Urban public spaces are the interface of any city that could tell about the city’s dynamic and status quo. In addition, Urban public spaces play a pivotal role in shaping societies’ dynamics and can significantly affect conflict and peacebuilding initiatives. In a context marked by Conflict’s profound impact, this article aims to contribute to the knowledge base for informed urban interventions that foster positive interactions and reconciliation in post-conflict cities. The article seeks to explore the intricate relationship between urban spaces and their influence on war or to promote sustainable peacebuilding through investigating the various roles of the urban public spaces during the war and peacetimes via residents’ experiences of the diverse spaces’ functions that shaped the city’s status quo. In addition, considering the interplay of social dynamics, conflict history, and the mental spatial map of cities in public urban spaces can influence lasting peace or upcoming conflicts. This article focuses on Aleppo as a case study, understanding the positive and negative experiences from the residents’ perspective before and during the current war in Syria, and even distinguishes between two periods during the recent war, which are the active violence and after the end of the direct active violence, where it could inform the decision-makers and urban planners on the areas of focus while developing post-war urban public spaces to ensure its positive role in fostering peace and be able to deal with the social dynamic and the mental spatial map that developed along with the conflict history. The paper utilised a mixed-methods approach, encompassing a case study review of Aleppo City from an urban perspective and fieldwork involving focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with Aleppian from different backgrounds and geographic areas that represent the social dynamic of the city, as well as approached Aleppian who are still in living in the city and those who flee out of it to ensure the coverage of different political direction in addition field work engaged with academia and technical from the city who shared their knowledge and experiences working in the city. Participants were prompted to reflect on their pre-war familiarity with public places and share their experiences. These experiences were categorized by enabling a comprehensive understanding of how conflict context influenced these spaces. The article results offer an understanding of the peace-guiding functions of the urban public spaces based on the city residents’ experiences that could inform architects and urban planners in designing spaces conducive to sustainable peacebuilding. The article’s findings underscore the importance of strategically designed urban public spaces in promoting peace and social cohesion.
Vegetable production is an important sector of economy for farmers in Nepal. The analysis was carried out to explore the trends in vegetable production sector in Nepal along with the recent trend of some major vegetables in terms of area, production and yield. The time series data from 1977/78 to 2016/17 (40 years) of vegetables production and 5 years data (2011/12 - 2015/16) of major vegetables were collected from reliable source and analysis was done through Microsoft Excel. The results show that between 1977/78 and 2016/17 the area under vegetables cultivation has jumped by 222.8% while production is increased by 728.21% and productivity is increased by 156.6% during this course. The result also reveals that during the period of 5 years (2011/12 - 2015/16), solanaceous and cruciferous vegetables has an increasing trend in area, production and yield except for the area under cultivation for eggplant (declined by 5.2%) and for radish (declined by 6.0%) respectively while cucurbitaceous vegetables has increasing trend in area and production but an declining trend in yield except for the yield of cucumber (increased by 15.8%). However, the trend of other major vegetables is seen highly fluctuating over the years.
Introduction: The heterogeneity of occupational morbidity by gender in those suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) has been little studied in the Latin American context. The objective of this study was to estimate the incidence and prevalence of CTS of occupational origin in the Ecuadorian salaried population according to gender, In addition, the differences in risk between women and men are compared. Methods: We use the only administrative registers of CTS qualified as occupational diseases in the country between the years 2017 and 2019. Period incidence rates were estimated to compare the risk in women versus men (RR, CI 95%) by age group and economic activity. Results: CTS is the second most common occupational disease in Ecuador. Women workers are more likely tosuffer from CTS and showed twice the risk compared to men [RR = 2.10 (95%CI: 1.94–2.11); p = 0.000]. This risk increases with age and for the vast majority of economic activities. The occupations of agriculture and warehousing stand out for their importance. Conclusions: The results shown in this study raise the fundamental need to improve epidemiological surveillance systems and occupational health policies by considering gender differences in order to adequately address risks and promote safe and healthy working environments for all.
The consensus is that price stability promotes sustainable economic growth while excessive inflation harms growth. This study assesses the linkage between inflation and economic growth in South Africa to determine the optimal inflation rate threshold for the sustainable growth of the economy. Quarterly data from 1995 to 2022 was analysed through the ARDL and threshold regressions. The ARDL and threshold regressions estimate established a relationship between inflation and economic growth and computed the optimal inflation rate threshold for economic growth at 6 percent. The results also established that both the repo rate (repurchase rate) and real effective exchange rate have a negative relationship with economic growth. The Toda-Yamamoto causality test result indicated a unidirectional causality runs from inflation to economic growth. These results are crucial for the South African Reserve Bank to discharge its monetary policy functions to attain and maintain price stability. Therefore, this study offers the Bank a roadmap for targeting an inflation rate that aligns with the nation’s long-term objectives for sustainable economic growth.
The scientific discourse on university towns (UT) has progressed for a long time, with a surge of interest in recent years. However, a global overview of the research conducted on this topic have yet to exist. This paper aims to re-examine the relationship between UT and urbanization in literature. Built environment and people are often the most talked aspects in UT literatures. The variety of definitions remains largely uncharted. Policies behind UT development are also rarely studied. This article used an R studio-based bibliometric literature review to synthesize findings from various scientific literature. Keywords related to university towns and urban were used in digital search engines to examine and analyse the literature. Results revealed a significant gap in scientific research on critical theoretical concepts that planners can use as a guide in creating, formulating, and evaluating UT, especially in developing countries. This study promotes simplification of existing literature by examining the impact of UT on the stakeholders involved.
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