To go where no man has gone before: Virtual reality in architecture, landscape architecture and environmental planning

The effect of urban development on local thermal climate is ostensibly well documented in scientific literature. Since the nineteenth century, observations of “urban-rural” air temperature differences (∆Tu-r), or urban heat island magnitudes, have been reported for hundreds of cities worldwide. The historical and geographical scope of the heat island literature is impressive. Over time, however, methodologists have raised concerns about the rigor and authenticity of that literature, especially regarding the definition, measurement, and reporting of heat island magnitudes. Indiscriminate use of “urban” and “rural” by heat island investigators to describe their field sites is a particular concern. Much confusion now surrounds the physical and cultural characteristics of so-called urban and rural sites in heat island literature. This thesis confronts these concerns through two approaches. The first approach synthesizes and evaluates a sample of 190 observational heat island studies from the period 1950 to 2007. The synthesis uses nine criteria of scientific method and communication to critically assess the experimental quality of each study. Results are discouraging: the mean quality score of the literature sample is just 50 percent, and nearly one-half of the reported heat island magnitudes are judged to be scientifically indefensible on account of incomplete or incompetent reporting. The second approach develops a landscape classification system to standardize reporting of heat island field sites and temperatures in all cities. The local climate zone (LCZ) system comprises 17 zones and is the first comprehensive climate-based classification of urban and rural landscapes for heat island investigators. Each zone represents an area that is local in scale and unique in land cover, building morphology, and screen-level thermal climate. Results show that the new classification leads to a

Redefining the urban heat island

The history, definitions, and transdisciplinary extent of pseudoreplication, as well as some key concepts of experimental design, are briefly reviewed. Pseudoreplication, sometimes also referred to as the ‘unit of analysis error,’ is one of the commonest errors of statistical analysis and interpretation. It is a simple albeit serious one. It persists in part because of the failure of statisticians and scientists to develop a clear, consistent terminology for the concepts of statistics, experimental design, and sampling design that is used across all disciplines, as well as a terminology for specific categories of the more common errors. Lack of a clear terminology, in turn, has fostered narrow, discipline-specific jargon, inconsistency among textbooks and reference works, and ineffective teaching. Reform of terminology is possible, and great improvement in statistical practice would follow.

The ancient black art and transdisciplinary extent of pseudoreplication.

Visualization for planning and management of oceans and coasts

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Statistics for Clinicians

THE growing number of people interested in science has created a need for an introductory book linking the actual research with the communication of the results. Doing Science is a book that attempts to do this without losing the essentials of each stage of the scientific method. It aims to show that these stages are not separate topics, but a combined unit setting the framework for scientific work.

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Carl Johan Svensson

Papers

Doing Science Design, Analysis and Communication of Scientific Research