A Review of Urban Planning Approaches to Reduce Air Pollution Exposures.

Purpose Of Review: With only 12% of the human population living in cities meeting the air quality standards set by the WHO guidelines, there is a critical need for coordinated strategies to meet the requirements of a healthy society. One pivotal mechanism for addressing societal expectations on air pollution and human health is to employ strategic modeling within the urban planning process. This review synthesizes research to inform coordinated strategies for a healthy society.

Remote Sensing Methods for Flood Prediction: A Review.

Floods are a major cause of loss of lives, destruction of infrastructure, and massive damage to a country's economy. Floods, being natural disasters, cannot be prevented completely; therefore, precautionary measures must be taken by the government, concerned organizations such as the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and Office for the coordination of Human Affairs, and the community to control its disastrous effects. To minimize hazards and to provide an emergency response at the time of natural calamity, various measures must be taken by the disaster management authorities before the flood incident.

A simple contagion process describes spreading of traffic jams in urban networks.

The spread of traffic jams in urban networks has long been viewed as a complex spatio-temporal phenomenon that often requires computationally intensive microscopic models for analysis purposes. In this study, we present a framework to describe the dynamics of congestion propagation and dissipation of traffic in cities using a simple contagion process, inspired by those used to model infectious disease spread in a population. We introduce two macroscopic characteristics for network traffic dynamics, namely congestion propagation rate β and congestion dissipation rate μ.

A safety assessment of mixed fleets with Connected and Autonomous Vehicles using the Surrogate Safety Assessment Module.

The transportation network can provide additional utility by addressing the safety concerns on roads. On-road fatalities are an unfortunate loss of life and lead to significant costs for society and the economy. Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs), envisaged as operating with idealised safety and cooperation, could be a means of mitigating these costs.

Influence of septic system wastewater treatment on titanium dioxide nanoparticle subsurface transport mechanisms.

Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are commonly incorporated into food and consumer applications to enhance a specific product aspect (i.e., optical properties).

Comparison of filtration mechanisms of food and industrial grade TiO nanoparticles.

The removal of food and industrial grade titanium dioxide (TiO) particles through drinking water filtration was assessed via direct visualization of an in situ 2-D micromodel. The goal of this research was to determine whether variances in surface composition, aggregate size, and ionic strength result in different transport and deposition processes in porous media. Food and industrial grade TiO particles were characterized by measuring their hydrodynamic diameter, zeta potential, and zero point of charge before introduction into the 2-D micromodel.

An experimental study of the Online Information Paradox: Does en-route information improve road network performance?

This study investigates the empirical presence of a theoretical transportation paradox, defined as the "Online Information Paradox" (OIP). The paradox suggests that, for certain road networks, the provision of online information deteriorate travel conditions for all users of that network relative to the situation where no online information is provided to users. The analytical presence of the paradox was derived for a specific network structure by using two equilibrium models, the first being the Expected User Equilibrium (EUE) solution (no information scenario) and the other being the User Equilibrium with Recourse (UER) solution (with information scenario).

A scenario-based evaluation of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus and the Hajj.

Between April 2012 and June 2014, 820 laboratory-confirmed cases of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have been reported in the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, North Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the United States. The observed epidemiology is different to SARS, which showed a classic epidemic curve and was over in eight months. The much longer persistence of MERS-CoV in the population, with a lower reproductive number, some evidence of human-to-human transmission but an otherwise sporadic pattern, is difficult to explain.

A predictive spatial model to quantify the risk of air-travel-associated dengue importation into the United States and europe.

The number of travel-acquired dengue infections has been on a constant rise in the United States and Europe over the past decade. An increased volume of international passenger air traffic originating from regions with endemic dengue contributes to the increasing number of dengue cases. This paper reports results from a network-based regression model which uses international passenger travel volumes, travel distances, predictive species distribution models (for the vector species), and infection data to quantify the relative risk of importing travel-acquired dengue infections into the US and Europe from dengue-endemic regions.