinary podocyte MPs compared with wild-type littermates (P<0.01). In 1 week post-STZ-treated and 6- and 12-week-old Akita mice, urinary podocyte MPs increased significantly compared with those MPs in nondiabetic mice, despite normal urinary albumin levels. Our results indicate that podocytes produce MPs that are released into urine. Podocyte-derived MPs are generated by exposure to mechanical stretch and high glucose in vitro and could represent early markers of glomerular injury in diabetic nephropathy.
As global urbanization accelerates, cities have become increasingly complex and hybridized, and host to novel urban landscape forms such as informal greenspaces or novel ecosystems that support ...ruderal and spontaneous vegetation. Researchers have documented the ecosystem services or benefits these systems provide, as well as the tradeoffs or disservices associated with biotic globalization. Despite evidence of their co-benefits, fragmented knowledge and biased views of these novel ecological forms contributes to an underestimation of their social-ecological role and potential for serving as a model for resilient and nature-based urban design and planning. The social-ecological systems discourse has improved understanding of these emerging conditions, yet may benefit from an attunement to a multispecies perspective, an ecosystem-based approach to urban planning and governance that recognizes the interdependencies of humans and other organisms. This article explores the potential social-ecological role of ruderal landscapes in facilitating this transition, referred to as ruderal resilience, as well as recent research in SES and resilience theory that may help advance concepts such as multispecies urbanism and planning. The aim is to consider the potential for spontaneous ecological self-organization to serve as a device for reinvigorating relationships with urban ecological commons and advancing social-ecological systems theory.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a worldwide health burden with increases risk of end-stage renal function if left untreated. CKD induced in the context of metabolic syndrome (MS) increases risks of ...hypertension, hyperglycemia, excess body fat and dyslipidemia. To test if combining a high-fat diet (HFD) regimen onto the hypertensive/ diabetic phenotype would mimic features of MS induced-CKD in mice, hyperglycemia was induced in genetically hypertensive mice (Lin), followed by HFD regimen. For that, 8-week-old male were subjected to streptozotocin (STZ) intraperitoneal (i.p.) injections (50 mg/kg, 5 days consecutive). LinSTZ were fed a 60% kCal HFD for 8 weeks. Lin mice treated with STZ developed polydipsia, became hypertensive and hyperglycemic. HFD induced weight gain, protected against glomerular hypertrophy, scarring, and albuminuria at endpoint compared to regular diet fed LinSTZ. On the other hand, HFD induced steatosis, liver fibrosis, inflammation, and increase in AST/ALT ratio, characteristics of non-alcoholic liver disease. Taken together, our results show that LinSTZ mice fed a HFD did not lead to a more robust model of MS-induced CKD, protected against kidney injury, but inducing liver damage. More studies are necessary to understand the kidney protective mechanisms of HFD when superimposed with hypertension and type 1 diabetes.
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Despite the great promise of hybrid solar-wind-biomass energy systems to power future sustainable cities, complexities associated with their optimal planning and design limit their wide-scale ...implementation. This study provides a novel systematic framework to identify optimal hybrid renewable solutions for urban areas at neighborhood scales. In particular, we examine the role of economies of scale in the techno-economic feasibility and environmental performance of hybrid renewable systems. For demonstration, we assess the impact of the economics of scale (at the neighborhood scales of 1/500, 1/250, and 1/100 of the city's electrical load) on the life-cycle costs of optimal hybrid renewable systems for Vancouver (Canada). Our results indicate that the total net present cost (NPC) of the optimized systems were 59, 116 and 290 million USD, while the levelized costs of electricity (COE) for the three studied scales were almost identical (0.300–0.307 USD/kW h). By comparing the proposed scenarios regarding gross atmospheric emissions, land requirements and economic performance, the mid-scale (1/250) with 6.3 MW of solar PV and 3 MW gasifier (~ 117 t/day biomass wastes) was preferable to the larger (1/100) and smaller (1/500) scale systems. Results from this study can help decision-makers in creating effective policies and mechanisms to advance the integration of hybrid renewable energy systems in cities.
•We proposed a novel framework for optimal planning of urban hybrid renewable energy system.•The economies of scale effect on the systems’ life-cycle cost analysis were conducted.•Systems’ emissions, land requirements and economic considerations were included for planning.•The developed approach was applied to a model city (Vancouver, Canada).
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
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