Conceptualizing urban heat resilience as an infrastructure problem emphasizes the urgency with which we must adapt to global climate change, but also risks ignoring the continued marginalization that ...vulnerable populations experience as a result of infrastructure decisions. In this Viewpoint, I use my experience with participatory action research (PAR) in building urban heat resilience to show the ways in which an infrastructure framing presents opportunities, and the ways in which planners a) need to be aware of infrastructure as socio-technical systems and b) recognize spatial networks of social capital to appropriately approach interventions that benefit those most likely to be adversely affected by rising temperatures in cities.
Green infrastructure (GI) is an approach to stormwater management that promotes natural processes of infiltration and evapotranspiration, reducing surface runoff to conventional stormwater drainage ...infrastructure. As more urban areas incorporate GI into their stormwater management plans, greater understanding is needed on the effects of spatial configuration of GI networks on hydrological performance, especially in the context of potential subsurface and lateral interactions between distributed facilities. In this research, we apply a three‐dimensional, coupled surface‐subsurface, land‐atmosphere model, ParFlow.CLM, to a residential urban sewershed in Washington DC that was retrofitted with a network of GI installations between 2009 and 2015. The model was used to test nine additional GI and imperviousness spatial network configurations for the site and was compared with monitored pipe‐flow data. Results from the simulations show that GI located in higher flow‐accumulation areas of the site intercepted more surface runoff, even during wetter and multiday events. However, a comparison of the differences between scenarios and levels of variation and noise in monitored data suggests that the differences would only be detectable between the most and least optimal GI/imperviousness configurations.
Plain Language Summary
This research evaluates the effectiveness of green stormwater infrastructure management techniques in residential neighborhoods and the dependence of effectiveness on spatial location within the neighborhood. We find that locating green infrastructure on properties with high flow accumulation mitigates more runoff, but that the differences in effectiveness are only expected to be detectable through flow monitors between the most and least optimal configurations.
Key Points
A coupled hydrologic model was applied to simulate hydrologic processes in a medium density, residential sewershed
Effects of nine spatial configurations of imperviousness and green infrastructure networks were tested and compared to monitored flow data
Green infrastructure configurations in higher flow‐accumulation areas were shown to intercept the most runoff
As our understanding of the interactions present in socio-ecological systems advance, emulation modeling can help reduce the complexity and required computational resources of the models used to ...represent these systems. While emulation is commonly used in model meta-analyses and parameterization, it has been less explored in the context of environmental management. In this research, I analyze the reflections of a group of watershed modelers on environmental model emulation. I find that decreased simulation run-times are an important motivation because emulators enable stakeholders to interact directly with the model. However, participants also reported that criteria for an emulator in an environmental management context should also assess its capability to act as a platform for learning and to manage stakeholder perceptions of the modeling process. Further, at the science-action interface, stakeholder perceptions play a significant role in the approach to model emulation through determining acceptable levels complexity in model processes and inputs.
•Emulators can improve management decisions by facilitating non-modeler scenario testing.•Criteria for emulators in environmental management: performance, platform, and perception.•Emulation is a process of direct and indirect learning about management, modeling, and system.•Emulators include response surface emulation and lower fidelity surrogates.•Lower fidelity surrogates more appropriate for environmental management contexts.
•Over 6000 environmental data objects from state and municipal open data portals analyzed.•Municipal datasets more likely related to environmental services and amenities.•State datasets more likely ...related to resource protection and extraction.•Politically liberal places host more datasets tracking environmental performance.•Uses automated natural language processing and machine learning analysis techniques.
The ways in which environmental priorities are framed are varied and influenced by political forces. One technological advance--the proliferation of government open data portals (ODPs)--has the potential to improve governance through facilitating access to data. Yet it is also known that the data hosted on ODPs may simply reflect the goals and interests of multiple levels of political power. In this article, I use traditional statistical correlation and regression techniques along with newer natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to analyze the corpus of datasets hosted on government ODPs (total: 49,066) to extract patterns that relate scales of governance and political liberalism/conservatism to the priorities and meaning attached to environmental issues. I find that state-level and municipal-level ODPs host different categories of environmental datasets, with municipal-level ODPs generally hosting more datasets pertaining to services and amenities and state-level ODPs hosting more datasets pertaining to resource protection and extraction. Stronger trends were observed for the influences of political conservatism/liberalism among state-level ODPs than for municipal-level ODPs.
Continuing interest in digital games indicated that it would be useful to update Connolly et al.'s (2012) systematic literature review of empirical evidence about the positive impacts and outcomes of ...games. Since a large number of papers was identified in the period from 2009 to 2014, the current review focused on 143 papers that provided higher quality evidence about the positive outcomes of games. Connolly et al.'s multidimensional analysis of games and their outcomes provided a useful framework for organising the varied research in this area. The most frequently occurring outcome reported for games for learning was knowledge acquisition, while entertainment games addressed a broader range of affective, behaviour change, perceptual and cognitive and physiological outcomes. Games for learning were found across varied topics with STEM subjects and health the most popular. Future research on digital games would benefit from a systematic programme of experimental work, examining in detail which game features are most effective in promoting engagement and supporting learning.
•The current systematic literature review updates Author (date).•The review looks at impacts and outcomes of playing digital games from 2009 to 2014.•Multi-component coding of papers, games and learning outcomes was used.•Many papers were found with 143 papers providing high quality evidence.•Games for entertainment and learning addressed different outcomes.
Since 2015, there has been an increase in articles on anomaly detection in robotic systems, reflecting its growing importance in improving the robustness and reliability of the increasingly utilized ...autonomous robots. This review paper investigates the literature on the detection of anomalies in Autonomous Robotic Missions (ARMs). It reveals different perspectives on anomaly and juxtaposition to fault detection. To reach a consensus, we infer a unified understanding of anomalies that encapsulate their various characteristics observed in ARMs and propose a classification of anomalies in terms of spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal elements based on their fundamental features. Further, the paper discusses the implications of the proposed unified understanding and classification in ARMs and provides future directions. We envisage a study surrounding the specific use of the term anomaly, and methods for their detection could contribute to and accelerate the research and development of a universal anomaly detection system for ARMs.
In this study, we apply the ENVI-met model to evaluate the effects of combinations of morphological and vegetation-related landscape features on urban temperatures and thermal comfort. We simulated ...the thermal conditions of 126 scenarios, varying the aspect ratios of street canyons, vegetation cover and density, surface materials, and orientations toward the prevalent winds under an extreme heat situation. Our results show how the effects of physical and vegetation parameters interact and moderate each other. We also demonstrate how sensitive thermal comfort indices such as temperature and relative humidity are to the built environment parameters during different hours of a day. This study’s findings highlight the necessity of prioritizing heat mitigation interventions based on the site’s physical characteristics and landscape features and avoiding generic strategies for all types of urban environments.
Applications and systems for diabetes self-management are growing and involve a vast majority of factors to consider. This study was aimed at examining the integration of portable technologies for ...diabetes self-management, as well as benefits and issues arising of its use. From a web-based study on several groups of people with diabetes, most of them accustomed to the daily use of devices and applications for self-control, a deeper analysis based on correlations and inference was conducted considering information about the disease, technology knowledge and devices handling, use of technologies for diabetes control and management, and training with devices from a clinical and educational viewpoint. In this study, more than 70% of participants use Continuous Glucose Systems and additional devices (41.85% also use insulin pumps) which impacts positively on the knowledge of incoming technologies. The “easy to use” factor of current apps for diabetes self-management is the most valuable feature. Also, 88.98% of participants did not use gamification-based methods during the initial training sessions, although gamification is a useful technique in learning stages. An inference analysis shows how specific characteristics of diabetes devices and apps should improve. On the basis of the results, we discuss about benefits, shortcomings, and the state of these technologies and patient needs for the future.
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