1,720,959 research outputs found
Where can the elderly walk? A spatial multi-criteria method to increase urban pedestrian accessibility
Full text linkIn terms of residual physical activities suitable for most elderly individuals, walking is also the favoured form of mobility in this group, in particular for those aged 75 and over. For this segment of the population, walking represents the main means of accessing urban services and actively participating in community life. It is thus essential to improve both the physical and functional organization of urban areas to develop comfortable and safe walking paths for the elderly and the other weak segments of population. Therefore, this study provides a methodology for classifying a neighbourhood as more or less accessible for the elderly to reach urban services on the basis of its favourable characteristics. Based on the results of a literature review and Delphi analysis, the fuzzy technique was applied to evaluate the security and urban context characteristics, both in terms of the pedestrian network and built environment. The obtained weights, validated by a sensitivity analysis, were then used to calculate a walking attractiveness index for the elderly using a GIS tool. The methodology was then tested in two neighbourhoods of Naples; the outputs show the areas that local decision-makers should prioritise to improve the safety and attractiveness of routes to access urban services
The Analysis of the Urban Open Spaces System for Resilient and Pleasant Historical Districts.
No full textCities are the places where multiple challenges related to environmental, economic, social, and cultural phenomena are condensed. The increasing physical and systemic sensitivity/vulnerability of cities represents an opportunity to experiment with new models of urban development. Among these models, the scientific community is devoting particular attention to the use and the reuse of public spaces, especially in historical urban areas. What still lacks substance is the identification of which are the most suitable transformations to reorganize the urban spaces system according to its existing characteristics. Indeed, taking into account the intrinsic features of urban spaces means optimizing the benefits as well as cutting the costs associated with the necessary interventions.
This study proposes the analysis of the urban open spaces system – squares, green urban areas, gardens, paved areas, etc. – of seven historical districts in the city of Naples, according to their physical, functional, and accessibility characteristics. The aim is to define their structure and prevailing features in order to support decision-makers in the identification of appropriate and efficient adaptation, reorganization, and reuse measures. 13 indicators referred to 3 dimensions (Climate adaptation, Accessibility and equity, Urban quality) were aggregated into 3 composite indexes, through GIS elaborations, with the aim of identifying portions of territory where to primarily intervene, as well as the characteristics to be improved.
One of the main pieces of evidence of this study is that the suitability of urban spaces for adaptation measures cannot be separated from aspects like accessibility and pleasantness
Spatial Accessibility: Integrating Fuzzy AHP and GIS Techniques to Improve Elderly Walkability
No full textThe study of pedestrian accessibility aimed at improving the physical and functional organization of the urban system is of significant interest in the international scientific community, as the opportunities for pedestrian movement within the urban system affect the behavior and lifestyles of pedestrians in their everyday life. In particular, many scholars propose research aimed at improving the pedestrian network at the urban and neighborhood scale. Moreover, efforts to improve walkability should be people-oriented. In particular, the urban population is diverse and people’s physical abilities tend to decline with old age. Hence, this work focuses on increasing accessibility to urban services for people over 65 by improving walkability. To this end, the characteristics that make pedestrian paths suitable for this weak user group are identified. The pedestrian routes are analyzed based on the geometry and quality of the routes (physical characteristics), the perceived protection in following them (characteristics related to the sense of safety and protection) and the urban context. The weight of these characteristics was quantified through a multi-criteria analysis using the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. The technique, combined with GIS spatial capabilities allowed us to classify the pedestrian network according to its “friendliness” to the elderly.
The proposed methodology was tested in two districts of the city of Naples to illustrate the relevance of local contexts, including demographic, morphological and settlement characteristics
Improving accessibility to urban services for over 65: a GIS-supported method
No full textBy referring to the eight domains of age-friendly cities (WHO, 2007), urban accessibility can be considered as one of the elements cutting across most of them. The relationship between the organization of the urban system (supply) and the mobility of the population over 65 (as for every city user) has prompted scientific debate on how to improve the accessibility of the over 65 to the services of their interest through the pedestrian network and the public transport network. This study is a first research segment of the broader MOBILAGE project, which aims at defining a decision support tool for public administrations to improve elders’ accessibility to urban services, thus contributing to enhance their quality of life. Most studies of the literature are interested only in measuring the catchment area of health services, in order to investigate the degree of accessibility to this service, by identifying both the most disadvantaged portions of the urban area and those characterized by a balance between supply and demand. The objective of this first step of research is wider and is oriented to define the catchment area of all services for over 65 on the basis of the existing street network, the orography of the territory and the pedestrian speeds of the three age groups of the old population (65-69; 70-74; >75)
Urban accessibility in a 15-minute city: a measure in the city of Naples, Italy.
Full text linkCities accessible in 15 minutes represent a new possibility for reorganizing the urban system (times, spaces and activities) to try to respond to many current challenges, including ageing populations, energy saving and, more recently, Covid-19. A renewed concept of urban accessibility, together with the redefinition of public spaces and "soft" ways of moving (pedestrian and cycle) to reach neighbourhood services, represent a starting point not only from which to face new challenges but also to rediscover the sense of community, especially at the neighbourhood scale. The 15-minute city draws its origins from the concept of the "neighbourhood unit", developed in 1923 in a competition for the city of Chicago, to define compact residential neighbourhoods where the proximity between services and homes contributed to set out the identity character of that part of the city and to create "the sense of belonging" of a community to a place. The events of the last year strongly re-propose experimentation with this approach, also following the proposal by the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, aimed at giving a new face to Paris starting from the creation of extensive pedestrian green areas on the large boulevards that are now crossed by the cars and, therefore, to allow the inhabitants to reach, by walking, essential urban services within the 15-minute threshold. Other cities, such as New York and Milan, have also begun to work to make their neighbourhoods, especially peripheral ones, accessible in 15 minutes on foot or by bicycle, without neglecting the goal of transforming these neighbourhoods into attractive places for social gathering for local communities. In this perspective, the research work aims at identifying the urban characteristics that define a 15-minute city, starting from the cities that are launching this experimentation. Among the urban characteristics, the geomorphological, physical (concerning both the spaces and the paths, such as the geometry of the pedestrian and cycle networks), functional (distribution and location of services), socio-economic (of the population) and settlement ones are taken into consideration. According to the weights of the variables identified as significant, the work defines different areas accessible in 15 minutes based on users’ willingness to walk and the geomorphological, physical, settlement and functional characteristics identified in each urban area. The work is carried out in selected districts of the city of Naples which, due to their demographic, morphological and settlement characteristics, make them a significant area of experimentation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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