The heavy dependency on private cars has shaped the design of cities. While offering fast, comfortable, and convenient commutes, cars have become the most popular method of transportation, but are also a health crisis due to the toxic emissions they release into the atmosphere as well as the high death toll from traffic accidents. For these reasons, there is a need to minimize the use of cars within cities in favor of greener and humanized urban design that would improve the quality of life and reduce the global threat of climate change. Humanizing Cities Through Car-Free City Development and Transformation is an essential publication that explores the concepts of car-free cities and city humanization as possible solutions to reduce the deteriorating effect on the environment and the community. The publication discusses the urban initiative to implement pedestrianization and humanization of cities and public spaces to promote the concept of car-free living. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics including city humanization, smart mobility, and urban policies, this book is ideally designed for urban planners, environmentalists, government officials, policymakers, architects, transportation authorities, researchers, academicians, and students.

Addressing resource depletion and environmental concerns for sustainable urban living, Smart Cities and Circular Economy unveils the transformative potential and challenges of integrating these ideas while emphasizing environmental, social, and economic benefits.

The book offers critical discussion, constructive insights and informed guidance for future research and applied work that can move us closer towards a sustainable society. This is the first comprehensive edited book linking sustainability and happiness. By doing so, it frames modern society’s pursuit of happiness as the ultimate wicked problem challenging sustainable life on earth. Chapters in the book focus on topics such as food systems, neighbourhood developments, project facilitated gathering and dialogue, beauty, and the happiness movement as an alternative to GDP. This book is of great importance to both academics and practitioners working at the intersection of sustainability and happiness.

Throughout history, humanity has sought the betterment of its communities. In the 21st century, humanity has technology on its side in the process of improving its cities. Smart cities make their improvements by gathering real-world data in real time. Still, there are many complexities that many do not catch—they are invisible. It is important to understand how people make sense at the urban level and in extra-urban spaces of the combined complexities of invisibilities and visibilities in their environments, interactions, and infrastructures enabled through their own enhanced awareness together with aware technologies that are often embedded, pervasive, and ambient. This book probes the visible and invisible dimensions of emerging understandings of smart cities and regions in the context of more aware people interacting with each other and through more aware and pervasive technologies. Visibilities and Invisibilities in Smart Cities: Emerging Research and Opportunities contributes to the research literature for urban theoretical spaces, methodologies, and applications for smart and responsive cities; the evolving of urban theory and methods for 21st century cities and urbanities; and the formulation of a conceptual framework for associated methodologies and theoretical spaces. This work explores the relationships between variables using a case study approach combined with an explanatory correlational design. It is based on an urban research study conducted from mid-2015 to mid-2020 that spanned multiple countries across three continents. The book is split into four sections: introduction to the concepts of visible and invisible, frameworks for understanding the interplay of the two concepts, associated and evolving theory and methods, and extending current research as opportunities in smart city environments and regions. Covering topics including human geography, smart cities, and urban planning, this book is essential for urban planners, designers, city officials, community agencies, business managers and owners, academicians, researchers, and students, including those who work across multiple domains such as architecture, environmental design, human-computer interaction, human geography, information technology, sociology, and affective computing.

This book highlights the potential of school farms to fight hunger and malnutrition by providing access to locally produced, fresh, and healthy food as well as providing young students with educational opportunities to learn, interact with nature, and develop their skills. Hunger is one of the most pressing concerns we face today and there is a clear need to provide alternative sources of food to feed a fast-growing population. School farms offer a sustainable opportunity to produce food locally in order to feed underprivileged students who rely on school meals as an integral part of their daily diet. Approaching the concept of school farms through four themes, Problem, People, Process, and Place, the book shows how they can play an essential role in providing sustainable and healthy food for students, the critical role educational institutions can play in promoting this process, and the positive impact hands-on farming can have on students' mental and physical wellbeing. Utilizing the authors' personal hands-on experiences, and drawing on global case studies, the book provides a theoretical framework and practical guidance to help with the establishment of school farms and community-based gardening projects and an education system which promotes a sustainable and healthy approach to food, agriculture, and the environment. This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of food security, agriculture, healthy and sustainable diets, education for sustainable development, and urban studies. It will also be of great interest to practitioners and policymakers involved in food policy, developing school and community projects, global health and international development, as well as education professionals.

The increase in air pollution and vehicular emissions has led to the development of the renewable energy-based generation and electrification of transportation. Further, the electrification shift faces an enormous challenge due to limited driving range, long charging time, and high initial cost of deployment. Firstly, there has been a discussion on renewable energy such as how wind power and solar power can be generated by wind turbines and photovoltaics, respectively, while these are intermittent in nature. The combination of these renewable energy resources with available power generation system will make electric vehicle (EV) charging sustainable and viable after the payback period. Recently, there has also been a significant discussion focused on various EV charging types and the level of power for charging to minimize the charging time. By focusing on both sustainable and renewable energy, as well as charging infrastructures and technologies, the future for EV can be explored. Developing Charging Infrastructure and Technologies for Electric Vehicles reviews and discusses the state of the art in electric vehicle charging technologies, their applications, economic, environmental, and social impact, and integration with renewable energy. This book captures the state of the art in electric vehicle charging infrastructure deployment, their applications, architectures, and relevant technologies. In addition, this book identifies potential research directions and technologies that facilitate insights on EV charging in various charging places such as smart home charging, parking EV charging, and charging stations. This book will be essential for power system architects, mechanics, electrical engineers, practitioners, developers, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the problems and solutions to the state-of-the-art status of electric vehicles.

Production, new materials development, and mechanics are the central subjects of modern industry and advanced science. With a very broad reach across several different disciplines, selecting the most forward-thinking research to review can be a hefty task, especially for study in niche applications that receive little coverage. For those subjects, collecting the research available is of utmost importance. The Handbook of Research on Advancements in Manufacturing, Materials, and Mechanical Engineering is an essential reference source that examines emerging obstacles in these fields of engineering and the methods and tools used to find solutions. Featuring coverage of a broad range of topics including fabricating procedures, automated control, and material selection, this book is ideally designed for academics; tribology and materials researchers; mechanical, physics, and materials engineers; professionals in related industries; scientists; and students.

The electric vehicle market has been gradually gaining prominence in the world due to the rise in pollution levels caused by traditional IC engine-based vehicles. The advantages of electric vehicles are multi-pronged in terms of cost, energy efficiency, and environmental impact. The running and maintenance cost are considerably less than traditional models. The harmful exhaust emissions are reduced, besides the greenhouse gas emissions, when the electric vehicle is supplied from a renewable energy source. However, apart from some Western nations, many developing and underdeveloped countries have yet to take up this initiative. This lack of enthusiasm has been primarily attributed to the capital investment required for charging infrastructure and the slow transition of energy generation from the fossil fuel to the renewable energy format. Currently, there are very few charging stations, and the construction of the same needs to be ramped up to supplement the growth of electric vehicles. Grid integration issues also crop up when the electric vehicle is used to either do supply addition to or draw power from the grid. These problems need to be fixed at all the levels to enhance the future of energy efficient transportation. Electric Vehicles and the Future of Energy Efficient Transportation explores the growth and adoption of electric vehicles for the purpose of sustainable transportation and presents a critical analysis in terms of the economics, technology, and environmental perspectives of electric vehicles. The chapters cover the benefits and limitations of electric vehicles, techno-economic feasibility of the technologies being developed, and the impact this has on society. Specific points of discussion include electric vehicle architecture, wireless power transfer, battery management, and renewable resources. This book is of interest for individuals in the automotive sector and allied industries, policymakers, practitioners, engineers, technicians, researchers, academicians, and students looking for updated information on the technology, economics, policy, and environmental aspects of electric vehicles.

Electromagnetic compatibility and regulatory compliance issues are subjects of great importance in electronics engineering. Avoiding problems regarding an electronic system's operation, while always important, is especially critical in space missions and satellite structures. Many problems can be traced to EM field disturbances as interference from unintended sources and other electromagnetic phenomena. As a result, stringent requirements are to be met in terms of electromagnetic emissions levels. The inclusion of this electromagnetic environment in the design of a multimillion mission can lead to a system that is able to withstand whatever challenge the environment throws at it. Failure to do so may lead to important data corruption or loss, destruction of expensive instruments, waste of resources, and even a total mission failure. Research in this area focuses on the studying of the applications of electromagnetic compatibility and electromagnetic interference in the space industry. Recent Trends on Electromagnetic Environmental Effects for Aeronautics and Space Applications will provide relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in electromagnetic compatibility and electromagnetic interference (EMC/EMI) for the aerospace industry. This book examines all the necessary information for all matters that can possibly affect the system design of a spacecraft and can be a useful reference to space system engineers and more. While highlighting topics such as artificial intelligence, electromagnetic testing, environmental shielding, and EMC modelling techniques, this book is ideal for professionals, spacecraft designers, science and data processing managers, electrical and mechanical engineers, EMC testing engineers, and researchers working in the aerospace industry along with practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students looking for necessary information for all the matters that can possibly affect the system design of a spacecraft.