Iskanje po katalogu digitalne knjižnice

Opis: With the growing concentration of populations in urban centres, ensuring resilient and sustainable food systems has become a critical priority. Disruptions in food supply chains, particularly in small cities with limited logistical flexibility, can severely compromise food availability. In response, the utilisation of urban green spaces for food production has been increasingly recognised as a viable strategy to enhance local self-sufficiency while contributing to broader environmental goals. This study evaluated the potential for integrating urban orchards, berry bushes, and apiaries within the public green spaces of Maribor, a small Slovenian city with a total area of 40 km². Emphasis was placed on publicly owned or publicly accessible land—including municipal holdings, stateowned plots, and land managed by public companies—that remains underutilised yet suitable for edible landscaping. Using spatial analysis conducted through QGis, available green space was quantified and assessed for suitability in supporting fruit trees, edible shrubs, and beekeeping installations. Estimates were then derived for the number of fruit and berry seedlings that could be planted, the volume of potential fruit and honey yields, and the corresponding contribution to carbon dioxide reduction through enhanced urban vegetation and decreased food transport dependency. The results indicate that even fragmented and seemingly marginal green areas possess significant aggregate potential for improving local food resilience, fostering community engagement, and delivering measurable carbon mitigation benefits. Furthermore, urban food forests and community orchards were identified as multifunctional landscape interventions that not only enhance food security but also improve urban biodiversity, air quality, and residents’ mental well-being. These findings align with the European Union’s objectives for urban ecosystem efficiency and carbon neutrality by 2050 and underscore the importance of integrating edible green infrastructure into urban planning frameworks. The study contributes to the growing body of evidence supporting the role of decentralised, nature-based solutions in urban sustainability transitions.
Ključne besede: urban green infrastructure, urban orchards, edible landscaping, community food forests, local food resilience, urban apiaries, GIS-based spatial analysis
Objavljeno v DKUM: 13.08.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 4
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Opis: Upright-posture motorcycle crashes against steel safety barriers (SSBs) often result in severe upper-body injuries due to the sharp upper edge of the rail. While solutions for sliding crashes on curves, called a ‘motorcyclist-friendly barrier’, are already implemented in practice, protective measures for upright-posture impacts remain underdeveloped. This study systematically reviews patents and patent applications addressing upper guardrail protection for motorcyclists. We identified and analysed a small number of existing innovations aimed at mitigating the consequences of upright crashes. The selected solutions were evaluated according to their technical design, ease of installation, potential for recycling, environmental compatibility, and expected costs. Our comparative analysis reveals that while some patents or patent applications offer promising features, such as flexible caps, bent plates, or modular attachments, none comprehensively address all safety, environmental, and economic requirements. The findings provide a basis for further development of motorcyclist-friendly SSB designs and suggest specific criteria that should be included in future guidelines and standard updates.
Ključne besede: motorcyclist safety, steel safety barriers, upright-posture crash, motorcycle-friendly barrier, roadside safety, protective barrier design, road infrastructure, injury prevention, patent analysis
Objavljeno v DKUM: 02.07.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 3
Celotno besedilo (2,16 MB)
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Opis: Motorcyclists remain a disproportionately large group of vulnerable road users, with fatality rates significantly higher than that in other road groups. Additionally, fatal accidents involving motorcyclists have a more slowly decreasing trend in comparison to that of other road users, while the number of this kind of users is growing fast. For all these reasons, there is a need to understand what the key factors leading to fatal accidents are in order to identify the possible measures to minimize the accidents themselves or at least their consequences. This would permit, indeed, to positively impact the road traffic system, leading to the creation of the safest road traffic system possible, as it is the goal of the Sustainable Safety approach. The aim of this study is to dive into the mentioned problem, analyzing fatal motorcycle accidents in Slovenia over a decade, highlighting the key factors contributing to these incidents. By integrating data from four databases, the study evaluated accident trends, infrastructural elements, and rider behavior through a multi-stage analysis. Firstly, data were collected from four national, up-to-date databases that contain information about road accidents themselves, the road infrastructure, additional police data, and media descriptions. After merging this information into one comprehensive database, where each row represents all the data available for one accident, a general analysis of accidents’ trends over the considered 10-year period was developed, considering at first all fatal road accidents, then deepening it to accidents caused by a motorcyclist, and finally to single-vehicle accidents. A statistical analysis followed, aimed at identifying a statistical correlation between the accidents and the factors leading to them. The results of the first accident analysis indicated that excessive speed, incorrect driving direction, and overtaking maneuvers are the primary causes of fatal accidents, especially on non-urban roads preferred by motorcyclists. Single-vehicle accidents frequently involve collisions with roadside objects, including safety barriers and poles, underscoring the need for targeted infrastructural improvements. The following correlation analysis revealed that a total of seven factors were statistically significant: three human factors (age, gender, experience)—which were the ones with the strongest correlations—one infrastructural factor (pavement width), and three factors belonging to external conditions (accident type, cause, and location). Of these, four were positively correlated to the causer, while three, i.e., pavement width, causes, and road location, were negatively correlated. This study provides a foundation for future research on less severe accidents and proactive risk behavior analysis, aiming to improve motorcyclist safety comprehensively.
Ključne besede: motorcycle safety, fatal accidents, road infrastructure, rider behavior
Objavljeno v DKUM: 10.03.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 12
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Opis: Railroad is one of the primary modes to transport hazardous materials (hazmat) in North America. For instance, Canadian railroads carried around 50 million tons of hazmat in 2018. Given the inherent danger of trains carrying hazmat, this study aimed at exploring a novel way towards mitigation of the associated risk. This study sought to investigate whether proper rail track infrastructure investment can mitigate the risk from hazmat shipments. To this end, a methodology was developed and then applied to the Canadian railroad network. The proposed three-step methodology captured the differing perspectives of rail carriers and regulatory agencies, and entailed (1) ascertaining the risk-level of various yards and links in the given railroad network, (2) specifying potential candidates for infrastructure investment, and (3) finding the optimum set of investment decisions. The proposed methodology was then applied to the Canadian railroad network to demonstrate that significant risk-reduction can beachieved by adding alternative rail-links around the riskiest locations (i.e. the network hot-spots), and also to show that risk-reduction function is non-linear with non-monotonous behavior. The study showed the possibility of significant hazmat risk reduction through alternative rail-links that could take traffic away from the network hot-spots. The methodology and the resultsfrom the Canadian case can be used by railroad companies and policy makers to estimate the value of potentially risk-reducinginfrastructure investments.
Ključne besede: risk mitigation, railroad network, hazardous materials, infrastructure investment, optimization, transportation safety
Objavljeno v DKUM: 23.08.2024; Ogledov: 61; Prenosov: 8
Celotno besedilo (1,85 MB)
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Opis: This study examined the relationship between the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) and agriculture development in Karnataka from 1995 to 2021. While presenting the budget speech for 1995–1996, the honorable union finance minister introduced the RIDF program. The RBI monitors the funding for the RIDF program through NABARD, which has a corpus of Rs. 2,000 crores from commercial and regional banks, among other sources. The program funds the social sector, small to medium irrigation, rural connectivity, and agricultural and related activities. The study evaluated the performance of the RIDF in the State critically. It also observed that several projects remained incomplete even after taking loans from the RIDF. Many states might be unable to take on this financial load due to most governments' dire financial circumstances. Despite this, there have been some physical advancements in rural irrigation, roads, and bridges. The nation's states and regions, however, do not all share the same achievement levels, therefore suggesting necessary steps to ensure proper fund utilization and decrease rural poverty and intra-regional disparity in Karnataka.
Ključne besede: agriculture development, finance, infrastructure, Karnataka, rural area
Objavljeno v DKUM: 06.03.2024; Ogledov: 286; Prenosov: 13
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