Uncovering placemaking needs with(in) a kindergarten community: a cross-disciplinary approach to participatory design

IntroductionThe design of early childhood education and care facilities faces the double challenge of creating a stimulating environment for young children and a supportive workplace for staff. The existing body of research suggests that placemaking strategies serve both requirements. A promising approach to meet placemaking needs is the participation of future occupants in the building design.MethodsWe pursued a participatory design study with the community of an Austrian kindergarten aiming to inform the future building renovation. We combined novel cultural fiction probes methods with conventional inquiry methods to gather information from children and teachers about their experience of the built environment. Using thematic and content analyzes we explored placemaking needs from different epistemic perspectives and converged findings through iterative exchange.ResultsReturns of children and teachers were interconnected and complementary. From a design-oriented perspective, children’s experience of place was relatable to spatial, temporo-spatial, and acoustic qualities as well as control needs. From a human-centered perspective, teachers’ experience of place was relatable to the needs of feeling embedded, protected, enacted, and socially connected. The converged findings revealed dynamic placemaking processes involving the elements of space, time, and control at different levels.DiscussionCross-disciplinary collaboration and research consolidation brought forth valuable insights on supportive structures for both children and teachers, facilitated timely knowledge transfer, and converted into design solutions that foster enacted placemaking. Albeit general transferability is limited, findings are interpretable within a solid framework of existing theories, concepts and evidence

Allergy Asthma & Immunol Research / No concentration decrease of house dust mite allergens with rising altitude in alpine regions

Purpose: Several studies over the past 4 decades have indicated a significant reduction in house dust mite (HDM) and HDM allergen concentration in areas higher than 1,500 m above sea level. These have served as basis of allergen avoidance therapies for HDM allergy and asthma. However, modern construction techniques used in the insulation, heating, and glazing of buildings as well as global warming have changed the environmental parameters for HDM living conditions. The present study revisits the paradigm of decreasing HDM allergen concentrations with increasing altitude in the alpine region of Germany and Austria. Methods: A total of 122 dust samples from different abodes (hotels, privates and mountain huts) at different altitudes (400-2,600 m) were taken, and concentrations of HDM allergens were analyzed. Humidity and temperature conditions, and numerous indoor environmental parameters such as fine dust, type of flooring, age of building, and frequency of cleaning were determined. Results: HDM allergen concentrations did not significantly change with increasing altitude or relative humidity. At the level of indoor parameters, correlations could be found for different flooring types and the concentration of HDM allergens. Conclusions: In contrast to the widespread view of the relationship between altitude and HDM allergen concentrations, clinically relevant concentrations of HDM allergens could be detected in high-lying alpine regions in Austria and Germany. These results indicate that improvement in conditions of asthmatic patients sensitized against HDMs during a stay at high altitude can no longer be ascribed to decreased levels of HDM allergens, instead, other mechanisms may trigger the beneficial effect

Changes in lung function in European adults born between 1884 and 1996 and implications for the diagnosis of lung disease:a cross-sectional analysis of ten population-based studies

Background: During the past century, socioeconomic and scientific advances have resulted in changes in the health and physique of European populations. Accompanying improvements in lung function, if unrecognised, could result in the misclassification of lung function measurements and misdiagnosis of lung diseases. We therefore investigated changes in population lung function with birth year across the past century, accounting for increasing population height, and examined how such changes might influence the interpretation of lung function measurements. Methods: In our analyses of cross-sectional data from ten European population-based studies, we included individuals aged 20-94 years who were born between 1884 and 1996, regardless of previous respiratory diagnoses or symptoms. FEV1, forced vital capacity (FVC), height, weight, and smoking behaviour were measured between 1965 and 2016. We used meta-regression to investigate how FEV1 and FVC (adjusting for age, study, height, sex, smoking status, smoking pack-years, and weight) and the FEV1/FVC ratio (adjusting for age, study, sex, and smoking status) changed with birth year. Using estimates from these models, we graphically explored how mean lung function values would be expected to progressively deviate from predicted values. To substantiate our findings, we used linear regression to investigate how the FEV1 and FVC values predicted by 32 reference equations published between 1961 and 2015 changed with estimated birth year. Findings: Across the ten included studies, we included 243 465 European participants (mean age 51·4 years, 95% CI 51·4-51·5) in our analysis, of whom 136 275 (56·0%) were female and 107 190 (44·0%) were male. After full adjustment, FEV1 increased by 4·8 mL/birth year (95% CI 2·6-7·0; p<0·0001) and FVC increased by 8·8 mL/birth year (5·7-12·0; p<0·0001). Birth year-related increases in the FEV1 and FVC values predicted by published reference equations corroborated these findings. This height-independent increase in FEV1 and FVC across the last century will have caused mean population values to progressively exceed previously predicted values. However, the population mean adjusted FEV1/FVC ratio decreased by 0·11 per 100 birth years (95% CI 0·09-0·14; p<0·0001). Interpretation: If current diagnostic criteria remain unchanged, the identified shifts in European values will allow the easier fulfilment of diagnostic criteria for lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but the systematic underestimation of lung disease severity. Funding: The European Respiratory Society, AstraZeneca, Chiesi Farmaceutici, GlaxoSmithKline, Menarini, and Sanofi-Genzyme

Spirometric phenotypes from early childhood to young adulthood : a Chronic Airway Disease Early Stratification study

Acknowledgements Cohort-specific acknowledgements are presented in the supplementary material. We also acknowledge collaboration with the EXPANSE consortium (funded by the EU H2020 programme, grant number 874627). We thank Elise Heuvelin, European Respiratory Society, Lausanne, Switzerland, for her assistance on the current project.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Collaborative Design Approach for the Development of an Ontology-based Decision Support System in Health Tourism

Part 17: Digital Tools and Applications for Collaborative HealthcareInternational audienceEvidence-based Health Tourism (EHT) is a branch of general tourism foreseeing tourists to travel with the aim of receiving healing treatments or enhancing a specific mental, physical or spiritual health condition through medically-proven offers. EHT competitiveness is increasingly linked to the sustainability and exploitation of unique natural resources of tourism destinations, which often lack the access to knowledge and networks of stakeholders to improve their offerings, even by the use of digital tools. This study illustrates a Collaborative Design approach for the development of an ontology-based Decision Support System for modelling the relationships between the available natural resources, the value offerings and the target groups of EHT destinations in the Alpine region. The Collaborative Design approach foresees the involvement of end-users (i.e. EHT destinations, stakeholders and tourists) as both sources of knowledge and validators of the ontology and its outputs, aiming to inform decision-making processes in a shared knowledge model

Affective responses in mountain hiking—A randomized crossover trial focusing on differences between indoor and outdoor activity

<div><p>Introduction</p><p>Affective responses during physical activity (PA) are important for engagement in PA programs and for adherence to a physically active lifestyle. Little is known about the affective responses to PA bouts lasting longer than 45 minutes. Therefore, the aims of the present study were to analyse acute effects on affective responses of a three-hour outdoor PA intervention (mountain hiking) compared to a sedentary control situation and to an indoor treadmill condition.</p><p>Methods</p><p>Using a randomized crossover design, 42 healthy participants were randomly exposed to three different conditions: outdoor mountain hiking, indoor treadmill walking, and sedentary control situation (approximately three hours each). Measures included the Feeling Scale, Felt Arousal Scale and a Mood Survey Scale. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to analyse differences between the conditions.</p><p>Results</p><p>Compared to the control situation, the participants showed a significant increase in affective valence (<i>d</i> = 1.21, <i>p</i> < .001), activation (<i>d</i> = 0.81, <i>p</i> = .004), elation (<i>d</i> = 1.07, <i>p</i> < .001), and calmness (<i>d</i> = 0.84, <i>p</i> = .004), and a significant decrease in fatigue (<i>d</i> = -1.19, <i>p</i> < .001) and anxiety (<i>d</i> = -.79, <i>p</i> < .001) after mountain hiking. Outdoor mountain hiking showed significantly greater positive effects on affective valence, activation, and fatigue compared to indoor treadmill walking.</p><p>Discussion</p><p>The results indicate that a three-hour PA intervention (mountain hiking) elicits higher positive and lower negative affective responses compared to a sedentary control situation and to an indoor PA condition. Outdoor mountain hiking can be recommended by health professionals as a form of PA with the potential to positively influence affective responses.</p><p>Trial registration</p><p>ClinicalTrials.gov <a href="https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02853760" target="_blank">NCT02853760</a>. <a href="https://clinicaltrials.gov/" target="_blank">https://clinicaltrials.gov/</a>. Date of registration: 08/02/2016 (retrospectively registered). Date of enrolment of the first participant to the trial: 05/01/2014.</p></div

Demographic data of the study participants.

<p>Demographic data of the study participants.</p

Affective responses (categorical) over time in each condition.

<p>Affective responses (categorical) over time in each condition.</p