Adaptive comfort and climate-sensitive architecture: how occupants feel in their homes?

Postprint (published version

Assessing the urban heat island and its energy impact on residential buildings in Mediterranean climate: Barcelona case study

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is particularly concerning in Mediterranean zone, as climate change and UHI scenarios foresee a fast growth of energy consumption for next years, due to the widespread of air conditioning systems and the increase of cooling demand. The UHI intensity is thus a key variable for the prediction of energy needs in urban areas. This study investigates the intensity of UHI in Barcelona (Spain), the densest Mediterranean coastal city, and its impact on cooling demand of residential buildings. The experimental analysis is based on temperature data from rural and urban Weather Stations and field measurements at street level. The maximum average UHI intensity is found to be 2.8 °C in winter and 1.7°C in summer, reaching 4.3°C at street level. Simulations performed with EnergyPlus indicate that the UHI intensity increases the sensible cooling load of residential buildings by around 18% to 28%, depending on UHI intensity, amount of solar gains and cooling set point. In the light of the results, the UHI intensity in Mediterranean context should be properly considered in performing energy evaluations for urban contexts, since standard meteorological data from airport weather stations are not found to be accurate enough

Evaluating change in the krill-based food web and developing solutions for the future sampling of krill

The SCAR Krill Action Group (SKAG) provides a conduit for science to feed into the management of the Antarctic krill fishery, as well a more general forum to promote collaboration, help early career researchers, improve understanding of krill biology and ecology, and facilitate information exchange. From 26-30 April 2021 SKAG held a workshop, as a series of five zoom meetings, each of 2 hours, to help achieve these goals. The workshop was hosted and financed by WWF and was attended by around 100 participants each day from 19 countries. The workshop comprised 16 science talks summarising the current state-of-the-art of both traditional and emerging methods to sample and analyse krill, focusing on their ability to observe spatio-temporal change within the krill-based food web. This workshop report summarises the initial findings of the workshop; shares the talk abstracts; results of zoom-polling questionnaires including the early career researcher component; and shows results of the exercises. In summary, this online workshop included sufficient participation to represent the weight of expert opinion of the current krill research community. The talks were multi-authored, also providing the required breadth of perspective - our feedback was that this was particularly welcomed among the ECR community. The numbers attending also provided sufficient sample size for zoom polling; this showed a strong appetite for change in how science was linked to krill fishery management. Change was thought to be best achieved through both the provision of data and improved communication with management, underscoring the relevance of SKAG. Understanding the controls on krill recruitment emerged consistently as a clear priority research topic, with identification of spawning hotspots also a priority in the context of management and conservation over shorter timescales. We had sufficient response (33 replies) for the exercises aimed at a) evaluating longer-term change in krill populations and b) mapping the suitability of old and new sampling methods onto research questions. We are still collating a large response on the former, and this will form one of the sections for the paper that will emerge from this workshop. The second, method mapping, exercise showed consensus that newer methods were particularly valuable to detect change and observe krill behaviour at smaller scales of space and time, but that “traditional” nets and acoustics from research vessels remain hard to replace for longer term-issues such as recruitment variability. This throws down challenges for future krill sampling, through a combination of multiple, complementary and emerging approaches. In addition to the new and emerging approaches described in this workshop, a combined approach to Euphausia superba dynamics will involve data provided by predators, the fishery itself, the fishery as a scientific platform, alongside the continuation of traditional approaches

Guidelines; from foe to friend? Comparative interviews with GPs in Norway and Denmark

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>GPs follow clinical guidelines to varying degrees across practices, regions and countries, but a review study of GPs' attitudes to guidelines found no systematic variation in attitudes between studies from different countries. However, earlier qualitative studies on this topic are not necessarily comparable. Hence, there is a lack of empirical comparative studies of GP's attitudes to following clinical guidelines. In this study we reproduce a Norwegian focus group study of GPs' general attitudes to national clinical guidelines in Denmark and conduct a comparative analysis of the findings.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A strategic sample of GP's in Norway (27 GPs) and Denmark (18 GPs) was interviewed about their attitudes to guidelines, and the interviews coded and compared for common themes and differences.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Similarities dominated the comparative material, but the analysis also revealed notable differences in attitudes between Norwegian and the Danish GPs. The most important difference was related to GP's attitudes to clinical guidelines that incorporated economic evaluations. While the Norwegian GPs were sceptical to guidelines that incorporated economic evaluation, the Danish GPs regarded these guidelines as important and legitimate. We suggest that the differences could be explained by the history of guideline development in Norway and Denmark respectively. Whereas government guidelines for rationing services were only newly introduced in Norway, they have been used in Denmark for many years.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Comparative qualitative studies of GPs attitudes to clinical guidelines may reveal cross-national differences relating to the varying histories of guideline development. Further studies are needed to explore this hypothesis.</p

Productive resistance within the public sector: exploring organisational culture

The article examines how South Korean civil servants responded to the introduction of pay for performance. Drawing upon 31 in-depth interviews with career civil servants, it identifies what became known as 1/n, a form of ‘discreet resistance’ that emerged and evolved. The analytical framework allows productive resistance to be seen as ebbing and flowing during organisational change that sees institutionalisation, deinstitutionalisation and re-institutionalisation. In understanding the cultural context of organisational resistance the contribution is three-fold. First, a nuanced definition and understanding of productive resistance. Second, it argues that productive resistance must be seen as part of a process that does not simply reflect ‘offer and counter-offer’ within the change management process. Thirdly, it identifies differences within groups and sub-cultures concerning commitment towards resistance and how these fissures contribute towards change as new interpretive schemes and justifications are presented in light of policy reformulations

Interaction between Attention and Bottom-Up Saliency Mediates the Representation of Foreground and Background in an Auditory Scene

Bottom-up (stimulus-driven) and top-down (attentional) processes interact when a complex acoustic scene is parsed. Both modulate the neural representation of the target in a manner strongly correlated with behavioral performance

Electrophysiological correlates of selective attention: A lifespan comparison

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To study how event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and underlying cortical mechanisms of selective attention change from childhood to old age, we investigated lifespan age differences in ERPs during an auditory oddball task in four age groups including 24 younger children (9–10 years), 28 older children (11–12 years), 31 younger adults (18–25), and 28 older adults (63–74 years). In the Unattend condition, participants were asked to simply listen to the tones. In the Attend condition, participants were asked to count the deviant stimuli. Five primary ERP components (N1, P2, N2, P3 and N3) were extracted for deviant stimuli under Attend conditions for lifespan comparison. Furthermore, Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and Late Discriminative Negativity (LDN) were computed as difference waves between deviant and standard tones, whereas Early and Late Processing Negativity (EPN and LPN) were calculated as difference waves between tones processed under Attend and Unattend conditions. These four secondary ERP-derived measures were taken as indicators for change detection (MMN and LDN) and selective attention (EPN and LPN), respectively. To examine lifespan age differences, the derived difference-wave components for attended (MMN and LDN) and deviant (EPN and LPN) stimuli were specifically compared across the four age groups.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both primary and secondary ERP components showed age-related differences in peak amplitude, peak latency, and topological distribution. The P2 amplitude was higher in adults compared to children, whereas N2 showed the opposite effect. P3 peak amplitude was higher in older children and younger adults than in older adults. The amplitudes of N3, LDN, and LPN were higher in older children compared with both of the adult groups. In addition, both P3 and N3 peak latencies were significantly longer in older than in younger adults. Interestingly, in the young adult sample P3 peak amplitude correlated positively and P3 peak latency correlated negatively with performance in the Identical Picture test, a marker measure of fluid intelligence.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The present findings suggest that patterns of event-related brain potentials are highly malleable within individuals and undergo profound reorganization from childhood to adulthood and old age.</p