The coexistence of undernutrition and obesity is an emerging problem for developing countries like Bangladesh. Anemia is another critical public health threat, prevalent predominantly among women and ...children. Undernutrition is linked with a higher risk of anemia, and lower dietary iron intake might be the possible reason. However, the risk of anemia among obese/overweight individuals is controversial. The study explores the relation of BMI with anemia and blood hemoglobin level among women and children in Bangladesh. Multiple statistical approaches were employed to nationally representative secondary data (BDHS 2011) on women (n = 5680) age 15-49 years and children (n = 2373) age 6-59 months to illuminate the relation between BMI and anemia. BMI was categorized according to the WHO recommended BMI category for Asian people. Descriptive statistics were used to measure mean hemoglobin level. Chi-square test, Pearson correlation, Two-way ANOVA, binary, ordinal, and restricted cubic splines (RCS) regression were used to study the association of BMI with anemia and hemoglobin level. Chi-square test reveals significant association, though not intense, among BMI and anemia categories of women (15-49 years) (X2 greater than or equal to99, p1.5; Obese: OR ~0.5) reveal that the risk of anemia was higher among underweight and lower among obese/overweight women compared to normal women. Lower anemia risk among richest women indicates probable higher dietary iron intake among obese/overweight women. In the current study, women with overweight/obesity from Bangladesh were shown to have lower likelihood of being anemic, while underweight women more likely to be anemic. However, no relation between BMI and anemia was found among children.
•Investigates smart cities’ contributions in achieving sustainable urban outcomes.•Places 15 smart cities from the UK under the sustainability microscope.•Reveals the link between city smartness and ...CO2 emissions that is not linear.•Finds that the impact of city smartness on CO2 emissions does not change over time.•Suggests better aligning smart city strategies to lead to concrete sustainable outcomes.
The popular smart city concept, for some, is viewed as a vision, manifesto or promise aiming to constitute the 21st century’s sustainable and ideal city form, while for others it is just a hype. This paper places smart city practices from the UK under the microscope to investigate their contributions in achieving sustainable urban outcomes. Panel data analysis methods were employed to investigate changes in carbon dioxide emissions level of 15 UK cities with differential level of city smartness over the period of 2005–2013. The findings reveal that the link between city smartness and carbon dioxide emissions is not linear, and the impact of city smartness on carbon dioxide emissions does not change over time. This finding calls for better aligning smart city strategies to lead to concrete sustainable outcomes. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of prospective investigations to accurately scrutinise existing smart city projects’ outcomes, and emphasising the necessity of developing smart city agendas that deliver sustainable outcomes.
The frequency of extreme events (e.g., hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods) and man-made attacks (cyber and physical attacks) has increased dramatically in recent years. These events have severely ...impacted power systems ranging from long outage times to major equipment (e.g., substations, transmission lines, and power plants) destructions. This calls for developing control and operation methods and planning strategies to improve grid resilience against such events. The first step toward this goal is to develop resilience metrics and evaluation methods to compare planning and operation alternatives and to provide techno-economic justifications for resilience enhancement. Although several power system resilience definitions, metrics, and evaluation methods have been proposed in the literature, they have not been universally accepted or standardized. This paper provides a comprehensive and critical review of current practices of power system resilience metrics and evaluation methods and discusses future directions and recommendations to contribute to the development of universally accepted and standardized definitions, metrics, evaluation methods, and enhancement strategies. This paper thoroughly examines the consensus on the power system resilience concept provided by different organizations and scholars and existing and currently practiced resilience enhancement methods. Research gaps, associated challenges, and potential solutions to existing limitations are also provided.
In the present investigation, five novel Cr(VI) reducing bacteria were isolated from tannery effluents and solid wastes and identified as
Kosakonia cowanii
MKPF2,
Klebsiella pneumonia
MKPF5,
...Acinetobacter gerneri
MKPF7,
Klebsiella variicola
MKPF8 and
Serratia marcescens
MKPF12 by 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis. The maximum tolerance concentration of Cr(VI) as K
2
Cr
2
O
7
of the bacterial isolates was varying up to 2000 mg/L. Among the investigated bacterial isolates,
A. gerneri
MKPF7 was best in terms of reduction rate. The optimum temperatures for growth and Cr(VI) reduction by the bacterial isolates were 35 and 40 °C, respectively except
A. gerneri
MKPF7 which grew and reduced Cr(VI) optimally at 40 °C. The optimum pH for growth and Cr(VI) reduction by
K. cowanii
MKPF2,
A. gerneri
MKPF7 and
S. marcescens
MKPF12 was 7.0 whereas the optimum pH for growth and Cr(VI) reduction by
K. pneumoniae
MKPF5 and
K. variicola
MKPF8 were 7.0, 8.0 and 6.0, 7.0, respectively. All the bacterial isolates showed maximum tolerance against Ni
2+
and Zn
2+
whereas minimum tolerance was observed against Hg
2+
and Cd
2+
. The bacteria isolated in the present study thus can be used as eco-friendly biological expedients for the remediation and detoxification of Cr(VI) from the contaminated environments.
This paper describes the modified transport equation of grid turbulence at low to moderate Reynolds number (
R
λ
=
u
′
λ
ν
, where
λ
is the Taylor micro-scale and
u
′
is the rms of the turbulent ...fluctuation) varies from
R
λ
=
0
to
R
λ
=
100
at
10
≤
U
o
t
/
M
≤
530
in the transition period of decay. Three different perforated passive grids have been used. It is well established that power law decay is described as
q
2
∝
x
-
n
. However, this power law can also be described as
q
2
∝
x
-
(
n
+
m
(
x
)
)
(here,
n
is the decay exponent and
m
is a nonzero integer) in the transition region. Therefore, main aim is to establish a new transport equation in the grid turbulence within the transition region at low
R
λ
. To achieve results, hot-wire experiments were conducted in the fluid mechanics laboratory at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Higher-order curve fitting is used for obtaining the destruction coefficient (
G
) from the one-dimensional energy spectrum and curve fitting has helped us to optimize the noise of
K
4
weighted energy spectrum. A modified equation of the destruction coefficient (
G
) is also shown, and the present results are well agreed with the modified equation of
G
as well as previous literature’s. The results of the Skewness (
S
) are observed as a function of
R
λ
in the transition region, and it is found that behaviour of
S
is paradoxical. Relationship of skewness (
S
), destruction coefficient (
G
) with
R
λ
has been discussed, and it is noticed that
(
S
+
2
G
/
R
λ
)
∝
R
λ
-
1
. Obtained results also confirm that local isotropy is satisfied at low
R
λ
.
Ample research has been conducted investigating the built environment impacts on pedestrian movement (PM). A clear division is also evident in the literature on this topic: one group tends to use ...geographic measures (metric distance) of the environment to explain pedestrian behaviour; the other group uses syntactic measures (visual distance). Many review articles have been published on the former. However, relatively little is known about the effect size (ES), directions, and consistency of syntactic measures in explaining PM. This paper fills this gap through a meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies on this topic spanning over 1975-2016, and answers the following five research questions: (a) What are the different measures used in the space syntax literature to explain PM?; (b) What are the magnitudes and directions of associations between space syntax measures and PM?; (c) Which space syntax measure has a more consistent relationship with PM?; (d) To what extent do the explanatory powers of different measures vary between their derivation methods?; and (e) What are the likely causes of variations of the reported results in prior studies? This research examined four syntactic measures (integration, connectivity, choice, and control) in a random effect model with 95% confidence interval (CI). The choice and integration measures were further investigated based on their operational approaches (topological, angular and metric). Results show that integration (ES = 0.206, 95% CI = 0.173-0.238, p < 0.001), choice (ES = 0.481, 95% CI = 0.391-0.561, p < 0.001), and connectivity (ES = 0.305, 95% CI = -0.225-0.696, p = 0.257) measures positively influence PM with choice being the strongest predictor. Both connectivity and control (ES = -0.001, 95% CI = -0.117-0.115, p = 0.990) were found to have a statistically insignificant impact. The choice and integration measures show stronger effects when derived using the angular approach (ES = 0.493 for choice, and ES = 0.502 for integration) compared to topological approach (ES = 0.374 for choice, and ES = 0.124 for integration). However, the reported results of all measures are highly heterogeneous, perhaps due to the differences in research design. The significance, magnitude, and consistency of integration and choice measures justify their relevance in built environment interventions to promote PM.
Understanding autonomous vehicles Faisal, Asif; Kamruzzaman, Md; Yigitcanlar, Tan ...
Journal of transport and land use,
01/2019, Letnik:
12, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Advancement in automated driving technology has created opportunities for smart urban mobility. Automated vehicles are now a popular topic with the rise of the smart city agenda. However, ...legislators, urban administrators, policymakers, and planners are unprepared to deal with the possible disruption of autonomous vehicles, which potentially could replace conventional transport. There is a lack of knowledge on how the new capabilities will disrupt and which policy strategies are needed to address such disruption. This paper aims to determine where we are, where we are headed, what the likely impacts of a wider uptake could be, and what needs to be done to generate desired smart urban mobility outcomes. The methodology includes a systematic review of the existing evidence base to understand capability, impact, planning, and policy issues associated with autonomous vehicles. The review reveals the trajectories of technological development, disruptive effects caused by such development, strategies to address the disruptions, and possible gaps in the literature. The paper develops a framework outlining the inter-links among driving forces, uptake factors, impacts and possible interventions. It concludes by advocating the necessity of preparing our cities for autonomous vehicles, although a wider uptake may take quite some time.
•Granger causality analysis between regional air transport and economic growth.•Analysis based on panel data from 88 regional airports in Australia spanning 25 years.•Provides empirical evidence base ...for bidirectional short & long run causality.•Confirms the importance of the airport as infrastructure for local councils.
Air transport is a critical link to regional, rural and remote communities in Australia. Air services provide important economic and social benefits but very little research has been done on assessing the value of regional aviation. This research provides the first empirical evidence that there is short and long run causality between regional aviation and economic growth. The authors analysed 88 regional airports in Australia over a period of 1985–86 to 2010–11 to determine the catalytic impacts of regional air transport on regional economic growth. The analysis was conducted using annual data related to total airport passenger movements – for the level of airport activity, and real aggregate taxable income – to represent economic growth. A significant bi-directional relationship was established: airports have an impact on regional economic growth and the economy directly impacts regional air transport. The economic significance of regional air transport confirms the importance of the airport as infrastructure for regional councils and the need for them to maintain and develop local airports. Funding should be targeted at airports directly to support regional development.
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