The use of ICT by adults with learning disabilities in day and residential services

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by adults with learning disabilities has been positively promoted over the past decade. More recently, policy statements and guidance from the UK government have underlined the importance of ICT for adults with learning disabilities specifically, as well as for the population in general, through the potential it offers for social inclusion. The aim of the present study was to provide a picture of how ICT is currently being used within one organisation providing specialist services for adults with learning disabilities and more specifically to provide a picture of its use in promoting community participation. Nine day and 14 residential services were visited as part of a qualitative study to answer three main questions: What kinds of computer programs are being used? What are they being used for? Does this differ between day and residential services? Computers and digital cameras were used for a wide range of activities and ‘mainstream’ programs were used more widely than those developed for specific user groups. In day services, ICT was often embedded in wider projects and activities, whilst use in houses was based around leisure interests. In both contexts, ICT was being used to facilitate communication, although this was more linked to within-service activities, rather than those external to service provision.

Using Distributed Temperature Sensing to monitor field scale dynamics of ground surface temperature and related substrate heat flux

We present one of the first studies of the use of Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) along fibre-optic cables to purposely monitor spatial and temporal variations in ground surface temperature (GST) and soil temperature, and provide an estimate of the heat flux at the base of the canopy layer and in the soil. Our field site was at a groundwater-fed wet meadow in the Netherlands covered by a canopy layer (between 0-0.5 m thickness) consisting of grass and sedges. At this site, we ran a single cable across the surface in parallel 40 m sections spaced by 2 m, to create a 40×40 m monitoring field for GST. We also buried a short length (≈10 m) of cable to depth of 0.1±0.02 m to measure soil temperature. We monitored the temperature along the entire cable continuously over a two-day period and captured the diurnal course of GST, and how it was affected by rainfall and canopy structure. The diurnal GST range, as observed by the DTS system, varied between 20.94 and 35.08◦C; precipitation events acted to suppress the range of GST. The spatial distribution of GST correlated with canopy vegetation height during both day and night. Using estimates of thermal inertia, combined with a harmonic analysis of GST and soil temperature, substrate and soil-heat fluxes were determined. Our observations demonstrate how the use of DTS shows great promise in better characterising area-average substrate/soil heat flux, their spatiotemporal variability, and how this variability is affected by canopy structure. The DTS system is able to provide a much richer data set than could be obtained from point temperature sensors. Furthermore, substrate heat fluxes derived from GST measurements may be able to provide improved closure of the land surface energy balance in micrometeorological field studies. This will enhance our understanding of how hydrometeorological processes interact with near-surface heat fluxes.

Susceptibility of faba bean (Vicia faba L.) to heat stress during floral development and anthesis

Experiments were conducted over two years to quantify the response of faba bean (Vicia faba L.) to heat stress. Potted winter faba bean plants (cv. Wizard) were exposed to temperature treatments (18/10; 22/14; 26/18; 30/22; 34/26°C day/night) for five days during floral development and anthesis. Developmental stages of all flowers were scored prior to stress, plants were grown in exclusion from insect pollinators to prevent pollen movement between flowers, and yield was harvested at an individual pod scale, enabling effects of heat stress to be investigated at a high resolution. Susceptibility to stress differed between floral stages, flowers were most affected during initial green-bud stages. Yield and pollen germination of flowers present before stress showed threshold relationships to stress, with lethal temperatures (t50) ~28°C and ~32°C, while whole plant yield showed a linear negative relationship to stress with high plasticity in yield allocation, such that yield lost at lower nodes was partially compensated at higher nodal positions. Faba bean has many beneficial attributes for sustainable modern cropping systems but these results suggest that yield will be limited by projected climate change, necessitating the development of heat tolerant cultivars, or improved resilience by other mechanisms such as earlier flowering times.

The urban cool island phenomenon in a high-rise high-density city and its mechanisms

The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon has been studied extensively, but there are relatively fewer reports on the so-called urban cool island (UCI) phenomenon. We reveal here that the UCI phenomenon exists in Hong Kong during the day, and is associated with the UHI at night under all wind and cloud conditions. The possible mechanisms for the UCI phenomenon in such a high-rise compact city have been discovered using a lumped urban air temperature model. A new concept of urban cool island degree hours (UCIdh) to measure the UCI intensity and duration is proposed. Our analyses reveal that when anthropogenic heat is small or absent, a high-rise and high-density city experiences a significant daytime UCI effect. This is explained by an intensified heat storage capacity and the reduced solar radiation gain of urban surfaces. However, if anthropogenic heat in the urban area increases further, the UCI phenomenon still exists, yet UCIdh decrease dramatically in a high-rise compact city. In a low-rise, low-density city, the UCI phenomenon also occurs when there is no anthropogenic heat, but easily disappears when there is little anthropogenic heat, and the UHI phenomenon dominates. This probably explains why the UHI phenomenon is often observed, but the UCI phenomenon is rarely observed. The co-existence of urban heat/cool island phenomena implies reduction of the daily temperature range (DTR) in such cities, and its dependence on urban morphology also implies that urban morphology can be used to control the urban thermal environment.

Cool Roofs for improving thermal performance of EU office buildings: an investigation for different climates and building layouts

Cool materials are characterized by having a high solar reflectance r – which is able to reduce heat gains during daytime - and a high thermal emissivity ε that enables them to dissipate the heat absorbed throughout the day during night. Despite the concept of cool roofs - i.e. the application of cool materials to roof surfaces - is well known in US since 1990s, many studies focused on their performance in both residential and commercial sectors under various climatic conditions for US countries, while only a few case studies are analyzed in EU countries. The present work aims at analyzing the thermal benefits due to their application to existing office buildings located in EU countries. Indeed, due to their weight in the existing buildings stock, as well as the very low rate of new buildings construction, the retrofit of office buildings is a topic of great concern worldwide. After an in-depth characterization of the existing buildings stock in the EU, the book gives an insight into roof energy balance due to different technological solutions, showing in which cases and to what extent cool roofs are preferable. A detailed description of the physical properties of cool materials and their availability on the market provides a solid background for the parametric analysis carried out by means of detailed numerical models that aims at evaluating cool roofs performance for various climates and office buildings configurations. With the help of dynamic simulations, the thermal behavior of representative office buildings of the existing EU buildings stock is assessed in terms of thermal comfort and energy needs for air conditioning. The results, which consider several variations of building features that may affect the resulting energy balance, show how cool roofs are an effective strategy for reducing overheating occurrences and thus improving thermal comfort in any climate. On the other hand, potential heating penalties due to a reduction in the incoming heat fluxes through the roof are taken into account, as well as the aging process of cool materials. Finally, an economic analysis of the best performing models shows the boundaries for their economic convenience.

Understanding the rapid summer warming and changes in temperature extremes since the mid-1990s over Western Europe

Analysis of observations indicates that there was a rapid increase in summer (June-August, JJA) mean surface air temperature (SAT) since the mid-1990s over Western Europe. Accompanying this rapid warming are significant increases in summer mean daily maximum temperature, daily minimum temperature, annual hottest day temperature and warmest night temperature, and an increase in frequency of summer days and tropical nights, while the change in the diurnal temperature range (DTR) is small. This study focuses on understanding causes of the rapid summer warming and associated temperature extreme changes. A set of experiments using the atmospheric component of the state-of-the-art HadGEM3 global climate model have been carried out to quantify relative roles of changes in sea surface temperature (SST)/sea ice extent (SIE), anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), and anthropogenic aerosols (AAer). Results indicate that the model forced by changes in all forcings reproduces many of the observed changes since the mid-1990s over Western Europe. Changes in SST/SIE explain 62.2% ± 13.0% of the area averaged seasonal mean warming signal over Western Europe, with the remaining 37.8% ± 13.6% of the warming explained by the direct impact of changes in GHGs and AAer. Results further indicate that the direct impact of the reduction of AAer precursor emissions over Europe, mainly through aerosol-radiation interaction with additional contributions from aerosol-cloud interaction and coupled atmosphere-land surface feedbacks, is a key factor for increases in annual hottest day temperature and in frequency of summer days. It explains 45.5% ± 17.6% and 40.9% ± 18.4% of area averaged signals for these temperature extremes. The direct impact of the reduction of AAer precursor emissions over Europe acts to increase DTR locally, but the change in DTR is countered by the direct impact of GHGs forcing. In the next few decades, greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to rise and AAer precursor emissions over Europe and North America will continue to decline. Our results suggest that the changes in summer seasonal mean SAT and temperature extremes over Western Europe since the mid-1990s are most likely to be sustained or amplified in the near term, unless other factors intervene.