When designing public spaces in large cities, a number of functional, communication, compositional, infrastructural, environmental and compositional factors should be taken into account, most of ...which relate to water elements. The appropriate location and form of water elements significantly affect the attractiveness and strengthening of the identity of places in cities. Fountains, artificial and natural urbanized watercourses, artistic installations and sculptures, as well as nature-based solutions that utilize water designed in public spaces significantly increase the social and aesthetic value of public spaces. The main aim of the presented research is to present a spectrum of solutions for water elements in public spaces of cities. The summary part describes guidelines and recommendations regarding the principles of designing the locations of fountains, watercourses and artistic objects that utilize water in public spaces in cities.
It is a challenging task for all Harbors or Naval Administration to restrict and monitor the movement of defense or commercial ships. Most commonly used techniques of monitoring are radars and ...satellite images. These techniques are not reliable as radars can be turned off voluntarily and receptions of images are affected by adverse climatic conditions. This paper proposes a reliable ship intruder detection algorithm that classifies different types of objects approaching the model system in and out of phase with the ocean waves. The proposed technique also takes care of superimposition of temporal and spatial values of nodes that are presumably deployed in the sea surface up to a certain distance. Simulation results prove that the proposed algorithm detects and classifies objects efficiently even when 50% of the nodes reporting the tracking phenomenon are tampered.
Cette thèse articule géographie et fait religieux, ce dernier n’étant pas seulement étudié en creux mais constituant au contraire l’objet central de l’étude. Les recherches menées partent d’un ...paradoxe contemporain particulièrement observable dans les sociétés dites occidentales. Leur sécularisation de plus en plus forte, impliquant un effacement progressif de toute référence religieuse dans l’espace public, s’accompagne pourtant, depuis une vingtaine d’années, d’un regain de fréquentation des lieux de pèlerinage, qui touche, certes, les sanctuaires les plus connus, à forte valeur historique et culturelle (le Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, par exemple), mais également les plus récents et confidentiels (L’Ile-Bouchard, entre autres). Les pratiques des visiteurs oscillent, au cours d’une même visite, entre pèlerinage et tourisme, remettant en cause les catégories, jusqu’ici restées relativement étanches dans la littérature scientifique francophone, de « pèlerin » et « touriste ». Cette hybridation des pratiques et des publics invite à envisager, comme effet de la sécularisation, une remonétisation de la valeur sacrée et des espaces considérés comme investis de cette valeur. Il s’agit ici, à partir d’une étude comparative des pratiques spatiales dans plusieurs lieux de pèlerinage catholiques en France, en Bosnie-Herzégovine, en Espagne, en Irlande, en Italie, au Mexique et au Portugal, de questionner à nouveaux frais la catégorisation des pratiques pèlerines et touristiques et d’entrer dans l’étude de la valeur spatiale. Les pratiques permettent en effet d’accéder aux représentations de l’espace construites par les visiteurs, qui elles-mêmes trahissent les valeurs dont ces mêmes visiteurs investissent les lieux. Ici est en jeu, dans un contexte de sécularisation, l’évolution, qui oscille entre résistance et résilience, de l’inscription de la valeur sacrée dans l’espace.
This thesis links up geography and religion. Religion, here, is not just a footnote in the analysis but constitutes the central matter of this work. The research work done here, starts from a contemporary paradox, particularly intense in western societies. The latter are under a growing secularization which implies the progressive obliteration of any religious reference in public space. Yet, for twenty years or so, the number of visitors in places of pilgrimage is increasing. This rise concerns not only the most famous pilgrimage centers such as Le Mont-Saint-Michel or Santiago de Compostela, invested with high historical and cultural values, but also some places of pilgrimage more recent and confidential (for instance L’Ile-Bouchard shrine). During a visit, the visitors’ spatial practices fluctuate between pilgrimage and tourism. These variations challenge the categories of “tourism” and “pilgrimage” which are usually kept separated in the French scientific literature. This hybridization of audiences and practices leads to consider the remonetization of the sacred value and the sacred spaces as a consequence of secularization. This thesis is based on a comparative study of spatial practices in several catholic places of pilgrimage in France, Bosnia Herzegovina, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Mexico and Portugal. The purpose here is to question once again the categorization of the practices of pilgrimage and tourism. This work also aims to study the spatial value. Spatial practices allow indeed to grab the representations of space built up by the visitors and these representations betray the values granted to the places by the same visitors. The evolution of the spatial form taken by the sacred value in a secular context, between resistance and resilience, is at stake here.
New communication and transport technologies importantly influence the understanding of time-space relations in the micro context of local communities. These influences, usually placed under the ...common denominator of globalization, seem to affect i.e. transform spatial values and challenge the established interpretations of what is perceived to be traditional, authentic, genuine and local. The paper gives a small insight into the processes of socio-spatial transformation in Slovenia and shows the extensiveness of globalization process on the case of ‘new localism’. Although new localism at the first glance resembles i.e. mimics ‘localism’, it profoundly differs from it on the value basis. Localism can be best described as a relation between place, understood as a space, which is relatively small and limited, and social phenomena that occur in it. This relationship is valorised (ideologised) from the point of observer or actor and becomes a part of his identity. New localism is in this sense more open that localism but still emphasizes the necessity of certain special values, which should be present on the locality. These special values often include aspirations for the transformation of current localities that deny some of the inevitable influences of globalisation process. In fact, a great number of present localities in Slovenia try to reinforce the feeling of community and use different spatial techniques to obtain these objectives. Some of these spatial techniques are much disputable as they are exclusive towards specific cultural representations, groups of people and may even on the long-term scale negatively effect the socio-economic development of Slovenia. This shift from old to new localism in Slovenia is analysed through data from various research projects that were carried out at the Centre for Spatial Sociology in Ljubljana.
Recognition of protected areas and their valuables well as the appropriate definition of values in these areas can importantly contribute to sustainable regional development. From the development ...point of view the protected areas incorporate environmental, cultural, social and human potentials which, according to the protection mode, have certain direct and/or indirect applied value as well as the value of 'unused'. Protected areas should be understood not only as areas of protection but also as areas of great and in Slovenia not yet recognized and poorly used potentials.
This article presents the attitude towards cultural and natural spatial values in the population who have completed elementary schooling. Identifying spatial values can be considered a fundamental ...skill of the active population, which are necessary for the deliberate activities in the existential and functional environment of every individual. An insight into the potential investors’ environmental value system is also useful for spatial disciplines. The results presented represent the conceptualisation of spatial values in a sample population (N=188) taken from four elementary schools. In relation to other research, the principal recognition of spatial values by teenagers is assessed, together with the limited possibilities of this knowledge into their local living environment. Conclusions can be drawn about their deficient knowledge of the cause-and-effect in the relationship in individual processes in both natural and constructed spaces. The reasons for such deficient knowledge on a local, living environment level are predominantly attributed to the influences of their domestic social environment. The superficial awareness of the values and aspects of space vulnerability also hints at the insufficient and incoherent teaching curriculum in the process of comprehensive education. Solutions might be found in upgrading existing teaching methods and techniques. Furthermore, by carefully setting specific teaching goals the comments mentioned above could be synthesised into a more palpable, logical whole.
Ce travail de thèse en Géographie Humaine a pour objectif d’identifier et d’analyser les valeurs qui font entrer le massif forestier des Landes de Gascogne dans un processus dit de patrimonialisation ...au travers des discours et actions de ses acteurs. Affecter des valeurs à un espace forestier, le patrimonialiser ne correspond plus simplement à la mise en place d’espaces protégés où le « exceptionnel » est adoubé. Le processus ne se définit plus par la simple protection officielle qui soustrait à l’action humaine des éléments jugés remarquables : des objets et des espaces de plus en plus communs et quotidiens sont également appropriés par des groupes sociaux variés tout autant spécialistes qu’ « amateurs ». Le massif forestier des Landes de Gascogne constitue, selon nous, un espace exemplaire pour traiter de cette appropriation d’un espace forestier « ordinaire », qui n’a, a priori, rien de « remarquable », du moins, selon les critères de la patrimonialisation institutionnelle. Forêt d’origine artificielle à vocation de production en grande majorité privée, le massif forestier landais a toujours été plus ou moins décrié pour sa gestion intensive remettant en cause sa capacité à être porteuse de valeurs autres qu’économique et pouvant aller jusqu’à remettre en question son statut de forêt. Pour autant, bien que la vocation productive de ce massif soit sa raison d’être, la forêt landaise est aussi porteuse de valeurs culturelles, naturalistes et sensibles qui la font entrer dans une volonté de préservation qui dépasse, et parfois se confronte, à sa simple importance économique. La dernière tempête Klaus de Janvier 2009, a permis d’à la fois révéler et catalyser ses valeurs qui, face à un tel bouleversement, s’exacerbent. Aborder la patrimonialisation de cet objet forestier à part entière, partagé entre nature et culture, permet ainsi de questionner l’idée même de patrimoine naturel et le processus qui le sous-tend. La thèse s’appuie sur l’analyse d’une centaine d’entretiens semi-directifs effectués auprès de différents acteurs du massif (sphère forestière privée et publique, élus, collectivités territoriale, Parc Naturel Régional, milieu associatif) et menés selon une double échelle d’analyse (de l’échelle « massif » à l’analyse plus localisée de quatre terrains d’étude).
This thesis in Human Geography aims to identify and analyze the values which imply an heritage process through the words and actions of its actors. To associate a forest with values, to launch an heritage process does not mean only to set it as a protected area where the exceptional character of this area is acknowledged. This process cannot be reduced to official protection, preserving from human activities some elements considered as remarkable: more and more common areas and elements are equally owned by different social groups, specialists just as much as amateurs. With this regards, the forest of Landes de Gascogne constitutes a good example of heritage process of a common and ordinary forest, with nothing “remarkable” at first sight, at least according to the usual criteria of institutional natural heritage. This artificial forest has a production purpose and is privatized for its vast majority. Therefore, this forest has always been more or less pointed out for its intensive exploitation, questioning its ability to circulate values outside economic ones, and even the legitimacy of its status as a forest. Nevertheless, and however its production purpose is its first determination, this forest is also carrying cultural, natural and sensible values which generate a willingness of preservation going beyond, or even confronting the simple economic concern. The last storm in January 2009, Klaus, enabled to unveil and catalyze those valued, which, in front of such an event, became clearer. To consider the heritage process of this forest as a whole, shared between nature and culture, also allows pondering over the idea of natural heritage in itself and the process behind. This thesis has been written thanks to the analysis of a hundred of semi-structured interviews of different actors of the forest (private and public areas, elected representatives, local communities, Regional Natural Parc, associations) and realized according to a double-scale analysis (from the whole forest scale to the more localized analysis of four different field studies).
The spatial values of retinal coordinates are "recalibrated" to the "egocentric" coordinates during and after a saccade within a fraction of a second. We measured the time constant of this retinal ...coordinate transformation by means of an afterimage technique: our ten subjects performed "auditory" horizontal saccades in total darkness (0.2-4.5 saccades/sec). At a saccade frequency below 1 saccade/sec, the subjects observed saccadic displacement of the foveal afterimage, but the afterimage seemed to arrive at its final position more slowly than the center of gaze (state 1). At saccade frequencies above 1.5 saccades/sec, the perceived amplitude of afterimage displacement decreased with increased saccade frequency (state 2). Above 2 saccades/sec all subjects perceived two stationary afterimages simultaneously at the saccadic end-position (state 3). A further increase in saccade frequency reduced the distance between the two afterimages till only one stationary afterimage was seen in a mid-position between the two auditory targets at a saccade frequency above 3.2-3.5 saccades/sec (state 4). Saccade amplitude remained constant within the frequency range between 0.2 and 4.5 saccades/sec. A one-step or two-step linear model was applied to simulate the experimental data, indicating that the spatial coordinates shift more slowly than the saccadic eye movements.
1. An increasing number of studies are examining the distribution and congruence of ecosystem services, often with the goal of identifying areas that will provide multiple ecosystem service ' ...hotspots'. However, there is a paucity of data on most ecosystem services, so proxies (e. g. estimates of a service for a particular land cover type) are frequently used to map their distribution. To date, there has been little attempt to quantify the effects of using proxies on distribution maps of ecosystem services, despite the potentially large errors associated with such data sets. 2. Here, we provide the first study examining the effects of using proxies on ecosystem service maps and the degree of spatial congruence of these maps with primary data, using England as a case study. 3. We show that land cover based proxies provide a poor fit to primary data surfaces for biodiversity, recreation and carbon storage, and that correlations between ecosystem services change depending on whether primary or proxy data are used for the analyses. 4. The poor fit of proxies to primary data was also evident when we selected hotspots of single ecosystem services, and consistency between raw and modelled surfaces was extremely low when considering the locations that were coincident hotspots for multiple services. 5. Synthesis and applications. Proxies may be suitable for identifying broad-scale trends in ecosystem services, but even relatively good proxies are likely to be unsuitable for identifying hotspots or priority areas for multiple services.
PDF
