Inner-city transportation looms large in big cities in the so-called Global South due to rapid population and urban growth. To tackle this challenge, a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system was implemented in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in 2016. This paper reports on the results of a pilot study on the impacts of the BRT on city development and livelihoods in Dar. Our pilot study, which is part of the collaborative research project LIPSINDAR (Linking Partners for a Sustainable and Inclusive Dar es Salaam), was not designed to provide a comprehensive insight into the problems of urban planning, infrastructure modification and their impact on urban livelihoods. Rather, using the example of Dar es Salaam, the study served as an entry point to highlight challenges and future research demands in the context of urban insecurities and risks in large cities of the Global South. In particular, our study investigated the BRT as an element of critical infrastructure in Dar es Salaam and probed into its impact on residents’ livelihoods, focusing on the influence of service disruptions on everyday routines, and on different stakeholders’ views on the functionality of the BRT. Elaborating on this topic, interviews, street vendor surveys and mappings were used as methods to describe the processes. To examine the results more closely, the outcome was divided into groups of different fields of activity, namely Traffic Management, Local Residents, City Administration, Basic Provision Services and Street Vendors. In summary, the pilot study confirms that the implementation of the BRT system has, in general, served to improve urban livelihoods. Reducing commuting times and enhancing access to basic services found positive results. There is, however, still potential for improvement: the bus network, in particular, needs to be expanded and the vulnerability to natural extreme events, especially flooding, needs to be addressed.
Frames provide a visual link between artworks and their surround. We asked how image properties change as an observer zooms out from viewing a painting alone, to viewing the painting with its frame and, finally, the framed painting in its museum environment (museum scene). To address this question, we determined three higher-order image properties that are based on histograms of oriented luminance gradients. First, complexity was measured as the sum of the strengths of all gradients in the image. Second, we determined the self-similarity of histograms of the orientated gradients at different levels of spatial analysis. Third, we analyzed how much gradient strength varied across orientations (anisotropy). Results were obtained for three art museums that exhibited paintings from three major periods of Western art. In all three museums, the mean complexity of the frames was higher than that of the paintings or the museum scenes. Frames thus provide a barrier of complexity between the paintings and their exterior. By contrast, self-similarity and anisotropy values of images of framed paintings were intermediate between the images of the paintings and the museum scenes, i.e., the frames provided a transition between the paintings and their surround. We also observed differences between the three museums that may reflect modified frame usage in different art periods. For example, frames in the museum for 20th century art tended to be smaller and less complex than in the two other two museums that exhibit paintings from earlier art periods (13th–18th century and 19th century, respectively). Finally, we found that the three properties did not depend on the type of reproduction of the paintings (photographs in museums, scans from books or images from the Google Art Project). To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the relation between frames and paintings by measuring physically defined, higher-order image properties.
A GC-based approach involving preseparation via solid-phase extraction was established for the quantitation of acyl chain oxidation products (ACOPs) formed upon thermo-oxidation (180 °C, 40 min) of oleates and linoleates of phytostanols and phytosterols. The concentrations of ACOPs resulting from initially formed 9-hydroperoxides (octanoates, 8-hydroxyoctanoates, 9-oxononanoates) were higher than those from 8-hydroperoxides (heptanoates, 7-hydroxy- and 7-oxoheptanoates, 8-oxooctanoates) in both oleates and linoleates. Significantly higher amounts of ACOPs were found in heat-treated linoleates compared to oleates. However, despite lower thermally induced losses of stanyl oleates and linoleates compared to the respective steryl esters, higher concentrations of ACOPs (approximately 9 and 10% of the ester losses, respectively) were observed in the heat-treated stanyl esters. In contrast, in the heated steryl oleates and linoleates the contribution of the ACOPs to the ester losses was lower (approximately 3 and 5%, respectively), and there was a more pronounced formation of oxidation products of the sterol moieties (approximately 26 and 18% of the ester losses, respectively).
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