The social impacts of heat waves

The effects of the 2003 European heat wave have highlighted the need for society to prepare itself for and cope more effectively with heat waves. This is particularly important in the context of predicted climate change and the likelihood of more frequent extreme climate events; to date, heat as a natural hazard has been largely ignored. In order to develop better coping strategies, this report explores the factors that shape the social impacts of heat waves, and sets out a programme of research to address the considerable knowledge gaps in this area. Heat waves, or periods of anomalous warmth, do not affect everyone; it is the vulnerable individuals or sectors of society who will most experience their effects. The main factors of vulnerability are being elderly, living alone, having a pre-existing disease, being immobile or suffering from mental illness and being economically disadvantaged. The synergistic effects of such factors may prove fatal for some. Heat waves have discernible impacts on society including a rise in mortality, an increased strain on infrastructure (power, water and transport) and a possible rise in social disturbance. Wider impacts may include effects on the retail industry, ecosystem services and tourism. Adapting to more frequent heat waves should include soft engineering options and, where possible, avoid the widespread use of air conditioning which could prove unsustainable in energy terms. Strategies for coping with heat include changing the way in which urban areas are developed or re-developed, and setting up heat watch warning systems based around weather and seasonal climate forecasting and intervention strategies. Although heat waves have discernible effects on society, much remains unknown about their wider social impacts, diffuse health issues and how to manage them.

Gaming and social interactions in the rehabilitation of brain injuries: a pilot study

Physical rehabilitation of brain injuries and strokes is a time consuming and costly process. Over the past decade several studies have emerged looking at the use of highly sophisticated technologies, such as robotics and virtual reality to tap into the needs of clinicians and patients. While such technologies can be a valuable tool to facilitate intensive movement practice in a motivating and engaging environment, success of therapy also depends on self-administered therapy beyond hospital stay. With the emergence of low-cost gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, new opportunities arise for home-therapy paradigms centred on social interactions and values, which could reduce the sense of isolation and other depression related complications. In this paper we examine the potential, user acceptance and usability of an unmodified Nintendo Wii gaming console as a low-cost treatment alternative to complement current rehabilitation programmes.

Designing the indoor environment for people

Intelligent buildings should provide a multi-sensory experience so that visual, aural, tactile, olfactory and gustatory senses are stimulated appropriately. A lack of environmental stimuli produces a boring and unsatisfying environment. It is now known that the environment affects people at deeper levels than, say, health and safety, and consequently it can modify moods and work performance. A holistic approach is proposed which recognizes that the physical environment together with social, organizational and personal factors can enhance the productivity of occupants. This approach provides a footprint for the design of healthier and more sustainable workplaces.

Innovation care pathways and the healthcare built environment: An explanatory framework and research agenda

The built environment in which health and social care is delivered can have an impact on the efficiency and outcomes of care processes. The health-care estate is large and growing and is expensive to build, adapt and maintain. The design of these buildings is a complex, difficult and political process. Better use of care pathways as an input to the design and use of the built environment has the potential to deliver significant benefits. A number of variations on the idea of care pathways are already used in designing health-care buildings but this is under-researched. This paper provides a framework for thinking about care pathways and the health-care built environment. The framework distinguishes between five different pathway ‘types’ defined for the purpose of understanding the relationship between pathways and infrastructure. The five types are: ‘care pathways’, ‘integrated care pathways’, ‘patient pathways’, ‘patient journeys’ and ‘patient flows’. The built environment implications of each type are discussed and recommendations made for those involved in either building development or care pathway projects.

Care pathways and designing the healthcare built environment: an explanatory framework

The built environment in which health and social care is delivered can have an impact on the efficiency and outcomes of care processes. The health-care estate is large and growing and is expensive to build, adapt and maintain. The design of these buildings is a complex, difficult and political process. Better use of care pathways as an input to the design and use of the built environment has the potential to deliver significant benefits. A number of variations on the idea of care pathways are already used in designing health-care buildings but this is under-researched. This paper provides a framework for thinking about care pathways and the health-care built environment. The framework distinguishes between five different pathway ‘types’ defined for the purpose of understanding the relationship between pathways and infrastructure. The five types are: ‘care pathways’, ‘integrated care pathways’, ‘patient pathways’, ‘patient journeys’ and ‘patient flows’. The built environment implications of each type are discussed and recommendations made for those involved in either building development or care pathway projects.

Measurement of mother-infant interactions and the home environment in a European setting: preliminary results from a cross-cultural study

Background Infant development is adversely affected in the context of postnatal depression. This relationship may be mediated by both the nature of early mother-infant interactions and the quality of the home environment. Aim To establish the usefulness of the Global Ratings Scales of Mother-Infant Interaction and the Infant-Toddler version of the Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment (IT-HOME), and to test expected associations of the measures with characteristics of the social context and with major or minor depression. Method Both assessments were administered postnatally in four European centres; 144 mothers were assessed with the Global Ratings Scales and 114 with the IT-HOME. Affective disorder was assessed by means of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders. Results Analyses of mother-infant interaction indicated no main effect for depression but maternal sensitivity to infant behaviour was associated with better infant communication, especially for women who were not depressed. Poor overall emotional support also reduced sensitivity scores. Poor support was also related to poorer IT-HOME scores, but there was no effect of depression. Conclusions The Global Ratings Scales were effectively applied but there was less evidence of the usefulness of the IT-HOME. Declaration of interest None.

Young people with intellectual disabilities attending mainstream and segregated schooling: perceived stigma, social comparison and future aspirations

Mainstream schooling is a key policy in the promotion of social inclusion of young people with learning disabilities. Yet there is limited evidence about the school experience of young people about to leave mainstream as compared with segregated education, and how it impacts on their relative view of self and future aspirations. Sixty young people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities in their final year of secondary school participated in this study. Twenty-eight individuals came from mainstream schools and 32 attended segregated school. They completed a series of self-report measures on perceptions of stigma, social comparison to a more disabled and non-disabled peer and the likelihood involved in attaining their future goals. The majority of participants from both groups reported experiencing stigmatized treatment in the local area where they lived. The mainstream group reported significant additional stigma at school. In terms of social comparisons, both groups compared themselves positively with a more disabled peer and with a non-disabled peer. While the mainstream pupils had more ambitious work-related aspirations, both groups felt it equally likely that they would attain their future goals. Although the participants from segregated schools came from significantly more deprived areas and had lower scores on tests of cognitive functioning, neither of these factors appeared to have an impact on their experience of stigma, social comparisons or future aspirations. Irrespective of schooling environment, the young people appeared to be able to cope with the threats to their identities and retained a sense of optimism about their future. Nevertheless, negative treatment reported by the children was a serious source of concern and there is a need for schools to promote the emotional well-being of pupils with intellectual disabilities.

VERA: virtual environment for research in archaeology

The VERA (Virtual Environment for Research in Archaeology) project is based on a research excavation of part of the large Roman town at Silchester, which aims to trace the site's development from its origins before the Roman conquest to its abandonment in the fifth century A.D. [1]. The VERA project aims to investigate how archaeologists use Information Technology (IT) in the context of a field excavation, and also for post-excavation analysis. VERA is a two-year project funded by the JISC VRE 2 programme that involves researchers from the University of Reading, University College London, and York Archaeological Trust. The overall aim of the project is to assess and introduce new tools and technologies that can aid the archaeological processes of gathering, recording and later analysis of data on the finds and artefacts discovered. The researchers involved in the project have a mix of skills, ranging from those related to archaeology, and computer science, though to ones involving usability and user assessment. This paper reports on the status of the research and development work undertaken in the project so far; this includes addressing various programming hurdles, on-site experiments and experiences, and the outcomes of usability and assessment studies.

Built environment education, research and practice: integrating diverse interests to make an impact

The role of the academic in the built environment seems generally to be not well understood or articulated. While this problem is not unique to our field, there are plenty of examples in a wide range of academic disciplines where the academic role has been fully articulated. But built environment academics have tended not to look beyond their own literature and their own vocational context in trying to give meaning to their academic work. The purpose of this keynote presentation is to explore the context of academic work generally and the connections between education, research and practice in the built environment, specifically. By drawing on ideas from the sociology of the professions, the role of universities, and the fundamentals of social science research, a case is made that helps to explain the kind of problems that routinely obstruct academic progress in our field. This discussion reveals that while there are likely to be great weaknesses in much of what is published and taught in the built environment, it is not too great a stretch to provide a more robust understanding and a good basis for developing our field in a way that would enable us collectively to make a major contribution to theory-building, theory-testing and to make a good stab at tackling some of the problems facing society at large. There is no reason to disregard the fundamental academic disciplines that underpin our knowledge of the built environment. If we contextualise our work in these more fundamental disciplines, there is every reason to think that we can have a much greater impact that we have experienced to date.

Corporate social performance and stock returns: UK evidence from disaggregate measures

This study examines the relation between corporate social performance and stock returns in the UK. We closely evaluate the interactions between social and financial performance with a set of disaggregated social performance indicators for environment, employment, and community activities instead of using an aggregate measure. While scores on a composite social performance indicator are negatively related to stock returns, we find the poor financial reward offered by such firms is attributable to their good social performance on the environment and, to a lesser extent, the community aspects. Considerable abnormal returns are available from holding a portfolio of the socially least desirable stocks. These relationships between social and financial performance can be rationalized by multi-factor models for explaining the cross-sectional variation in returns, but not by industry effects.

Private investment in the countryside: an assessment of the role of new houses and estates in sustaining the rural economy and environment

The British countryside has been shaped and sustained over the years by the establishment of landed estates. Some of our best known, and now most protected, landmarks derive from this tradition by which money, that was often sourced from outside the rural economy, was invested in land. Whilst there was some reversal in this trend during the last century, there is again a widespread desire among people of means to invest in new country property. Paragraph 3.21 of Planning Policy Guidance Note 7: The Countryside - Environmental Quality and Economic and Social Development was introduced in 1997 as a means of perpetuating the historic tradition of innovation in the countryside through the construction of fine individual houses in landscaped grounds. That it was considered necessary to use a special provision of this kind reflects the prevailing presumption of planning authorities against allowing private residential development in open countryside. The Government is currently reviewing rural planning policy and is focusing on higher density housing, affordable homes and the use of brownfield sites. There is an underlying conception that individual private house developments contribute nothing and are seen as the least attractive option for most development sites. The purpose of paragraph 3.21 lies outside the government’s priorities and its particular provisions may therefore be excluded in forthcoming ‘policy statements’. This paper seeks to examine the role of private investors wishing to build new houses in the countryside, and the impact that that might have on local economies. It explores the interpretation placed on PPG7 through an investigation of appeal sites, and concludes by making recommendations for the review process, including the retention of some form of exceptions policy for new build houses.

Social networks and positive and negative affect

We followed 100 university students in the UK for one week, instructing them to record all face-to-face, phone and digital contacts during the day as well as their positive and negative affect. We wanted to see how positive and negative affect spread around a social network while taking into account participants’ socio-demographic data, personality, general health and gratitude scores. We focused on the participants’ connections with those in their class; excluding friends and family outside this group. The data was analysed using actor-based models implemented in SIENA. Results show differences between positive and negative affect dynamics in this environment and an influence of personality traits on the average number and rate of communication.

Using learning networks to understand complex systems: a case study of biological, geophysical and social research in the Amazon

Developing high-quality scientific research will be most effective if research communities with diverse skills and interests are able to share information and knowledge, are aware of the major challenges across disciplines, and can exploit economies of scale to provide robust answers and better inform policy. We evaluate opportunities and challenges facing the development of a more interactive research environment by developing an interdisciplinary synthesis of research on a single geographic region. We focus on the Amazon as it is of enormous regional and global environmental importance and faces a highly uncertain future. To take stock of existing knowledge and provide a framework for analysis we present a set of mini-reviews from fourteen different areas of research, encompassing taxonomy, biodiversity, biogeography, vegetation dynamics, landscape ecology, earth-atmosphere interactions, ecosystem processes, fire, deforestation dynamics, hydrology, hunting, conservation planning, livelihoods, and payments for ecosystem services. Each review highlights the current state of knowledge and identifies research priorities, including major challenges and opportunities. We show that while substantial progress is being made across many areas of scientific research, our understanding of specific issues is often dependent on knowledge from other disciplines. Accelerating the acquisition of reliable and contextualized knowledge about the fate of complex pristine and modified ecosystems is partly dependent on our ability to exploit economies of scale in shared resources and technical expertise, recognise and make explicit interconnections and feedbacks among sub-disciplines, increase the temporal and spatial scale of existing studies, and improve the dissemination of scientific findings to policy makers and society at large. Enhancing interaction among research efforts is vital if we are to make the most of limited funds and overcome the challenges posed by addressing large-scale interdisciplinary questions. Bringing together a diverse scientific community with a single geographic focus can help increase awareness of research questions both within and among disciplines, and reveal the opportunities that may exist for advancing acquisition of reliable knowledge. This approach could be useful for a variety of globally important scientific questions.