Browsing by Subject "built environment"

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    Comparing Spatial Measures of the Built Environment for Health Research
    (2008-03-07T13:35:29Z) Hoch, Shawn C.; Wilson, Jeffrey S. (Jeffrey Scott), 1967-; Liu, Gilbert; Wiehe, Sarah
    Research on the association between health and the built environment often delineates environmental exposure using different spatial forms and distances surrounding points of interest, such as residences or schools. Examples from the literature include Euclidian and network buffers, administrative and census boundaries, and other arbitrary geographies, such as grid cells. There is a lack, however, of reports that describe the justifications or implications for using different methods. This research compares different forms and distances for measuring environmental variables surrounding residential locations in the context of adult walking behavior in Marion County, Indiana. Walkability index and vegetation greenness variables were evaluated within 400-meter, 1-kilometer, and 2-kilometer Euclidian and network buffers, census block groups and tracts, and 805- X 805-meter grid cells. Results of analyses using each of these methods to test walkability and greenness as correlates of self-reported walking behavior were compared. Significant differences were observed in measurements of environmental variables as a function of both size and form. There were also significant differences between spatial measure methods when measuring components of walkability and NDVI. Census geographies, widely used in the public health literature, yielded environmental variable measurements differently than did similarly-sized residence-based measure methods. In logistic regressions, the walkability index did not exhibit a significant relationship with self-reported walking behavior. NDVI exhibited a negative relationship with self-reported walking, although the relationship was reversed and significant when stratifying by residential density.
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    Hidden Wind Farms Potential for Residential Households Having Roofmounted Wind Arrester
    (IEEE, 2015) Amini, Amin; Kamoona, Mustafa; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue School of Engineering and Technology
    Small-scale energy-generating systems are being increasingly integrated into built environment, and the use of renewable energies is now spreading to old towns in developing countries. Despite the promise of free energy, the high-tech appearance of the harnessing tools of renewables has provoked criticism because of the incompatibility with the cultural/environmental characteristics of older towns in Iran. This paper presents a new concept of novel hidden wind farms in the residential households of Iranian desert-edge towns with roof-mounted wind-arresters. The results of this study show that a hidden wind farm integrated into old towns with the potential of tourism can eliminate the concern over the visibility and bird collisions as well as the use of land. In the present study, the old city of Ardakan, Yazd, with an arid climate located at the edge of a desert in the center of Iran, is selected as target case study. Calculations show that the application of one small-scale wind turbine per wind-arrester across the town can generate approximately 2.90 GWh a year. Moreover, the proposed concept could also be applied in other countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq, UAE and some African countries.