Ensuring access to essential services : demand-side housing subsidies

This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of demand-side subsidy approaches for improving poor households'access to housing services. It begins with a discussion of the rationale for stand-alone housing assistance programs, and a description of the ongoing transition away from traditional supply-side housing assistance to demand-side subsidies. The paper presents model demand-side approaches, but also draws on real world examples to highlight various aspects of program design related to targeting, transparency, price distortion, institutional capacity, administrative complexity, and funding. It also describes how variations in the design of housing-related subsidy programs can appear in response to philosophical, political, and resource considerations. The paperconcludes with a discussion of the appropriateness of different subsidy approaches for various situations.Banks&Banking Reform,Housing&Human Habitats,Public Sector Economics,Municipal Financial Management,Public&Municipal Finance

On the Assessment of Stability and Patterning of Speech Movements

Speech requires the control of complex movements of orofacial structures to produce dynamic variations in the vocal tract transfer function. The nature of the underlying motor control processes has traditionally been investigated by employing measures of articulatory movements, including movement amplitude, velocity, and duration, at selected points in time. An alternative approach, first used in the study of limb motion, is to examine the entire movement trajectory over time. A new approach to speech movement trajectory analysis was introduced in earlier work from this laboratory. In this method, trajectories from multiple movement sequences are time- and amplitude-normalized, and the STI (spatiotemporal index) is computed to capture the degree of convergence of a set of trajectories onto a single, underlying movement template. This research note describes the rationale for this analysis and provides a detailed description of the signal processing involved. Alternative interpolation procedures for time-normalization of kinematic data are also considered

Maximal physiological responses to deep and shallow water running.

The maximal physiological responses to treadmill running (TMR), shallow water running (SWR) and deep water running (DWR) while wearing a buoyancy vest were compared in 15 trained male runners. Measurements included oxygen consumption (VO2 max), respiratory exchange ratio (RER) and heart rate (HR). Treadmill running elicited VO2 max and HRmax, which were higher than the peaks attained in both water tests (p < 0.01). VO2 peak averaged 83.7 and 75.3% of VO2 max for SWR and DWR respectively. Peak HR for SWR and DWR were 94.1 and 87.2% of the HRmax reached in the TMR. RER responses were similar between the three modalities. The observations suggest that the training stimulus provided by water is still adequate for supplementary training. While SWR is potentially an efficient method of maintaining cardiovascular fitness, it needs to be investigated further to establish if it is a viable technique for the injured athlete to employ

From Fried Bologna Sandwich to Butternut Squash Prosciutto Flatbread: Examining Food Culture as a Multivocal Dominant Symbol in the Wessex, Ohio Restaurant Foodscape

This Independent Study explores the restaurant foodscape in the rural city of Wessex, Ohio and examines how two different sets of restaurants in this foodscape identify themselves as emblematic of the city. Restaurants opened in Wessex over the last ten years that have been selected for inclusion on Wessex Food Tours comprise the first set of restaurants examined. These restaurants are a curated set of local businesses that Wessex Food Tours presents to visitors as representative of a rejuvenated, contemporary Wessex. The other set of restaurants examined are those restaurants that have existed in Wessex for over 50 years, but are not included on the food tours. While not included on the food tours, these older restaurants are deeply embedded in the city’s history and remain a quintessential component in the city’s restaurant foodscape. This study investigates how the older restaurants and tour restaurants both attest to be representative of Wessex through the foods served and the dining spaces created. In order to understand how each set of restaurants envisions themselves as illustrative of Wessex’s food culture, I conducted participant observation on the Wessex Food Tours and at the older restaurants. Additionally, I conducted nine formal interviews with representatives from both sets of restaurants and the owner and manager of Wessex Food Tours. Lastly, I completed content analysis of menus from both sets of restaurants. Employing a symbolic anthropological perspective, I found that food culture in Wessex is a multivocal and polysemic dominant symbol surrounded by a spectrum of referents. Both sets of restaurants manipulate these referents, such as heritage, home, nostalgia, family, local, and community, in their production of Wessex food culture

Monuments, society and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, with particular reference to Cumbria and the northern Irish Sea region

This thesis argues that henges, stone circles and ring cairns form a 'spectrum' of monuments with origins in the earlier Neolithic. In that context it is suggested that some of the structures located beneath long cairns were originally free standing foci. How the monuments might reflect contemporary society is discussed and it is shown that some standing stones might have been the focus for gatherings of people as large as those suggested for henges and stone circles. Evidence is presented showing that there appears to have been a continuity of traditions and world view from the Early Neolithic into the Late Neolithic and beyond. Similarly the distribution of later monuments appears to relate to Early Neolithic core areas which continued to be important and linked to 'status'. The relationship of the monuments to particular aspects of the environment is explored and it is shown that wetland environments, including floodplains, are a major feature in the location of the early foci. It is concluded that these would have been important resource areas in the Mesolithic as well as Early Neolithic with implications for our understanding of the Mesolithic -Neolithic transition

Ecology and Evolution of Social Information Use

Sociality is a strategy many animals employ to cope with their environments, enabling them to survive and reproduce more successfully than would otherwise be possible. When navigating their environments and making decisions, social individuals often use information provided by conspecifics (in the form of social cues and signals), thereby increasing the scope and reliability of the information they can gather. However, social information use may be influenced by many factors, including key differences in context across the physical and social environment. My thesis asks and answers a series of questions regarding the trade-offs in social information use across different contexts, with particular focus on signals (chapters 1 and 2) and movement (chapters 3 and 4). Using experimental manipulations of the highly social terrestrial hermit crab (Coenobita compressus) and the less social marine hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus) I explored social information use across four key areas of behaviour critical to the success of most social organisms: (1) communication, (2) signal evolution, (3) movement, and (4) information transmission. For (1) communication, I tested the production of and response to threat displays across species, examining the evolutionary loss of these displays in species from dramatically different physical and social environments. For (2) signal evolution, I tested the correlation between red colouration and resource holding potential (RHP) across body parts with different signalling potential, based on whether they are exposed or covered by surrounding shell architecture. For (3) movement, I tested whether individuals were biased in their movement by their social group, and whether the level of movement bias changed in different contexts, with individuals having their own private source of protection—a shell—that supersedes the group. Finally, for (4) information transmission, I tested the capacity for information gathering via antennal contact, experimentally seeding social information in the wild to examine whether social information is beneficial to receive and costly to bear. Ultimately, by synthesising social information use across these four important contexts, I have addressed key questions about how and why social context modifies behaviour, and the ways in which a highly valuable and limiting resource—architecturally remodelled shells—shape social behaviours

Reduced neural sensitivity to social stimuli in infants at risk for autism

In the hope of discovering early markers of autism, attention has recently turned to the study of infants at risk owing to being the younger siblings of children with autism. Because the condition is highly heritable, later-born siblings of diagnosed children are at substantially higher risk for developing autism or the broader autism phenotype than the general population. Currently, there are no strong predictors of autism in early infancy and diagnosis is not reliable until around 3 years of age. Because indicators of brain functioning may be sensitive predictors, and atypical social interactions are characteristic of the syndrome, we examined whether temporal lobe specialization for processing visual and auditory social stimuli during infancy differs in infants at risk. In a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study, infants aged 4–6 months at risk for autism showed less selective neural responses to social stimuli (auditory and visual) than low-risk controls. These group differences could not be attributed to overall levels of attention, developmental stage or chronological age. Our results provide the first demonstration of specific differences in localizable brain function within the first 6 months of life in a group of infants at risk for autism. Further, these differences closely resemble known patterns of neural atypicality in children and adults with autism. Future work will determine whether these differences in infant neural responses to social stimuli predict either later autism or the broader autism phenotype frequently seen in unaffected family members

Laying Down the Foundations for International Student Journey. Students as Academic Partners Project Report.

The aim of this project was to explore the lived experiences of being an international student studying at a University within the UK and to make recommendations for future provision. There are increasing numbers of international students studying at Universities within the UK. Positive learning environments and arrangements are the responsibility of the host University and international students’ needs should be taken into consideration. This project was led by international students in collaboration with academic staff. It involved a qualitative exploration of international student perspectives and their experiences of studying within the UK. Ten international students completed a questionnaire that was designed by international students. Respondents were asked questions in relation to three areas: coming to the UK, arriving in the UK and studying in the UK