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Climate change will affect the way cities work substantially. Flooding and urban heating are among the most tangible consequences in cities around the globe. Extreme hydro-meteorological events will likely increase in the future due to climate change. Making cities climate-resilient is therefore an urgent challenge to sustain urban living. To adapt cities to the consequences of climate change, new ideas and concepts need to be adopted. This oftentimes requires action from different stakeholder groups and citizens. In other words, climate adaptation of cities needs governance. Facilitating such urban governance for climate adaptation is thus a big and increasing challenge of urban planning. Smart tools and its embedding in smart urban governance is promising to help in this respect. To what extent can the use of digital knowledge technologies in a collaborative planning setting be instrumental in facilitating climate adaptation? This question entails visualising effects of climate adaptation interventions and facilitating dialogue between governments, businesses such as engineering companies, and citizens. The aim of this thematic issue is to explore how the application of technologies in urban planning, embedded in smart urban governance, can contribute to provide climate change adaptation. We understand smart urban governance in this context both in terms of disclosing technical expert information to the wider public, and in terms of supporting with the help of technologies the wider governance debates between the stakeholders involved. The contributions reflect this dual focus on socio-technical innovations and planning support, and therefore include various dimensions, from modelling and interacting to new modes of urban governance and political dimensions of using technologies in climate change adaptation in urban areas.

The world was deeply impacted with the outbreak of corona virus in early 2020, Brazil was no different. In fact, Brazil was the worst affected among all the Latin American countries. More than three million people died till March 2021 due to COVID 19 infection. Healthcare service was stressed out and completely overwhelmed with daily rise in cases. President of Brazil, Jair M Bolsonaro received criticism from all corners of the world when his erroneous leadership pushed nation to an unprecedented health emergency and economic distress. He downplayed novel corona virus since the early phase of the spread, antagonized quarantine necessity and opposed lockdown measures in fear of economic loss. Vaccination drive remained abysmally low as miniscule 2 percent people were inoculated till March end of 2021. In majority of states in Brazil, hospital ICU bed occupancy rate exceeded 90 percent. With acute shortage of oxygen, medicine, beds and trained medical staff, healthcare system was in near breakdown situation. Loss of income, unemployment and poverty went high in the pandemic ridden time. However, the President remained busy in flouting social distancing norms and glorified military regime of 60s and 70s which raised skepticism of military coup amidst political, economic and healthcare turmoil. President's popularity plummeted downhill as his foolhardy decision devastated lives and economy like never before. Emergence of more than 90 new variants of fatal virus eclipsed any smooth recovery possibility. Cabinet reshuffle amidst health emergency to promote close associates didn't go down well either and Bolsonaro administration was shocked with resignation from military chiefs. The nation will hold general elections in 2022 and try to bring an end to the egoistic, erratic and excruciating leadership.

Black-necked Cranes are revered as sacred birds and are considered the epitome in their biological range. They function as an umbrella species in terms of ecology ensuring that biodiversity is protected across a wider range of habitats. The study was carried out at Gangtey-Phobji valley to determine the habitat use, feeding behaviour and conservation threats of the Black-necked crane. Stratified non-random sampling was used and plot sizes of 1 x 1 m2 for herbs and 5 x 5 m2 for shrubs were used for determining the habitat use and feeding behaviour. To understand the conservation threats, a total of 129 households were surveyed. PC-ORD software was used for cluster analysis and to compute the indicator species of the habitat. A total of 50 herbs and 10 shrubs belonging to 37 families were recorded from the study area. Yushania microphylla, Juncus chrysocarpus, Rosa sericea and Rhododendron thomsonii were the indicator species of the preferred habitat. The peak flying hours were at around 08:00 a.m. and 05:00 p.m. The foraging was intensive from 09:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 03:00 p.m. to 04:00 p.m. The social (31%) and natural (31%) threats were found to be the most serious threats, followed by political threats (30%). Habitat degradation triggered by anthropogenic activities was the main threat. The cranes preferred the artificial roosts over natural ones recommending more artificial roosts for its conservation. The protection of habitats by limiting the farm road within the habitat, managing waste and stray dogs were deemed crucial.

The issue of aesthetics in postmodernism, unlike modernism, denies the aesthetic independence of political, social, and cultural issues, and accordingly, the paradigm of uncertainty in the trajectory of subversive discourses, without regard to objectivity and the issue of individual genius, resorts to techniques such as adapting and imitating previous ideas. Thus, it de-formalizes various cultural genres that have themselves been influenced by the process of modernization of late capitalist currents at the international level in the process of distortion. In the meantime, the intertextuality created by language games and electronic media sub-narratives, relying on the multiplicity of identities, blurs the line between reality and imagination in an aesthetic understanding of photomontage images. The purpose of this paper is to interpret the word "creation" as an adaptation in the process of creating photomontage images in an aesthetic way and based on the paradigm of the pluralism of the late capitalist era. Accordingly, it raises the main question of what interpretation of the photomontage model depicts the accelerated and multifaceted approach to the production of cultural symbols aimed at capitalist modernization in the path of postmodernist aesthetic discourse? Therefore, in a qualitative approach and in a descriptive-analytic study, documented data based on common themes among the variables in the research topic have been analyzed by content analysis method to conclude that the accumulation of space and time due to late capitalist culture with the central discourse of postmodernist aesthetics mixing path marks the atmosphere of cultural symbols that the idea of creating such a utopia of postmodernist atmosphere is compatible with the pattern of photomontage images and their imitation and fusion properties.

Mobile Applications (apps) are one of the most important tools that provide many services in different and varied fields of human life such as social, health, commercial, political, and other services. These apps make information easily available to everyone, fast to get, and cheaper than traditional methods. The Hajj pilgrims and Umrah performances (Al-Rahman Holy guests) have a share of the electronic services provided by many governmental and private sectors inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The offered services ensure that these religious guests have the ability to gain useful knowledge before and during the period they are stayed in the land of the Two Holy Mosques. In this paper, we collected all possible apps related to Hajj and Umrah, from the Google Store, during the season of Hajj 1440 AH (2019 AD), which amounted to 471 apps through searching on relevant applications to Hajj and Umrah services. We studied the applications public info trying to gain personal privacy characteristics from user rating, number of evaluators, recent updates, volume of applications, languages, number of downloads, and specific services provided. The results showed that the largest percentage of the studied apps are the facilitations of the Hajj ritual with 18%, followed by 15.1% for Umrah ritual and 10.2% for prayer supplications. The results also indicated attractive 33 common languages used, showing English with most popularity of 27.4%, followed by Arabic and Urdu of 24.3% and 14.3%. In addition, the study specified the most desirable services favoured by the religious guests expressing interesting valuable remarks.

Higher education institutions have an essential role in sustainability. They are key agents in the education of future leaders that will contribute to the successful United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation. The geography of SDGs this implementation is very heterogeneous, but it is clear that higher education institutions contribute decisively to creating a mindset that facilitates the dissemination of SDGs principle. This perspective paper analyses the impacts of higher education on sustainability and the challenges and barriers associated with this process. Higher education contributes decisively to the SDGs implementation, but especially to Goal 1 (end poverty in all its forms everywhere), Goal 3 (ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages), Goal 5 (gender equality), Goal 8 (decent work and economic growth), Goal 12 (responsible consumption and production), Goal 13 (climate change) and Goal 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). As a transformational agent, the higher education sector has a tremendous impact on students' habit and contribution to a prosperous society. However, to establish the required change in education, sustainability principles need to be at the heart of higher institutions strategy (e.g., curricula, modus operandi) and is key to be incorporated in the organisational culture. Only by leading by example, the external influence in the society will be possible (e.g., implementing SDGs key aspects such as gender quality, reduce waste reduction and energy consumption). For this to be a reality, different communication methods with students are needed (e.g., different student academic levels). Nevertheless, critical challenges need to be tackled in the institutions inside and outside the institution environment, such as incorporating sustainability principles, political environment and stakeholders' interest.

Increased human–animal interfaces impose threats on human life by creating scope for the emergence and resurgence of many infectious diseases. Over the last two decades, emergence of novel viral diseases such as SARS, influenza A/H1N1(09) pdm; MERS; Nipah virus disease; Ebola haemorrhagic fever and the current COVID-19 has resulted in massive outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics thereby causing profound losses of human life, health and economy. The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected more than 200 countries, reporting a global case load of 167,878,000 with 2 per cent mortality as on May 26, 2021. This has highlighted the importance of reducing human– animal interfaces to prevent such zoonoses. Rapid deforestation, shrinking of boundaries between human and animal, crisis for natural habitation, increasing demands for wildlife products and threat of extinction compounded by biodiversity narrowing compel to increased human–animal conflict and contact. Large quantities of animal waste generated due to animal agriculture may also allow rapid selection, amplification, dissemination of zoonotic pathogens and facilitate zoonotic pathogen adaptation and hinder host evolution for resistance. Public health system faces challenges to contain such epidemics due to inadequate understanding, poor preparedness, lack of interdisciplinary approach in surveillance and control strategy and deficient political commitments. Because the management measures are beyond the purview of health system alone, policy-level adaptation in the transdisciplinary issues are required, emphasizing the engagement of multiple stakeholders towards wildlife protection, alternative land use, community empowerment for natural resource management and regulation on business of wildlife products to ensure comprehensive one health practice.

Over the period of 30 years various scientists representing different fields have been studying disintegration of the USSR with unflagging interest. As of August 1, 2020, more than 300 books, 3000 articles, and 20 dissertations have been written in Russia alone. Generalization and critical analysis of this literature requires a monograph. But this task is so complex that for the time being the case is limited to historiographical articles. The purpose of this article is to identify the most popular points of view expressed by well-known experts on the problem of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The analysis enables to draw the following conclusions. The existing explanations can be divided into two large groups. The first one includes works whose authors consider disintegration as the product of a combination of random circumstances, external causes, and mistakes of party and Soviet leaders, and therefore focus first on the study of the role of subjective and external factors, and, second, on the short period of time, 1985–1991, immediately preceding the disintegration. The second group includes works whose authors consider disintegration as a natural result of long-developed processes, search for its historical background, study trends in the development of the Soviet Union and the Union republics, and look at the disintegration systemically and comprehensively. In other words, the former consider disintegration to be a random phenomenon generated mainly by the events of 1985–1991, while the latter consider it to be a natural phenomenon with deep historical, economic, political, cultural, and social prerequisites and causes.

Abstract: The Klondike Gold Rush is known in part for the hardships that men and women faced as they travelled the trails to Dawson City in the Yukon. One of the lesser-known aspects of this event is the tragedy that befell thousands of horses that were killed on the Chilkoot and White Pass Trails. The White pass trail would be given the moniker "The Dead Horse Trail." With so many men trying to get thousands of pounds of goods over the mountain passes from the Alaskan seacoast towns of Skagway and Dyea, pack animals were crucial for the task. However, most if not all of these horses would not survive. This aspect of the gold rush is something that deeply disturbed many gold seekers, and many recounted the horrors years later in their diaries and manuscripts. My paper will ask the question: what were the causes that led to the demise of so many horses on the journey to find gold, and how did they die? PART OF SESSION 4C. SICKNESS AND DEATH: Comment: Tom Taylor, Seattle University Chair: Alyson Roy, University of Idaho Ben Hecko, University of Portland, undergraduate student"Plague and Progress: An Analysis of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron and Reform during the Initial Outbreak of the Black Death" Anika Esther Martin, Eastern Washington University, undergraduate student"The 'English Bath': English Sweating Sickness and the 1529 Continental Outbreak" Patricia A. McManigal, Boise State University, undergraduate student"The Holodomor: The Trickle-Down effect of Political and Economic Choices" Brian O'Riley, Eastern Washington University, graduate student"The Klondike Gold Rush and the Dead Horse Trail"

BACKGROUND: To inform clinical practice and policy, it is essential to understand the lived experience of health and social care policies, including restricted visitation policies towards the end of life. AIM: To explore the views and experiences of Twitter social media users who reported that a relative, friend or acquaintance died of COVID-19 without a family member/friend present. DESIGN: Qualitative content analysis of English-language tweets. DATA SOURCES: Twitter data collected 7–20th April 2020. A bespoke software system harvested selected publicly-available tweets from the Twitter application programming interface. After filtering we hand-screened tweets to include only those referring to a relative, friend or acquaintance who died alone of COVID-19. Data were analysed using thematic content analysis. RESULTS: 9328 tweets were hand-screened; 196 were included. Twitter users expressed sadness, despair, hopelessness and anger about their experience and loss. Saying goodbye via video-conferencing technology was viewed ambivalently. Clinicians' presence during a death was little consolation. Anger, frustration and blame were directed at governments' inaction/policies or the public. The sadness of not being able to say goodbye as wished was compounded by lack of social support and disrupted after-death rituals. Users expressed a sense of political neglect/mistreatment alongside calls for action. They also used the platform to reinforce public health messages, express condolences and pay tribute. CONCLUSION: Twitter was used for collective mourning and support and to promote public health messaging. End-of-life care providers should facilitate and optimise contact with loved ones, even when strict visitation policies are necessary, and provide proactive bereavement support.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health crisis that has affected economies and societies worldwide. During these times of uncertainty and crisis, people have turned to social media platforms as communication tools and primary information sources. Online discourse is conducted under the influence of many different factors, such as background, culture, politics, etc. However, parallel comparative research studies conducted in different countries to identify similarities and differences in online discourse are still scarce. In this study, we combine the crisis lifecycle and opinion leader concepts and use data mining and a set of predefined search terms (coronavirus and COVID-19) to investigate discourse on Twitter (101,271 tweets) and Sina Weibo (92,037 posts). Then, we use a topic modeling technique, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), to identify the most common issues posted by users and temporal analysis to research the issue's trend. Social Network Analysis (SNA) allows us to discover the opinion leader on the two different platforms. Finally, we find that online discourse reflects the crisis lifecycle according to the stage of COVID-19 in China and the US. Regarding the status of the COVID-19 pandemic, users of Twitter tend to pay more attention to the economic situation while users of Weibo pay more attention to public health. The issues focused on in online discourse have a strong relationship with the development of the crisis in different countries. Additionally, on the Twitter platform many political actors act as opinion leaders, while on the Weibo platform official media and government accounts control the release of information.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has challenged the ability of harm reduction programs to provide vital services to adolescents, young adults, and people who use drugs, thereby increasing the risk of overdose, infection, withdrawal, and other complications of drug use. To evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on harm reduction services for adolescents and young adults in Boston, we conducted a quantitative assessment of the Community Care in Reach (CCIR) youth pilot program to determine gaps in services created by its closure during the peak of the pandemic (March 19–June 21, 2020). We also conducted semistructured interviews with staff members at 6 harm reduction programs in Boston from April 27 through May 4, 2020, to identify gaps in harm reduction services, changes in substance use practices and patterns of engagement with people who use drugs, and how harm reduction programs adapted to pandemic conditions. During the pandemic, harm reduction programs struggled to maintain staffing, supplies, infection control measures, and regular connection with their participants. During the 3-month suspension of CCIR mobile van services, CCIR missed an estimated 363 contacts, 169 units of naloxone distributed, and 402 syringes distributed. Based on our findings, we propose the following recommendations for sustaining harm reduction services during times of crisis: pursuing high-level policy changes to eliminate political barriers to care and fund harm reduction efforts; enabling and empowering harm reduction programs to innovatively and safely distribute vital resources and build community during a crisis; and providing comprehensive support to people to minimize drug-related harms.

Objective: To examine the possibility of estimating the number of civilian casualties in modern armed conflicts. Methods: A systematic review was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science search engines. The outcome was analyzed using a qualitative inductive thematic analysis. The scientific evidence of selected article was assessed, using the Health Evidence Quality Assessment Tool. Findings: The review of 66 included articles in this study indicates that with an increasing number of public health emergencies and the lack of vital elements of life such as water and food, emerging armed conflicts seem to be inevitable. In contrast to military-led cross-border traditional wars, modern armed conflicts affect internally on local communities and take civilian lives. Consequently, the measures and tools used in traditional military-led cross-border wars to adequately tally wounded and dead for many decades under the mandates of the International Humanitarian Law, is insufficient for modern warfare. While casualty counting during modern conflicts is deficient due to organizational, political or strategic reasons, the international organizations responsible for collecting such data (the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent and International Institute of Humanitarian Law) face difficulties to access the conflict scene, resulting in under-reported, unreliable or no-reported data. Conclusion: There are challenges in estimating and counting the number of civilian casualties in modern warfare. Although the global need for such data is evident, the risks and barriers to obtaining such data should be recognized, and the need for new international involvement in future armed conflicts should be emphasized.

From its publication in 1856 to the present-day Dinah Mulock Craik's John Halifax, Gentleman has intrigued readers in its representation of masculinity and potential to be read 'aslant', offering a divergent model of manliness, or even the 'split consciousness' of the woman writer's self-image refracted through her depiction of a cast of male characters (Showalter, 1975). Most recently Karen Bourrier has discussed the novel's exploration of industry and invalidism as told through the narrative framework of an 'intense homoerotic friendship between a strong man and his disabled friend' (Bourrier, 2015), and, in a 2007 article, Silvana Colella uses gift theory to demonstrate the intrinsic codes of gentlemanliness inherent in capitalist economics faithfully embodied in the text. This article considers Craik's representation of men in the novel as a lens through which Craik could engage with, and question, some of the largest theoretical areas of nineteenth-century, male-dominated intellectual life: economics, science, and politics. The article begins with an examination of the novel in relation to Malthus's economic theories of population and the tensions between Lamarckian and Malthusian ideology in the field of evolutionary theory in the works of Robert Chambers, George Drysdale, and others. The article will then explore the effect of Malthusian theory on discourses that emphasised masculine self-control as articulated in the symbiotic relationship of the two male protagonists, before concluding with Craik's intervention in the history of the woman writer as woman writer. I will demonstrate how this enormously popular novel interrogated and intervened in the assumptions of sentimental fiction by contextualising Craik's construction of a male narrative voice and an interdependent male relationship in terms of nineteenth-century economic, scientific and political theoretical debates.

Despite the fact that freight transport has a huge impact on the economy and the environment, Belgian datasets have always been scarce or restricted to very small a-spatial samples. Spatial data collected in Belgium for toll-paying trucks are here examined, and geographical structures and dynamics are extracted from this massive dataset. The originality of this dataset is its exhaustivity and its real-time approach: the location of all the trucks circulating in Belgium is collected every 30 s. The paper first relates to the methodology applied when using and transforming big data generated by On Board Units GNSS (cleaning, transforming and pre-processing). Second, it maps and comments on the movements (traffic) and stops of trucks within the whole country, providing a clear picture of the Belgian situation, useful for regional planners and logistics companies. Finally, the flows of trucks observed between Belgian locations enable the country to be divided into mathematical communities of places that interact the most. Analyses are performed for sub-categories based on the country of registration, underlining the spatial specificities of freight transit in Belgium. This exploratory spatial data analysis enables to reveal not only multi-level spatial structures associated with urban hierarchies and the transport infrastructure, but also firm locations or political organizations and to consider the complexity and interconnectivity of any measure taken for a more sustainable future. With a clear methodological framework to cope with the data pre-processing, this paper opens the way to various potential applications linked with freight transportation in Belgium.