Re-evaluating the place of urban planning history

This commentary seeks to prompt new discussion about the place of urban planning history in the era of contemporary globalisation. Given the deep historic engagement of urban planning thought and practice with ‘place’ shaping and thus with the constitution of society, culture and politics, we ask how relevant is planning's legacy to the shaping of present day cities. Late twentieth century urban sociology, cultural and economic geography have demonstrated the increasing significance of intercity relations and the functional porosity of metropolitan boundaries in the network society, however statutory urban planning systems remain tied to the administrative geographies of states. This ‘territorial fixing’ of practice constrains the operational space of planning and, we argue, also limits its vision to geopolitical scales and agendas that have receding relevance for emerging urban relations. We propose that a re-evaluation of planning history could have an important part to play in addressing this spatial conundrum.

Sticking to the script? The co-production of Neighbourhood Planning in England

Efforts to engage with communities in spatial planning have been criticised as being tokenistic, vehicles for co-option or designed to promote neo-liberal agendas. The introduction of neighbourhood planning (NP) in England under the Localism Act (2011) is claimed by proponents to be a step change in the way that local communities are involved in planning their own areas. However, little empirical evidence has yet emerged to substantiate such claims, or provide details about the practices and experiences of NP. The paper highlights that there are numerous parties involved in the co-production of Neighbourhood Development Plans and there are numerous instances where ideas, policies and priorities that emerge from within neighbourhoods are being ‘rescripted’ to ensure conformity to a bounded form of collaboration.

Mining in Ghana’s forests: cross-sectoral linkages and the prospects for REDD

Strategies to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) are being pursued in numerous developing countries. Proponents contest that REDD mechanisms could deliver sustainable development by contributing to both environmental protection and economic development, particularly in poor forest communities. However, among the challenges to REDD, and natural resource management more generally, is the need to develop a comprehensive understanding of cross-sectoral linkages and addressing how they impact the pursuit of sustainable development. Drawing on an exploratory case-study of Ghana, this paper aims to outline the linkages between the forestry and minerals sectors. It is argued that contemporary debates give incommensurate attention to the reclamation of large-scale mine sites located in forest reserves, and neglect to consider more nuanced links which characterise the forestry-mining nexus in Ghana. A review of key stakeholders further elucidates the complex networks which characterise these linkages and highlights the important role of traditional authorities in governing across sectors. If the multiple roles of local resource users and traditional authorities continue to be neglected in policy mechanisms, schemes such as REDD will continue to fall short of achieving sustainable development.

Sensory stories

Sensory Objects researchers and co-researchers, people with learning disabilities from Liverpool Mencap Access to Heritage Group presented thier interactive sensory objects made for the National Trust Speke Hall.

Seminar: sensory stories retold

The Sensory Stories Retold seminar showcased the first year of the Sensory Objects project, which was based at Speke Hall, a National Trust house in Liverpool. The research team presented their work with interactive demonstrations of their sensory objects and a hands-on workshop for attendees to try making their own. The day featured a discussion led by Marcus Weisen (Jodi Mattes Trust), and a presentation by Ticky Lowe (Access to Heritage) about the Jodi Award Winning Touch Pods project. The event provided an opportunity for 65 museum curators, researchers and disability professionals to discuss and explore museum and heritage engagement, the potential of sensory art-based workshops, the use of electronics in museum interpretation, and multimedia advocacy.

A reappraisal of Baskerville's Greek types

Ιn the eighteenth century the printing of Greek texts continued to be central to scholarship and discourse. The typography of Greek texts could be characterised as a continuation of French models from the sixteenth century, with a gradual dilution of the complexity of ligatures and abbreviations, mostly through printers in the Low Countries. In Britain, Greek printing was dominated by the university presses, which reproduced conservatively the continental models – exemplified by Oxford's Fell types, which were Dutch adaptations of earlier French models. Hindsight allows us to identify a meaningful development in the Greek types cut by Alexander Wilson for the Foulis Press in Glasgow, but we can argue that in the middle of the eighteenth century Baskerville was considering Greek printing the typographic environment was ripe for a new style of Greek types. The opportunity to cut the types for a New Testament (in an twin edition that included a generous octavo and a large quarto version) would seem perfect for showcasing Baskerville's capacity for innovation. His Greek type maintained the cursive ductus of earlier models, but abandoned complex ligatures and any hint of scribal flourish. He homogenised the modulation of the letter strokes and the treatment of terminals, and normalised the horizontal alignments of all letters. Although the strokes are in some letters too delicate, the narrow set of the style composes a consistent, uniform texture that is a clean break from contemporaneous models. The argument is made that this is the first Greek typeface that can be described as fully typographic in the context of the technology of the time. It sets a pattern that was to be followed, without acknowledgement, by Richard Porson nearly a century and a half later. The typeface received little praise by typographic historians, and was condemned by Victor Scholderer in his retrospective of Greek typography. A survey of typeface reviews in the surrounding decades establishes that the commentators were mostly reproducing the views of an arbitrary typographic orthodoxy, for which only types with direct references to Renaissance models were acceptable. In these comments we detect a bias against someone considered an arriviste in the scholarly printing establishment, as well as a conservative attitude to typographic innovation.

Omvårdnad vid livets slut: LCP i jämförelse med ordinarie palliativ vård samt sjuksköterskors och läkares erfarenhet av LCP

Syftet med denna studie var att se om en strukturerad vårdform vid livets slut såsom Liverpool Care Pathway for the dying, LCP, har någon inverkan på omvårdnaden av de palliativa patienterna jämfört med ordinarie palliativ vård samt att beskriva vårdpersonalens upplevelser av LCP. Studien genomfördes som en systematisk litteraturstudie där underlag inhämtades genom sökning av veteskapliga artiklar i databaser samt att artiklar söktes manuellt på Högskolan Dalarnas bibliotek. Artiklar har även sökts från referenser på andra artiklar direkt på titeln och vid sökningarna användes sökorden både enskilt och i kombination varvid 10 artiklar valdes ut till resultatet. Resultatet visade att efter införandet av LCP förbättrades dokumentationen, patienterna hade inte onödiga livsförlängande behandlingar. Symtomen i form av smärta, oro/ångest och slemproduktion var mindre, samt att kommunikationen mellan vårdpersonal, närstående och patient förbättrades. Sjuksköterskorna upplevde att tiden för dokumentation förkortades och mer tid kunde läggas på patienterna, sjuksköterskor ansåg också att den gamla rutinmässiga behandlingen och omvårdnaden förbättrades. LCP dokumenten gjorde även att anhöriga kunde följa omvårdnaden vilket gjorde dem tryggare i vad som skedde med deras närstående och vad som hände i vården runt denne.

Vilka skillnader upplever vårdpersonal och närstående mellan den vanliga palliativa vården och en vård med styrda vårdplaner? : En systematisk litteraturstudie

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att ta reda på vårdpersonal och närståendes upplevelser vad gäller vanlig palliativ vård och strukturerade vårdplaner så som LCP/ICP. Studien genomfördes som en systematisk litteraturstudie där underlaget inhämtades genom att med specifika sökord söka i Högskolan Dalarnas databas ELIN@ efter vetenskapliga artiklar. En artikel har även sökts från en annan referenslista där artikelnamnet använts som sökord. Vid sökningarna har sökorden använts var för sig och i kombination med varandra varvid 13 stycken artiklar valdes ut till resultatet. Resultatet visade att det fanns brister i den ordinarie palliativa vården vad det gäller kommunikation, symtomlindring och anhörigvård. Tidsbrist och stress var också utmärkande i den ordinarie palliativa vården. Vad gäller patienter som vårdats under LCP/ICP så upplevde närstående och vårdpersonal att både kommunikation och symtomkontroll var avsevärt bättre än i den ordinarie palliativa vården. Tiden för det goda samtalet fanns i betydligt större utsträckning vid vård under LCP/ICP. En orsak var att sjuksköterskan istället för att lägga ner tid på dokumentationen hade möjlighet att vara där för patienten och dess närstående. De närstående hade också möjlighet att vara delaktiga i vården på grund av att de hade tillgång till dokumentationen kring patienten.

Automatic estimation of crowd density using texture

This paper considers the role of automatic estimation of crowd density and its importance for the automatic monitoring of areas where crowds are expected to be present. A new technique is proposed which is able to estimate densities ranging from very low to very high concentration of people, which is a difficult problem because in a crowd only parts of people's body appear. The new technique is based on the differences of texture patterns of the images of crowds. Images of low density crowds tend to present coarse textures, while images of dense crowds tend to present fine textures. The image pixels are classified in different texture classes and statistics of such classes are used to estimate the number of people. The texture classification and the estimation of people density are carried out by means of self organising neural networks. Results obtained respectively to the estimation of the number of people in a specific area of Liverpool Street Railway Station in London (UK) are presented. (C) 1998 Elsevier B.V. Ltd. All rights reserved.

On the efficacy of texture analysis for crowd monitoring

The goal of this work is to assess the efficacy of texture measures for estimating levels of crowd densities ill images. This estimation is crucial for the problem of crowd monitoring. and control. The assessment is carried out oil a set of nearly 300 real images captured from Liverpool Street Train Station. London, UK using texture measures extracted from the images through the following four different methods: gray level dependence matrices, straight lille segments. Fourier analysis. and fractal dimensions. The estimations of dowel densities are given in terms of the classification of the input images ill five classes of densities (very low, low. moderate. high and very high). Three types of classifiers are used: neural (implemented according to the Kohonen model). Bayesian. and an approach based on fitting functions. The results obtained by these three classifiers. using the four texture measures. allowed the conclusion that, for the problem of crowd density estimation. texture analysis is very effective.

Estimation of crowd density using image processing

Human beings perceive images through their properties, like colour, shape, size, and texture. Texture is a fertile source of information about the physical environment. Images of low density crowds tend to present coarse textures, while images of dense crowds tend to present fine textures. This paper describes a new technique for automatic estimation of crowd density, which is a part of the problem of automatic crowd monitoring, using texture information based on grey-level transition probabilities on digitised images. Crowd density feature vectors are extracted from such images and used by a self organising neural network which is responsible for the crowd density estimation. Results obtained respectively to the estimation of the number of people in a specific area of Liverpool Street Railway Station in London (UK) are presented.