Office noise and employee concentration: identifying causes of disruption and potential improvements

A field study assessed subjective reports of distraction from various office sounds among 88 employees at two sites. In addition, the study examined the amount of exposure the workers had to the noise in order to determine any evidence for habituation. Finally, respondents were asked how they would improve their environment ( with respect to noise), and to rate examples of improvements with regards to their job satisfaction and performance. Out of the sample, 99% reported that their concentration was impaired by various components of office noise, especially telephones left ringing at vacant desks and people talking in the background. No evidence for habituation to these sounds was found. These results are interpreted in the light of previous research regarding the effects of noise in offices and the 'irrelevant sound effect'.

Effect of improving representation of horizontal and vertical cloud structure on the Earth's global radiation budget. Part I: review and parametrization

A poor representation of cloud structure in a general circulation model (GCM) is widely recognised as a potential source of error in the radiation budget. Here, we develop a new way of representing both horizontal and vertical cloud structure in a radiation scheme. This combines the ‘Tripleclouds’ parametrization, which introduces inhomogeneity by using two cloudy regions in each layer as opposed to one, each with different water content values, with ‘exponential-random’ overlap, in which clouds in adjacent layers are not overlapped maximally, but according to a vertical decorrelation scale. This paper, Part I of two, aims to parametrize the two effects such that they can be used in a GCM. To achieve this, we first review a number of studies for a globally applicable value of fractional standard deviation of water content for use in Tripleclouds. We obtain a value of 0.75 ± 0.18 from a variety of different types of observations, with no apparent dependence on cloud type or gridbox size. Then, through a second short review, we create a parametrization of decorrelation scale for use in exponential-random overlap, which varies the scale linearly with latitude from 2.9 km at the Equator to 0.4 km at the poles. When applied to radar data, both components are found to have radiative impacts capable of offsetting biases caused by cloud misrepresentation. Part II of this paper implements Tripleclouds and exponential-random overlap into a radiation code and examines both their individual and combined impacts on the global radiation budget using re-analysis data.

Effect of improving representation of horizontal and vertical cloud structure on the Earth's global radiation budget. Part II: The global effects

Reliably representing both horizontal cloud inhomogeneity and vertical cloud overlap is fundamentally important for the radiation budget of a general circulation model. Here, we build on the work of Part One of this two-part paper by applying a pair of parameterisations that account for horizontal inhomogeneity and vertical overlap to global re-analysis data. These are applied both together and separately in an attempt to quantify the effects of poor representation of the two components on radiation budget. Horizontal inhomogeneity is accounted for using the “Tripleclouds” scheme, which uses two regions of cloud in each layer of a gridbox as opposed to one; vertical overlap is accounted for using “exponential-random” overlap, which aligns vertically continuous cloud according to a decorrelation height. These are applied to a sample of scenes from a year of ERA-40 data. The largest radiative effect of horizontal inhomogeneity is found to be in areas of marine stratocumulus; the effect of vertical overlap is found to be fairly uniform, but with larger individual short-wave and long-wave effects in areas of deep, tropical convection. The combined effect of the two parameterisations is found to reduce the magnitude of the net top-of-atmosphere cloud radiative forcing (CRF) by 2.25 W m−2, with shifts of up to 10 W m−2 in areas of marine stratocumulus. The effects of the uncertainty in our parameterisations on radiation budget is also investigated. It is found that the uncertainty in the impact of horizontal inhomogeneity is of order ±60%, while the uncertainty in the impact of vertical overlap is much smaller. This suggests an insensitivity of the radiation budget to the exact nature of the global decorrelation height distribution derived in Part One.

The role of efficacy and well-being in guiding the use of education and training services by young homeless mothers

This paper builds on previous work applying the concept of well-being to the field of housing. It uses the concepts of self-esteem, efficacy and social identity to explore the situations of a group of young homeless mothers. In particular, it focuses on the impact of well-being factors, among others, in understanding the uptake of education and training services. The paper concludes by arguing that well-being issues are crucial for housing agencies and others who want to engage with young homeless people.

Student teachers’ perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading: the implications for teacher education

This article reports on research which identified perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading held by trainee teachers and the impact on my provision as a teacher educator. It found that students’ past and present experiences of learning to read and being a reader influenced their perceptions of what reading is and of what it means to teach reading. As a teacher educator, I am not able to give students long experience of seeing children becoming readers, but I am able to give them richer experiences of reading in personally and culturally relevant contexts. This has implications for the nature of subject knowledge required by a student teacher of reading and the curriculum and practice of teacher education.

Prediction of visibility and aerosol within the operational Met Office unified model. I: Model formulation and variational assimilation

The formulation and performance of the Met Office visibility analysis and prediction system are described. The visibility diagnostic within the limited-area Unified Model is a function of humidity and a prognostic aerosol content. The aerosol model includes advection, industrial and general urban sources, plus boundary-layer mixing and removal by rain. The assimilation is a 3-dimensional variational scheme in which the visibility observation operator is a very nonlinear function of humidity, aerosol and temperature. A quality control scheme for visibility data is included. Visibility observations can give rise to humidity increments of significant magnitude compared with the direct impact of humidity observations. We present the results of sensitivity studies which show the contribution of different components of the system to improved skill in visibility forecasts. Visibility assimilation is most important within the first 6-12 hours of the forecast and for visibilities below 1 km, while modelling of aerosol sources and advection is important for slightly higher visibilities (1-5 km) and is still significant at longer forecast times

RedGloo: Experiences of developing and using an emerging technology in higher education

Student life has change a lot since 2005 when the idea to create a Social Network Service (SNS) for students in the School of Systems Engineering at the University of Reading was conceived and went live in 2006, called RedGloo.

A coupled cloud physics–radiation parameterization of the bulk optical properties of cirrus and its impact on the Met Office unified model global atmosphere 5.0 configuration

A new coupled cloud physics–radiation parameterization of the bulk optical properties of ice clouds is presented. The parameterization is consistent with assumptions in the cloud physics scheme regarding particle size distributions (PSDs) and mass–dimensional relationships. The parameterization is based on a weighted ice crystal habit mixture model, and its bulk optical properties are parameterized as simple functions of wavelength and ice water content (IWC). This approach directly couples IWC to the bulk optical properties, negating the need for diagnosed variables, such as the ice crystal effective dimension. The parameterization is implemented into the Met Office Unified Model Global Atmosphere 5.0 (GA5) configuration. The GA5 configuration is used to simulate the annual 20-yr shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) fluxes at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), as well as the temperature structure of the atmosphere, under various microphysical assumptions. The coupled parameterization is directly compared against the current operational radiation parameterization, while maintaining the same cloud physics assumptions. In this experiment, the impacts of the two parameterizations on the SW and LW radiative effects at TOA are also investigated and compared against observations. The 20-yr simulations are compared against the latest observations of the atmospheric temperature and radiative fluxes at TOA. The comparisons demonstrate that the choice of PSD and the assumed ice crystal shape distribution are as important as each other. Moreover, the consistent radiation parameterization removes a long-standing tropical troposphere cold temperature bias but slightly warms the southern midlatitudes by about 0.5 K.

How students view the boundaries between their science and religious education concerning the origins of life and the universe

Internationally in secondary schools, lessons are typically taught by subject specialists, raising the question of how to accommodate teaching which bridges the sciences and humanities. This is the first study to look at how students make sense of the teaching they receive in two subjects (science and religious education) when one subject’s curriculum explicitly refers to cross-disciplinary study and the other does not. Interviews with 61 students in seven schools in England suggested that students perceive a permeable boundary between science and their learning in science lessons and also a permeable boundary between religion and their learning in RE lessons, yet perceive a firm boundary between science lessons and RE lessons. We concluded that it is unreasonable to expect students to transfer instruction about cross-disciplinary perspectives across such impermeable subject boundaries. Finally we consider the implications of these findings for the successful management of cross-disciplinary education.

Thermal and visual performance of real and theoretical thermochromic glazing solutions for office buildings

Thermochromic windows are able to modulate their transmittance in both the visible and the near-infrared field as a function of their temperature. As a consequence, they allow to control the solar gains in summer, thus reducing the energy needs for space cooling. However, they may also yield a reduction in the daylight availability, which results in the energy consumption for indoor artificial lighting being increased. This paper investigates, by means of dynamic simulations, the application of thermochromic windows to an existing office building in terms of energy savings on an annual basis, while also focusing on the effects in terms of daylighting and thermal comfort. In particular, due attention is paid to daylight availability, described through illuminance maps and by the calculation of the daylight factor, which in several countries is subject thresholds. The study considers both a commercially available thermochromic pane and a series of theoretical thermochromic glazing. The expected performance is compared to static clear and reflective insulating glass units. The simulations are repeated in different climatic conditions, showing that the overall energy savings compared to clear glazing can range from around 5% for cold climates to around 20% in warm climates, while not compromising daylight availability. Moreover the role played by the transition temperature of the pane is examined, pointing out an optimal transition temperatures that is irrespective of the climatic conditions.