scholarly journals “Britain's rainforests”: engaging the public with brownfield sites for conservation in the U.K.

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (04) ◽  
pp. A07
Author(s):  
Rosie McCallum ◽  
Margarida Sardo

This small-scale study aims to understand what different environmental organisations are doing to engage people with brownfield sites in the U.K. Interviews with staff members from different environmental organisations found a wide range of initiatives to be in practice, including collaboration with other organisations and local schools and involving volunteer groups with maintenance of the sites. Working with volunteers and partner organisations and the management of sites were often identified as essential contributors to the success of projects. Interesting themes which arose, including the lack of demographic data and issues engaging with developers, could act as springboards for further studies.

Author(s):  
Vanessa Simonite

In a module designed to develop skills in presenting and evaluating statistics, students of mathematics and statistics were given an assignment asking them to research and write a piece of data driven journalism. Data driven journalism is a new phenomenon which has expanded rapidly due to the growth in open data, new visualisation tools and online reporting in newspapers, periodicals and blogs. The assignment provided students with a writing assignment that was individual, small-scale, research-based and embedded within their discipline. The students were asked to formulate a research question that could be investigated using survey data available from an electronic data archive. The result of the investigation was to be written up as a piece of data driven journalism for online publication, including a data visualisation. In addition to using discipline-based skills and written communication, the assignment required students to use research skills and digital literacy. An assignment set in the context of writing for the public extends students’ writing experience beyond the domains of discipline-based professional reports and academic writing. Data driven journalism provides opportunities to develop students’ writing alongside other skills for employment and can be used to design assessments for a wide range of disciplines.


Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1059
Author(s):  
Amir Karami ◽  
Michael Zhu ◽  
Bailey Goldschmidt ◽  
Hannah R. Boyajieff ◽  
Mahdi M. Najafabadi

The understanding of the public response to COVID-19 vaccines is the key success factor to control the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand the public response, there is a need to explore public opinion. Traditional surveys are expensive and time-consuming, address limited health topics, and obtain small-scale data. Twitter can provide a great opportunity to understand public opinion regarding COVID-19 vaccines. The current study proposes an approach using computational and human coding methods to collect and analyze a large number of tweets to provide a wider perspective on the COVID-19 vaccine. This study identifies the sentiment of tweets using a machine learning rule-based approach, discovers major topics, explores temporal trend and compares topics of negative and non-negative tweets using statistical tests, and discloses top topics of tweets having negative and non-negative sentiment. Our findings show that the negative sentiment regarding the COVID-19 vaccine had a decreasing trend between November 2020 and February 2021. We found Twitter users have discussed a wide range of topics from vaccination sites to the 2020 U.S. election between November 2020 and February 2021. The findings show that there was a significant difference between tweets having negative and non-negative sentiment regarding the weight of most topics. Our results also indicate that the negative and non-negative tweets had different topic priorities and focuses. This research illustrates that Twitter data can be used to explore public opinion regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachi Edwards ◽  
Akemi Ashida

PurposeThis paper reviews the national and institutional internationalization activities in Japan's higher education sector and considers the extent to which these efforts have attempted to incorporate and/or contribute to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Design/methodology/approachThis paper was developed based on a review of available demographic data on internationalization in Japan (in both English and Japanese), a survey of recent scholarly literature on this topic and conversations with numerous faculty and staff members working on internationalization issues in a wide range of higher education institutions throughout the country.FindingsThere are substantial internationalization efforts being made at both national and institutional levels, yet scholars and practitioners of higher education question the extent to which genuine internationalization is occurring. Moreover, the metrics used to track internationalization are somewhat limited and the available data, in many cases, can be complicated to interpret. A bit of tension also exists in Japanese universities between those who support the movement to internationalize and those who see it as a passing fad, an intrusion on their academic freedom and/or as a guise for Westernization – a tension that some cite, along with language barriers and system misalignment, as a challenge to internationalization.Originality/valueNumerous scholars discuss the internationalization of higher education in Japan. The originality of this paper is in the comparison of Japan's higher education internationalization efforts to the movement to achieve the SDGs – both in Japan and as a global effort.


2013 ◽  
Vol 409-410 ◽  
pp. 971-978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Morano ◽  
Francesco Tajani

The redevelopment of brownfield sites requires the involvement of the skills and resources of the private operator for the technical risks associated with the transformation and the high financial commitments. In the current scarcity of public resources, among the most widely used schemes there is one that provides development rights of equivalent value to locate on the areas to recover in order to compensate the amounts incurred by the private investor. The model developed and tested in this paper deals with this theme. It produces a wide range of possible urban parameters to attribute to the regenerated areas, upon which it is possible to develop the negotiation between the public and private sectors in order to define the solution to be implemented. The experimental results of the model highlight the usefulness of activating regeneration initiatives, and in particular of contaminated sites.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (suppl 1) ◽  
pp. bjgp20X711125
Author(s):  
Sebastian Kalwij

BackgroundThe NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) was introduced in 2015 and is mandatory for NHS trusts. Nine indicators have been created to evaluate the experiences of black and minority ethnic (BME) staff compared with the rest of the workforce. The trust data published showed a poor experience of BME staff compared with non BME staff.AimTo introduce the concept of WRES into general practice and create a baseline from which improvement can be made. A diverse workforce will better serve its population and this will improve health outcomes.MethodWe conducted a survey among all general practice staff members, clinicians, and non-clinicians and asked open-ended questions built around four WRES indicators most applicable to general practice, over a 6-week period in August and September 2019.ResultsWe collected 151 responses out of a total workforce of around 550. The response rate between clinicians and non-clinicians was equal 50.6% versus 49.4%. The distribution of non BME staff 51% versus BME staff 49% mirrors the diverse population of Lewisham. 54% of BME staff experienced bullying from patients, their relatives, and members of the public. 25% experienced bullying from a colleague or staff member in the workplace and 22% of BME staff changed jobs as a result of this.ConclusionBME staff in general practice report high levels of racism, especially from service users. In 22% this led to a career change. A zero-tolerance policy needs to be enforced and a multi-pronged approach is required to address this.


2019 ◽  
Vol 942 (12) ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
A.M. Portnov

Using unified principles of formation and maintenance of register/cadaster with information about spatial data of landscape objects as the informational and technological basis for updating the public topographic maps and modernization of state cartographic system is proposed. The problems of informational relevancy of unified electronical cartographic basis and capacity of its renovation in case of public cadaster map data. The need to modernize the system of classification and coding of cartographic information, the use of unified standards for the coordinate description of register objects for their topological consistency, verification and updating is emphasized. Implementing such solutions is determined by economical expediency as well as necessity of providing a variety of real thematic data for wide range of consumers in the field of urban planning, territories development and completing the tasks of Governmental program “Digital economy of the Russian Federation”.


Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Ford

The Anthropology A-level has achieved a great deal despite its failure to be redeveloped as a qualification. In this article I discuss what this means and why this matters for anthropology education. I show how the Anthropology A level was just one component of a much wider movement to engage new audiences with anthropology. I demonstrate how the A-level brought biological and social anthropology into schools and colleges that had never offered the subject before. The A-level diversified the community of anthropology educators and increased links between local schools, colleges and university anthropology departments. The campaign to widen access to anthropology for students, teachers and the public continues to grow, regardless of the AQA decision.


Author(s):  
J. Schiffmann

Small scale turbomachines in domestic heat pumps reach high efficiency and provide oil-free solutions which improve heat-exchanger performance and offer major advantages in the design of advanced thermodynamic cycles. An appropriate turbocompressor for domestic air based heat pumps requires the ability to operate on a wide range of inlet pressure, pressure ratios and mass flows, confronting the designer with the necessity to compromise between range and efficiency. Further the design of small-scale direct driven turbomachines is a complex and interdisciplinary task. Textbook design procedures propose to split such systems into subcomponents and to design and optimize each element individually. This common procedure, however, tends to neglect the interactions between the different components leading to suboptimal solutions. The authors propose an approach based on the integrated philosophy for designing and optimizing gas bearing supported, direct driven turbocompressors for applications with challenging requirements with regards to operation range and efficiency. Using previously validated reduced order models for the different components an integrated model of the compressor is implemented and the optimum system found via multi-objective optimization. It is shown that compared to standard design procedure the integrated approach yields an increase of the seasonal compressor efficiency of more than 12 points. Further a design optimization based sensitivity analysis allows to investigate the influence of design constraints determined prior to optimization such as impeller surface roughness, rotor material and impeller force. A relaxation of these constrains yields additional room for improvement. Reduced impeller force improves efficiency due to a smaller thrust bearing mainly, whereas a lighter rotor material improves rotordynamic performance. A hydraulically smoother impeller surface improves the overall efficiency considerably by reducing aerodynamic losses. A combination of the relaxation of the 3 design constraints yields an additional improvement of 6 points compared to the original optimization process. The integrated design and optimization procedure implemented in the case of a complex design problem thus clearly shows its advantages compared to traditional design methods by allowing a truly exhaustive search for optimum solutions throughout the complete design space. It can be used for both design optimization and for design analysis.


Author(s):  
Gesa Busch ◽  
Erin Ryan ◽  
Marina A. G. von Keyserlingk ◽  
Daniel M. Weary

AbstractPublic opinion can affect the adoption of genome editing technologies. In food production, genome editing can be applied to a wide range of applications, in different species and with different purposes. This study analyzed how the public responds to five different applications of genome editing, varying the species involved and the proposed purpose of the modification. Three of the applications described the introduction of disease resistance within different species (human, plant, animal), and two targeted product quality and quantity in cattle. Online surveys in Canada, the US, Austria, Germany and Italy were carried out with a total sample size of 3698 participants. Using a between-subject design, participants were confronted with one of the five applications and asked to decide whether they considered it right or wrong. Perceived risks, benefits, and the perception of the technology as tampering with nature were surveyed and were complemented with socio-demographics and a measure of the participants’ moral foundations. In all countries, participants evaluated the application of disease resistance in humans as most right to do, followed by disease resistance in plants, and then in animals, and considered changes in product quality and quantity in cattle as least right to do. However, US and Italian participants were generally more positive toward all scenarios, and German and Austrian participants more negative. Cluster analyses identified four groups of participants: ‘strong supporters’ who saw only benefits and little risks, ‘slight supporters’ who perceived risks and valued benefits, ‘neutrals’ who showed no pronounced opinion, and ‘opponents’ who perceived higher risks and lower benefits. This research contributes to understanding public response to applications of genome editing, revealing differences that can help guide decisions related to adoption of these technologies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 960.2-960
Author(s):  
T. Sokka-Isler ◽  
K. Paalanen ◽  
M. Kauppi ◽  
E. Nikiphorou

Background:RA is traditionally described as a symmetric polyarthritis. The ACR/EULAR 2010 criteria are met if patient has high positive ACPA, symptoms >=6 wks and one small joint swollen. The public and all steps of health care have been informed for many years that RA should be found early.Objectives:To study variations in pattern on first presentation of RA.Methods:All patients with the new diagnosis of RA were extracted from the GoTreatIT clinical database between 2008 to 2019 at a single RA clinic that covers a population of 250.000. Demographic data, clinical variables, labs, x-rays, joint status and PROs at baseline were included in the analysis. Appropriate parametric/non-parametric tests were used to study differences between groups.Results:A total of 1044 (73.5% CCP+) patients with no prior diagnosis of RA were included; 683 (65%) female, mean age 56; 361 (35%) male, mean age 61. At initial presentation in 2008, 60% had >=6 swollen joints (Figure) and a mean DAS28 of 4.4 compared to 22% and 3.8 respectively, in 2019 (p<0.007). Duration of symptoms prior to diagnosis decreased from 6 to 4 months (p=0.033), and the proportion of patients with erosions from 20% in 2008 to 14% in 2019 (ns). Symptoms (PROs) such as pain, fatigue and global health were similar/slightly worse in 2019 compared to 2008.Conclusion:RA cannot be marketed as “symmetric polyarthritis”, as more than half of the patients have a maximum of 2 swollen joints at the time of the diagnosis at the most recent years. Patients with RA can be identified earlier, with less disease activity and damage, compared to previous years.Figure:Disclosure of Interests:None declared


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