news 2010

Civil Engineering - 4.04
Look familiar?
Introducing the online game for Londoners which researchers hope will one day influence the shape of the nation's capital. —Daniele Quercia An online game which tests Londoners' ability to recognise parts of the capital has been devised by researchers as the first step in a project to create a "memory map" of the city.

Environmental Sciences - Civil Engineering - 11.01
Urban Biodiversity and the feel-good factor
Urban Biodiversity and the feel-good factor Urban Biodiversity and the feel-good factor Visitors to urban green spaces in Sheffield feel better in areas they perceive to have greater biodiversity.

Social Sciences - Civil Engineering - 30.09.2009
Unique new atlas shows world from fresh perspective
Researchers from the University of Sheffield have created a new online atlas which displays images of the world, but not as we know it. The atlas includes over 200 maps which have been redrawn to show, at a glance, which cities are the largest, how all urban areas compare, and whether many or few people live in the countryside.

Civil Engineering - 25.04
Trees help you breathe more easily
Research by the University of Birmingham has contributed to The Woodland Trust's new Urban Air Quality report. Published in collaboration with Lancaster University, the report highlights how considered planting of trees and other vegetation can be used to significantly improve air quality in towns and cities.

Civil Engineering - 18.04
LASIG and street networks evolution in the Scientific American
Emanuele Strano, a doctoral candidate at LASIG, authored a study published in Nature's Scientific Reports to examine how a group of Italian villages evolved into suburbs outside Milan today. Such a study may eventually help urban planners optimize future developments.

Administration/Government - Civil Engineering - 9.03
U-M report: Violent crime escalates in Haiti as confidence in police erodes
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Haiti exhibited a dramatic increase in violent crime in the last six months, as residents reported declining confidence in the police, a new University of Michigan report indicates. No single factor can explain the rise in violence - especially murder and armed robberies - in Haiti's urban areas, but the country's stability has eroded after a five-year period in which crime steadily declined to record lows, the researchers say.

Civil Engineering - 26.01
Using real-time road traffic data to evaluate congestion
A new project has shown that by using existing sources of information about traffic flow it is possible to create a minute-by-minute image of congestion in cities. Most cities have the types of data we have used in Cambridge and the approach could be used more extensively by Cambridge County Council and extended nationally." —Professor Jean Bacon Britain's roads are getting more and more congested.

Environmental Sciences - Civil Engineering - 19.10.2011
City heat is a small contributor to global warming, Stanford study finds
Urban 'heat island' effect is only a small contributor to global warming, and white roofs don't help to solve the problem, say Stanford researchers Heat emanating from cities – called the "urban heat island" effect – is not a significant contributor to global warming, Stanford researchers have found.

Civil Engineering - Environmental Sciences - 26.05.2010
Hedgehogs adapt to life in the city
More hedgehogs may now be living in towns and cities than in the countryside but how they trade off the risks and benefits of an urban environment has been little known ? until now. New research from the University of Bristol, published in Animal Behaviour, investigated how hedgehogs are coping with life in the city.