51 research outputs found
Эпидемиология и факторы риска рака шейки матки
ФАКТОРЫ РИСКАШЕЙКИ МАТКИ НОВООБРАЗОВАНИ
Human factors in the design of sustainable built environments
Scientific research provides convincing evidence that climate change is having significant impacts on many aspects of life. In the built-environment domain, regulatory requirements are pushing the challenges of environmental, economic, and social sustainability at the core of the professional agenda, although the aims of carbon reduction and energy conservation are frequently given a priority over occupants' comfort, well-being, and satisfaction. While most practitioners declare to embrace sustainability as a driver of their professional approach, a general lack of integrated creative and technical skills hinders the design of buildings centred on articulate and comprehensive sustainability goals, encompassing, other than energy criteria, also human-centred and ethical values founded on competent and informed consideration of the requirements of the site, the programme, and the occupants. Built environments are designed by humans to host a range of human activities. In response, this article aims to endorse a sustainable approach to design founded on the knowledge arising from scholarly and evidence-based research, exploring principles and criteria for the creation and operation of human habitats that can respond to energy and legislative demands, mitigate their environmental impacts, and adapt to new climate scenarios, while elevating the quality of experience and delight to those occupying them
Recommended from our members
Creative and productive workplaces: a review
The built environment affects our well-being and this in turn influences our effectiveness in the workplace. Poor environments contribute to absenteeism and to people not working as well as they might. This is an enormous cost to the nation. High-quality environmental design is an investment, as occupants are healthier, staff-retention rates are higher, productivity is higher and sustainability ideals are more likely to be met. Workplaces reflect the culture of companies and are places that are not just functional and convenient but give the occupant a wholesome experience in terms of body and spirit
Recommended from our members
Simultaneous activities in the household and residential electricity demand in Spain
Recent research and policy studies on the low-carbon future highlight the importance of flexible electricity demand. This might be problematic particularly for residential electricity demand, which is related to simultaneous consumers’ practices in the household. This paper analyses issues of simultaneity in residential electricity demand in Spain. It makes use of the 2011 Spanish Time Use Survey data with comparisons from the previous Spanish Time Use Survey and the Harmonised European Time Use Surveys. Findings show that media activities are associated the highest levels of continuity and simultaneity, particularly in the early and late parts of the evening during weekdays
Domestic Water Demand During Droughts in Temperate Climates: Synthesising Evidence for an Integrated Framework
In the upcoming years, as the population is growing and ageing, as lifestyle changes create the need for more water and as fewer people live in each household, the UK water sector will have to deal with challenges in the provision of adequate water services. Unless critical action is taken, every area in the UK may face a supply-demand gap by the 2080s. Extreme weather events and variations that alter drought and flood frequency add to these pressures. However, little evidence is available about householders’ response to drought and there are few if any studies incorporating this evidence into models of demand forecasting. The present work lays the groundwork for modelling domestic water demand response under drought conditions in temperate climates. After discussing the current literature on estimating and forecasting domestic water consumption under both ‘normal’ and drought conditions, this paper identifies the limited ability of current domestic demand forecasting techniques to include the many different and evolving factors affecting domestic consumption and it stresses the need for the inclusion of inter and intra household factors as well as water use practices in future demand forecasting models
The water-energy-food nexus at home: new opportunities for policy interventions in household sustainability
The nexus of water–energy–food (WEF) is as apparent at the household scale as it is anywhere else. We introduce the “Nexus at Home” as a starting point for exploring the dynamics of WEF resource use and household sustainability. Drawing on two research projects we focus specifically on domestic kitchens as a site where practices of cooking, eating, cleaning and disposing of waste come together. While these practices have long been targets for policy intervention, existing approaches draw on a limited range of perspectives from the social sciences. Reflecting on our work with four non‐academic partners (Defra, BEIS, FSA, Waterwise), we consider how social practice and geographies of household sustainability research might be combined with the dictum of “nexus thinking” to re‐imagine the framing of policy and intervention to reduce the resource intensity of everyday life. Synthesising existing “home practices” literature in the context of the “live” policy problems raised by our partners, we seek to provide clear guidance for intervening in kitchen practices. We draw on one topic which has not yet been the subject of social practices research: fats, oils and grease (FOG) going down the kitchen plughole and contributing to widespread sewer blockages. In doing so we document the sequence of interrelated food provisioning activities through which WEF is put to use in domestic kitchens and contributes to FOG blockages in sewers. We reflect upon the multiple ways these practices are shaped by the rhythms of daily life, dynamics within the home, wider cultural conventions, and infrastructures. This paper contributes to the nascent transdisciplinary research agenda of translating home practices research into wider conceptualisations of “intervention”, with a specific orientation towards academic and non‐academic stakeholders who are interested in influencing systems of sustainable consumption and production within, and across, the WEF sectors
Quantitative modelling of why and how homeowners decide to renovate energy efficiently
Understanding homeowners' renovation decisions is essential for policy and business activity to improve the efficiency of owner-occupied housing stock. This paper develops, validates and applies a novel modelling framework for explaining renovation decisions, with an emphasis on energy efficiency measures. The framework is tested using quantitative data from a nationally-representative survey of owner-occupied households in the UK (n=1028). The modelling advances formal representations of renovation decisions by including background conditions of domestic life to which renovating is an adaptive response. Path analysis confirms that three conditions of domestic life are particularly influential on renovation decisions: balancing competing commitments for how space at home is used; signaling identity through homemaking activities; and managing physical vulnerabilities of household members. These conditions of domestic life also capture the influence of property characteristics (age, type) and household characteristics (size, composition, length of tenure) on renovation decisions but with greater descriptive realism.
Multivariate probit models are used to provide rigorous, transparent and analytically tractable representations of the full renovation decision process. Model fits to the representative national sample of UK homeowners are good. The modelling shows that renovation intentions emerge initially from certain conditions of domestic life at which point energy efficiency is not a distinctive type of renovation. The modelling also shows clearly that influences on renovation decisions change through the decision process. This has important implications for policy and service providers. Efficiency measures should be bundled into broader types of home improvements, and incentives should target the underlying reasons why homeowners decide to renovate in the first place
- …