A Framework for Elder-Friendly Public Open Spaces from the Iranian Older Adults' perspectives : A Mixed-Method Study

Authors' contributions All of the authors have made great contributions to the research design, field survey, data collection, data analysis, and drafting of the manuscript. Funding There are no funding resources for this research. Availability of data and materials The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Peer reviewedPostprin

Human experience in the natural and built environment : implications for research policy and practice

22nd IAPS conference. Edited book of abstracts. 427 pp. University of Strathclyde, Sheffield and West of Scotland Publication. ISBN: 978-0-94-764988-3

Perceptions of personal safety on university campuses

Recent research in the United Kingdom has indicated that many students experience high levels of fear of crime and victimisation on university campuses. Furthermore, research has recognised that positive feelings of safety can be engendered through changes to the physical environment of the campus. However, existing campus safety research focuses predominantly on student vulnerability and relies typically on quantitative methodologies

Proceedings of International Virtual Conference 2020 on Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development: Lockdown Urbanism

The ongoing pandemic has led to more than 100 million of confirmed cases and 2.16 million deaths of people globally (up to late January 2021). A variety of health and well-being issues resulting from the largest scale lockdown in the 21st century have addressed emerging global challenges for urban sustainability and smart city development: how to creatively design local neighbourhood and home in response to changing lifestyles? How to smartly design digital and social infrastructure to support individual adaption to changed life-styles? How urban governance and smart city deal with a variety of social, spatial and information inequalities? The multi-disciplinary and international discussion and debates on these timely questions help rethink the planning and governance of healthy city in the uncertain contexts

Crime, community, context & fear : influences on informal social control in an affluent English suburb

Based on ethnographic research, involving observations, participant observation and in-depth interviews, this thesis explores the impact of crime and the influences on informal social control in an affluent, middle class suburb. The research focused on the interaction between estate design, the environment, social and community life, and fear of crime, and their effects on residents in the neighbourhood. Despite low recorded crime rates, crime was perceived to be a problem. This situation arose from a paradox of community dynamics which, on the one hand, increased fear of crime, but on the other, contained crime. Apart from small-scale and extremely localised solidarities, a socially fragmented community existed in which limited and loose-knit local social networks, strong desires for privacy, and atomisation prevailed. These factors, coupled with busy lifestyles and features of the suburban environment, resulted in isolation and enhanced fear of crime. However, fear arose more from concerns about crime in wider society together with general anxieties rooted in change in late-modernity, than actual risk of victimisation. Crime control was rarely based on conm-iunity action, instead being individualistic and reliant on sophisticated target hardening. Low crime, therefore, was less attributable to the pursuits of 'active citizens' envisaged by community crime prevention policies and more to structural processes of affluence, status and property ownership which created an exclusive and exclusionary community of vested interest, common identity and shared values. As a study of affluent suburban life, the research contributes to the community studies tradition. However, the main importance of the research is its implications for community crime prevention. By highlighting the complex and contextual nature of informal social control and the influences which impact on it, the necessity to tailor crime prevention more to local needs is emphasised

Women\u27s perceptions of safety : CCTV in an inner city setting

To date, most research on closed circuit television (CCTV) has come out of the United Kingdom (UK) where the growth of CCTV has reached immense proportions with wide support and funding from the Home Office. There are 33 systems operating in Australia, with the focus of this research on the first system installed in Perth, Western Australia in 1991. There is a dearth of information on CCTV in Australia, and little research looking at the link between CCTV, women’s safety and fear of crime. The literature on fear of crime shows that women are more fearful than men even though they are less likely to be offended against. Many reasons are proposed in the literature including vulnerability, victimisation and past experience of crime, environmental factors, and psychological factors to explain women’s fear. Many methodological problems are presented in the fear of crime literature. The core aim of this research was to collect information attitudes, knowledge and opinions about closed circuit television (CCTV) and women’s safety. Six qualitative interviews were conducted with women who work in the fields related to CCTV and women’s safety or who have a keen interest in the field. A further 295 women in the community were surveyed about issues relating to the purpose and effectiveness of CCTV, attitudes about CCTV and general feelings towards crime and safety. The findings show that women are overwhelmingly supportive of CCTV in public spaces and believe CCTV reduces crime and increases feelings of safety. However, women consider the current level of surveillance to be sufficient, and would like to see more police officers, women police and improved street lighting. Women are fearful for their safety at night and are afraid of personal crimes more than property crimes. Women are fearful at the railway station, when they are alone, in car parks and walkways and when waiting for taxis. Older women are more supportive of CCTV than younger women and all women would like to be made more aware the CCTV system

Attention and Social Cognition in Virtual Reality:The effect of engagement mode and character eye-gaze

Technical developments in virtual humans are manifest in modern character design. Specifically, eye gaze offers a significant aspect of such design. There is need to consider the contribution of participant control of engagement. In the current study, we manipulated participants’ engagement with an interactive virtual reality narrative called Coffee without Words. Participants sat over coffee opposite a character in a virtual café, where they waited for their bus to be repaired. We manipulated character eye-contact with the participant. For half the participants in each condition, the character made no eye-contact for the duration of the story. For the other half, the character responded to participant eye-gaze by making and holding eye contact in return. To explore how participant engagement interacted with this manipulation, half the participants in each condition were instructed to appraise their experience as an artefact (i.e., drawing attention to technical features), while the other half were introduced to the fictional character, the narrative, and the setting as though they were real. This study allowed us to explore the contributions of character features (interactivity through eye-gaze) and cognition (attention/engagement) to the participants’ perception of realism, feelings of presence, time duration, and the extent to which they engaged with the character and represented their mental states (Theory of Mind). Importantly it does so using a highly controlled yet ecologically valid virtual experience

Building Emergency Planning Scenarios for Viral Pandemics: UCL-IRDR Covid-19 Observatory

The purpose of this report is to provide a systematic, if incomplete, record of the issues connected with the Covid-19 pandemic in order to improve the basis for future emergency planning. Like all large disasters, Covid-19 involves cascading consequences. These need to be factored into future emergency planning scenarios. Principle: For known and evident risks, scenarios are a necessary part of the formulation of emergency plans. They enable planners to foresee problems and create robust procedures to prepare for them in advance and confront them when they materialise. High-quality emergency planning prescribes what to do in an emergency and how to ramp up measures rapidly by means of prior agreements and pathways. It also teaches what should not be neglected in the response. Pandemics are recurrent phenomena. They may also be exacerbated by human misuse of environmental resources. Hence, it is important to learn from experience and incorporate the lessons into plans for future events. A major pandemic will have a complex impact that profoundly affects the basis of ordinary life and extends into many different fields and activities. This report classifies the elements of that impact in a manner designed to act as an aide memoir for emergency planners, managers and responders. The aim is to develop a comparative overview of the issues, needs and some of the solutions that planners can apply. There are no great revelations in this work. Indeed, emergency planning is sometimes regarded as 'codified common sense', but the art of codifying is a rigorous and demanding one. If plans are adequately formulated and maintained in advance, probably the two biggest challenges during the pandemic will be (a) how to tackle the early stages resolutely when the prevailing mood is that a major crisis is not in the offing, and (b) how to come out of drastic measures safely once the rate of infections slows

Addressing transport barriers to work in low income neighbourhoods: A review of evidence and practice

This evidence review explores the links between poverty and transport to support a wider study into how the transport barriers to work for residents in low income neighbourhoods can be addressed. It argues that transport issues faced by households in poverty are not just a matter of physical infrastructure but are shaped by the nature and location of both housing and employment. For this reason, the review includes discussion of how poverty interacts with these domains in ways that often reinforce transport barriers for low income households. It also considers how these barriers are not just practical or material but also shaped by a range of social, cultural and psychological factors in terms of attachment to place and 'spatial horizons'