Rapid and unplanned industrialization along the low lying regions of East Sikkim has marked an irreversible adverse impact on the ecological, hydrological and geographical attributes. Urban sprawling leading to escalated encroachment is one of the prime factors contributing extensively to the changes environmental attributes are subjected to. It is therefore important to evaluate land coverage ...

OBJECTIVE To examine the association between emergency department length of stay (EDLOS) and inpatient length of stay (IPLOS). DESIGN Retrospective review of presentations and admissions data. SETTING Three metropolitan hospitals in Melbourne, 1 July 2000 to 30 June 2001. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Mean IPLOS for four categories of EDLOS (12 hours); excess ...

Even though physical activity and sedentary behaviour are two distinct behaviours, their interdependent relationship needs to be studied in the same environment. This study examines the influence of urban design, neighbourhood built and social environment, and household and individual factors on the interdependent relationship between objectively measured physical activity and sedentary behavio...

Further reductions in pollution will require new management approaches based on ecosystem concepts. In this paper we examine three case studies that analyze flows of nutrients in urban ecosystems to identify new approaches for pollution management. An analysis of the food chain for the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, USA) is used to examine generation of nutrient pollution in the ...

Introduction: A composite index (or simply an index) is constructed with an objective to obtain a synoptic or comprehensive single number, representing a vast array of measurements on the multiple aspects of a ‘conceptual entity’ such as general price level, cost of living, level of economic development and regional disparities (Adelman and Morris, 1967; Pal, 1975; Mishra and Chopra, 1978; Mish...

City branding is a common practice adopted by many cities in the context of intensified urban competition for mobile resources, markets, opportunities and attention. This paper examines the effectiveness of efforts to brand Beijing, the capital city of China. Based on an analysis of official branding strategies through the Olympics, and an attitudinal survey of peoples’ understanding of Beijing...

OBJECTIVES Although human factors are important in terms of patient safety, there have been very few reports on the attitudes of healthcare professionals working in acute care settings in South Korea. In the present study, we investigated the attitudes of such professionals, their cultures and their management systems. DESIGN A questionnaire survey with 65 items covering nine themes affecting...

Urban areas are a complex combination of various land-cover types, and show a variety of land-use structures and spatial layouts. Furthermore, the spectral similarity between built-up areas and bare land is a great challenge when using high spatial resolution remote sensing images to map urban areas, especially for images obtained in dry and cold seasons or high-latitude regions. In this study,...

The use of decentralised, sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) for the treatment of stormwater runoff is becoming increasingly prevalent in Germany. Decentralised SUDS can offer a viable and attractive alternative to end of pipe treatment systems for stormwater runoff from urban areas. However, there is still some uncertainty regarding the long-term performance of SUDS, and the general leg...

A system for the automatic segmentation of German words into morphs was developed. The main linguistic knowledge sources used by the system are a word syntax and a morph dictionary. The syntax is written in the formalism of right linear regular grammars and comprises approximately 1,400 rules describing the set of those sequences of morph classes which underlie syntactically well formed words. ...