Background: Obesity and physical inactivity rates have reached epidemic levels in Canada, but differ based on whether they are self-reported or directly measured. Canadian research examining the combined and independent effects of social and built environments on adult physical activity (PA) and body mass index (BMI) is limited. Furthermore there is a lack of Canadian studies to assess these relationships using directly measured PA and BMI. Objectives: The objectives of this thesis were to systematically compare self-reported and directly measured PA and to examine associations between neighbourhood built and social environmental factors with both self-reported and directly measured PA and overweight/obesity in adults living in Ottawa, Canada. Methods: A systematic review was conducted to identify observational and experimental studies of adult populations that used both self-report and direct measures of PA and to assess the agreement between the measures. Associations between objectively measured neighbourhood-level built recreation and social environmental factors and self-reported individual-level data including total and leisure-time PA (LTPA) and overweight/obesity were examined in the adult population of Ottawa, Canada using multilevel models. Neighbourhood differences in directly measured BMI and PA (using accelerometry) were evaluated in a convenience sample of adults from four City of Ottawa neighbourhoods with contrasting socioeconomic (SES) and built recreation (REC) environments. Results: Results from the review generally indicate a poor level of agreement between self-report and direct measures of PA, with trends differing based on the measures of PA, the level of PA examined and the sex of the participants. Results of the multilevel analyses identified that very few of the built and social environmental variables were ii significantly associated with PA or overweight/obesity. Greater park area was significantly associated with total PA in females. Greater green space was shown to be associated with lower odds of male LTPA. Factors from the social environment were generally more strongly related to male outcomes. Further to the recreation and social environment, factors in the food landscape were significantly associated with male and female PA and overweight/obesity. Results of the directly measured PA and BMI investigation showed significant neighbourhood-group effects for light intensity PA and sedentary time. Post-hoc tests identified that the low REC/high SES neighbourhood had significantly more minutes of light PA than the low REC/low SES. BMI differed between the four neighbourhoods, but the differences were not significant after controlling for age, sex and household income. Conclusions: Results of this dissertation show that the quantity of PA can differ based on its method of measurement (i.e. between self-report and direct methods) with implications for the interpretation of study findings. It also identifies that PA and BMI can differ by neighbourhood and recognizes that the relationships between neighbourhood environments and PA and body composition are complex, may be differ between males and females, and may not always follow intuitive relationships. Furthermore it suggests that other factors in the environment not examined in this dissertation may influence adult PA and BMI and that longitudinal and intervention studies are needed.

A previsão das condições térmicas de duas casas populares (ocupadas) na cidade de Descalvado-SP é tema deste trabalho. A pesquisa envolve o registro contínuo da variação das temperaturas interna e externa. A fórmula experimental, \"Predicting Indoor Air Temperature Formula\", proposta por Givoni (1999), está sendo aplicada e analisada para a previsão das temperaturas internas, máximas e mínimas. Para o registro contínuo das temperaturas, foi instalada no local uma estação meteorológica automática- CR10X- Campbell Scientific Inc., equipada com vários sensores para registro dos elementos do clima, e, também, por meio de multiplexador - AM416, de 32 canais, para conectar termopares - tipo T (cobre/constantan), que registram as temperaturas no interior das casas (ocupadas). Dos dados coletados, foram escolhidos 2 (dois) episódios representativos do clima, o primeiro representando a situação de primavera/verão (12 a 15/10/2000), e segundo, outono/inverno (14 a 20/05/2001), sendo analisados conforme a abordagem de análise dinâmica do clima, de acordo com a proposta de Vecchia (1997), adaptada de Monteiro (1967). / The forecast of the thermal conditions of two popular houses (busy) in the city of Descalvado - SP is therme of this work. The research involves the continuous registration of the variation of the internal temperatures and it expresses. The experimental formula \"Predicting Indoor Air Temperature Formulates\", proposed by Givoni (1999), it is being applied and analysed for the forecast of the internal temperatures, maxims and low. It goes the continuous registration of the temperatures it was installed un the place an automatic meteorological station - CR10X - Campbell Scientific Inc, equipped with sensor several, goes registration of the elements of the climate and also, through multiplexer - AM416, of 32 channels, to connect thermoocouples - type T(copper/constantan) that register the temperatures inside the houses (busy). Of the collected data they were chosen 2 (two) representative episodes of the climate, the first representing the spring/summer situation (12 to 15/10/2000) and second autumn/winter (14 to 20/05/2001), being analyzed according to the approach of dynamic analysis of the climate, in agreement with the proposal of Vecchia (1997) adapted of Monteiro (1967).

This interpretative case study examines the ways in which socio-spatial exclusion is main-tained though urban planning designs in the informal settlement of Kibera in Kenya. It ap-plies the theoretical and analytical framework of T. Mitchell and A. Church, M. Frost, K. Sullivan to investigate how the urban design of the Kenyan Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP) contributes to the maintenance of socio-spatial hierarchies that allow for the ex-clusion of Kibera’s urban residents. This investigation is a reaction to the lacking considera-tion of implanted structural violence in place and urban development.The study found that persisting socio-spatial exclusion of residents in Kibera is in-deed sustained through KENSUP. The built environment functions as power medium that excludes some people based on their socio-spatial status in the city. The applied framework confirmed that the urban planning programme KENSUP maintains existing forms of eco-nomic, physical, and geographic exclusion, besides the exclusion from facilities through the built environment.The findings suggest that urban planning designs require a shift from the focus on the built environment towards the focus on human rights and inclusive participation in order to reduce the structural influence of socio-spatial city hierarchies.

Heritage conservation and management has its own challenges and opportunities. If done correctly, it has the potential to re-establish the thread of continuity with a previous time. Most prominently, heritage conservation and management has the ability to facilitate legislative change, promote reconciliation and social reconstruction in a sustainable manner. It is this research papers intention to re-imagine the conservation and management process at a postcolonial heritage site with a shared history and meaning. Keeping this objective in mind, Cockatoo Island is discussed as a suitable heritage site and case study for the paper. The investigation into the case study will be undertaken by taking inspiration from Roha W. Khalaf’s publication of Cultural Heritage Reconstruction after Armed Conflict: Continuity, Change, and Sustainability. The study will reframe Khalaf’s concepts of cultural continuity, change and sustainability, by investigating its application to the discussed heritage site’s conservation and management processes. The synergies between Khalaf’s conceptual ideas could strengthen the connections between indigenous communities and their heritage sites. Further, these synergies could also facilitate for the social reconciliation of post-colonial communities, especially in the context of shared history and meaning. / Mini Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Andrew Mellon Foundation / Tangible Heritage Conservation / MSocSci (Tangible Heritage Conservation) / Unrestricted

Recent, mounting research shows that chronic disease, the leading causes of death and primary driver of health care costs, cannot be effectively addressed through education or preventative health alone. A physical environment that promotes health—through access to healthy food, opportunities for physical activity, quality housing, transportation options, and safe schools—is an integral part of making our communities healthier. This research and accompanying Healthy Community Plans will serve as a way for the County to begin looking in-depth at the ways the built environment (our streets, parks, and neighborhoods) contribute or detract from the health of the community. Though the creation of a healthy general plan may be unattainable for the County in the short term, a focus on a small yet cohesive part of the county presents an opportunity to affect these changes. Under the direction of the SLO County Health Agency and the Health Commission, we have written Healthy Community Plans for the unincorporated communities of Cayucos and Oceano, California. Both of these plans were greatly informed by their respective communities through input garnered through outreach, interviews, surveys and personal interactions with community members. This project examines the relationship between the built environment and public health, and explores ways planning professionals are beginning to address health issues through infrastructure, land use, creative zoning, and planning strategies that promote health and active living in policy. The planning documents, modeled after health elements currently being included in general plans throughout California, have integrated the fields of planning and public health to provide Cayucos and Oceano an assessment of its residents’ health, a description of the current built environment conditions that may be helping or hindering physical activity and access to nutritious food sources, as well as establish goals, policies and implementation strategies that will set a course of action toward healthier communities.

As China experiences rapid urbanization, local traditional knowledge (LTK) has been increasingly brought to the public’s attention as a significant feature of cultural identity and inclusiveness. Especially in the ethnic minority areas, it is important to respect LTK so that the cultural identity and social cohesion of ethnic minorities can be sustained in an increasingly urbanized environment. The objective of this research is to explore the incorporation of LTK during the process of urbanizing China’s ethnic minority regions from the perspective of residents. Using Dali City as a case study, this dissertation investigates local Bai people’s perspective on LTK with urbanization in mind. Questionnaire surveys, focus group discussions, and daily field observations are employed to examine how Bai LTK is impacting Dali’s cultural landscape. Based on the questionnaire surveys answered by 80 Bai people, this research finds that Dali has a well-preserved Bai cultural landscape. Complementary to the questionnaire findings, the focus group data and daily field observations provide robust conclusions on how local Bai people perceive the preservation of their culture. Respondents placed a high cultural value on Bai language, traditional architecture, and traditional festivals. Nonetheless, a discrepancy is evident between participants’ preferences regarding the conservation of Bai traditions, which reveals the culture preservation is facing challenges. By demonstrating that there are profound differences in Bai LTK conservation between the urban and rural areas, this study contributes to more realistic descriptions of the impact of urbanization in Dali. Particularly, it captures the cultural processes which transform the built environment and reveals a better strategy to integrate LTK with urban development. The decision-making process for ethnic culture preservation is highly complicated and refers to achieving a benefit equilibrium for every stakeholder using a more participative approach. LTK indicates an intrinsic value to a livable city and is instrumental in an inclusive urbanism. The research findings assert a better understanding of culture preservation from the perspective of Bai people in Dali and shed light on the interplay between LTK and sustainable development in the ethnic minority region.

With an increasing awareness of energy consumption and CO 2emission in the population, several initiatives to reduce CO2emissions have been presented all around the world. The main part of these initiatives is a reduction of the energy consumption for existing buildings, while the others concern the building of eco-districts with low-energy infrastructures and even zero-energy infrastructures. In this idea of reducing the energy consumption and of developing new clean areas, this master thesis will deal with the high energy quality services for new urban districts. In the scope of this master thesis project, the new concept of sustainable cities and of clusters of buildings will be approached in order to clearly understand the future challenges that the world’s population is going to face during this century. Indeed, due to the current alarming environmental crisis, the need to reduce human impacts on the environment is growing more and more and is becoming inescapable. We will present a way to react to the current situation and to counteract it thanks to new clean technologies and to new analysis approaches, like the exergy concept. Through this report, we are going to analyze the concepts of sustainable cities and clusters of buildings as systems, and focus on their energy aspects in order to set indoor climate parameters and energy supply parameters to ensure high energy quality services supplies to high performance buildings. Thanks to the approach of the exergy concept, passive and active systems such as nocturnal ventilation or floor heating and cooling systems have been highlighted in order to realize the ‘energy saving’ opportunities that our close environment offers. This work will be summarized in a methodology that will present a way to optimize the energy use of all services aspects in a building and the environmental friendly characteristics of the energy resources mix, which will supply the buildings’ low energy demands.

The Swedish government in the 1960th initiated “The Million Program” to build million residentialunits to cover the housing shortage between 1965 to 1975. Tjärna Ängar neighborhood in Borlängemunicipality was built during the million-program period, where these residential units became old,and the indoor environment is uncomfortable for the residents.Recently, there have been extensive energy-efficient renovations to improving the energyefficiency,indoor air quality, and thermal comfort of these buildings. The renovation project, withcooperation between Dalarna University and the local housing company (Stora Tunabyggen)started in 2015 by renovating three buildings in the Tjärna Ängar neighborhood.This study was conducted at one of these three retrofitting buildings (Kornstigen 25) to investigatethe thermal comfort in the building following energy retrofit. The assessment of the thermalcomfort in this study is based on Fanger's model with the use of predicted mean vote (PMV) andpredicted percentage of dissatisfied (PPD) to assess the obtained measurements.An online questionnaire survey with building occupants was conducted to give a betterunderstanding of the current situation of the retrofitting building before and after the renovationregarding thermal comfort. Based on the measurement, the thermal sensation of the occupants isslightly cool according to the standard’s sensation scale during the period of the measurement. Anonline questionnaire survey assures that the occupants were feeling slightly cool during someperiods of the day inside the apartments.

The urban population of cities world-wide is steadily growing, causing pressure on land use for different purposes, such as residential, commercial, or recreational use. A growing urban population will also create new public health challenges, especially due to the epidemic increase of Non-Communicable Diseases. Creating opportunities for and increasing physical activity in public open spaces could represent a crucial resource to tackle health problems of urban residents. This multiple case study explores the strategies and approaches of two case cities (Malmö and Copenhagen) in connection to planning for physical activity in public open spaces and the collaborative efforts behind it. The empirical material for the study consists of 9 interviews with professionals connected to urban planning from the municipalities of Malmö and Copenhagen. The collaborations between urban planners and other actors were analysed using collaboration theory. Various barriers and facilitators of collaboration were identified, as well as findings which can suggest more fruitful collaboration.

Den här uppsatsen belyser allas rätt till staden. Genom att fokusera på de sociala värdena anammas begreppet gränssnitt för att beskriva länken mellan människan och den byggda miljön. I arbetet lyfts detta relativt outforskade begrepp fram och utvecklas så att det kan inkludera olika kvaliteter och värden. Gränssnittet avser här zonen där byggnad möter gaturummet och där det privata övergår till publikt. Syftet med arbetet är att ta reda på vilken betydelse gränssnittet har i den byggda miljön och om begreppet kan vara behjälpligt i stadsutvecklingsprocesser. Arbetet fördjupar sig i den nya stadsdelen Västra Hamnen i Malmö. Frågorna som ställs är; Hur kan vår användning av begreppet gränssnitt vara till hjälp för att beskriva kopplingen mellan människan och den byggda miljön? och Vad har gränssnittet för roll i utvecklingen av en ny stadsdel som Västra Hamnen i Malmö? Metoderna för studien innefattade intervjuer med bland annat arkitekter och byggherrar, observationer av tre specifika byggnader i Västra Hamnen samt enkäter som skickades till de boende och arbetande för respektive byggnad. Resultaten av studien visade på hur gränssnittet användes, fungerade och resonerades kring. Slutsatsen som dras är att gränssnittszonen besitter stor potential. Begreppet kan hjälpa diskussionen kring den sociala stadsutvecklingen framåt, dock är det ännu inte vidare etablerat i nuläget. Ytterligare forskning bör därför bedrivas för att vidare sprida begreppet och dess vikt. / This essay highlights everyone’s right to the city. By focusing on the social values, the concept of interface as a link between man and the built environment is adapted. Interface, as a relatively unexplored concept, is in this thesis established and explored with its values and qualities. Here it refers to the zone where a building meets the streetspace and where private seeps into public. The aim of the study is to find out the significance of the interface and whether the concept can be helpful in urban development processes. It also takes a stance in a newly developed district called Western Harbour in Malmo, Sweden. The questions asked are; How can our use of the concept interface be helpful in describing the link between man and the built environment? and What role does the interface play in the development of a new district as the Western Harbour in Malmo? The approach of the study was through interviews with, amongst others, architects and developers; observations of three specific buildings in Western Harbour and surveys sent to the residents and employees of each building. Results showed how the interface was used, operated and further reasoned about. The conclusion made is that the interface concept has great potential. It can help the discussion of social urban development evolve, however, it is not yet established. More extensive research should therefore be conducted to further disseminate the concept and its importance.