Suchergebnisse

With the rise of global temperature, many cities are suffering from more and more frequent extreme heat in hot summers. Quantitative information on the spatial distributions of urban heat has become more and more important for extreme heat mitigation and adaptation in cities. This study first investigated the fine-level heat hazard distributions at the sidewalk and building block level from the pedestrian perspective in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The urban microclimate modeling based on a high-resolution urban geometrical model was used to generate the 1m resolution outdoor heat hazard map in the study area. The sidewalk map was overlaid on the generated high-resolution heat hazard map to estimate the sidewalk level heat hazard. Based on the sidewalk level heat hazard map, this study further calculated the heat hazard level in the 400m walkshed along sidewalks for each building block. The building level hazard data were then aggregated at the census tract level to compare with the socioeconomic and racial/ethnic variables. The result shows that neighborhoods with higher proportion of African Americans have a higher heat hazard level in Philadelphia. This study would provide new insights for developing more thermally comfortable and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods in the context of climate change.

As an important part of the urban ecosystem, urban trees provide various benefits to urban residents. It is therefore important to examine the spatial distribution and the temporal change in urban tree canopies. Different from traditional overhead view remote sensing-based methods, street-level images, which present the most common view that people have of greenery, provide a more human-centric way to quantify street tree canopies. This study mapped and analyzed the spatial distribution and temporal change in the green view index, which represents the visibility of tree canopies along streets in New York City during the last 10 years using historical Google Street View images. Deep learning and computer vision algorithms were used to derive the quantitative information of street tree canopies from street-level images and map the spatial distribution of the green view index. This study further investigated the potential disparities in terms of green view index across different racial/ethnic groups by comparing with census data. Results show that non-Hispanic Whites tend to live in neighborhoods with higher green view index and Hispanics tend to live in neighborhoods with lower green view index. The green view index values in New York City have increased slightly in the last 10 years, and the change of green view index has no significant correlation with resident's ethnic/racial status. This study proves the usability of historical Google Street View images for monitoring the temporal change of urban street tree canopy changes at large scale, and it also provides insights and a valuable reference for urban greening programs.

The change in women's historical circumstances and social status has no direct connection with the development of social formations in classical Marxism. It is, however, intimately linked to human progress. Up to the present, social development has undergone five stages, yet the change in women's status overall has passed through three eras: the age of matriarchy, the age of slavery, and the age of liberation. The age of women's liberation was inaugurated with the arrival of capitalism, marked by the feminist movement for women's struggle for liberation and for equality. The women's rights movement following the end of the Second World War turned away from society toward the family, seeking equal rights in family life. Historically, three forms also have changed the categorizing of women—as natural, domestic, and societal. Socializing the category of women, that is, the recognition of women as a social category, has been linked to the women's rights movement, an arduous process that serves to promote the progress and unification of humanity. The women's rights movement subsided after the postwar period but fell far short of thoroughly liberating women. The movement faced strong resistance even in achieving gender equality. Given that the full liberation of women cannot be achieved on its own but only in the struggle to liberate humankind, women's liberation is a measure of the liberation of humanity as a whole.

This essay is Li Xiaojiang's response to Tani Barlow's "Socialist Modernization and the Market Feminism of Li Xiaojiang" (ch. 6 of Barlow's The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism). Barlow, in discussing Li Xiaojiang's work in the 1980s, wholly overlooked the key article "The Progress of Humanity and Women's Women's Liberation" (人类进步与妇女解放) published in Marxist Studies (马克思主义研究) in 1983, which Li claims was the first theoretical article on women to appear in a mainstream authoritative journal in mainland China. Li agrees with Barlow's characterization of one of her two ideological roots as Marxist humanism but says that her other root is not "psychodynamics" but Western feminism—though in her own work she has tried to keep some distance from it and refrains from using the word feminism (in Chinese or English) to describe the 1980s women's movement in China, preferring the term women's studies movement. Li rejects Barlow's characterization of her work in the 1980s as "market feminism" on the grounds that China was not then oriented to a market economy and that Li's theoretical attention at that time was on socialist revolution and Marxist theory about women's liberation. Li agrees with her critics' views that she is an essentialist feminist, for she holds that one is born a female and that the second-sex status is a necessary period in the historical evolution of humanity.

Rehusar es elegir

Artificial light has transformed urban life, enhancing visibility, aesthetics, and increasing safety in public areas. However, too much unwanted artificial light leads to light pollution, which has a negative effect on public health and urban ecosystems, as well as on the aesthetic and cultural meanings of the night sky. Some of the factors interfering with the estimation of light pollution in cities are urban features, such as the presence of trees, road dimensions, and the physical characteristics of buildings. In this study, we proposed a simplified model for unwanted upward light coming from street luminaires based on a building height model and the publicly accessible Google Street View images. We simulated and analyzed the obstruction effects of different street features on the light pollution caused by the street lighting system in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By providing quantitative information about the connections between the streetscape features and the amount of unwanted upward artificial light, this study provides reference values to inform policies aimed at curbing light pollution.

There is a consensus in China that industrialization, urbanization, globalization and information technology will enhance China's urban competitiveness. We have developed a methodology for the analysis of urban competitiveness that we have applied to China's 25 principal cities during three periods from 1990 through 2009. Our model uses data for 12 variables, to which we apply appropriate statistical techniques. We are able to examine the competitiveness of inland cities and those on the coast, how this has changed during the two decades of the study, the competitiveness of Mega Cities and of administrative centres, and the importance of each variable in explaining urban competitiveness and its development over time. This analysis will be of benefit to Chinese planners as they seek to enhance the competitiveness of China and its major cities in the future.

La descripción y análisis de los derechos sociales de las mujeres en Japón, Corea y China a partir de los años cincuenta del siglo XX es el punto de partida de este ensayo. Ofreciendo una panorámica de los cambios sociales y de sus efectos en las vidas y actitudes tanto de las mujeres como de la sociedad en general, las autoras de este paper -expertas en el estudio de las relaciones de género- coinciden en exponer que, tanto en el país de la democracia imperial como en el de la "gobernanza confuciana" y en el socialista el cambio se inició con el distanciamiento e incluso la abolición de las instituciones anteriores que alimentaban una sociedad más patriarcal. Las tres detallan y manifiestan que las mujeres de Asia Oriental han compartido una posición de subalternidad; una situación que se deberá modificar frente a nuevos retos. Como describe la académica Li Xiaojiang con relación a la globalización. "siento que representa para las mujeres chinas una oportunidad histórica única que brinda a cada mujer más oportunidades de superar la familia, la sociedad, la nación y el Estado y establecer sus propias opciones para convertirse en individuos".