La transformación del tejido urbano en el mercado de Andújar

The commercial activity is and has been fundamental for the development of the society and our cities. We cannot forget that the medieval city was a market in itself. These urban spaces, as well as the new spaces generated after the different sales of Church lands, have been transforming continuously both from the point of view of urban development and social. In these spaces took place leisure activities as well as the exchanges and sales of products. Later, markets were transformed into covered spaces as we know today. Nowadays they are reflection objects. This abstract tries to make known the interesting and avant-garde Andujar Market, Pedro Rivas Ruiz`s architect work. It was built in 1949 and was inspired in Eduardo Torroja`s work with reinforced concrete. Its urban context`s relation explain this studio since the market was built on the place of the convent of San Francisco. This research is part of the result of the development of my thesis.

ESQUEMAS DE ZONIFICACIÓN AMBIENTAL PARA LA PLANIFICACIÓN REGIONAL URBANA

La práctica y teorías de la planificación urbana han avanzado históricamente hacia  la  incorporación de  temas  y análisis  intersectoriales,  fundamentalmente aquellos en  relación con  la base  territorial y el ambiente. En materia de zonificación urbana se han  hecho esfuerzos por  incorporar  la variable ambiental a  la planificación urbana. El presente artículo hace un recuento general de  la evolución del concepto de zonificación tradicional  hacia  la    zonificación  ambiental  territorial,  la  macrozonificación  y  la zonificación  por  rendimiento.  Finalmente  plantea  el  acercamiento  metodológico planteado  como  parte  de  la  estrategia  de  la  Fase  III  del  Plan Nacional  de Desarrollo Urbano  de  Costa  Rica  en  relación  con  la  macrozonificación  por  rendimiento,  como ejemplo de  la puesta en práctica de  las más  recientes herramientas en  la planificación urbano- regional de un Área Metropolitana (PRUGAM). Abstract:The Urban Planning practice and  theory  has  historically developed  towards the inclusion of more comprehensive themes and analyses, fundamentally those that are environmentally  and  territorially  related. Within  this  context,  urban  zoning  has made significant efforts  to  incorporate the environmental component  in planning. The article makes  a  general  account  of  the  evolution  of  zoning  from  its  traditional  form  to environmental land zoning, macro zoning and performance zoning. Finally it establishes the  Costa  Rica’s National Urban Development  Plan methodological  approach  for  its phase III with regards to performance macro zoning as an example of putting the more recent  zoning  and  planning  theories  to  practice  in  a  regional  Plan  for  a metropolitan area.

PROPUESTA DE DESARROLLO URBANO COSTARRICENSE. ANTECEDENTES, ALTERNATIVAS Y DESAFÍOS

En  el  presente  artículo  se  desarrollan  los  aspectos principales  dentro  de  la propuesta  de  planificación  urbana  de  Costa  Rica  a  través  de  la  iniciativa  del  Plan Nacional  de  Desarrollo  Urbano  en  sus  diferentes  fases  de  trabajo.  Primeramente  se realiza  una  breve  descripción  de  los antecedentes  principales  de  las  fases  I  y  II  para luego describir lo que consistirá en la elaboración de un nuevo Plan GAM, denominado PRUGAM,  y  los  requisitos  necesarios para  su  implementación,  bajo  la  visión  del modelo  de  ciudad  generada  por  procesos  participat ivos.  Además,  se  realiza  una descripción  del  Plan  GAM  de  1982,  sus  alcances  y logros,  para  luego  realizar  una evaluación de los mismos.   Abstract:This article  shows  the main aspects  included  in  the Costarrican proposal of urban  planning  throw  the  different  phases  of  the  Nacional  Planning  of  Urban Development (PRUGAM). There is a description of the background of the project at its I and  II phases,  follow by what  is will be  the new Urban Plan call PRUGAM and  the requirements to implementation following a participative city model. Also a description of the 1982 Plan GAM, its achievements, and evaluation is done

Determinants of the development of post-traumatic stress disorder, in the general population.

PURPOSE: To assess (1) the lifetime prevalence of exposure both to trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); (2) the risk of PTSD by type of trauma; and (3) the determinants of the development of PTSD in the community. METHODS: The Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies was administered to a random sample of an urban area (N = 3,691). RESULTS: (1) The lifetime prevalence estimates of exposure to trauma and PTSD were 21.0 and 5.0%; respectively, with a twice as high prevalence of PTSD in women compared to men despite a similar likelihood of exposure in the two sexes; (2) Sexual abuse was the trauma involving the highest risk of PTSD; (3) The risk of PTSD was most strongly associated with sexual abuse followed by preexisting bipolar disorder, alcohol dependence, antisocial personality, childhood separation anxiety disorder, being victim of crime, witnessing violence, Neuroticism and Problem-focused coping strategies. After adjustment for these characteristics, female sex was no longer found to be significantly associated with the risk of PTSD. CONCLUSIONS: The risk for the development of PTSD after exposure to traumatic events is associated with several factors including the type of exposure, preexisting psychopathology, personality features and coping strategies which independently contribute to the vulnerability to PTSD.

Post-partum depression and infant growth in a South African peri-urban settlement

Aim: To examine the association between maternal post-natal depression and infant growth. Background: Infant growth has recently been shown, in two studies from South Asia, to be adversely affected by maternal depression in the early post-partum period. It is uncertain whether a similar association obtains in developing countries outside Asia. Method: A sample of 147 mother–infant dyads was recruited from a peri-urban settlement outside Cape Town and seen at 2 and 18 months post partum. Results: No clear effect of post-partum depression on infant growth was found. Although maternal depression at 2 months was found to be associated with lower infant weight at 18 months, when birthweight was considered this effect disappeared. Conclusions: Possible explanations for the non-replication of the South Asian findings are considered.

Shopping malls and neoliberal trends in Southern European cities: Post-metropolitan challenges for urban planning policy

Whilst shopping malls have been explored at length by critical urban studies, there has been little exploration of their role in restructuring the practice of urban and spatial planning. This article uses the shopping mall as an object of study in the light of the neoliberal trends and post-metropolisation in Southern Europe, with the aim of exploring challenges for urban governance and planning practice and with a focus on the role of the ongoing economic crisis. A threefold exploratory framework – the ‘lost-in-time scenario’, the ‘messianic mall model’ and the ‘(im)mature planning explanation’ – is used to make sense of the local versions of shopping mall development in Lisbon (Portugal) and Palermo (Southern Italy). According to findings, we highlight the clash between the multi-scalar nature of shopping malls and the dominance of the municipal scale in regulatory planning frameworks, and the risk that shopping mall development (at least in Southern Europe) may replicate uneven development patterns, reproducing the pre-conditions of the crisis without helping to overcome it.

Re-imagining Yerevan in the post-Soviet era: Urban symbolism and narratives of the nation in the landscape of Armenia's capital

The urban landscape of Yerevan has experienced tremendous changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Armenia’s independence in 1991. Domestic and foreign investments have poured into Yerevan’s building sector, converting many downtown neighborhoods into sleek modern districts that now cater to foreign investors, tourists, and the newly rich Armenian nationals. Large portions of the city’s green parks and other public spaces have been commercialized for private and exclusive use, creating zones that are accessible only to the affluent. In this dissertation I explore the rapidly transforming landscape of Yerevan and its connections to the development of contemporary Armenian national identity. This research was guided by principles of ethnographic inquiry, and I employed diverse methods, including document and archival research, structured and semi-structured interviews and content analysis of news media. I also used geographic information systems (GIS) and satellite images to represent and visualize the stark transformations of spaces in Yerevan. Informed by and contributing to three literatures—on the relationship between landscape and identity formation, on the construction of national identity, and on Soviet and post-Soviet cities—this dissertation investigates how messages about contemporary Armenian national identity are being expressed via the transforming landscape of Armenia’s national capital. In it I describe the ways in which abrupt transformations have resulted in the physical and symbolic eviction of residents, introducing fierce public debates about belonging and exclusion within the changing urban context. I demonstrate that the new additions to Yerevan’s landscape and the symbolic messages that they carry are hotly contested by many long-time residents, who struggle for inclusion of their opinions and interests in the process of re-imagining their national capital. This dissertation illustrates many of the trends that are apparent in post-Soviet and post-Socialist space, while at the same time exposing some unique characteristics of the Armenian case.

Flanerie: A post -reflexive mode of urban research inquiry

Urban ethnographic studies in social science usually proceed from within a pre-figured research framework that guides field activity and filters what is considered see-worthy and study-worthy to those phenomena which are in some way necessary for the fulfillment of specific research agendas. Reliance on formalized ethnographic research methods to explore the city, and the reflex to intellectualize that which is observed by using them, frequently leads to the neglect of much of what comprises the ethnographic richness of city-life through an overly-contemplative intellectuocentrism. ^ Flânerie, an avocational, proto-sociological ethnographic mode of urban exploration and observation originating in early-nineteenth-century Paris, is representative of an alternate approach to exploration and study of the city—one less subject to a compressed horizon of ethnographic experience. It affords insight into a broad range of phenomena taking place in interstitial urban space and time which often escape the instrumentally overly-determined gaze of professionalist research inquiry. ^ The present work addressed the fact that the concept of flânerie , though occasionally invoked in discussions of methodology in urban sociology and cultural studies, had not been subjected to a systematic attempt to relate it to the research methods of these disciplines. Though as a typological figure the flâneur is thought to have disappeared long ago, practices represented by the concept continue to be engaged in by persons inside and outside of academia who approach city life and social science with a perspective somewhat transcending the reified dichotomies of private-professional and art-and-science. This study transferred aspects of the experience of the city embodied in the flâneur to the realm of ethnographic urban studies and the building of grounded social theory, finding flânerie to be crucial to the development of a refined knowledge of urban life, and an important means by which previously overlooked social phenomena and silenced avenues of research inquiry might be exposed. ^ The conclusions reached found a “flâneuristic” approach to the city as being beneficial to research practice and the vitalization of urban ethnographic inquiry, by affording opportunities for exposure to, and immersion within, an expanded range of quotidian social phenomena that have frequently escaped the academicist gaze. ^

Consequences for the Bovine Embryo of Being Derived from a Spermatozoon Subjected to Post-Ejaculatory Aging and Heat Shock: Development to the Blastocyst Stage and Sex Ratio

The objective was to determine whether aging of sperm caused by incubation at normothermic (38.5 C) or heat shock (40 C) temperatures for 4 h prior to oocyte insemination affects sperm motility, fertilizing ability, competence of the resultant embryo to develop to the blastocyst stage and blastocyst sex ratio. In the first experiment, the percent of sperm that were motile was reduced by aging (P<0.001) and the reduction in motility was greater for sperm at 40 C compared to sperm at 38.5 C (P<0.01). In the second experiment, oocytes were inseminated with aged sperm. A smaller percent of oocytes fertilized with sperm aged at either temperature cleaved by Day 3 after insemination than oocytes fertilized with fresh sperm (P<0.05). There was no effect of sperm aging on the percent of oocytes or cleaved embryos that developed to the blastocyst stage. Aging of sperm before fertilization at 38.5 C reduced the percent of blastocysts that were male (P=0.08). In the third experiment, incubation of sperm at 38.5 C or 40 C for 4 h did not reduce fertilizing ability of sperm as determined by pronuclear formation at 18 h post insemination. In conclusion, aging of sperm reduced cleavage rate and the percent of blastocysts that were males but had no effect on the developmental capacity of the. embryo. The effect of aging on cleavage rate may represent reduced motility and errors occurring after fertilization and pronuclear formation. Aging at a temperature characteristic of maternal hyperthermia had little additional effect except that polyspermy was reduced. Results indicate that embryo competence for development to the blastocyst stage is independent of sperm damage as a result of aging for 4 h at normothermic or hyperthermic temperatures.

Chronic exposure to ambient levels of urban particles affects mouse lung development

Rationale- Chronic exposure to air pollution has been associated with adverse effects on children`s lung growth. Objectives: We analyzed the effects of chronic exposure to urban levels of particulate matter (PM) on selected phases of mouse lung development. Methods: The exposure occurred in two open-top chambers (filtered and nonfiltered) placed 20 m from a street with heavy traffic in Sao Paulo, 24 hours/day for 8 months. There was a significant reduction of the levels of PM(2.5) inside the filtered chamber (filtered = 2.9 +/- 3.0 mu g/m(3), nonfiltered = 16.8 +/- 8.3 mu g/m(3); P = 0.001). At this exposure site, vehicular sources are the major components of PM(2.5) (PM <= 2.5 mu m). Exposure of the parental generation in the two chambers occurred from the 10th to the 120th days of life. After mating and birth of offspring, a crossover of mothers and pups occurred within the chambers, resulting in four groups of pups: nonexposed, prenatal, postnatal, and pre+postnatal. Offspring were killed at the age of 15 (n = 42) and 90 (n = 35) days; lungs were analyzed by morphometry for surface to volume ratio (as an estimator of alveolization). Pressure-volume curves were performed in the older groups, using a 20-ml plethysmograph. Measurements and Main Results: Mice exposed to PM(2.5) pre+postnatally presented a smaller surface to volume ratio when compared with nonexposed animals (P = 0.036). The pre+postnatal group presented reduced inspiratory and expiratory volumes at higher levels of transpulmonary pressure (P = 0.001). There were no differences among prenatal and postnatal exposure and nonexposed animals. Conclusions: Our data provide anatomical and functional support to the concept that chronic exposure to urban PM affects lung growth.

The undergraduate level (1st study cycle) as a fundamental platform/standard for the development of Urban and Regional Planning in higher education programs

LUDA is a research project of Key Action 4 "City of Tomorrow & Cultural Heritage" of the programme "Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development" within the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission

Urban land use change analysis and modelling: a case study of Setubal-Sesimbra, Portugal

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Development of a satellite based PM10 concentration product for urban areas

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia do Ambiente

Occurrence of Hirudinea species in a post urban reach of a Patagonian mountain stream

Temporal (May 2005 to February 2006) and habitat distribution (pools and riffles) of Hirudinea species was analyzed at a post urban reach from Esquel stream (Chubut province, Patagonia, Argentina). Site was located 5.7 km downstream a Waste Treatment Plant. Mean values of nutrients: ammonia, nitrates and soluble reactive phosphate, as well water conductivity, turbidity and total suspended solids indicated physical and organic pollution. Leeches assemblage was composed by the glossiphonids: Helobdella scutifera Blanchard, 1900, H. michaelseni (Blanchard, 1900), H. simplex (Moore, 1911), Helobdella sp., H. hyalina Ringuelet, 1942, H. obscura Ringuelet, 1942 and the semiscolecid Patagoniobdella variabilis (Blanchard, 1900). From these H. hyalina and H. obscura are new records for Chubut province. Helobdella hyalina (810 ind.m-2) and H. simplex (465 ind. m-2) clearly dominated the assemblage at the reach. Only H. simplex displayed a spatial preference being significantly more abundant in pools than in riffle habitats (p<0.001). Species recruitment occurred mostly at September, December and March when juveniles were very abundant. Although several species of Helobdella were able to live in the disturbed section of the stream, only H. simplex and H. hyalina sustained large populations at the site and can be considered as tolerant to organic enrichment. This information is valuable to future studies on stream condition assessment in mountainous areas in Patagonia, and in other areas in which these species are present.