Article
Psychology, Biological
Martin Arvidsson, Niclas Lovsjoe, Marc Keuschnigg
Summary: The theories of urban scaling have accurately predicted outcomes at the aggregate level, but have failed to account for inequalities within cities. This study uses micro-level data on interconnectivity, productivity, and innovation to show that the tails of within-city distributions and their growth explain a significant portion of urban scaling effects. The findings highlight the role of cumulative advantage as a mechanism for the emergence of differences in the size of tails, emphasizing the importance of considering inequality in explanations of urban scaling. The authors demonstrate that urban scaling laws are a result of urban inequalities.
NATURE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
Weiqian Lei, Limin Jiao, Zhibang Xu, Zhengzi Zhou, Gang Xu
Summary: This study demonstrates that in addition to urban population size, interurban interaction plays a crucial role in urban economic growth scaling. Interurban interaction significantly impacts urban economic outputs, with a more obvious effect than population size, but the scaling relationship between urban size and economic outputs is more robust.
COMPUTERS ENVIRONMENT AND URBAN SYSTEMS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Cascade Tuholske, Kelly Caylor, Chris Funk, Andrew Verdin, Stuart Sweeney, Kathryn Grace, Pete Peterson, Tom Evans
Summary: The study highlights the increasing threat of extreme heat exposure to rapidly growing urban settlements globally, especially impacting the urban poor. By estimating daily urban population exposure to extreme heat from 1983 to 2016, the research shows that total urban warming plays a crucial role in the increase of exposure, outweighing the impact of urban population growth.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Haroldo Ribeiro, Milena Oehlers, Ana Moreno-Monroy, Jurgen P. Kropp, Diego Rybski
Summary: The research found a connection between urban scaling and Zipf's law, where the scale returns of urban GDP are related to the distribution of cities within a country.
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Matilda Gunnarsson, Cecilia Lalander, Jennifer R. McConville
Summary: There is a growing trend for nutrient recovery from wastewater by concentrating urine into fertilizer products. This study assessed the environmental and societal impacts of urine concentration technologies, providing guidance for technology developers and policymakers. Different urine concentration technologies were evaluated using multi-criteria assessment, and it was found that all technologies performed well against sustainability criteria, especially regarding nitrogen recovery. Scaling up urine concentration significantly reduced nitrogen emissions and could supply a significant portion of fertilizer demand.
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
(2023)
Article
Environmental Studies
Roberta Sonnino, Helen Coulson
Summary: This paper goes beyond the methodological constraints of urban food scholarship to focus on the conceptualization of the "urban" in post-Quito development discourse. It highlights the dominance of globally orientated narratives in multiscalar food governance and proposes the need for a new research and policy agenda that takes into account urban agencies, power inequities, and knowledge politics.
Article
Economics
Huixuan Li, Jing Chen, Zihao Chen, Jianguo Xu
Summary: Based on mobile internet user data, a new Internet population measure was constructed to reexamine spatial population distribution in China. The study found that the city size distribution of Internet population fits well into Zipf's law, the Internet population indicator is superior in explaining inelastic household consumption, and traditional population statistics systematically overestimate population in small cities and underestimate population in large cities.
CHINA ECONOMIC REVIEW
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Chen Yang, Shuqing Zhao
Summary: This study reveals the scaling relations between CO2 emissions and city size dimensions in 340 Chinese cities. The findings show linear scaling with population and built-up area, but sublinear scaling with specific built-up area and built-up volume. The study also highlights the impact of socioeconomic context on CO2 emissions scaling and emphasizes the importance of optimizing vertical built-up landscapes for achieving zero-carbon society.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Kanika Sharma, Bernard Butler, Brendan Jennings
Summary: We study how to deploy data collection and processing tasks on vehicles in urban traffic congestion to make use of their computational and communication capacity. By modeling a Dublin intersection using real vehicle density data, we show that vehicle flows are predictable and can be used to deploy services harnessing vehicles' sensing capabilities. We propose a task-based, distributed service placement model that scales according to resource requirements and adapts to the mobility of the cluster. Through constrained optimization, we minimize processing and communication costs and demonstrate better performance compared to existing solutions.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SERVICES COMPUTING
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Michaela Koller, Karl Eckert, Uwe Ferber, Gudrun Grabe, Maic Verbucheln, Katja Wendler
Summary: Rising urban populations, limited natural resources, and climate change require a new approach to urban planning. Recent international, European, and national programs, concepts, and framework documents promote the implementation of measures for sustainability, resource efficiency, and climate resilience in urban districts. Germany's RES:Z funding measure focuses on understanding the impacts of urban districts on land, water, and material flows, as well as urban green spaces and energy issues.
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Xuezhu Cui
Summary: In this study, a circular urban metabolism (CUM) framework was developed to assess resource use patterns. In the Shanghai case, the framework was validated and revealed significant increases in material inputs and outputs, as well as close relationships with external areas. The obstacles towards circularity were identified as non-metallic minerals used in the construction sector and energy-induced pollution.
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Muhammad Usman, Mahwish Amin, Iqra Kamal, Ayesha Shahid, Jingliang Xu, Md. Asraful Alam, Muhammad Aamer Mehmood, Ghulam Abbas Ashraf, Raj Boopathy
Summary: This review provides a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities of microalgae-mediated resource recovery and recycling of wastewater. The study highlights the potential of using unsterilized urban wastewater for microalgae cultivation and the transformation of nutrients into valuable biomass. Despite the challenges, microalgae-based wastewater treatment offers a promising and carbon-neutral approach for reducing the nutrient load of water.
CURRENT POLLUTION REPORTS
(2023)
Article
Development Studies
Gang Xu, Mengyan Zhu, Bin Chen, Muhammad Salem, Zhibang Xu, Xuecao Li, Limin Jiao, Peng Gong
Summary: This study investigates the settlement scaling law in Africa using built-up areas derived from remote sensing data. The results show that the relationship between built-up area and population varies across different regions in Africa, with linear, sub-linear, and super-linear scaling observed. The study also finds that the settlement scaling exponent varies among different countries, and can be explained by factors such as built-up area share, metropolitan population share, GDP per capita, and proportion of slum dwellers.
HABITAT INTERNATIONAL
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Theory & Methods
Spyridon Chouliaras, Stelios Sotiriadis
Summary: Cloud computing is a technology that provides scalable access to computing resources at low maintenance costs. Users in this domain can benefit from on-demand and long-term pricing strategies, but accurate estimations of future workload demands and manual control of auto-scaling rules are challenging tasks. In this work, we propose ADA-RP, an adaptive auto-scaling framework that uses historical data to predict workload demands and scales cloud resources in real-time, resulting in cost reduction and application performance improvement.
FUTURE GENERATION COMPUTER SYSTEMS-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ESCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yang Zhao, Zhenpo Wang, Zuo-Jun Max Shen, Fengchun Sun
Summary: The research reveals that blindly increasing the battery energy of urban EVs could be detrimental to sustainable development, especially with large-scale EV utilization, and seasonal shifts may exacerbate the impact of changes in energy consumption of EVs. For instance, even with a constant monthly driving demand, the average energy consumption of Beijing light-duty EVs could change by up to 21% during winter-spring shifts. The findings may also be useful for research on battery resources, urban power supply, environmental impacts, and policymaking.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Computer Science, Software Engineering
Hong Wang, Yafeng Lu, Shade T. Shutters, Michael Steptoe, Feng Wang, Steven Landis, Ross Maciejewski
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VISUALIZATION AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS
(2019)
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Shade T. Shutters, Keith Waters
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Shade T. Shutters, Srinivasa S. Kandala, Fangwu Wei, Ann P. Kinzig
Summary: The future sustainability of cities depends on economic resilience, with changes in economic structure significantly affecting a city's ability to weather economic shocks. Cities that undergo constant but measured changes in economic structure are better equipped to withstand the impacts of economic disruption.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Diego Rybski, Prajal Pradhan, Shade T. Shutters, Van Butsic, Juergen P. Kropp
Summary: The research utilized a national predictive model to analyze the GDP composition of US Metropolitan Statistical Areas over time, using a system of differential equations to characterize the transfer of GDP shares between sectors during economic development. By fitting the model to over 120 MSAs, the study found that MSAs could be classified into 6 groups, with 40% of them showing an increasing share of GDP from agriculture. In California, MSAs in the Central Valley were identified as part of an agriculture renaissance.
Article
Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Keith Waters, Shade T. Shutters
Summary: This paper examines the skill network in urban systems, specifically the relationship between network centrality and economic performance. The study finds that occupations and metropolitan areas with higher skill centrality exhibit higher salaries and productivity rates. These results provide new insights into the dynamics of regional economies in the context of complex city networks.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Shade T. Shutters
Summary: This study analyzes the anticipated long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor force of 2029, finding that the demand for nearly every type of labor skill and knowledge will increase, and the nature of work will shift from physical to more cognitive activities. The impact of COVID-19 will result in the disappearance of nearly three million jobs by 2029, primarily among workers without a bachelor's degree, with demand shifting towards computer and STEM degrees for workers with a degree.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Shade T. Shutters, Keith Waters, Rachata Muneepeerakul
Summary: The international effort to decarbonize economies has triggered a significant transformation in the global energy trade network, potentially posing obstacles to a smooth energy transition. An analysis of the network topology reveals that the global energy trade network remains robust even after random removal of 80% of its nodes. However, certain countries exhibit vulnerabilities in their individual networks, which could have significant implications for global energy trade.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Shade T. Shutters, J. M. Applegate
Summary: The pursuit of economic opportunities is a key driver of urbanization, particularly the promise of higher wages in larger cities. This phenomenon, known as the urban wage premium, has been well-documented in metropolitan areas but less understood in micropolitan areas. A study measuring the power law scaling coefficient of annual wages versus employment over a 37-year period found a superlinear relationship for both metropolitan and micropolitan areas. However, the wage premium in micropolitan areas has steadily declined since the late 1980s, while it has generally increased in metropolitan areas. This growing gap in wage premiums between micropolitan and metropolitan areas is part of a broader divergence in social, cultural, and political characteristics. It is speculated that the ongoing COVID-19 crisis may significantly impact these trends.
Article
Economics
Shade T. Shutters, Keith Waters
Summary: This study analyzes the relationship between economic tightness, economic productivity, and resilience at the regional level. The findings suggest that industry tightness is positively correlated with economic productivity and negatively correlated with changes in productivity following a major economic downturn.
STUDIES IN BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Mikhail Rogov, Celine Rozenblat, Mehdi Bida, Shade T. Shutters
Summary: This paper examines the coevolution of individual cities and the city networks during an economic shock, focusing on the effects of the Ukrainian conflict on Russian cities in 2014. The study finds that the same shock had different impacts at the meso level (employment structure) and macro level (interfirm linkages), with the meso level returning to its pre-shock state while the macro level transitioning to a new state. The results highlight the importance of distinguishing between these levels and developing multilevel urban policies to address future shocks.
ECOLOGY AND SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Computer Science, Theory & Methods
Keith Waters, Shade T. Shutters
Summary: This article discusses how to minimize unemployment caused by technological change and other economic disruptions using a skills network, and conducts empirical analysis through a case study of metropolitan Washington, DC.
APPLIED NETWORK SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Shade T. Shutters, Holger Seibert, Bastian Alm, Keith Waters
Summary: Urban systems and regions are at the forefront of social issues and technological innovation. Understanding their vulnerabilities and resilience to shocks is crucial. By analyzing interdependent industry networks, we found that internal connectedness is negatively correlated with vulnerability during shocks, but positively correlated during recovery.
Article
Environmental Studies
Shade T. Shutters, J. M. Applegate, Elizabeth Wentz, Michael Batty
Summary: As cities grow, average wages increase, but the distribution of wages becomes more unequal, hindering long-term sustainability.
NPJ URBAN SUSTAINABILITY
(2022)
Review
Environmental Studies
Jose Lobo, Marina Alberti, Melissa Allen-Dumas, Luis M. A. Bettencourt, Anni Beukes, Luis A. Bojorquez A. Tapia, Wei-Qiang Chen, Anne Dodge, Zachary Neal, Anna Perreira, Deirdre Pfeiffer, Aromar Revi, Debra Roberts, Celine Rozenblat, Shade Shutters, Michel E. E. Smith, Eleanor Stokes, Deborah Strumsky, Jianguo Wu
Summary: Research shows that Sustainable Urban Systems (SUS) science is a new science that integrates work across different disciplines, using diverse methods to address problems at different levels. The next generation of scholars and practitioners in this field are expected to have interdisciplinary synthesis skills and innovative research abilities.
NPJ URBAN SUSTAINABILITY
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Deryc T. Painter, Shade T. Shutters, Elizabeth Wentz
Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has fundamentally changed the way people interact with commerce, highlighting the significant impact of social interactions on economic efficiency and innovation. Research shows that the degree of social interaction is positively correlated with a city's patent production per worker and scales superlinearly with an industry's GDP per worker, indicating that social interaction among workers drives both a city's rate of invention and an industry's economic efficiency.