Subchronic Toxicity Evaluation of a Treated Urban Sewage Sludge

Disposal of tons of sludge produced daily by sewage treatment plants in large cities is a serious problem. Because recycling and application in agriculture have been proposed, the Brazilian National Environmental Council (CONAMA, 2006) issued a legal norm that regulates the use of the sewage sludge (SS) in crops. Due to the complex chemical nature of such products, characterization by analytical methods for health and environmental risk assessment has severe limitations. To overcome such limitations, it is necessary to (1) assess the toxicological potential of SS and (2) identify possible adverse effects in vivo in order to provide critical information for future environmental regulations. The present study was conducted to determine the potential toxicity of SS obtained from a representative urban treatment plant located in the São Paulo State, Brazil. Male and female Wistar rats were fed ad libitum a pelleted diet containing varying amounts of SS. No relevant clinical, hematological, urinary, or gross organ morphological alterations were observed in both genders of rats orally exposed to SS at up to 3.8 g/kg/d for 90 d. Sewage slude produced increased incidence of centrilobular hepatocyte hyperplasia at the high dose and significantly increased aspartate aminotransferease (AST) activities at all doses in both genders. Although the present data indicate some liver involvement, these alterations were considered adaptative and not toxicologically relevant, as the responses were relatively mild, not dose dependent, and no other parameters were markedly affected. The present results may contribute to the establishment of protocols for potential usage in SS agricultural soil application.

Radon and progeny (Pb-214 and Bi-214) in urban water-supply systems of São Paulo State, Brazil

Many water-supply systems in South America utilize the waters of the Guarani aquifer at least as part of their networks. However, there is little present knowledge in Brazil of the factors affecting Rn presence in the water supplied for end-users, despite the economic importance of Guarani aquifer. Rn-222 analyzes of 162 water samples were performed at 8 municipalities in São Paulo State, Brazil, with the aim of investigating the major factors affecting its presence in solution. The Rn-222 activity concentration ranged from 0.04 up to 204.9 Bq/L, with three samples exceeding the World Health Organization maximum limit of 100Bq/L. Aeration was confirmed as the most important factor for Rn release, as expected due to its gaseous nature. Accumulation in pipes and stratification in the water column were other significant factors explaining the data obtained in some circumstances. The Rn daughters Ph-214 and Bi-214 were also determined in a set of selected samples and their presence was directly related to the occurrence of Rn dissolved in water. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Urban areas and isolated remnants of natural habitats: An action proposal for botanical gardens

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) advocates an increase of the number of botanical gardens throughout the world as one of the measures that can help to preserve the world's biodiversity. To implement this strategy, the present work brings forward a suggestion particularly suited to tropical regions: establishing municipal botanical gardens. It refers to the experience of a newly opened municipal botanical garden in Brazil, comparing its attractive power on visitors to that of other botanical gardens included in the Brazilian network of Botanical Gardens. It also presents considerations on in situ conservation in small remnants and on the importance of urban reserves to preserve the regional biodiversity and spread the conservationist philosophy. The present proposal promotes the participation of local communities making the public opinion more aware and active, besides being able to counterbalance proposals that support protecting the world biodiversity through interventionist actions. It assumes that, through actions planned and coordinated by regional and national botanical garden networks, the measure proposed can mitigate the anthropic actions exerted on important natural reserves all over the world.

Ecosystem services and urban vegetation coverage in Belém: the influence on noise pollution, air pollution and climate regulation

A ligação entre as zonas urbanas e as questões ambientais ficam mais próximas na medida em que cresce a conscientização global de conservar, melhorar e valorizar os serviços ambientais prestados pela natureza para a sustentabilidade da vida, dentro e fora da cidade. Cobertura vegetal (ou cobertura verde) está dentre as principais fontes de tais serviços. Uma vez que o processo de urbanização se mostra irreversível e os problemas ambientais urbanos se alastram em tamanho e extensão, a presença do verde está diretamente relacionada aos indicadores de qualidade de vida urbana. Como reflexo do processo de urbanização, a cidade de Belém perdeu uma grande porcentagem de seus ecossistemas naturais, de modo que este trabalho se concentrou em analisar alguns serviços ecossistêmicos—qualidade do ar, poluição do ar e regulação do clima - fornecidos pela qualidade e pela quantidade de cobertura vegetal local, considerando as alterações na distribuição espaço-temporal, em três distritos administrativos. Um marco teórico foi construído e analisado; a cobertura vegetal foi calculada, utilizando-se NDVI e Cobertura Vegetal Fracional em imagens do LANDSAT 5, ao longo de um período de 23 anos. A partir de uma proposta de escala mais detalhada de NDVI, análises quantitativas e qualitativas da cobertura verde evidenciaram perda significativa de cobertura muito densa, densa, moderada e aumento de áreas de pouca ou nenhuma vegetação. Ademais, lesão das áreas verdes sinalizou tendências de aumento da poluição do ar, da poluição sonora e da temperatura. A carência de dados relacionados ao meio ambiente não deixa dúvida sobre a urgência de investimento nos serviços ambientais provenientes da cobertura vegetal, para a sustentabilidade urbana em Belém, cujos cenários previstos são de drásticas perdas de área verde. Mais pesquisas e iniciativas de instituições públicas e privadas são necessárias para a contribuição aos serviços ambientais em Belém e, consequentemente, ao bem-estar público.

Locus Amoenus vs. Locus Terribilis: The Spatial Dynamics of the Pastoral and the Urban in La Ceppède’s Théorèmes

The opening sonnets of Jean de La Ceppède’s Théorèmes (1613, 1622) present an urban vs. rural conflict that mirrors the dialectic between sin and salvation running throughout the work. La Ceppède’s focus for this struggle becomes the stark contrast between Jerusalem and the garden at the Mount of Olives. Jerusalem, as the place where Christ is persecuted and eventually tried, represents a Babylon-like enclave of transgression, while the garden is portrayed as a site of purity and tranquil reflection. From a literary standpoint, La Ceppède’s emphasis on the clash between dystopian and utopian settings comprises part of his adaptation of the pastoral, where this particular struggle becomes one of the genre’s principal motifs. In general, the contrast between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives emerges as the point of departure for the poet’s figuration of nature, both human and physical. A human construct, the city of Jerusalem becomes a metaphor for human corruption. In view of humanity’s fall in paradise and the denaturation it symbolizes, the poet’s goal, on both intellectual and affective levels, is to place the reader/dévot in a position to lift her/himself from the depravity of human nature to the grace of divine nature.

Brazilian urban population genetic structure reveals a high degree of admixture

Advances in genotyping technologies have contributed to a better understanding of human population genetic structure and improved the analysis of association studies. To analyze patterns of human genetic variation in Brazil, we used SNP data from 1129 individuals - 138 from the urban population of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and 991 from 11 populations of the HapMap Project. Principal components analysis was performed on the SNPs common to these populations, to identify the composition and the number of SNPs needed to capture the genetic variation of them. Both admixture and local ancestry inference were performed in individuals of the Brazilian sample. Individuals from the Brazilian sample fell between Europeans, Mexicans, and Africans. Brazilians are suggested to have the highest internal genetic variation of sampled populations. Our results indicate, as expected, that the Brazilian sample analyzed descend from Amerindians, African, and/or European ancestors, but intermarriage between individuals of different ethnic origin had an important role in generating the broad genetic variation observed in the present-day population. The data support the notion that the Brazilian population, due to its high degree of admixture, can provide a valuable resource for strategies aiming at using admixture as a tool for mapping complex traits in humans. European Journal of Human Genetics (2012) 20, 111-116; doi:10.1038/ejhg.2011.144; published online 24 August 2011

Urban water demand model: the case study of Emilia Romagna (Italy)

Water is the driving force in nature. We use water for washing cars, doing laundry, cooking, taking a shower, but also to generate energy and electricity. Therefore water is a necessary product in our daily lives (USGS. Howard Perlman, 2013). The model that we created is based on the urban water demand computer model from the Pacific Institute (California). With this model we will forecast the future urban water use of Emilia Romagna up to the year of 2030. We will analyze the urban water demand in Emilia Romagna that includes the 9 provinces: Bologna, Ferrara, Forli-Cesena, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Ravenna, Reggio Emilia and Rimini. The term urban water refers to the water used in cities and suburbs and in homes in the rural areas. This will include the residential, commercial, institutional and the industrial use. In this research, we will cover the water saving technologies that can help to save water for daily use. We will project what influence these technologies have to the urban water demand, and what it can mean for future urban water demands. The ongoing climate change can reduce the snowpack, and extreme floods or droughts in Italy. The changing climate and development patterns are expected to have a significant impact on water demand in the future. We will do this by conducting different scenario analyses, by combining different population projections, climate influence and water saving technologies. In addition, we will also conduct a sensitivity analyses. The several analyses will show us how future urban water demand is likely respond to changes in water conservation technologies, population, climate, water price and consumption. I hope the research can contribute to the insight of the reader’s thoughts and opinion.

Classifying and mapping the urban transition in Vietnam

The urban transition almost always involves wrenching social adjustment as small agricultural communities are forced to adjust rapidly to industrial ways of life. Large-scale in-migration of young people, usually from poor regions, creates enormous demand and expectations for community and social services. One immediate problem planners face in approaching this challenge is how to define, differentiate, and map what is rural, urban, and transitional (i.e., peri-urban). This project established an urban classification for Vietnam by using national census and remote sensing data to identify and map the smallest administrative units for which data are collected as rural, peri-urban, urban, or urban core. We used both natural and human factors in the quantitative model: income from agriculture, land under agriculture and forests, houses with modern sanitation, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Model results suggest that in 2006, 71% of Vietnam's 10,891 communes were rural, 18% peri-urban, 3% urban, and 4% urban core. Of the communes our model classified as peri-urban, 61% were classified by the Vietnamese government as rural. More than 7% of Vietnam's land area can be classified as peri-urban and approximately 13% of its population (more than 11 million people) lives in peri-urban areas. We identified and mapped three types of peri-urban places: communes in the periphery of large towns and cities; communes along highways; and communes associated with provincial administration or home to industrial, energy, or natural resources projects (e.g., mining). We validated this classification based on ground observations, analyses of multi-temporal night-time lights data, and an examination of road networks. The model provides a method for rapidly assessing the rural–urban nature of places to assist planners in identifying rural areas undergoing rapid change with accompanying needs for investments in building, sanitation, road infrastructure, and government institutions.

Linking Landscape Protection and Nature Conservation: Switzerland’s Experience with Protected Mire Landscapes

Since 1987, Switzerland’s Federal Inventory of Mire Landscapes of Particular Beauty and National Importance has provided an instrument for the integration of nature conservation and landscape protection. Mires and mire landscape protection are strictly regulated. However, research results show that neither the goals of mire protection nor those of mire landscape protection are being achieved. The reasons for this are manifold and, in particular, have to do with a lack of coordination between the various policy areas that shape mire environments and mire landscapes. There are several key challenges involving different political and administrative levels. At the national level, mechanisms must be devised that enable differentiated regional implementation of national sectoral policies. In the context of cantonal structure planning, regional nature conservation and landscape protection priorities should be established based on existing regional potentials vis-à-vis the natural environment and landscapes (including protected biotopes and landscapes). At the regional level (spanning multiple communes), integrated planning instruments and governance structures should be developed so that implementation of national and cantonal sectoral policies may be harmonized under the umbrella of regional and integrated development plans. These adjustments to Switzerland’s institutional system are necessary to enable far-reaching integration of nature conservation and landscape protection when setting regional policy priorities. This would strengthen the protection of mire landscapes and other integrative instruments such as regional nature parks of national importance.

Comparison of financial trends in small rural and urban hospitals in Texas, 1983--1985

The purpose of this study was to compare the financial performance of small rural hospitals to that of small urban hospitals in Texas. Hospital-specific and environmental factors were studied as control variables.^ Small rural hospitals were found to be financially stronger on measures of liquidity but weaker on measures of profitability. Small urban hospitals performed better on measures of profitability and long-range solvency. When all measures in the five dimensions of financial performance were analyzed, no significant difference was found between the two groups of hospitals. None of the control variables included in the study was significantly associated with financial performance both for rural and urban hospitals. Conclusions were that small rural hospitals in Texas are experiencing a deterioration in financial condition but small, rural hospitals are not doing any worse than small urban hospitals; and that the financial hardship which rural hospitals suffer may be inherent in the nature of the institutions themselves, and not as a result of their smallness nor their rural settings. ^

Origin and patterns of distribution of trace elements in street dust. Unleaded petrol and urban lead

The elemental composition, patterns of distribution and possible sources of street dust are not common to all urban environments, but vary according to the peculiarities of each city. The common features and dissimilarities in the origin and nature of street dust were investigated through a series of studies in two widely different cities, Madrid (Spain) and Oslo (Norway), between 1990 and 1994. The most comprehensive sampling campaign was carried out in the Norwegian capital during the summer of 1994. An area of 14 km2, covering most of downtown Oslo and some residential districts to the north of the city, was divided into 1 km2 mapping units, and 16 sampling increments of approximately 150 g were collected from streets and roads in each of them. The fraction below 100 μm was acid-digested and analysed by ICP-MS. Statistical analyses of the results suggest that chemical elements in street dust can be classified into three groups: “urban” elements (Ba, Cd, Co, Cu, Mg, Pb, Sb, Ti, Zn), “natural” elements (Al, Ga, La, Mn, Na, Sr, Th, Y) and elements of a mixed origin or which have undergone geochemical changes from their original sources (Ca, Cs, Fe, Mo, Ni, Rb, Sr, U). Soil resuspension and/or mobilisation appears to be the most important source of “natural” elements, while “urban” elements originate primarily from traffic and from the weathering and corrosion of building materials. The data for Pb seem to prove that the gradual shift from leaded to unleaded petrol as fuel for automobiles has resulted in an almost proportional reduction in the concentration of Pb in dust particles under 100 μm. This fact and the spatial distribution of Pb in the city strongly suggest that lead sources other than traffic (i.e. lead accumulated in urban soil over the years) may contribute as much lead, if not more, to urban street dust.

Hybridization Processes: The case of the urban game: Hybrid Hunt: Petrified

The proposal highlights certain design strategies and a case study that can link the material urban space to digital emerging realms. The composite nature of urban spaces ?material/ digital- is understood as an opportunity to reconfigure public urban spaces without high-cost, difficult to apply interventions and, furthermore, to reactivate them by inserting dynamic, interactive and playful conditions that engage people and re-establish their relations to the cities. The structuring of coexisting and interconnected material and digital aspects in public urban spaces is proposed through the implementation of hybridization processes. Hybrid spaces can fascinate and provoke the public and especially younger people to get involved and interact with physical aspects of urban public spaces as well as digital representations or interpretations of those. Digital game?s design in urban public spaces can be comprehended as a tool that allows architects to understand and to configure hybrids of material and digital conceptions and project all in one, as an inseparable totality. Digital technologies have for a long time now intervened in our perception of traditional dipoles such as subject - environment. Architects, especially in the past, have been responsible for material mediations and tangible interfaces that permit subjects to relate to their physical environments in a controlled and regulated manner; but, nowadays, architects are compelled to embody in design, the transition that is happening in all aspects of everyday life, that is, from material to digital realities. In addition, the disjunctive relation of material and digital realms is ceding and architects are now faced with the challenge that supposes the merging of both in a single, all-inclusive reality. The case study is a design project for a game implemented simultaneously in a specific urban space and on the internet. This project developed as the spring semester course New Media in Architecture at the Department of Architecture, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece is situated at the city of Xanthi. Composite cities can use design strategies and technological tools to configure augmented and appealing urban spaces that articulate and connect different realms in a single engaging reality.

Assessment methodology to make urban transport interchanges attractive for users

En las ciudades europeas, los patrones de movilidad son cada vez más complejos debido fundamentalmente a un crecimiento sostenido de la población así como a la tendencia de dispersión de los núcleos urbanos. En consecuencia, muchos de los usuarios del transporte público se ven obligados a combinar varios modos o servicios de transporte para completar sus viajes diarios. Por tanto, el mayor reto de las ciudades es conseguir una mejora e incremento en la movilidad mientras que al mismo tiempo se reducen problemas como la congestión, los accidentes y la contaminación (COM, 2006). Un principio básico para lograr una movilidad sostenible es reducir los inconvenientes y molestias derivados de la transferencia o ruptura del viaje. En este sentido, los intercambiadores de transporte público juegan un papel fundamental como nodos de la red urbana de transporte y la calidad del servicio prestado en ellos tiene una influencia directa sobre la experiencia diaria de los viajeros. Como señaló Terzis and Last (2002), un intercambiador de transportes urbano eficiente debe ser competitivo y al mismo tiempo, debe ser atractivo para los usuarios dado que sus experiencias físicas y sus reacciones psicológicas se ven influenciadas de manera significativa por el diseño y operación del intercambiador. Sin embargo, todavía no existen standards o normativas a nivel europeo que especifiquen como deberían ser estos intercambiadores. Esta tesis doctoral proporciona conocimientos y herramientas de análisis dirigidas a planificadores y gestores de los propios intercambiadores con el fin de entender mejor el funcionamiento de los intercambiadores y gestionar así los recursos disponibles. Así mismo, esta tesis identifica los factores clave en el diseño y operación de intercambiadores urbanos de transporte y proporciona algunas guías generales de planificación en base a ellos. Dado que las percepciones de los usuarios son particularmente importantes para definir políticas adecuadas para intercambiadores, se diseñó y se llevó a cabo en 2013 una encuesta de satisfacción al viajero en tres intercambiadores de transporte urbano europeos: Moncloa (Madrid, España), Kamppi (Helsinki, Finlandia) e Ilford Railway Station ( Londres, Reino Unido). En resumen, esta tesis pone de relieve la naturaleza ambivalente de los intercambiadores urbanos de transporte, es decir, como nodos de la red de transporte y como lugares en sí mismos donde los usuarios pasan tiempo dentro de ellos y propone algunas recomendaciones para hacer más atractivos los intercambiadores a los usuarios. Travel patterns in European urban areas are becoming increasingly complex due to a sustained increase in the urban population and the trend towards urban sprawl. Consequently, many public transport users need to combine several modes or transport services to complete their daily trips. Therefore, the challenge facing all major cities is how to increase mobility while at the same time reducing congestion, accididents and pollution (COM, 2006). Reducing the inconvenience inherent in transferring between modes is a basic principle for achieving sustainable mobility. In this regard, transport interchanges play a key role as urban transport network nodes, and the quality of the service provided in them has a direct influence on travellers' daily experience. As noted by Terzis and Last (2000), an efficient urban transport interchange must be competitive and, at the same time, be attractive for users given that their physical experiences and psychological reactions are significantly influenced by the design and operation of the interchange. However, yet there are no standards or regulations specifying the form these interchanges should take in Europe. This doctoral thesis provides knowledge and analysis tools addressed to developers and managers in order to understand better the performance of an urban transport interchange and manage the available resources properly. Likewise, key factors of the design and operation of urban transport interchanges are identified and some 'Planning guidelines' are proposed on the basis on them. Since the users' perceptions of their experience are particularly important for achieving the most appropriate policy measures for interchanges, an ad‐hoc travellers' satisfaction survey was designed and carried out in 2013 at three European transport interchanges: Moncloa (Madrid, Spain), Kamppi (Helsinki, Finland) and Ilford Railway Station (London, United Kingdom) In summary, this thesis highlights the ambivalent nature of the urban transport interchanges, i.e. as nodes within the transport network and as places where users spending time and proposes some policy recommendations in order to make urban transport interchanges attractive for users.

The anatomy of urban social networks and its implications in the searchability problem

The appearance of large geolocated communication datasets has recently increased our understanding of how social networks relate to their physical space. However, many recurrently reported properties, such as the spatial clustering of network communities, have not yet been systematically tested at different scales. In this work we analyze the social network structure of over 25 million phone users from three countries at three different scales: country, provinces and cities. We consistently find that this last urban scenario presents significant differences to common knowledge about social networks. First, the emergence of a giant component in the network seems to be controlled by whether or not the network spans over the entire urban border, almost independently of the population or geographic extension of the city. Second, urban communities are much less geographically clustered than expected. These two findings shed new light on the widely-studied searchability in self-organized networks. By exhaustive simulation of decentralized search strategies we conclude that urban networks are searchable not through geographical proximity as their country-wide counterparts, but through an homophily-driven community structure.