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It is a remarkable fact that the size of slums is similar across the globe, regardless of city, country, or culture [Friesen et al., Habitat Int. 73, 79 (2018)]. The main thesis of this paper is that this universal scale is intrinsic to the slum-city system and is independent from external factors. By interpreting reaction and diffusion as longand short-distance migration, our paper explains this universal length scale as resulting from a Turing instability of the interaction of two social groups: poor and rich.

According to the United Nations, about 1 billion persons live in so-called slums. Numerous studies have shown that this population is particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases. The current COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, emphatically underlines this problem. The often high-density living quarters coupled with a large number of persons per dwelling and the lack of adequate sanitation are reasons why measures to contain the pandemic only work to a limited extent in slums. Furthermore, assignment to risk groups for severe courses of COVID-19 caused by noncommunicable diseases (eg, cardiovascular diseases) is not possible due to inadequate data availability. Information on people living in slums and their health status is either unavailable or only exists for specific regions (eg, Nairobi). We argue that one of the greatest problems with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of slums in the Global South is the lack of data on the number of people, their living conditions, and their health status.

This study investigated the effects of hypnosis as a treatment for weight loss among women. The sample consisted of 60 women between the ages of 20 and 65 who were at least 20% overweight and were not in any other treatment program. Six client variables (suggestibility, self-concept, quality of family origin, age of obesity onset, education level, and socioeconomic status) and one process variable (multi-modal imagery) were analyzed in relation to the dependent variable (weight loss). Two experimental groups, hypnosis plus audiotapes (Hy-T) and hypnosis without audiotapes (Hy), and the control group (Cont) were investigated for weight loss immediately after treatment and again after a 6-month follow-up. The primary hypothesis that hypnosis is an effective treatment for weight loss was confirmed, but the seven concomitant variables and the use of audiotapes were not significant contributors to weight loss. Although hypnosis has for many years been suggested as a treatment modality for weight loss, there is little rigorous experimental research that clearly substantiates this view. The literature dealing with hypnosis for weight reduction consists primarily of anecdotal reports and studies of selected cases. Mott

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Approximately 1 billion slum dwellers worldwide are exposed to increased health risks due to their spatial environment. Recent studies have therefore called for the spatial environment to be introduced as a separate dimension in medical studies. Hence, this study investigates how and on which spatial scale relationships between the settlement morphology and the health status of the inhabitants can be identified. To this end, we summarize the current literature on the identification of slums from a geographical perspective and review the current literature on slums and health of the last five years (376 studies) focusing on the considered scales in the studies. We show that the majority of medical studies are restricted to certain geographical regions. It is desirable that the number of studies be adapted to the number of the respective population. On the basis of these studies, we develop a framework to investigate the relationship between space and health. Finally, we apply our methodology to investigate the relationship between the prevalence of slums and different health metrics using data of the global burden of diseases for different prefectures in Brazil on a subnational level.

More than 900 million people worldwide live in slums. These slums mainly can be found in cities of the global south and are characterized by poor living conditions and usually insufficient access to basic infrastructure such as water or energy. In order to improve the living conditions of slum inhabitants, information about the number, location and size of the slums is required to plan supply infrastructure. We therefore identify morphological slums in eight different cities in Africa, South America and Asia, using remote sensing data and analyse their size distributions. We show that 84.6% of all observed morphological slums have a size between 0.001 and 0.1 km 2 . These results rely on a consistent approach using a clear ontology and conceptual frame for classification. However, classification methods for these underserved areas differ. We show slum classifications based on different methods reveal a strong dependency between the particular method and the resulting size distribution. The study shows the relevance of remote sensing for the investigation of slums and the results can be used for infrastructure planning, as infrastructure improvement projects are often limited to the large known slums. Whereas, the large number of small slums distributed across the city is often neglected.

Currently, more than half of the world's population lives in cities. Out of these more than four billion people, almost one quarter live in slums or informal settlements. In order to improve living conditions and provide possible solutions for the major problems in slums (e.g., insufficient infrastructure), it is important to understand the current situation of this form of settlement and its development. There are many different models that attempt to simulate the development of slums. In this paper, we present data mining models that correlate information about the temporal development of slums with other economic, ecologic, and demographic factors in order to identify dependencies. Different learning algorithms, such as decision rules and decision trees, are used to learn descriptive models for slum development from data, and the results are evaluated with commonly used attribute evaluation methods known from data mining. The results confirm various previously made statements about slum development in a quantitative way, such as the fact that slum development is very strongly linked to the demographic development of a country. Applying the introduced classification models to the most recent data for different regions, it can be shown that the slum development in Africa is expected to be above average.