Less is more: what design against crime can contribute to sustainability.

Crime is a voracious form of premature obsolescence. Replacement of insured stolen items increases levels of product consumption that are unsustainable. Additional to the ecological cost of crime are the social and economic impacts linked to ‘courts, cops and corrections’ – money better spent on building social innovation and sustainability. The user/ abuser centered methodology of the Design Against Crime Research Centre (DACRC) at University of Arts London as a socially responsive design movement is described in this paper. It argues that DACRC’s approach is unique. It addresses social agendas by accommodating consideration of multiple, often competing, user-demands in a given context, and responding in ways that produce both fiscal and social capital through sustainable design

A Rallying Cry for Change: Charting a New Direction in the State of Florida's Response to Girls in the Juvenile Justice System (Full Report)

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) was funded by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund to conduct an independent research study of girls in the Florida juvenile justice system in order to inform a comprehensive approach to gender-specific juvenile justice programming. This report presents new research findings on the pathways of girls into the Florida juvenile justice system and identifies their treatment needs. Additionally, it furthers the discussion about an essential set of services and a system of care that meets the multiple needs of girls in the juvenile justice system. The research supports change in the response to girls, both in treatment services and in policy/system changes that are needed to increase success with the girls. This research should be of interest to every child advocate, Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) staff from prevention to residential, lawmakers, law enforcement, judges, and concerned Florida citizens.The NCCD research sample includes a total of 319 girls in the Florida system -- 244 girls from 13 different residential DJJ programs (low, moderate, high, and maximum risk) and 75 girls from six non-residential programs (PACE Centers). NCCD used its Juvenile Assessment and Intervention System (JAIS) interview instrument to learn more about girls in the system at the aggregate level, including their intervention needs and risk level of offending, and also to suggest supervision strategies for working with them. NCCD also conducted focus groups with staff to better understand the gaps in services and barriers to implementation. The following is a summary of the major findings and recommendations of the final report

Use of the Pyramid Model for Supporting Preschool Refugees

Response to Intervention (RtI) is being applied to early childhood settings for the support of positive behavior and social development through the Pyramid Model (Fox, Carta, Strain, Dunlap & Hemmeter, 2010). This qualitative study assessed the use of the Pyramid Model for preschool aged refugee children living in a refugee resettlement community. Many young refugee children have experienced trauma (George, 2010) and some experience behavior and social challenges (Almqvist & Brandell-Forsberg, 1997). Twenty-five preschool service providers were interviewed about their use of the Pyramid Model for the support of preschool refugee students. Themes to be shared include how ECEs are implementing the practices outlined in the Pyramid Model along with strategies for adapting recommended practices to meet the needs of refugee families

The $746 Million A Year School-to-Prison Pipeline: The Ineffective, Discriminatory, and Costly Process of Criminalizing New York City Students

This report, released by the Center for Popular Democracy and Urban Youth Collaborative, reveals the staggering yearly economic impact of the school-to-prison pipeline in New York City, $746.8 million. In addition, it presents a bold "Young People's School Justice Agenda," which calls on the City to divest from over-policing young people, and invest in supportive programs and opportunities for students to thrive. New evidence of the astronomical fiscal and social costs of New York's school-to-prison pipeline demand urgent action by policymakers. The young people who are most at risk of harm due to harsh policing and disciplinary policies are uniquely situated to lead the dialogue about developing truly safe and equitable learning environments. This report highlights the vision for safe, supportive, and inclusive schools developed by these youth leaders

Inchcolm project

Inchcolm Project is part of an interdisciplinary research project which develops new ways of designing for the moving body across media, by combining aesthetics and design methods from contemporary performance practice and video games. As such, it brought a video game (Dear Esther, The Chinese Room, 2012) to life on a Scottish island (Inchcolm island in the Firth of Forth). During the two hour experience on Inchcolm the audience/players wander freely on the island encountering geo-tagged audio, live music, performers and installation spaces evocative of the game world, a playthrough of the game projected in the 12th century Inchcolm abbey, and an orchestral performance of the video game’s soundtrack (composed by Jessica Curry, arranged by Luci Holland and David Jamieson, performed by Mantra Collective)

Reducing Urban Pollution Exposure from Road Transport(RUPERT)

This paper presents the preliminary results of a two-year study on reducing urban pollution exposure from road transport (RUPERT). The main aim of this project is to develop a new modelling framework for nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter to simulate exposures of different population groups across a city, and to assess the impact of roadside concentrations on these exposures. This will be achieved by modelling the frequency distribution of personal exposures (PEFDs) as a function of urban background and roadside concentrations, under different traffic conditions. The modelling approach combines new and existing models relating traffic and air pollution data, with particular emphasis of the impact of congestion, and the probabilistic modelling framework of personal exposure. Modelling of roadside concentrations consists of two main elements, namely the analysis of concentrations patterns at different roadside sites and of the relationship between traffic conditions and added roadside pollution. Roadside concentrations are predicted using empirically derived relationships; statistical models, novel statistics and artificial neural networks namely feed forward neural network and radial basis neural network. The exposure modelling is carried out by linking two models: the INDAIR model, which is designed to simulate probabilistically diurnal profiles of air pollutant concentrations in a range of microenvironments, and the EXPAIR model, which is designed to simulate population exposure patterns based on population time-activity patterns and a library of micro-environmental concentrations derived from the INDAIR model

Learning occupants’ indoor comfort temperature through a Bayesian inference approach for office buildings in United States

A carefully chosen indoor comfort temperature as the thermostat set-point is the key to optimizing building energy use and occupants’ comfort and well-being. ASHRAE Standard 55 or ISO Standard 7730 uses the PMV-PPD model or the adaptive comfort model that is based on small-sized or outdated sample data, which raises questions on whether and how ranges of occupant thermal comfort temperature should be revised using more recent larger-sized dataset. In this paper, a Bayesian inference approach has been used to derive new occupant comfort temperature ranges for U.S. office buildings using the ASHRAE Global Thermal Comfort Database. Bayesian inference can express uncertainty and incorporate prior knowledge. The comfort temperatures were found to be higher and less variable at cooling mode than at heating mode, and with significant overlapped variation ranges between the two modes. The comfort operative temperature of occupants varies between 21.9 and 25.4 °C for the cooling mode with a median of 23.7 °C, and between 20.5 and 24.9 °C for the heating mode with a median of 22.7 °C. These comfort temperature ranges are similar to the current ASHRAE standard 55 in the heating mode but 2–3 °C lower in the cooling mode. The results of this study could be adopted as more realistic thermostat set-points in building design, operation, control optimization, energy performance analysis, and policymaking

Family at the Center

To better understand how family engagement supports school readiness in Los Angeles County, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment convened an advisory group of early childhood leaders and stakeholders to provide advice and explore opportunities to strengthen parent engagement. This report summarizes key insights and recommendations that emerged through these discussions and additional research about parent engagement programs and practices