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Claim relating to grading of District Senior Officer posts in new two‐tier organisation of Merseyside and North Wales Electricity Board

The purpose of this paper is to present a spatial decision support system (SDSS) to be used by the local authorities of a city in the planning and response phase of a disaster. The SDSS focuses on the management of public spaces as a resource to increase a vulnerable population’s accessibility to essential goods and services. Using a web-based platform, the SDSS would support data-driven decisions, especially for cases such as the COVID-19 pandemic which requires special care in quarantine situations (which imply walking access instead of by other means of transport).

This paper proposes a methodology to create a web-SDSS to manage public spaces in the planning and response phase of a disaster to increase the access to essential goods and services. Using a regular polygon grid, a city is partitioned into spatial units that aggregate spatial data from open and proprietary sources. The polygon grid is then used to compute accessibility, vulnerability and population density indicators using spatial analysis. Finally, a facility location problem is formulated and solved to provide decision-makers with an adaptive selection of public spaces given their indicators of choice.

The design and implementation of the methodology resulted in a granular representation of the city of Lima, Peru, in terms of population density, accessibility and vulnerability. Using these indicators, the SDSS was deployed as a web application that allowed decision-makers to explore different solutions to a facility location model within their districts, as well as visualizing the indicators computed for the hexagons that covered the district’s area. By performing tests with different local authorities, improvements were suggested to support a more general set of decisions and the key indicators to use in the SDSS were determined.

This paper, following the literature gap, is the first of its kind that presents an SDSS focused on increasing access to essential goods and services using public spaces and has had a successful response from local authorities with different backgrounds regarding the integration into their decision-making process.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse pedestrian movement and traffic flow in one of the touristic destinations with several public spaces and buildings in the city of Eskisehir.

A direct observation method is used to study and analyse pedestrian movement pattern, public transportation routes, traffic density and amount of retail and services on location in order to determine relations between them.

The results of this study identified significant impact of public spaces and buildings on flow pattern, both pedestrian and traffic on local neighbourhood, sequentially influencing tourists visiting the location, thus location, orientation and amount of public spaces and buildings can be determined as factors which dictate success of public spaces and touristic destinations.

In scope of this paper, the relationships between pedestrian movement, traffic flow and public spaces and buildings were studied, although the influence of public transportation on pedestrian movement is indisputable.

Understanding influences of public spaces and buildings on users of surrounding infrastructures such as walkways, traffic connections and transportation provides additional information on improving the quality of public spaces and touristic destinations and creates basis for developing additional methods for evaluating public spaces and buildings.

This paper aims to evaluate the suitability and feasibility of the four most likely urban spaces for mixed use development – brownfields (contaminated lands); greenfields (open, undeveloped areas); greyfields (closed or dying shopping centers and empty parking lots); and redfields (underperforming, foreclosed commercial real estate).

Literature about and studies of mixed use development projects in America and Britain were reviewed, and so too were specific examples of the four candidate urban spaces. The authors then analyzed which spaces succeeded as mixite and which failed.

Brownfields are often not successfully transformed into usable mixite; nor are greenfields. The cost and regulatory complication of removing pollution from brownfields is too often prohibitive, and greenfields are too far away from urban core areas. By contrast, greyfields and redfields appear to be far more suitable spaces for mixed use development projects.

Most government policies urging redevelopment projects in America and Great Britain prefer brownfields as the space deemed most suitable for mixite. Contrary to this view, it appears that unpolluted spaces, such as redfields and greyfields, that do not need extensive environmental remediation, are typically better candidates for mixite.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a study carried out to establish the contribution of board of directors’ effectiveness, intellectual capital (IC) and managerial attitude to the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) in microfinance institutions (MFIs).

This study is cross-sectional and correlational. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 67 MFIs that are members of the Association of Microfinance Institutions of Uganda. The data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences.

Both board of director’s effectiveness and IC positively and significantly contribute to the adoption of IFRSs. Managerial attitude is positively and significantly associated with the adoption of IFRSs, but its explanatory power is subsumed in IC.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the contribution of board of director’s effectiveness, IC and managerial attitude to the adoption of IFRSs in MFIs using evidence from a developing African country like Uganda.

Urban stream ecosystems have often been seen as channels of water flow rather than as the valuable parts of an urban green space system providing ecosystem services. The study seeks to address the importance of urban stream ecosystems from the perspective of urban ecology, human health and social well‐being in the context of urban planning.

The case study area is the Rekolanoja stream ecosystem in the City of Vantaa, southern Finland. The data from the case study area were gathered from existing ecological studies and by conducting semi‐structured interviews, a resident inquiry and a writing contest.

The results from the Rekolanoja case show that intense management of the streamside vegetation and treatment of the stream channel in construction projects have decreased species richness and diminished valuable streamside biotopes. However, the stream corridor can function as an important recreational and educational element within the local green space network and thereby become a symbol of local identity.

Planners, decision‐makers and other interest groups can use the findings from this study in determining the values of small urban stream ecosystems in urban development.

The Rekolanoja case indicates that planners and residents see the value of such an aquatic element as increasingly important for urban biodiversity and ecological corridor functions, as well as for local human health and social well‐being, e.g. recreation and stress relief. Future land‐use decisions will show whether a genuine change in the values and thinking of planners and decision‐makers is taking place.

Saudi Arabia recently amended the Labour Law provisions governing the unfair dismissal of employees in the private sector. The previous version of the legislation, which had been in force for many years, had entitled employees to demand reinstatement or make a claim for fair financial compensation equal to the damages sustained. The recent amendments eliminated the right of a dismissed employee to seek reinstatement and also revised the rules relating to monetary compensation. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse and evaluate the new approach, which has been criticized heavily. In addition, it suggests feasible alternative ways to handle unfair employee dismissal, which can be incorporated into the current Saudi Labour Law.

This paper presents an analysis of the existing approach to dealing with unfair employee termination in the Saudi Labour Law. It is based mainly on information collected from various legal materials, such as books, review of judgments issued by the Commission for the Settlement of Labour Disputes in Saudi Arabia and relevant Islamic rules.

The results of this examination clearly show that there are several flaws in the current approach to dealing with the issue of unfair dismissal of employees. To correct this situation, workable approaches have been suggested for possible consideration and incorporation into the Saudi Labour Law.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first academic study to analyse the current approach to handling unfair employee dismissal in the Saudi Labour Law.

Commercial areas and bedestens (covered bazaars) are important public areas in Turkish cities and towns. These areas and buildings are essential in that they contribute vital economic and social characteristics to Turkish cities and towns. In the Ottoman period, these commercial areas, alongside inns, baths, mosques, and stores, were engaged in trading and manufacturing and formed a central part of life for the residents. The number of bedestens in a given city was dependent on the size of the city or town. All social, administrative, and economic activities were organized within these bedestens. Commercial structures, in which the bedestens are located, with different functions, such as arasta, inns, markets, covered markets, and stores, are the main components of the commercial districts. These structures were built by the order of the Sultan for the purpose of reviving and providing direction to the economic life of the city or town. One of the key components of these commercial structures was the bedestens. In terms of Turkish culture, a bedesten can be defined as the heart of the commercial district. Although these structures were built to sell textiles, they later functioned as places where antiques and/or valuable goods were also sold. Bedestens were usually a unique type of structure, with masonry masses between wooden stores located in the middle of the trade center of the city or town. The top of the bedesten, which was usually built as one storey and rectangular in shape, had a domed roof covered with lead. In this study, spatial analyses of these important architectural elements were conducted in terms of city planning, folk culture and commercial life. The bedestens selected for the study were those in historical cities located at major commercial road axes from the Ottoman period. The bedestens in these historical cities were examined, within the context of their planning, and assessments were made. The relations that these structures have with each other in general, and their common and different features, were also investigated.

The purpose of this paper is to develop strategies of re-imaging the Rosetta historic district through choosing the suitable uses and their specific locations in compliance with the urban design fabric of the historic core. These strategies are to be fulfilled using Space Syntax as an urban analysis tool, in the context of “connectivity analysis.”

The research methodology follows the combined strategy between three methods of research: a SWOT analysis, to reveal the historic core status; an experimental research approach, which stimulates the chosen area via Space Syntax; and the third is a case study of the Rosetta historic core.

The re-usage of the Rosetta old core was not originally planned as commercial and to host movable vendors, but the core was forced to adapt afterwards to suit this usage, while the Souk and those big new residential building urban blocks have clearly deformed the historic image of the Rosetta historic core. Moving from one space to another, it was found that well-connected spaces have higher movement density, such as Al Souk Street, while less dense spaces can tolerate more movement without conflicting with highly dense ones. The existing commercial activities can be classified into movable activities – which can be easily relocated – and shop-based, which need a developmental approach in their original locations. The disconnected district can be used as a commercial zone for the movable vendors, to which human flow can be successfully directed in order to reduce the density in the more connected spaces.

The research value lies in exploring how to re-image urban heritage via relocating the places reused with unsuitable activities through Space Syntax.

Tax increment financing (TIF) has been adopted widely by municipalities to promote local economic development. This study aims to examine the effect of TIF adoption on property values at the parcel level in Indiana from 2009 to 2016.

Concerns of TIF adoption endogeneity are addressed by a two-stage estimation process using urban population ratio and unemployment rates as instruments.

In addition to finding influential socioeconomic and demographic factors, the results suggest that parcels located within TIF districts were sold more than parcels outside of TIF districts by approximately $5,000. Such premium is mainly picked up by the positive effect on commercial and agricultural parcels, which outweighs the negative TIF impact on residential types.

Arm’s length transaction data on property value are used to eliminate the subjective assessment bias, potential calculation errors during the evaluation process and econometric issues caused by using the assessed value.