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Empowering Ageing: Navigating the Future of Digital Healthcare for Older Adults – a Rapid Review of Perspectives and Challenges
Get PDFDigital health offers innovative and promising solutions addressing the challenges of an ageing population. The pandemic has shown the advantages of treating and monitoring patients with assisted technology and their cost-effectiveness. Several studies demonstrate that older people can benefit from assisted technology to monitor their health, manage their medication and treatment, and receive online consultations by healthcare providers. Nevertheless, a growing literature show conflicting results with respect to the integration of digital devices for older people in practice. Integration of digital health means to explore how different processes are employed, incorporated and connected with each other in order to realise a positive outcome for older people. Recent studies demonstrate that older people use the internet in diverse ways and a gender gap has been noticed in the way older men and older women make use of modern technology in everyday life. Moreover, some studies suggest that Ageism would pose a risk of excluding older people to use digital health. However, some focus on older people’s experiences and perceptions which determine the use of digital technology and the meaning for them. Hence, there is a sparse understanding of how digital health is implemented and experienced by older people in practice. Therefore, this paper provides a rapid review of the gaps of knowledge and understanding in how digital health is implemented, perceived, and experienced by older people.
The objectives are: 1. To examine the practical applications and effectiveness of assisted technology in the care of older adults, specifically focusing on health outcomes. 2. To descriptively map the key themes and trends in assisted technology for older adults, aiding in the formulation of targeted future research priorities. By addressing these objectives, this paper aspires to contribute to the advancement of digital health for older adults, offering insights that can inform policy, practice, and future research endeavours
Fostering Gender-sensitive Mobility: Recommendations in the Context of Carsharing
Get PDFIndividual mobility behavior is influenced by various factors. Gender roles for example, have led to significant differences between the mobility patterns of women and men. Compared to men, women engage more in care work, are more likely to work part-time, and are less frequently able to access a private car. Women often take more frequent but shorter travel trips, longer trip chains, and fewer trips for personal reasons (Kawgan-Kagan & Popp 2018). In order to ensure fair mobility for different user groups, urban areas offer an increasing number of mobility options for navigating without a private car – be it on foot, by bike, using public transport, or other mobility services such as car-sharing. The latter especially, is becoming more prevalent in cities but tends to be used more predominantly by men rather than women. Placing the sole blame on car-sharing operators would be too simplistic. Often, it is regulatory or planning conditions that make it challenging to design car-sharing attractively for all genders. Car-sharing is still a niche product that too few people are aware of, and the location, proximity and service offerings play a crucial role, which are still inadequate. Reasons for this include the limited availability of parking spaces in both public and private spaces (e.g., underground garages), especially in cities. For women, proximity to the workplace and residence is particularly significant. Moreover, car-sharing is perceived as too expensive and complicated to be truly attractive, especially considering that women are often more economically disadvantaged than men and have more complex routes due to caregiving responsibilities.
This contribution addresses recommendations for action regarding car-sharing, targeting politics and operators, and specifying them through the lens of gender-sensitive mobility. Furthermore, gaps are identified where research on mobility and gender should continue to advance
Foundation for a Theoretical Framework on the Location of Manufacturing Firms in the Vicinity of Airports
Get PDFManufacturing plays a crucial role in economic development. Peculiar geographical patterns of production are accordingly observable, wherein the environs of airports are some of the areas that accommodate the concentration of manufacturing firms. However, most of the literature on the placement of manufacturing firms relative to transport infrastructure focuses on road, rail and sea. The objective of this paper is thus to advance a foundation for a theoretical framework that analyses the spatial economic factors that influence the location of manufacturing firms in the vicinity of airports. The paper draws upon research conducted on the case study of the environs of Cape Town International Airport in South Africa. The analysis conducted in the underlying study explored the interconnections between the concepts of space, proximity, linkages, agglomeration economies, clustering and pattern. These concepts are accordingly used as building blocks towards the foundation for a theoretical framework. The contribution hinges on five layers of the economic space: the airport’s environs, municipal area, functional region, other parts of a country and multi-country economic space. Different forms of manufacturing establishments’ clustering, proximity and intensity of intra- and inter-firm linkages characterise these interrelated layers. The paper sensitises policymakers, spatial planners and authorities to the spatial economic dynamics of manufacturing firms situated near airports
Spatial Strategies for Economic Growth within “Net Zero Land Take”
Get PDFIn 2013 the European Parliament adopted a target of no net land take by 2050 in the EU as part of the seventh Environment Action Program. In Belgium, the highly fragmented urban region of Flanders has expressed the ambition of no net land take by 2040. Slowly, regional planning instruments are put into place to achieve this goal. Most of the planning tools however still have a functionalist, growth oriented conceptual basis, e.g. the demand forecasts for economic zones that are used to promote green field development. We need to develop regional planning tools that lead towards land take reduction.
In previous work, we developped a method for forecasting economic space demand in urban and peri-urban areas, within the context of net zero land take. The quantitative result provides insight in the part of economic space demand that could be accommodated in mixed use areas (economy and housing), and the demand that can only be met in functionally segregated economic zones. In this paper we will focus on a case where a local planning authority tries to combine spatial and economic policy strategies to promote economic growth without resorting to new greenfield development.
The research starts with a short critical review of existing functionalist planning practices and their close link to real estate development. In a second part we have a close look on four potential spatial-economic strategies that might cater to our objective. The first strategy stays close to the existing planning practice, but goes more into detail and resorts to a form of micro-zoning. A second strategy focusses on the development of financial instruments and covenants. Transferable development rights are explored in the third strategy, where innovative land value capture can steer owners into developing space for economic activities. The last strategy is a strong local public development company, that buys land and building to (re)develop in line with the needs of the local economy and the ambitions of the spatial policy plan.
An ex-ante evaluation of these strategies shows the potential of each approach, and highlights the organisational and financial consequences of each strategy. Local authorities can make an informed decision on what strategy and planning practice is fit for purpose in their specific situation. We will use the case of Lier (a small city between Antwerp and Brussels) to illustrate the positive and negative effects of each strategy, as the city has a strong ambition to remain an attractive location for industrial investment
The Current Use and Limitations of Water Related Digital Twins – a Practical View on Urban Climate Change Adaptation
Get PDFCurrently urban areas have to face many challenges. Overall, urbanization, demographic change, digitalization and climate change are main drivers that may directly or indirectly have an impact on the lifestyle and well-being of city dwellers. All drivers are interconnected and together with other sector-relevant drivers they form a complex network, that is often difficult to understand at first glance, and has many points of friction between different interests. For example, a growing urban population needs more space for housing areas which increases sealed surfaces and reduces natural groundwater recharge. Due to climate change, temperatures are rising (especially over sealed surfaces), also leading to an increasing water demand and rising evaporation rates. Both factors, besides others, influence the natural water cycle. In addition, in many places summer becomes drier, while more precipitation falls in winter times. The number and intensity of heavy rainfall events increases and dry periods are becoming longer. On the supply side, higher demand peaks in summer already pose greater challenges to water suppliers. Heavy rainfall can for example flood facility sites, parts of the critical infrastructure or cause power outages, which can lead to systemic interuptions.
In recent years, also a trend towards “smart cities” can be seen to improve the the quality of life for residents. The idea of the progressing digitalization is to transfer parts of the real word into virtual representatives. Some are referred to as digital twins. However, these digital twins differ in their technical structure, complexity, and target for which they were developed. For years, many city administrations partly already use hydrological or urban climatological models as one form of simplified digital twins.
Against this background, the paper presents and discusses the practical use, main results and lessons learned from case studies using two different hydrological models as digital twins in two German cities. Overall, the experiences from these case studies show that also the use of simplified digital models of a city – or parts of a city – without the need for big-data and monitoring information can be good planning tools to assess plausible results regarding possible future impacts based on climate change on a small scale. However, hydrological models currently are focussing on one or two challenges, only. But, due to the complexity of natural systems with a high number of connected processes, the whole story with interacting multiple drivers is not included totally. Depending on the modelling approach used, it is therefore possible to obtain different results with different models. Therefore, a better combination of several of such digital twins or the development of more powerful tools will be necessary, for example to transform an urban area towards being climate resilient and sustainable
Die Diskrepanz zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit: Wie gestalten wir intelligente Städte und Regionen der Zukunft kompetenzorientiert durch vernetztes Arbeiten?
Get PDFDer Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage einer ganzheitlichen Integration von smarten Projekten in die verwaltungsbezogene Aufgabenerfüllung am Beispiel der Metropolregion Rhein-Neckar. Die Ausgagsbedingungen mit vielfältigen Einzelprojekten und Maßnahmen bedient zwar erkannte Bedarfe in einer bundesweit vorbildlichen Art und Weise, eine Verknüpfung singulärer Zielsetzung in ein vernetzes Umsetzungskonzept bleibt aber weiterhin eine Herausforderung mit Bildungsbedarfen der Akteure.
Die Ziele der Betrachtungen liegen daher in der Fokussierung auf eine erfolgreiche Transformationsstrategie, die darin verankerten digitalen Lösungen, als auch die Weiterentwicklung digitale Kompetenzen unter den politischen-administrtiven Voraussetzungen.
Die Betrachtung basiert auf bisherige Arbeiten in Bezug auf ein Spannungsverhältnis zwischen den verfügbaren Ressourcen und den wachsenden Aufgaben bei Staat und Verwaltung. Die gegenwärtige Situation im föderalen Geflecht Deutschlands verdeutlicht, welch unverzichtbare und systemrelevante Bedeutung die Handlungsfähigkeit von Staat und Verwaltung einnimmt. Die Gestaltungs- und Vollzugsaufgaben auf regionaler Ebene wird hierbei insbesondere betrachtet.
Der Ansatz basiert auf einer semi-strukturierten teilnehmenden Beobachtung durch die Autoren. Qualitative Einblicke in die Praxis und abstrahierte Erkenntnisse anhand eines Fallbeispiels im Bereich digitaler Kompetenzentwicklung dienen als praktische Empfehlungen zur weiteren und damit ergänzenden Vertiefung und Erweiterung der Erkenntnisse
Die Erkenntnisse betreffen die Neugestaltung von Städten und Regionen und eröffnen weitreichende Möglichkeiten für die Integration von Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft in Planungs- und Reformprozesse durch Änderungsvorhaben zur Optimierung des Zusammenlebens im öffentlichen Raum durch smarte Services.
Die Bestrebungen hin zu einem digitalen Staat und smarten Kommunen sind deshalb wichtige Implikationen in die staatliche Leistungs- und Zukunftsfähigkeit, um im internationalen Vergleich wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben und den Wirtschaftsstandort abzusichern.
Als Mehrwert liefert der Beitrag Ankünpfungspunkte für eine erfolgreiche Transformation und einen nachhaltigen Kompetenzaufbau von intelligenten Städten und Regionen im Verbund der Stakeholder mit verbindenden Elementen vernetzten Arbeitens
Assessment of Residential Electricity Consumption and Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency – a Case Study of Tainan, Taiwan
Get PDFSignificant carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global issues such as rising temperatures and climate
change impacts, which have emerged as a major and urgent global concern. As a result, numerous countries
have committed to cutting down the emission of carbon dioxide to achieve low carbon and net zero
emissions targets. As we know human activities such as transportation, construction, and electricity
consumption significantly contribute to carbon emissions, and they are all in need of energy. Hence, it’s
important for every country to use clean energy to transform from low carbon to net zero emissions.
The transformation to renewable energy sources, particularly solar energy, has become a global imperative to
combat climate change. However, in Taiwan, despite favorable conditions for solar energy development,
there are challenges regarding the policy direction and spatial planning of PV (photovoltaics) installations.
The current focus on ground-mounted PV, primarily in rural areas, has raised concerns about land use,
environmental impact, and social equity. As a result, there is a pressing need to prioritize PV development in
built-up areas to minimize conflicts with green resources and ensure sustainable land use, so the potential of
rooftop PV is vital to built-up areas. This study uses Tainan, Taiwan, as a case study area, and the objective
is to forecast electricity consumption in the residential and commercial sectors, evaluate the potential for
rooftop PV development, and assess the feasibility of achieving renewable energy self-sufficiency in built-up
areas. It also examines the electricity consumption patterns and rooftop PV generation potential in different
urbanization contexts, emphasizing the need for tailored policies and regulations to promote fair and just
renewable energy development.
The research highlights the importance of managing land resources judiciously and implementing policies
that prioritize PV deployment in urban and rural built environments. In conclusion, the study underscores the
urgency of addressing the spatial, environmental, and social implications of PV development in Taiwan to
achieve sustainable energy transition goals. The findings are intended to provide a reference for integrating
low-carbon principles into urban management plans. Furthermore, employing growth management as a tool
for urban energy management is vital to ensure that renewable energy development adheres to rational
processes and standards while protecting environmental resources
Exploring Generative AI in Planning: A Scenario-Building Simulation for the Master Plan of Bari, Italy
Get PDFWhen dealing urban and regional planning, communities seek methodological approaches to deliver effective development strategies. Building up future scenarios is nowadays understood as an approach that involves expert and non-expert agents towards the organization of alternative future strategies. The so-called future-workshop approach has been followed in much research and experimentation in the past, both in real communities and in simulated situations. The present research will develop further experimentation to explore some perspectives of involving artificial intelligence agents. For this purpose, a search engine equipped with OpenAI's ChatGPT will be used to simulate future scenarios for the master plan of Bari, Italy. The involvement of generative AI will basically take place following the model of a structured interview with different stakeholders. They will be simulated by artificial intelligence to define a multi-agent knowledge base towards the construction of future scenarios for the Bari master plan
Security and Compliance in Cloud Environments
Get PDFSecurity and resilience of smart city infrastructures and operations is one of today’s most relevant and challenged topics of smart city agendas in times of increasing cyber attacts and ubiquitous digital networks and data driven processes in all aspects of smart city planning and operations. Cloud environments play today and increasingly tomorrow a central role in smart city’s IT architectures and infrastructures.
According to the reviewed literature on the subject of cloud and security, the main gap or problem is that while cloud provides a number of advantages and benefits, it also presents risks and challenges for businesses and organizations (Vacca, 2021).
The key challenge is the risk associated with the user privileged accesses. It centers on the problem of inappropriate access control, which can lead to data leakage and unauthorized access of stored information, disruption, and compliance difficulties (Tamunobarafiri, et al., 2019).
Further, it is observed during that one of the biggest challenges to all concepts related to cloud, security and compliance is monitoring and ineffective incident response, which is essential for maintaining security in cloud and hybrid environments (Cybellium Ltd, 2023). It is important that organizations ensure that they establish a clear, well-structured incident response plan and conduct regular security testing internally, or with support from third-party vendors (Bruinsma, 2023).
In addition, the lack of thorough and practical approaches to resource scalability and cost optimization is one of the major research gaps in the field of cloud computing. Companies seek solutions that are capable of handling the whole range of resource scalability and cost optimization challenges, with regard to maintaining security and compliance, as current options are frequently inconsistent and fragmented (Verma, Cherkasova, & Campbell, 2011; Zhang, Cheng, & Boutaba, 2010; Calheiros, Ranjan, Beloglazov, DeRose, & Buyya, 2011).
Finally, raising awareness and educating stakeholders and staff about the security protocols and cloud governance framework is another crucial challenge. Having training sessions, documentations, and establishing clear communication guidelines are important for organizations with the sole aim of reducing the security-related risks (Spair, 2023; Munir, Al-Mutairi, & Mohammed, 2015).
The research objectives of this thesis revolve around some critical issues within the sphere of security and compliance in cloud and hybrid environment. The study aims to comprehensively shed light on the implications of excessive global administrative rights within organizations, investigating the potential risks and vulnerabilities associated with such practices. It also seeks to identify effective approaches for achieving a robust alignment between incident response and monitoring mechanisms, ensuring a proactive and coordinated approach to security threats. Additionally, the research will recommend strategies to enhance stability and optimize costs in context of information security, addressing the challenges that organizations face while maintaining security measures. Lastly, the study will explore the factors that impact the effectiveness of security training programs, providing awareness into how smart city administration and other organizations can better prepare their staff and workforce to mitigate security and compliance risks
Small-scale Production Sites as Part of Urban Resilience Infrastructure: The Intersections of Urban Planning and the Fab City
Get PDFResearch in the wake of recent international crises points to the potential of urban production, particularly small-scale, accessible, digital production sites such as Fab Labs and makerspaces, to strengthen cities’ resilience by contributing to faster response times in the development and creation of innovative products and to knowledge-sharing and skills development for local communities (HILDEBRANDT et al. 2022). This has been recognized by a growing group of cities who have joined the Fab City Global Initiative, which now includes 52 members (FAB CITY FOUNDATION). The Initiative envisions a future of almost completely local and circular production, as part of a globally connected and mutually collaborative distributed production network (DIEZ 2016). At the same time, cities are facing an overall long-term trend in which productive uses are disappearing from the inner-city and being pushed to the peripheries (BENKE 2021; DE BOECK/RYCKEWAERT 2020; HATUKA/BEN-JOSEPH 2022; JURASCHEK 2022; NOVY 2022). This is continuing despite – and, in some cases, even driven by – cities’ strategies to encourage sustainable urban development and the adoption of guiding principles for urban planning such as mixed-use zoning, the 15-minute City, etc. (BRANDT et al. 2018; LIBBE/WAGNER-ENDRES 2019; RYCKEWAERT et al 2021; SCHROCK/WOLF-POWERS 2019).
The current number and scale of small, accessible, digital production sites like Fab Labs is still inadequate to meet the needs of the Fab City vision and to fulfill the potential for significant impact on cities’ resilience (HILDEBRANDT et al. 2022). Expansion of these sites is made more difficult by the high competition with other uses for exactly the type of central and accessible spaces that small production sites need (DE BOECK/RYCKEWAERT 2020; LIBBE/WAGNER-ENDRES 2019). A product of the project “Fab City: Decentral, digital production for value creation” (funded by dtec.bw, NextGenerationEU), this paper links these challenges with the role of urban planning in the integration of small production sites in the existing urban fabric. Drawing on the literature and discourse on urban production, as well as interviews and observations of OpenLabs set up in Hamburg in the Fab City project and case reports on other small digital production sites, we elaborate a set of factors of urban integration for these sites. We then propose key areas in which further research is needed in order to develop or adapt planning instruments and policies to support the incorporation of these forms of production as part of the resilience infrastructure of urban neighborhoods