Contextualising Urban Experimentation: Analysing the Utopiastadt Campus Case with the Theory of Strategic Action Fields

Practices of urban experimentation are currently seen as a promising approach to making planning processes more collaborative and adaptive. The practices develop not only in the context of ideal-type concepts of urban experiments and urban labs but also organically in specific governance contexts. We present such an organic case in the city of Wuppertal, Germany, centred around a so-called change-maker initiative, ‘Utopiastadt.’ This initiative joined forces with the city administration and collaborated with a private property owner and the local economic development agency in an unusual planning process for the development of a central brownfield site. Ultimately, the consortium jointly published a framework concept that picked up the vision of the ‘Utopiastadt Campus’ as an open-ended catalyst area for pilot projects and experiments on sustainability and city development. The concept was adopted by the city council and Utopiastadt purchased more than 50% of the land. In order to analyse the wider governance context and power struggles, we apply the social-constructivist theory of Strategic Action Fields (SAFs). We focused on the phases of contention and settlement, the shift in interaction forms, the role of an area development board as an internal governance unit and the influences of proximate fields, strategic action, and state facilitation on the development. We aim to demonstrate the potential of the theory of SAFs to understand a long-term urban development process and how an episode of experimentation evolved within this process. We discuss the theory’s shortcomings and reflect critically on whether the process contributed to strengthening collaborative and experimental approaches in the governance of city development.

The influence of organic compounds on the development of precipitation acidity in maritime clouds

In order to estimate the anthropogenic influence of gas and aerosol emissions from the Petroleum Industry in maritime zones with clouds of small vertical extent, a numerical 1-D Eulerian cloud-chemical model with detailed microphysics (Alfonso and Raga, 2002) is used to simulate the influence of water soluble organic compounds (WSOC) and organic+inorganic gas emissions on cloud development. Following Mircea et al. (2002), we tested the sensitivity of the cloud and precipitation development in the classical inorganic case (CIC) and the inorganic+organic case (IOC) with respect to CCN compositions. The results indicate an increase in the droplet concentration for the IOC, and a delay in the development of precipitation. The pH spectral evolution was studied during both the development and precipitation stages. The influence of the diffusion of formic acid and its generation by oxidation of hydrated formaldehyde in the aqueous phase result in a reduction in the pH of precipitation in the range between 0.05 and 0.15 pH units (from 1 to 3%) for the high ambient SO2 concentration (20 ppb) and between 0.2-0.5 pH units (from 4 to 10%) for the low ambient SO2 concentration (1 ppb) case.

Estimating the impact of natural and anthropogenic emissions on cloud chemistry: the influence of organic compounds

In order to estimate the anthropogenic influence of gas and aerosol emissions from the Petroleum Industry in maritime zones with clouds of small vertical extent, a numerical 1D Eulerian cloud-chemical model with detailed microphysics (Alfonso and Raga, 2002) is used to simulate the influence of water soluble organic compounds (WSOC) and organic+inorganic gas emissions on cloud development. Following Mircea et al. (2002), we tested the sensitivity of the cloud and precipitation development in the classical inorganic case (CIC) and the inorganic+organic case (IOC) with respect to CCN compositions. The results indicate an increase in the droplet concentration for the IOC, and a delay in the development of precipitation. The pH spectral evolution was studied during both the development and precipitation stages. The influence of the diffusion of formic acid and its generation by oxidation of hydrated formaldehyde in the aqueous phase result in a reduction in the pH of precipitation in the range between 0.05 and 0.15 pH units (from 1 to 3%) for the high ambient SO2 concentration (20 ppb) and between 0.2–0.5 pH units (from 4 to 10%) for the low ambient SO2 concentration (1 ppb) case.

Prevalence of mental illness in an elderly community dwelling population using AGECAT

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of a range of mental disorders in an elderly community dwelling population in Dublin using AGECAT, a reliable and standardised computerised diagnostic system that has been previously validated in community epidemiological surveys.Methods: A total of 451 individuals over the age of 65 in a GP group practice were interviewed using AGECAT.Results: Approximately one in five subjects had a mental illness according to AGECAT criteria. The prevalence of depression was 13.1% and did not change appreciably with age. 5.5% of subjects met organic ‘case’ criteria, and the frequency of organic cases increased with age, approximating 15% in the over 80 year age group. Neurotic disorders occurred with very low frequency, representing 1.1% of the subjects tested.Conclusions: These findings have implications for mentalhealth services planning at a local level, and underscore the utility of AGECAT as a tool for comparative crosscultural epidemiological surveys.

Psychogeriatrics 1974 to 1984

The impact of a 16% increase between censuses in the population aged 65 and over, on a psychogeriatric department whose bed complement remained static between 1974 and 1984, has been studied. Demand for service, as measured by new referrals, rose by 150%, while admissions fell by 14%. The increase in new referrals was uniform across the diagnostic spectrum, but the fall in admissions was not. Functional admissions fell in all age-groups except that of women of 85 and over, while organic-case admissions other than for cases of dementia virtually collapsed. Overall admissions for dementia rose to the predicted level, but the distribution of the increase was irregular and unexpected. Admissions of males and females aged 65–74 and females of 85 and over fell relatively and absolutely, while those of women aged 75–84 and men of 85 and over were little changed. Only admissions of men aged 75–84 alone increased in real terms.