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Upzoning and property development: housebuilders’ response to transit-oriented zoning policy in São Paulo
No full textThis thesis examines the impact of São Paulo’s 2016 Transit-Oriented Zoning (TOZ)
reform on the residential development process, focusing on developers’ strategic
responses in terms of new housing supply and the spatial patterns of
redevelopment. The research addresses three interrelated questions: (i) What are
the structural characteristics of the housebuilding industry in São Paulo? (ii) What
was the impact of the TOZ reform on the levels and characteristics of new housing
supply? (iii) How do spatial and regulatory factors shape the geography of
redevelopment under the TOZ framework?
Guided by critical realism, the thesis employs a multi-method approach,
combining descriptive analysis, quasi-experimental techniques, and discrete
choice methods to explain the reform's effects and how market structure and
spatial variation in development viability mediate these effects.
Findings reveal that TOZ significantly boosted housing supply in designated
districts, but this expansion was skewed towards compact-unit developments and
concentrated in high-income, well-connected areas. Housebuilders adapted to the
new regulatory environment by intensifying product segmentation, increasing
vertical integration, and prioritising market niches with lower unit sizes.
Redevelopment patterns clustered where rent gaps were highest and land
assembly was feasible, highlighting the uneven capacity of different
neighbourhoods to translate regulatory incentives into built outcomes. Moreover,
it is suggested that large firms disproportionately captured TOZ benefits,
intensifying land market competition and reinforcing market concentration.
These findings suggest that whilst upzoning can stimulate supply, it also produces
differentiated outcomes conditioned by developer capacity, location-specific
factors, and market segmentation. The study contributes to urban policy by
highlighting the need for complementary measures to ensure that zoning reforms
align with broader goals of affordability and spatial equity
External auditory exostoses in fragmentary remains: evidence for activity and human-environment interactions at Early Neolithic Bestansur, Iraqi Kurdistan
Get PDFObjectives: This research assesses external auditory exostoses (EAEs) as markers of aquatic activity in individuals from the Early Neolithic inland site of Bestansur, Iraqi Kurdistan (c.7700–7100 BCE).
Materials: Thirty-four individuals (6 non-adults and 28 adults) represented by 50 external auditory canals (27 left and 23 right), both fragmentary and intact, were included in the study.
Methods: Auditory canals were macroscopically examined for the presence or absence of bone growths, with their location and severity recorded.
Results: Twenty-four individuals (70.6 %) and 31 auditory canals (62 %), 18 left (66.7 %) and 13 right (56.5 %), displayed EAEs. No significant differences in -frequency were found according to biological sex, age-at-death or burial location.
Conclusions: Supported by archaeological evidence, the frequency of EAEs at Bestansur suggests male, female and non-adult engagement in fishing, mollusc harvesting and, possibly, other activities in aquatic environments, shedding light on social participation and the importance of freshwater habitats in Neolithic economies in the Zagros.
Significance: While adding to previous studies of EAEs in fragmentary remains, this research highlights the benefit of contextualised palaeopathological analysis as a means of exploring human behaviour and human-environment interactions. The assessment of EAEs in past populations can offer insights into the variables shaping human behaviour and complex subsistence strategies.
Limitations: Sample size and distribution were affected by poor preservation, requiring interpretative caution.
Suggestions for further research: Future research should acquire regional comparative data and explore correlations between EAE location and severity, and co-occurrences of bone changes in the auditory canal
Anthropogenic influences on 2022-like summer heatwaves over the Yangtze River valley and projected changes in the likelihood of the event
No full textDuring summer 2022, a record-breaking heatwave occurred in China over the Sichuan Basin to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River valley. Observational analysis shows that this heatwave event peaks around 17th August, with an anomaly of 10 day running mean Tmax anomalies (TXa10day) being equal to 4.15 °C, which is 4 times the interannual standard deviation. This event is too rare in both observations and model simulations during the historical period 1961–2022 to make robust attribution statements. Therefore, we focus on a 2022-like summer heatwave event, defined as a 1-in-100-year event with a TXa10day anomaly of 3.19 °C based on observations during 1961–2022. Based on the multi-model ensembles of the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), we find that anthropogenic forcings lead to an increased likelihood of a 2022-like summer heatwave event by about 3 times in the present climate (2018–2027), with greenhouse gas forcing enhancing the likelihood of this event and aerosol forcing reducing the likelihood of this event. This increase in likelihood corresponds to a change of return period from 1-in-53-year event under natural forcing to 1-in-17-year event under all forcing in the present climate. Climate model projections show that a 2022-like summer heatwave event will become more frequent in a warmer climate with the likelihood of such event increasing exponentially with increasing global warming level (GWL). Such an extreme event will become a 1-in-8.4-year, 1-in-5-year, 1-in-2-year and 1-in-1.3-year event under the SSP5-8.5 at the 1.5 °C, 2 °C, 3 °C and 4 °C GWLs compared with the present climate. These results suggest that China would face a challenge to take adaptation measures to cope with the projected frequency increase of the 2022-like summer heatwave
Gender equality in academia: how legislation against discrimination can back-fire
No full textSystemic discrimination and structural barriers continue to hinder women’s participation in academic organizations. We address gender discrimination faced by women in academia, debating how this phenomenon persists despite advances in legislation for gender equality. This case study reflects a paradoxical reality: in a context where women are the majority, men often maintain control over positions of power. The scenario is aggravated by a dynamic of divergent values among groups, where a male minority uses a legal instrument originally designed to protect disadvantaged groups – typically women – to restrict females’ effective participation in organizational structures. The case illustrates how legislation can be instrumentalized to perpetuate men’s power and gender imbalance. It discusses how a law designed to foster gender equality in academic decision-making bodies can be subverted, contradicting its original purpose. The paper highlights the need for policies and practices that go beyond mere numerical representation, ensuring women’s access to governing bodies and decision-making structures
Singara Devi Chenapa – Mersha Chinnappa: investigating a female author of a military Arabic phrasebook
No full textBroad support for lethal control of wild deer among subscribers of nature organisations in England and Wales
Get PDFWild deer populations are increasing across the northern hemisphere, posing challenges to the environment and people. Deer impacts can be managed using lethal and non‐lethal practices, but research suggests lethal control receives mixed support. Differences in perspectives towards management practices may hinder collaborative, landscape‐scale strategies required to achieve resilient ecosystems and tree cover targets. Thus, understanding human‐deer relationships is crucial for sustainable deer management. To investigate perceptions towards deer and their management in England and Wales, we designed a questionnaire measuring the level of support for different actions to manage deer impacts and beliefs regarding the aesthetic and existence, environmental, economic and cultural‐symbolic value of deer. Targeting actors within and outside the land management, the questionnaire was distributed to subscribers of five national organisations, three focussing on wildlife management and two on woodland management. We collected data from 3936 people and, using cluster analysis, characterised groups of respondents based on their beliefs towards deer. We assessed variations between groups by socio‐demographic characteristics and support for lethal and non‐lethal management practices. Lethal control was the most supported and most used deer management practice, followed by tree guards and deer fencing. Our cluster analysis grouped respondents into 4 clusters. The cluster composed predominantly of deer stalkers (47%) held the most positive perceptions of deer and registered the highest support for lethal control and the highest opposition to deer fencing. Conversely, the cluster with the highest proportion of farmers (27%) and lowest proportion of stalkers (16%) expressed more neutral and negative opinions towards deer. There was no evidence of column clusters, indicating that beliefs did not cluster according to value dimensions (e.g. economic, environmental), suggesting that deer were valued similarly across all value dimensions. Differing opinions on deer and land management goals make it difficult for neighbours to collaborate on managing deer. Lethal control received strong support, which could ease concerns about recommending its use by nature organisations and decision‐makers who depend on public backing
Thinking about meaning: level-of-processing modulates semantic auditory distraction
No full textAn effect is reported of a level-of-processing manipulation on the between-sequence semantic similarity effect, the finding that the correct recall of visually-presented target items is disrupted more by the presence of to-be-ignored auditory items (distracters) drawn from the same as compared to a different semantic category. Participants engaged in either a vowel-counting task (shallow-processing) or a pleasantness-rating task (deep-processing) on lists during study. The between-sequence semantic similarity effect was observed in the deep-processing but not shallow-processing condition. Thinking about meaning therefore yielded susceptibility to disruption via the semantic properties of the irrelevant material. Intrusions of related distracters were found with both deep and shallow-processing, but shallow-processing resulted in more intrusions. We propose a two-process account of these findings wherein distracters have independent effects on response-generation and source-monitoring
Integral equation methods for acoustic scattering by fractals
Get PDFWe study sound-soft time-harmonic acoustic scattering by general scatterers, including fractal scatterers, in 2D and 3D space. For an arbitrary compact scatterer we reformulate the Dirichlet boundary value problem for the Helmholtz equation as a first kind integral equation (IE) on involving the Newton potential. The IE is well-posed, except possibly at a countable set of frequencies, and reduces to existing single-layer boundary IEs when is the boundary of a bounded Lipschitz open set, a screen, or a multi-screen. When is uniformly of -dimensional Hausdorff dimension in a sense we make precise (a -set), the operator in our equation is an integral operator on with respect to -dimensional Hausdorff measure, with kernel the Helmholtz fundamental solution, and we propose a piecewise-constant Galerkin discretization of the IE, which converges in the limit of vanishing mesh width. When is the fractal attractor of an iterated function system of contracting similarities we prove convergence rates under assumptions on and the IE solution, and describe a fully discrete implementation using recently proposed quadrature rules for singular integrals on fractals. We present numerical results for a range of examples and make our software available as a Julia code