New Journal Alert - Philosophy and Urban Affairs

Dear Philosophers,

I'm pleased to announce that Philosophy and Urban Affairs is now operational. Below is a description.

Philosophy and Urban Affairs is a peer-reviewed journal that explores the ethical, political, epistemological, metaphysical, and social dimensions of cities. Articles may be theoretical, applied, or both, provided they illustrate how philosophical investigation can elucidate, critique, or inform city living.

Unsolicited manuscripts are not accepted. Instead, the journal solicits submissions through public calls on emerging topics or through invitations to scholars working on specific themes. On occasion, a focus article will be published to prompt response papers and foster sustained scholarly dialogue.

Philosophy and Urban Affairs is fully open access and charges no fees of any kind.

Check out the first CFP, Philosophical Perspectives on Coastal and Island Cities. 

All the best - Shane

Shane Epting, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Missouri University of Science and Technology

New Book: Creating Future Cities: Technology, Ethics, and the Fight for the Good Life

Shane Epting, in Creating Future Cities, insightfully analyzes complex normative challenges in urban planning and design—from organizing urban residents' political power to building for resilience—and passionately argues that citizens of cities must fight for their cities and their futures. - Ronald R. Sundstrom, University of San Francisco, USA

My source:

Philos-L "The Liverpool List" is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/ Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Recent posts can also be read in a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/PhilosL/ Follow the list on Twitter @PhilosL. Follow the Department of Philosophy @LiverpoolPhilos 

Virtual Evening Seminars on Topics in Artificial Intelligence - BCS-SGAI

BCS Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (BCS-SGAI)
Virtual Evening Seminars on Topics in Artificial Intelligence

The first three events in this year's programme of virtual evening seminars will be on March 26^th, April 9^th and May 14^th. All the virtual seminars are free of charge and open to all. No registration is necessary. 

Further details are given below.

 

(1) Wednesday March 26th 2025 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (UK time): 

'Symbolic AI versus Neuro-Symbolic AI'

Dr George Baryannis (University of Huddersfield) on 'Knowledge-based Artificial Intelligence: Achieving Inherent Explainability in Intelligent Applications'.

Dr Mercedes Arguello Casteleiro (SGAI) on 'One Digital Health: Symbolic AI versus Neuro-Symbolic AI' and -

Dr Safaa Menad (University of Rouen, France) on 'Merging and Validating Health Ontologies'.

Website (including Zoom link): 

https://www.bcs-sgai.org/seminars/2025-03-26/

 

(2) Wednesday April 9th 2025 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (UK time): 'Computer Vision Applications'.

There will be two talks: Dr James Haworth (University College London) on 'Progress in computer vision for scene understanding in urban analytics' and Dr Tianjin Huang (University of Exeter) on ' Benchmarking the Robustness of Remote Sensing Foundation Models'.

Website (including Zoom link): https://www.bcs-sgai.org/seminars/2025-04-09/

 

(3) Wednesday May 14th 2025 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (UK time), as part of our Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining series. There will be two talks: Prof. Dr. Anna Fensel (Wageningen University, The Netherlands) on 'Knowledge graphs, FAIR principles and generative AI for scientific discoveries in agri-food' and Dr Anelia Kurteva (Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK) on 'Responsible AI through responsible data management and governance enabled by knowledge graphs'

Website (including Zoom link): (link to follow)

 

To register for information about future SGAI events go to https://www.bcs-sgai.org/register/

Max Bramer, Chair BCS-SGAI

(- and my source BCS-SGAI list)

'Science' - Air Pollution

Science

• Volume 385|
• Issue 6707|
• 26 Jul 2024

COVER
"Smoke from wildfires burning in Canada enveloped New York City, New York, in June of 2023, shown here in a photo of the Chrysler Building on 7 June. Wildfire smoke events in the past decade have halted or reversed positive air quality trends in the United States. This special issue considers recent developments in monitoring, health effects, and policy dealing with air pollution. See the section beginning on page 378."

individual

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group

Lyons, S., Nolan, A., Carthy, P. et al. Long-term exposure to PM2.5 air pollution and mental health: a retrospective cohort study in Ireland. Environ Health 23, 54 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-024-01093-z Ferreira, et al. (2024). Impact of Air Quality on Mental Health of Higher Education Students. In: Galvão, et al. (eds) Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Water Energy Food and Sustainability (ICoWEFS 2023). ICoWEFS 2023. Springer Proceedings in Earth and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48532-9_37 Shaw, S., Kundu, S., Chattopadhyay, A. et al. Indoor air pollution and cognitive function among older adults in India: a multiple mediation approach through depression and sleep disorders. BMC Geriatr 24, 81 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-024-04662-6

Shine, S., Tamirie, M., Kumie, A. et al. Pregnant women’s perception on the health effects of household air pollution in Rural Butajira, Ethiopia: a phenomenological qualitative study. BMC Public Health 23, 1636 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16578-8 Phillip, E., Conroy, R.M., Walsh, A. et al. Using mixed methods and community participation to explore household and ambient air pollution practices in a rural community in Malawi. J Public Health (Berl.) (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-02008-x

Nakaishi, T., Yoo, S., Kagawa, S. et al. Impact of air pollution on human morality: A multinational perspective. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11, 991 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03186-z Wang, K. Is air pollution politics or economics? Evidence from industrial heterogeneity. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 24454–24469 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23955-0 Wang, X., Tan, H. & Liu, J. The impact of air pollution on commercial health insurance demand amidst China's green transition. Econ Change Restruct 57, 39 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10644-024-09623-y

Price, H.D., Bowyer, C.J., Büker, P. et al. From reflection diaries to practical guidance for transdisciplinary research: learnings from a Kenyan air pollution project. Sustain Sci 18, 1429–1444 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-023-01317-0

My source:  https://x.com/DrMariaNeira

https://x.com/DrMariaNeira/status/1819399316735144414

Previously 'pollution'

Ageing with Smartphones in Urban Brazil

UCL Press is delighted to announce the publication of a new open access book that may be of interest to list subscribers: Ageing with Smartphones in Urban Brazil, by Marília Duque.

Download it free: https://bit.ly/3MhgteU

*************************************************

Ageing with Smartphones in Urban Brazil

By Marília Duque

*************************************************

With people living longer all over the world, ageing has been framed as a socio-economic problem. In Brazil, older people are expected to remain healthy and autonomous while actively participating in society. Based on ethnographic research in São Paulo, Ageing with Smartphones in Urban Brazil shows how older people in a middle-class neighbourhood conciliate these expectations with the freedom and pleasures reserved for the Third Age. Work is what bonds this community together, providing a sense of dignity and citizenship.

Smartphones have become of great importance to the residents as they search for and engage in new forms of work and hobbies. Connected by a digital network, they work as content curators, sharing activities that fill their schedule. Managing multiple WhatsApp groups is a job in itself, as well as a source of solidarity and hope. Friendship groups help each to download new apps, search for medical information and guidance, and navigate the city. Together, they are reinventing themselves as volunteers, entrepreneurs and influencers, or they are finding a new interest that gives their later life a purpose. The smartphone, which enables the residents to share and discuss their busy lives, is also helping them, and us, to rethink the very representation of ageing.

Free download: https://bit.ly/3MhgteU

----------------------

uclpress.co.uk | @uclpress

My source: Alison Major 

 

VIRTUAL-METHODS list - www.jiscmail.ac.uk/VIRTUAL-METHODS

 

(It appears there is a series of related texts. PJ)

ERCIM News No. 121 Special theme "The Climate Action: Mathematics, Informatics and Socio-Economics Accelerating the Sustainability"

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 121 has just been published at https://ercim-news.ercim.eu/

ERCIM News 121

This special theme provides a glimpse of the diverse research activities proposing solutions for the much needed sustainability transition that aims at a sustainable interaction between the society, the economy, and the natural environment.

Guest editors: Sobah Abbas Petersen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Phoebe Koundouri (Athens University of Economics and Business and Athena RC)

This issue is also available for download in pdf and ePub.

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News. Feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.

Next issue:
No. 122,  July 2020
Special Theme: "Solving Engineering Problems by Machine Learning"

-- 
Peter Kunz                       
ERCIM Office
2004, Route des Lucioles
BP93
F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex

https://www.ercim.eu

Includes:

Close-The-Loop Model: Social Acceptance of Technology for Sustainability, pp.26-27.

ALerT – Learning about Privacy at the Time of data Sharing Everywhere, p.33.

Worried about data Privacy in Big data? don’t Be!, pp. 38-39.

SDGs also.

Forgotten Streams ...

individual

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group - population

Forget the Golden Ratio ...	Cristina Iglesias, Forgotten Streams, Bloomberg London
...	it's time to get real ...

Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History,

 "The Renaissance friar Fra Luca Pacioli singled out one of Euclid's irrational ratios - the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio - and proclaimed that it was a metaphor for the Almighty because divine nature is irrational in the sense of being beyond the understanding of rational mortals. Thus Pacioli associated Euclid's ratio with theology. But neither Pacioli nor the ancients associated the ratio with art or beauty.

That association was not made until the early 1800s, when German mathematicians first referred to Euclid's division (sectioning) of the line as "golden"; adopted from them and popularized by Adolf Zeising's New System of Human Proportions (1854), the term became central to the (false) historical claim that ancient, medieval, and Renaissance artists and architects had used the ratio to determine ideal proportions." p.73.

Gamwell (2016).

Lynn Gamwell (2016) Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691165288.

(Thank you to PUP for the review copy - more to follow.)

I often think of Millingford Brook local to me as forgotten. It runs through and under (A58) in Ashton, Wigan, Lancashire, UK.

My source:
Heathcote, E. (2020) Constructions for the city, Life&Arts, FT Weekend, 14-15 March, p.16.

Ekistics - Special Issue: Indonesia and the New Habitat: Urban and Environmental Challenges

Ekistics, one of the world's oldest scholarly journals for human habitat research and practice, was developed by C.A Doxiadis with the goal of creating liveable cities and thriving urban environments. The journal has provided an interdisciplinary forum for the scientific study of human settlements since the 1950s. It has recently been revived into an online version as Ekistics and the New Habitat. The journal is planning a series of special issues for various regions of human habitation around the world. In this call, we seek papers on the topic of Indonesia and the New Habitat: Urban and Environmental Challenges.

Cities in developing countries have become more urbanized and create complex urban problems and challenges. UN-Habitat introduces sustainable urbanization as concentration for future human settlements which is in line with the changes of the world scale. As a developing country as well as most populous nations in the world, Indonesia also experienced human settlements challenges particularly in the area of urban planning, basic infrastructure, housing and slums as well as the urban policies. However, the government of the Republic of Indonesia has shown its commitment to be part of the Habitat Agenda by actively involved and implementing the six themes of the Agenda.

This Special Issue seeks papers from academics, researchers, practitioners as well as observers which posit and analyses the problems of the cities and the new habitats in Indonesia in relation to planning and implementation of the six topics of UN-Habitat:

1. Urban Demographics
2. Land and Urban planning
3. Environment and Urbanization
4. Governance and Institutional
5. Urban Economics
6. Housing and Basic Services

Particular attention will be given to perspective that explores future agendas regarding sustainable urbanization and environmental challenges.

In this regard, the following topics are recommended to take into consideration:

• Any aspect of the United Nations New Urban Agenda, in Habitat III, including reference to the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Critiques on the local, regional and global policy of habitat development, design and planning, and urban transformation
• Issues of architecture, urban design, spatial planning, housing, conservation, sustainability, livability, environmental planning and regeneration through a cross-disciplinary and/or global perspective.

We invite proposals engaged in the mentioned framework of topics above in the form of firstly, a short 250-word proposal/abstract by 1st Oct 2019. On-topic proposals integrating the above themes will receive an invitation to submit a full de-identified paper in Word.doc(x) file format for double-blind peer review.

Scholarly articles/reviews (full papers, double-blind review): typically, with title, authors, institutional affiliations, abstract, keywords, body text (5000-7000 words), and APA 6th References at the end of the article. Body text typically includes:

• an introduction to a problem or topic outlining the need for the research,
• relevant prior papers from Ekistics and other sources
• the methodological or conceptual framework and methods
• the summary of key results, findings, or reflective insights
• a critical concluding discussion.

Scholarly extended Abstracts/Essays (1000-1500 words), Critical reflections of Practice (500-1000 words or so) and Book reviews (300-500 words) are also welcome: review priority will be given to full research papers with the criteria mentioned above. Please submit via the orange [SUBMIT PAPER HERE] button in this email.

Please note: there is a further concurrent call:

Saudi Vision 2030 - Habitats for Sustainable Development

Contact: Assist. Prof. Dr Yenny Rahmayati
Email: yrahmayati AT psu.edu.sa

individual - self

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EKISTICS Past issues on Health & Mental Health [ Smart	Urban Demographics Land and Urban planning Environment and Urbanization  Cities]
Housing and Basic Services history ... Ekistics 1957	Governance and Institutional Urban Economics

'City'? Reflect on the city and cities as a structure and as content.


c/o Associate Prof. Kurt Seeman, Editor in Chief & Assist. Prof. Dr Yenny Rahmayati
(and my source)

See also:

Habitat 3

Ekistic Journal: Health and Mental Health

'ekistics' defined. 

[ an addition ] 

Psycho-Geography in Hodges' model

individual

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Psycho-

Psychogeography 66 2014 Dustin Yellin

-Geography

PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY by MERLIN COVERLEY

Image source: Dustin Yellin

My source: several

Human Ecology (and East Manchester)

This afternoon I had the great pleasure of meeting four people in Manchester who are alumni or currently studying with the Centre for Human Ecology. The CHE is based in Glasgow and so we met to explore the possibility of a NW England CHE group.

My connection with CHE is limited to finding and linking to CHE many years ago. I've an interest in ecosystem health and the effects of urban and rural environments on mental health. I've also pondered a while on the mental health impact of global warming.

Before the meeting Andy took us from Piccadilly Station around the Ancoats - New Islington area part of historic East Manchester. Many former cotton mills are being regenerated. We were able to go into Royal Mills - 198 Historic & New Build Apartments; a stunning building and one of the first mills. No surprise there since Ancoats was the first industrial suburb. We were shown the show apartment, remarkably quiet, warm, stylish ... an award winning example of regeneration, although I'm not sure how affordable this development will be for many locals. That said, it seems the key to regeneration is to increase the local population, to attract new people into the area.

I visit the area frequently heading to Leeds on the train Nov-May and taking my youngest son Matthew to the Velodrome, but that's in the car. Walking is of course a completely different experience: the old pub, empty block of flats, new homes, old homes, homes now memories, the air of expectation and frustration - the people! We listened to two locals who chatted about the road and major alterations under way around the old Ancoats Hospital.

According to Andy who arranged things today there are 12 people interested and so more meetings will follow. Great to meet you all - Andy, Jessie, Criggy, and Helen. Thanks to Andy for doing this, letting me use Hodges' model as an ice-breaker and to all for your interest. I look forward to learning more about courses that CHE offers, your various interests/projects and the emergent NW group.

Next time I must use my camera! The single frame I did shoot will follow...