Abstract: The prevalence of overweight and obesity are increasing in many African countries and hence becoming regional public health challenges. We employ satellite-based night light intensity data as a proxy for urbanization to investigate the relationship between urbanization and women's body weight. We use two rounds of the Demographic and Health Survey data from Nigeria. We employ both nonparametric and parametric estimation approaches that exploit both the cross-sectional and longitudinal variations in night light intensities. Our empirical analysis reveals nonlinear relationships between night light intensity and women's body weight measures. Doubling the sample's average level of night light intensity is associated with up to a ten percentage point increase in the probability of overweight. However, despite the generally positive relationship between night light intensity and women's body weight, the strength of the relationship varies across the assorted stages of night light intensity. Early stages of night light intensity are not significantly associated with women's body weight, while higher stages of nightlight intensities are associated with higher rates of overweight and obesity. Given that night lights are strong predictors of urbanization and related economic activities, our results hint at nonlinear relationships between various stages of urbanization and women's body weight.

Abstract: This research discusses the feasibility of replacing or supporting artificial lighting with Transgenic Bioluminescent Plants (TBP), as a means of minimizing light pollution, reducing electrical energy consumption and de-carbonizing urban and suburban outdoor environments, creating sustainable conditions and enriching the quality of life. Until now, no information is given about the light output of any TBPs and the question “Are the TBPs capable of producing the necessary lighting levels for exterior lighting?” is unanswered. For this reason, a new methodology is proposed for selecting and analyzing the lighting output potential of transgenic plants ted for specific climatic conditions. This methodology considers growth and reduction factors, as well as a formulae for estimating the plants’ luminous output by performing light measurements. Results show that transgenic plants in medium growth can emit a median luminous flux of up to 57 lm, a value that can definitely support low lighting requirements when used in large numbers of plants. From the lighting measurements and calculations performed in this research, the light output of the TBPs for a typical road with 5m width was found equal to 2lx. The amount of plants required was 40 at each side of the road for every 30m of streets with P6 road class. The results show that the use of bioluminescent plants can actually contribute to the reduction of energy consumption, concerning only the lighting criterium, thus creating an enormous opportunity for a new state-of- the-art market and research that could potentially minimize CO2 emissions and light pollution, improve urban and suburban microclimate, mitigate the effects of climate change, as well as provide an alternative means of lighting affecting both outdoor lighting design and landscape planning in suburban and urban settings. Moreover, further research should be applied considering also other possible ecological impacts before applying TBPs for exterior lighting applications.

Abstract: The hypothesis of this article is that drivers will not adjust their behavior, i.e. drivers are not expected to increase their speed, reduce their concentration or travel more when road lighting is installed. The hypothesis was based on previous research showing that road lighting reduces road accidents and that average driving speeds do not increase when road lighting is installed. Our results show that drivers do compensate for road lighting in terms of increased speed and reduced concentration. Consequently, the hypothesis is rejected. This means that road lighting could have a somewhat larger accident-reducing effect, if compensation could be avoided. The fact that previous research has found no change in average speed when road lighting is introduced, seems to be explained by increased driving speeds by some drivers being counterbalanced by a larger proportion of more slowly driving groups of drivers (elderly people and women), i.e. different subgroups of road users compensate in different ways.