In this paper we propose an alternative to traditional hedonics for estimating new multiunit housing inflation, adjusting for quality changes. Precise location, transport, traffic, closeness to services, or construction quality are some of the unobserved but typically relevant housing characteristics that may bias estimated house price inflation, even when using hedonic methods. By relying on t...

In this paper, a novel quantum swarm evolutionary algorithm (QSE) is presented based on the quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA). A new definition of Q-bit expression called quantum angle is proposed, and an improved particle swarm optimization (PSO) is employed to update the quantum angles automatically. The simulated results in solving 0–1 knapsack problem show that QSE is superior t...

This study is aimed at revealing the tourism destination image (TDI) of Japan as represented on Chinese websites. Three Internet-based information resources were used to collect the text database: travel advertisements, travel guides, and travel blogs. The TDI of Japan represented on each information source was studied by counting word frequencies in each text database. Correspondence analysis ...

This cross-sectional study analyzed 240 primary healthcare units, linked either to the traditional primary care model or the Family Health Program (FHP), involving a total of 3,347 health professionals who answered the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Prevalence of sedentary lifestyle (< 150 minutes of physical activity per week) was 27.5% (95%CI: 25.9-29.0). Sedentary lifestyle w...

This paper examines disparities between unitary central governments and local governments in how environmental policy is defined and implemented at the local level. This is done within the context of northeast Asia, where results can often differ from expectations driven by traditional models of local government behaviour offered by the West. A theoretical measure for policy distance between th...

"Using published census data, metropolitan area population and employment statistics are constructed for several large Latin American cities in 1950, 1960, and 1970, and compared to similar statistics from selected North American cities. The Latin cities are experiencing decentralization of population and some decentralization of employment. Overall population density patterns of large Latin ci...

Shrinking cities are widespread throughout the world despite the rapidly increasing global urban population. These cities are attempting to transition to sustainable trajectories to improve the health and well-being of urban residents, to build their capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to cope with major events. The dynamics of shrinking cities are different than the dynamics of growin...

over half of the world’s population lives in cities and united nations (un) demographers project an increase of 2.5 billion more urban dwellers by 2050. yet there is too little systematic comparative research on the practice of urban health policy and management (hpam), particularly in the megacities of middle-income and developing nations. we make a case for creating a global database on citie...

Orthophoto imagery is a valuable layer in a GIS because it provides a generic, inexpensive, and accurate base map. However, in cities with tall buildings it is difficult to create a seamless database of orthophoto imagery. Traditional methods for orthophoto rectification disregard buildings. In this paper, we describe a fully automated process, developed by ASI, that creates true orthophotograp...