Malcom Moffat College of Education

Items

• A clinical review of phototherapy for psoriasis
  Psoriasis is an autoimmune inflammatory skin disease. In the past several decades, phototherapy has been widely used to treat stable psoriatic lesions, including trunk, scalp, arms and legs, and partial nail psoriasis. A variety of light/lasers with different mechanisms of action have been developed for psoriasis including ultraviolet B (UVB), psoralen ultraviolet A (PUVA), pulsed dye laser (PDL), photodynamic therapy (PDT), intense pulsed light (IPL), light-emitting diodes (LED), and so on. Because light/laser each has specific therapeutic and adverse effects, it is important to adequately choose the sources and parameters in management of psoriasis with different pathogenic sites, severities, and duration of the disorder. This review aims at providing most updated clinic information to physicians about how to select light/laser sources and individual therapeutic regimens. To date, UV light is primarily for stable plaque psoriasis and PDL for topical psoriatic lesions with small area, both of which are safe and effective. On the other hand, PUVA has better curative effects than UVB for managing refractory psoriasis plaques, if its side effects can be better controlled. PDL provides optimal outcomes on nail psoriasis compared with other lasers. Although the trails of low-level light/laser therapy (LLLT) are still small, the near infrared (NIR) and visible red light with low energy show promise for treating psoriasis due to its strong penetration and encouraging photobiomodulation. IPL is rarely reported for psoriasis treatment, but PDT-IPL has been found to offer a moderate effect on nail psoriasis. In brief, various phototherapies have been used either in different combinations or as monotherapy. The modality has become a mainstay in the treatment of mild-to-moderate psoriasis without systemic adverse events in today’s clinical practice.
• Climate Gentrification: From Theory to Empiricism in Miami-Dade County, Florida
  This article provides a conceptual model for the pathways by which climate change could operate to impact geographies and property markets whose inferior or superior qualities for supporting the built environment are subject to a descriptive theory known as ‘Climate Gentrification.’ The article utilizes Miami-Dade County, Florida (MDC) as a case study to explore the market mechanisms that speak to the operations and processes inherent in the theory. This article tests the hypothesis that the rate of price appreciation of single-family properties in MDC is positively related to and correlated with incremental measures of higher elevation (the ‘Elevation Hypothesis’). As a reflection of an increase in observed nuisance flooding and relative SLR, the second hypothesis is that the rates of price appreciation in lowest the elevation cohorts have not kept up with the rates of appreciation of higher elevation cohorts since approximately 2000 (the ‘Nuisance Hypothesis’). The findings support a validation of both hypotheses and suggest the potential existence of consumer preferences that are based, in part, on perceptions of flood risk and/or observations of flooding. These preferences and perceptions are anticipated to be amplified by climate change in a manner that reinforces the proposition that climate change impacts will affect the marketability and valuation of property with varying degrees of environmental exposure and resilience functionality. Uncovering these empirical relationships is a critical first step for understanding the occurrence and parameters of Climate Gentrification.
• Highway urbanization and Land conflicts: the challenges to decentralization in India
  Version of Record
• BioComplexity, Systems Thinking, and Multi-Scale Dynamic Simulation: Foundations of Geodesign
  Landscape Architecture and Planning have long used visual simulations for design ideation and communication, but the complex demands of the twenty-first century will require more than simply visual simulations; dynamic simulations across a spectrum of scientific, social and perceptual issues will be key to effective design in the future. The new science and art of ‘geodesign’ promises to harness digital and computational technologies, from Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) and remote sensing to software engineering and algorithmic design, in the service of imagining, designing, simulating, implementing, and evaluating better environments, worldwide, enabling collaborative design informed by scientific knowledge. Landscape ecology, engineering, and other disciplines have contributed non-visual, and sometimes non-static, analyses to the repertoire of impact assessment in natural systems management, transportation, energy, and urbanization projects, etc., but these additions are mostly still of limited scope and complexity. The interrelated nature of natural systems at all scales is still only becoming apparent to us and to the scientific community, as the recent interest in ‘biocomplexity’ and ‘systems thinking’ demonstrates (e.g. NSF Biocomplexity initiative). Increasingly, geodesign projects will need to incorporate systems thinking across all aspects of the process, be informed by the findings of biocomplexity research, and make maximum use of multi-scale dynamic simulations in the process of evaluating impacts of proposed designs
• A Proposed Map of a Geodesign Research Agenda: Eleven Key Questions in an Eight-pole Space
  The development of a robust and credible geodesign discipline will depend equally upon an ever-growing inventory of excellent real-world examples of projects embodying geodesign principles, and upon the development and pursuit of a rich and rigorous research agenda that informs geodesign theory and practice. To this end, following a consideration of several precedents from the GIS literature, a research space with eight poles is proposed. Mapping twenty or so not-quite-randomly collected examples of proposed research ques­tions into this space yields a promising framework for an emergent research agenda, summarized by eleven key geodesign research questions.
• The concept of urban intensity and China's townization policy: Cases from Zhejiang Province
  Urban intensity, in this paper, is measured by four related concepts: compactness, diversity, density, and connectivity. Together they lead to a single idea when considering spatial distributions potentially in a virtuous manner with regard to resource consumption, economic opportunity, social integration and environmental performance. The methodologies applied here included Moran's I, Shannon's index entropy, and accessibility isotimelines, which were then applied to real case scenarios in 20 towns in Zhejiang Province, selected based on their economic performances, population sizes, and geographical locations. Further inspection discovered that density, an outcome of urban form, is highly correlated to compactness, leading to its elimination. The results showed that among the varying spatial arrangements of urban activities, building footprints and infrastructural elements characterized by monocentric centers of use inscribed with well-defined and relatively uniform grids of streets and related networks, alongside of relatively integrated zones of use, seemed to perform best with regard to urban intensity. At the other end of the morphological spectrum, towns with sharp separations of uses and zones of development, often resulting in overall bifurcation of a town's spatial layout, performed less well. Also, linear forms for small towns were less favorable.
• Striking balances between China’s urban communities, blocks and their layouts
  Accepted Manuscript
• Exchange between researchers and practitioners in urban planning: achievable objective or a bridge too far?/The use of academic research in planning practice: who, what, where, when and how?/Bridging research and practice through collaboration: lessons from a joint working group/Getting the relationship between researchers and practitioners working/Art and urban planning: stimulating researcher, practitioner and community engagement/Collaboration between researchers and practitioners: Political and bureaucratic issues/Investigating Research/Conclusion: Breaking down barriers through international practice?
  Exchange between researchers and practitioners in urban planning: achievable objective or a bridge too far?/The use of academic research in planning practice: who, what, where, when and how?/Bridging research and practice through collaboration: lessons from a joint working group/Getting the relationship between researchers and practitioners working/Art and urban planning: stimulating researcher, practitioner and community engagement/Collaboration between researchers and practitioners: Political and bureaucratic issues/Investigating Research/Conclusion: Breaking down barriers through international practice?
• Revitalizando Ciudades: MejorandoViviendas y Barrios desde la Cuadra a la Metrópolis
  Revitalizando Ciudades: Mejorando viviendas y barrios desde la cuadra a la metrópolis, enfatiza ejemplos internacionales y mexicanos e identifica políticas, programas y estrategias de planeación para implementar las políticas de vivienda mexicanas del 2012.
• Multiscale Thermal Design for Buildings
  This dissertation investigates the principles, processes, and strategies to develop multiscale material systems for buildings that interact with heat in novel ways. The overall theoretical framework consists of (1) utilizing the multiscale configuration of biological material systems as the principle for the design of building element; (2) using the shape and size of heat flow as the key parameter for the design and optimization of the building elements; and (3) applying the principles of materials and material processes for selecting and configuring the material systems. This framework is examined in Part I through literature review and case studies; and implemented in Part II through a series of experiments for the designing, prototyping and testing a thermally augmented building envelope system. The results of the analytical model and the physical testing show strong correlations which validate the usage of the analytical model in the thermal optimization of building elements at a wide range of geometric and temperature variations. To evaluate the performance of the system standards including the recommended U-value for building envelopes and the targeted ventilation and heat recovery rate per occupant is used. The overall dissertation can provide architects with the essential knowledge and strategies for developing thermally augmented building elements. Similarly, the research can also inform the scientists and engineers on the thermal design constraints and opportunities relating to building applications. Although this research is focused on heat as the key environmental factor, the theoretical framework can be extended to other factors such as light and sound.
• Measure of Abstraction: Embodied Fabrication and the Materiality of Intimacy
  This thesis presents a theoretical and practical research conducted for the last 4 years on interactive fabrication. Interactive fabrication is an emerging field and takes as a starting point with the numerical control of digital fabrication machines, modulated with parameters of interactivity. 

I approach digital fabrication as an ambiguous technology in the ways it articulates the digital with the material, the shapeless with the finite, the abstract with the concrete. As the realm of digital fabrication expands into mainstream culture and maverick machines rise again, there is an opportunity to tamper with expectations of precision and proficiency. Interactivity is the modus operandi for such experimentation: embracing time, latency, distance and the “decor of everyday life” as conditions. Personal data such as emails, text messages or sleeping data can turn into parameters of control of a CNC-machine, supplanting the typical predetermined file. This is the premise for a human-machine companionship or ‘embodied fabrication’. 3 art projects, Twipology, Rabota and Streamline have been prototyped to enact these possibilities. The fabricated outcomes move beyond functional or ornamental categories, inspiring a mutating and odd materiality, one of intimacy. These objects are objects of a third kind, “born witness” of a moment of interaction with the material world. This thesis is an ‘undisciplinary’ endeavor, proposing a research method involving art, design, ontology and HCI considerations.
• "Utopian socialism and social science"
  Accepted Manuscript
• Revitalizing Places: Improving Housing and Neighborhoods from Block to Metropolis.
  Revitalizing Places emphasizes international and Mexican experiences and identifies potential policies, programs, planning approaches, and tools to help implement the far-reaching 2012 Mexican housing and urban development policy.
• Workplace Neighborhoods, Walking, Physical Activity, Weight Status, and Perceived Health
  Recent interest has focused on how the built environment in residential neighborhoods affects walking and other physical activity. The neighborhood around the workplace has been examined far less. This study explored the neighborhood around the workplace and its correlation with the amount of walking, level of physical activity, body mass index, and perceived health of those who (a) worked away from home (N = 446) and (b) were retired or unemployed (N = 207). Study participants were recruited from environmentally diverse residential neighborhoods in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota, metropolitan area in 2004. Participants wore an accelerometer, kept a travel diary, and answered a survey. The workplace neighborhood environments were measured with a geographic information system. In bivariate assessments, many features of the workplace neighborhood environment were significantly, but modestly, correlated with walking for travel, including density, street pattern, and land use (commercial, office, and residential). Fewer environmental features were correlated with total physical activity, a result confirmed in multivariate analyses. Although several workplace neighborhood environmental variables were correlated with total walking, relevant to the field of transportation, the pattern of association with total physical activity was not as consistent or strong. Because many people spend a considerable amount of time at work, more research is needed on this topic.
• Compromised or Savvy? Achievable Norms in Urban Design
  Accepted Manuscript
• Breathing walls: The design of porous materials for heat exchange and decentralized ventilation
  This study demonstrates how to design pores in building materials so that incoming fresh air can be efficiently tempered with low-grade heat while conduction losses are kept to a minimum. Any base material can be used in principle, so long as it can be manufactured with millimeter-scale air channels. The channel-pores are optimized according to the thermal conductivity of the base material, the dimensions of the panel, and the suction pressure sustained by a given fan or a chimney. A water circuit is integrated at the interior surface to ensure direct thermal contact and prevent radiant discomfort. Correlations from the thermal sciences literature were used to optimize the size and distribution of channel-pores in wood, glass, and concrete test panels. The measurements showed good agreement with theory and were presented in a general form so that designers can predict the steady-state performance of any optimal design in sensible heat-transfer mode. Schlieren imaging was used to characterize the different regimes of mixed convection at the interior and exterior surface. The data explain the discrepancy between prediction and measurement in the dynamic insulation literature, and how the integrated water circuit overcomes these problems. Surface heat-flux measurements were correlated in a general form so that designers can account for convection at the interior and exterior surface.
• Perceived and Police-Reported Neighborhood Crime: Linkages to Adolescent Activity Behaviors and Weight Status
  Version of Record
• What is a Walkable Place? The Walkability Debate in Urban Design
  Version of Record
• Anxious Landscapes: From the Ruin to Rust
  History of Art and Architecture
• Shifting Scales of Urban Transformation: The emergence of the Marmara Urban Region between 1990 and 2015
  Provincial borders and metropolitan theories are insufficient to explain the scale and dynamics of İstanbul’s contemporary urban development. The mega projects of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) such as the İzmit Bay Bridge, the Northern Projects, the Marmaray Project and the İstanbul-Ankara High Speed Train point to a scalar shift. Triggered by mega projects, these emerging spatio-temporal relations transcend İstanbul’s administrative borders. In the light of these developments, this study will use the term “region” to explain the emerging scale in and around İstanbul; and therefore will propose a new terminology and method to represent this new scale. The study will begin with an introduction to urban theories and concepts that explain contemporary “planetary urbanization” (Lefebvre, 2003; Brenner 2014) beyond fixed-monocentric models and constructed dichotomies such as urban-rural or built environment-nature. This theoretical framework will be followed by a discussion on the method and will then continue with a summary of the urban governance structure in Turkey and the urban planning history of the Marmara Region. Subsequently, the land-use-based analyses which enabled the researcher to demonstrate the transformation of the Marmara Region between 1990 and 2015 from different angles will be discussed. The dissertation will conclude with an overall evaluation of the findings.
• Spatial Distribution of Urban Territories at a Regional Scale: Modeling the Changjiang Delta’s Urban Network
  The formation of ‘Urban Networks’ has become a wide-spread phenomenon around the world. In the study of metropolitan regions, there are competing or diverging views about management and control of environmental and land-use factors. Especially in China, these matters, regulatory aspects, infrastructure applications, and resource allocations, are important due to population concentrations and the overlapping of urban areas with other land resources. On the other hand, the increasing sophistication of models operating on iterative computational power and widely-available spatial information and techniques make it possible to investigate the spatial distribution of urban territories at a regional scale. This thesis applies a Scenario Cellular Automata (SCA) model to the case study of the Changjiang Delta Region, which produces useful and predictive scenario-based projections within the region, using quantitative methods and baseline conditions that address issues of regional urban development. The contribution of the research includes the improvement of computer simulation of urban growth, the application of urban form and other indices to evaluate complex urban conditions, and a heightened understanding of the performance of an urban network in the Changjiang Delta Region composed of big, medium, and small-sized cities and towns.
• The engineer as judge: engineering analysis and political economy in eighteenth century France
  The eighteenth century represents a major turning point in French engineers' conception and practice of calculation. This turning point can be described as a transition between the traditional use of arithmetical and geometric tools and the introduction of a new set of mathematical instruments based on calculus. This transition takes place within the epistemological frame provided by the Enlightenment analytical approach to science and technology. It is above all inseparable from a shift in the conception of technological efficiency that presents a strong connection to emerging political and economical values. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, engineering and political economy connect. This connection enables French engineers to present themselves as impartial judges of public interest.
• Architecture and the virtual: towards a new materiality.
  Accepted Manuscript
• Should big cities grow? Scenario-based cellular automata urban growth modeling and policy applications
  The formation of ‘Urban Networks’ has become a wide-spread phenomenon around the world. In the study of metropolitan regions, there are competing or diverging views about management and control of environmental and land-use factors as well as about scales and arrangements of settlements. Especially in China, these matters alongside of regulatory aspects, infrastructure applications, and resource allocations, are important because of population concentrations and the overlapping of urban areas with other land resources. On the other hand, the increasing sophistication of models operating on iterative computational power and widely-available spatial information and analytical techniques make it possible to simulate and investigate the spatial distribution of urban territories at a regional scale. This research applies a scenario-based Cellular Automata model to a case study of the Changjiang Delta Region, which produces useful and predictive scenario-based projections within the region, using quantitative methods and baseline conditions that address issues of regional urban development. The contribution of the research includes the improvement of computer simulation of urban growth, the application of urban form and other indices to evaluate complex urban conditions, and a heightened understanding of the performance of an urban network in the Changjiang Delta Region composed of big, medium, and small-sized cities and towns.
• In pursuit of a well-balanced network of cities and towns: A case study of the Changjiang Delta Region in China
  Development of urban networks of cities and towns has received attention including discussions of tensions between population concentrations and overlaps with environmentally sensitive and disaster-prone areas. Moreover, certain development in broad regions of China, such as its deltas, has become a subject of debate. Contrary to some assumptions, this development within places like the Changjiang Delta (also known as the Yangtze River Delta) has proceeded in a relatively incremental manner. However, at this juncture, controlled development of larger cities, like Shanghai, has shifted to more conventional urbanization pathways forward involving larger city expansions. Nevertheless, further urban growth management appears to depend on development and maintenance of a well-balanced network of large, medium, and small-scaled cities and towns. An important aspect of this development involves definition of the Changjiang Delta region itself, and in particular, alongside its likely further economic performance. To these ends, a scenario based Cellular Automata model of spatial distribution is deployed, reflecting separate thematic projections. A baseline for economic performance is developed, incorporating measures of fixed asset investment in urban service, revenue from urban maintenance, and Gross Domestic Product. Revelation of a well-performing network involves spatial distribution of development at various scales, and in various concentrations within the region, moreover, location of this development, largely perpendicular to well-travelled corridors, appears as a preferable outcome, contrary to earlier depictions along the major transportation corridors.