Abstract

To review published pediatric trauma research from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries so as to identify research fields that need to be enhanced. A MEDLINE search for articles on pediatric trauma from GCC countries during the period 1960 to 2010 was performed. The content of articles was analyzed, classified and summarized. Fifty-three articles were found and retrieved of which 18 (34%) were published in the last 5 years, 42 (79.2%) were original articles. The first author was affiliated to a university in 29 reports (54.7%), to a community hospital in 13 (24.5%) and to a military hospital in 10 (18.9%). All articles were observational studies that included 18 (34%) case-control studies, 18 (34%) case reports/case series studies, 8 (15.1%) prospective studies, and 7 (13.2%) cross sectional studies. The median (range) impact factor of the journals was 1.3 (0.5–3.72). No meta-analysis studies were found. A strategic plan is required to support pediatric trauma research in GCC countries so as to address unmet needs. Areas of deficiency include pre-hospital care, post-traumatic psychological effects and post-traumatic rehabilitation, interventional studies focused on a safe child environment and attitude changes, and the socioeconomic impact of pediatric trauma.

Abstract

Eskilstuna has introduced energy and climate policies in most sectors, enterprise and planning. It thus offers an excellent study field. "br/""br/"Energy and climate policy is divided into two policy arenas: The arena of the municipality acting as a concern and the arena of the municipality acting as a stakeholder of energy initiatives towards the general public. The efficiency of the first is very high, due to an omnipresence of ‘sustainability thinking’. The total effect of the latter is, however, much larger, due to the size of the arena. "br/""br/"Principles of urban development are generally acknowledged as an important instrument for sustainability. Urban densification and urban connectivity to transport routes facilitated by public transport are the two main principles. "br/""br/"Policies of sustainability are of ‘second-order’ as compared to the economic driven changes of the urban system. A prime ‘first-order’ development is regional enlargement synonymous with increased transport. Second-order policies are modal split initiatives aiming at public rather than private transportation facilitated by infrastructure and infrastructure lead urban development. "br/" "br/"The largest amount of energy consumption is in the sectors of transport, households and industry. Potentials reduction of CO2 emissions vary: Transportation depends on fossil fuels, difficult to cope with, whereas energy consumption in households is composed by a number of energy sources, including an increasing amount of renewables operated by large district heating plants as well as by individual house owners’ initiatives. "br/""br/"Thus, national measures are efficiently introduced in the conversion of district heating into renewables as well as conversion of the heating of single family dwellings using heat pumps and solar cells. Designing incentives to reduce fossil fuels in transport remains the key challenge. "br/""br/"At municipal level the consumption of electricity is of special concern. Only about 25% of electricity it is possible to produce by local combined power and district heating plants. Some small additional power may be provided locally by e.g. solar cells. But for the remaining part consumers are dependent upon national grids, i.e. power produced by energy sources that are beyond the control of the municipality. Document type: Book

Abstract

The Estonian planning system allots the main responsibilities for planning activities to the local level, whereas the regional level (county) is rather weak. That implies a gap of cooperation on the regional level, leading to dispersed urban development in suburban municipalities and ongoing urban sprawl in the vicinity of Tartu. This development appears contrary to the concept of “low-density urbanised space” as formulated in the National Spatial Plan “Estonia 2030+” (NSP) as the central spatial development concept for Estonia and also to a compact and intensive city development as formulated in the Master Plan of Tartu."br/""br/"Since Tartu has no relevant big industries, the main employers are the municipality and the university, energy related challenges occur from transport and residential (district) heating. The modal split shows big differences between journeys within Tartu and journeys between Tartu and its vicinity. While the first shows a high share of public transport and walking, the latter includes a high share of car use, especially in work related travelling. This is closely related to the issue of ongoing urban sprawl and increasing car ownership. Although the Tartu City Transport Development Plan 2012-2020 points very clearly at the weaknesses in the transport system of Tartu, the plan is not addressing cross-border issues, like e.g. regional commuting."br/""br/"The highest share of emissions is allotted to energy production. In terms of energy sources Estonia is very much dependent on imports like oil and gas and the Estonian electricity production is to more than 90 % based on Estonian oil shale. Thus, efforts towards higher energy efficiency – at least on the national level – are rather driven by ambitions to decrease fuel dependency than merely efficiency objectives. That illustrates the need for a transition of the energy supply and generation system in Estonia from two forces: decreasing fuel dependency and a shift to an increasing use of renewable resources. Document type: Book

Abstract

Since industrialisation, Turku has been an important industrial town in Finland and still is. Today, after considerable restructuring of the industrial sector, most jobs (79 % in the city of Turku) are within services. Besides its economic base, Turku also is experiencing a change in the former prevailing urban sprawl, characterising urban development since the 1950s. The city is densifying and promoting sustainable urban develop-ment, though at a regional scale with several growth centres. Its future development is envisioned in the “Structure model 2035”, focusing on more compact urban development along public transport corridors. From the case report three issues arise which might be of considerable interest in a broader context of the PLEEC project:"br/""br/"1. Working with energy efficient regional urban structure (e.g. regarding urban sprawl) in a low density country and on a voluntary cooperative basis"br/"2. Keeping the industrial base in a city facing deindustrialisation and aiming for energy efficiency"br/"3. Decentralisation of energy supply enables new forms of settlements with the example of Skanssi Document type: Book

Abstract

The volume of air traffic in the National Air Space has been growing at a very fast pace during recent years, and increasing demand for air travel in coming years is predicted. Strategic Planning is a necessary tool to guarantee a safe and efficient increase of Air Traffic. An Aggregate Model for Strategic Planning of Air Traffic Management is the framework of this project.Aggregate models require the creation of a network that is representative of the expected flow and which will serve as a platform to solve flow optimization problems. We have integrated an automatic method for route clustering - Smax method - to generate the required network. Automatic clustering is necessary in order to efficiently cluster many individual scenarios.Some available alternatives to determine the number of clusters are tested. The studied alternatives provide success rates that oscillates between 49% and 68%. In addition to the relatively low success rates, these methods require one user-input parameter, and they are highly sensitive to it.A different method, based on the Silhouette Score and the Dip Test measures, is developed. The Smax method requires no user-input parameters, and it consistently provides rates of success that approximately oscillate between the 72% and the 81%.The presented clustering approach noticeably improves the rate of correct clustering cases for the specific scenario of route clustering.

Abstract

To sustain the continuously increasing air traffic demand, the future air traffic management system will rely on a so-called Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) concept that will increase air traffic capacity by reducing the controller's workload. This will be achieved by transferring tactical conflict detection and resolution tasks to the strategic planning phase. In this future air traffic management paradigm context, this thesis presents a methodology to address such strategic trajectory planning at nation-wide and continent scale. The proposed methodology aims at minimizing the global interaction between aircraft trajectories by allocating alternative departure times, alternative horizontal flight paths, and alternative flight levels to the trajectories involved in the interaction. To improve robustness of the strategic trajectory planning, uncertainty of aircraft position and aircraft arrival time to any given position on the trajectory are considered. This thesis proposes a mathematical formulation of this strategic trajectory planning problem leading to a discrete-optimization and a mixed-integer optimization problem whose objective function relies on the new concept of interaction between trajectories. A computationally efficient algorithm to compute interaction between trajectories for large-scale applications is introduced and implemented. Resolution methods based on metaheuristic and hybrid-metaheuristic algorithms have been developed to solve the above large-scale optimization problems. Finally, the overall methodology is implemented and tested with air traffic data taking into account uncertainty over the French and the European airspaces, involving more than 30,000 trajectories. Conflict-free and robust 4D trajectory planning are produced within computational time acceptable for the operation context, which shows the viability of the approach.; Afin de pouvoir satisfaire la demande sans cesse croissante du trafic aérien, le futur système de gestion du trafic aérien utilisera le concept d'opérations basées sur les trajectoires (Trajectory Based Operations), qui augmentera la capacité du trafic aérien, en réduisant la charge de travail du contrôleur. Pour ce faire, les tâches de détection et de résolution de conflits seront transférées depuis la phase tactique vers la phase stratégique de la planification. Dans le cadre de ce nouveau paradigme pour le système de gestion du trafic aérien, nous introduisons dans cette thèse une méthodologie qui permet d'aborder ce problème de planification stratégique de trajectoires d'avion à l'échelle d'un pays ou d'un continent. Le but de la méthodologie proposée est de minimiser l'interaction globale entre les trajectoires d'avion, en affectant de nouveaux créneaux de décollage, de nouvelles routes et de nouveaux niveaux de vols aux trajectoires impliquées dans l'interaction. De plus, afin d'améliorer la robustesse du plan stratégique de vols obtenu, nous prenons en compte l'incertitude de la position de l'avion et de son heure d'arrivée à un point donné de la trajectoire de l'avion. Nous proposons une formulation mathématique de ce problème de planification stratégique conduisant à un problème d'optimisation discrète et un problème d'optimisation en variables mixtes, dont la fonction objectif est basée sur le nouveau concept d'interaction. Un algorithme efficace en termes de temps de calcul pour évaluer l'interaction entre des trajectoires d'avion pour des applications de grande taille est introduit et mis en œuvre. Des méthodes de résolution basées sur des algorithmes de type métaheuristique et métaheuristique hybride ont été développées pour résoudre ces problèmes d'optimisation de grande taille. Enfin, la méthodologie globale de planification stratégique de trajectoires d'avion est mise en œuvre et testée sur des données de trafic, prenant en compte des incertitudes, pour l'espace aérien français et l'espace aérien européen, impliquant plus de 30000 vols. Des plans de vols 4D sans conflits et robustes ont pu être produits avec des temps de calcul acceptables dans un contexte opérationnel, ce qui démontre la viabilité de l'approche proposée.

Abstract

When developing infrastructure, public debate is often dominated by the opposition. Frequently, the conflict escalates when a project is already planned or the construction has already started. One potential way for tackling these problems is to improve the strategic foundation of transport infrastructure projects. Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is one instrument for showing that a transport infrastructure projects is never an end in itself, but is essential to accomplish objectives from different policy fields. Taking the example of the SEA for the Airport link, this paper shows the importance of a broad evaluation framework for assessing infrastructure projects on a strategic level. This way, opinion leaders can be convinced of the plan or programme respectively of a possible follow-up project and can act as advocators. Strengthening the role of SEA as a strategic planning instrument can increase the quality of plans and programmes and subsequently of planning projects and disburden environmental impact assessment.

Abstract