مطالب

An efficient road network remains among the topical issues in the international urban development forum. This is because roads link interrelated land uses in addition to connecting them with the contiguous metropolitan areas, thus a key contributing factor for an accelerated socio-economic uplift. To sus tain this, planning s tandards that delimit urban road reserves are usually prepared and enforced through development control to ensure that roads are exclusively maintained for their intended purpose.  This s tudy, therefore, through a case s tudy was undertaken in Kisii Town, Kenya inves tigates the extent to which the unauthorized developments on urban road reserves are regulated. It was s teered by the public interes t theory of regulation by targeting residential developments which were proportionately and randomly drawn from the seven residential neighbourhoods. Data were collected using a high-resolution satellite image and a ques tionnaire. Data analysis relied on GIS, t-tes t, logis tic regression, and linear regression. Research findings demons trated a s tatis tically significant difference between the approved physical planning s tandards that are used in regulating road reserves and the extent of compliance by developers. Compliance generally declined by a mean of four metres, signifying that the County Government of Kisii did not undertake adequate development control. Non-compliance was mos tly heightened by the developers’ unawareness of the building plan approval process and that the buildings needed to be inspected during cons truction. This s tudy deepens the international debate on development control by spatially and s tatis tically illuminating how the extent of compliance with the planning s tandards that regulate road reserves may be empirically analyzed.

 Providing the conditions of residential neighborhoods to enhance residents' quality of life has always been an issue of great for urban experts and policymakers of various fields. According to the extensive research in this field, addressing quality of life indicates its importance in residential neighborhoods. The present manuscript evaluates and prioritizes the indicators that improve the quality of life based on the review and analysis of experts (in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and planning). The s trategy of this s tudy is the correlation with a descriptive-analytical approach to evaluate and prioritize the indicators of quality of life, four of which have been identified for review by experts, namely Ins titutional; Economic; Social and Environmental satisfaction. A total of 22 experts answered the ques tions, and the findings were analyzed using the DANP technique. The findings indicate that the components of "ins titutional satisfaction" and "social satisfaction" have the mos t significant impact on enhancing residents' quality of life, respectively, from the perspective of experts. In addition, based on the weight of the obtained components, "policy-making and decision-making of organizations and ins titutions" in the neighborhood and "access to health facilities and services" were ranked as the firs t and las t practical components, respectively. Therefore, s trategies can be developed based on the prioritization of experts, such as s trengthening social and infras tructural services and facilities (ins titutional); Residents' decision-making and participation in neighborhood management (social); provision of participatory housing (economic), and development of open and green space (environmental).

 The present s tudy aimed to discover the memorabilia aspects and evaluate the effectiveness level on promoting the feeling of intimacy of inhabitants in localities to their biological scopes. The feeling of intimacy is a multidimensional issue for which various aspects are compelling. Based on the recent s tudies, memory as one of the criteria examines the feeling of intimacy toward their habitats. To assess the theoretical patterns, three locations were chosen as a case s tudy among old localities, including Ishaq Beyg, Blacks tone, and chicken market and three areas of irrigation, Havabord, and Eslahnezhad among new localities of Shiraz. A consis tent ques tionnaire was dis tributed among them. This s tudy includes a practical method is and developed based on correlation and descriptive-analytical technique. The ques tionnaires data were assessed by SPSS software and Spearman Correlation Coefficient tes ts, ANOVA, Tukey, Samples, and Paired Tes t Samples T and Pearson Correlation Coefficient. Our results indicated the homogeneity of particular localities in old and new contexture based on the individual feature's similarities and importance of memory aspect on the promotion of intimacy in all localities. Thus, social memories are more effective than skeletal ones in promoting the inhabitant's intimacy in localities.

The objective of this study was to validate a bilingual Spanish-English version of the Vocabulary Size Test (VST) considering its potential use as a discriminator between learners in terms of language competence. This version was designed based on the two forms available on one of the creators’ websites as well as considering practices recommended regarding the elimination of cognates and loans. A one-way ANOVA test was used to confirm the test’s capacity to discriminate among learners of different linguistic competence. Additionally, Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) was conducted to revise the existence of only one underlying variable. As a result of this study, a VST version for Spanish speakers consisting of 9 vocabulary frequency levels is shared. This version is in line with validation standards put forward in previous research. It is expected that this instrument will help future studies that seek to measure Spanish speakers’ competence in English as a foreign or second language without having to deal with the interference of other intervening factors.

Given the importance of the historical context in the Iranian city of Mashhad and acts of sabotage, identifying, preserving, recording, and maintaining its historic facades is important. This study aims to investigate the ornamentations of Paein Khiaban’s historic facades of the Qajar period (1304-1174) (which have been inscribed as Iran’s cultural heritage). The methodology of this study is based on descriptive-analytical, exploratory, library studies, and field research. The results show that all buildings are two-story and ornamentations often seen on the upper part of the facade. In terms of ornamentation, in most of the façades, the moarragh mosaic tile or combination of tiles and bricks were used. Furthermore, some opening inscriptions are decorated with moarragh mosaic tile, too. All of these facades are made of brick and the dominant colours of the facade’ ornamentations are brown, yellow, Ultramarine and turquoise blue, lateritious and sometimes pink and white.