Home energy renovation: UK owner-occupied householder uncertainties, information and data needs

Homes must become low energy, resilient to climate change and provide comfort for households, as part of the European renovation wave. Renovation involves millions of decisions and actions. Owner-occupied households are a key group of decision-makers, but with conflicting demands on their time and finances. Householders collect information from multiple sources. However, previous research has found that the detail of available information and data on renovation is difficult to find. Therefore, this paper aims to identify householder uncertainties and related information and data needs, to support early-stage energy renovation decision-making. Co-design has been found to be beneficial in designing energy demand reduction strategies, leading to meaningful outcomes for householders, however, it was found to lead to further information requirements. The open virtual information exchange reported here, inspired by co-design and virtual workshop approaches, was effective in identifying uncertainties and gathering feedback on information types and data to address them. Householders' require trusted specialists to visit the home in-person. The information identified could be shared via trials at renovation information hubs, potentially using digital apps to connect renovation opportunity, householders' and trusted practitioners. There is much householder uncertainty around housing renovation and more work is needed to move able-to-pay householders from renovation planning to renovation in practice

The assessment of meaningful outcomes from co-design: a case study from the energy sector

Even though co-design is a well-accepted approach for designing to meet user needs, what influence it has on design outcomes remains unclear. This article presents the co-design process of a prototype energy advice service. We evaluate the impact this process had on the outcome over time, demonstrate how co-design generated informative insights, and identify the benefits and challenges of employing a co-design process to design and develop meaningful content for future ‘information-intensive’ services. A theoretical framework, a “think aloud” approach, and systematic data coding, enabled us to uncover user perceptions of the evolving design qualities. This meaning-making co-design process enabled user needs to surface and be iteratively addressed. As the content of the reports became increasingly tailored, and the users’ familiarity with the topic increased, the process highlighted further evolving and underlying information needs. This confirms the value of adopting a content first approach when designing information intensive services and foregrounding meaning making within the complex energy demand reduction context

The personal and contextual factors that affect customer experience during rail service failures and the implications for service design

© 2020 The Authors This paper: identifies personal and contextual factors that influence customer experience when service failures occur in rail transport; what is being conveyed through that factor (e.g. older age being used to convey vulnerability); and the implications for future service design. The results are from a thematic analysis of free-text rail passenger complaints (n = 516) reporting service failures that impacted on customer experience. The study differs from existing research on the pertinent personal and contextual factors for public transport service provision in that it: focuses on the passenger experience resulting from specific incidents (rather than evaluative, overall assessments of satisfaction), generates the factors inductively from the data (rather than a-priori) and uses detailed qualitative cases (rather than quantitative survey data). The findings (1) identify some similar factors to those used in previous research and uncover some new factors for both person and context, (2) provide an understanding of what they mean in terms of the passenger experience and (3) indicate how the factors might need to be measured if they are to be used by the rail industry. The paper concludes by using the outcome of an industry-based validation exercise to describe how the findings could be used in future rail services, namely: predicting where the customer experience is going to be sub-optimal, prioritising responses to particular circumstances, and designing services to better meet customer's needs. This exploratory research is timely, given the need for a more passenger-centric approach to service design and future developments such as smart-ticketing, which could potentially enable greater understanding of who is using the rail network and for what journeys

Protein interacting with C kinase 1 suppresses invasion and anchorage independent growth of astrocytic tumour cells

Astrocytic tumors are the most common form of primary brain tumor. Astrocytic tumor cells infiltrate the surrounding CNS tissue, allowing them to evade removal upon surgical resection of the primary tumor. Dynamic changes to the actin cytoskeleton are crucial to cancer cell invasion, but the specific mechanisms that underlie the particularly invasive phenotype of astrocytic tumor cells are unclear. Protein interacting with C kinase 1 (PICK1) is a PDZ and BAR domain–containing protein that inhibits actin-related protein 2/3 (Arp2/3)-dependent actin polymerization and is involved in regulating the trafficking of a number of cell-surface receptors. Here we report that, in contrast to other cancers, PICK1 expression is down-regulated in grade IV astrocytic tumor cell lines and also in clinical cases of the disease in which grade IV tumors have progressed from lower-grade tumors. Exogenous expression of PICK1 in the grade IV astrocytic cell line U251 reduces their capacity for anchorage-independent growth, two-dimensional migration, and invasion through a three-dimensional matrix, strongly suggesting that low PICK1 expression plays an important role in astrocytic tumorigenesis. We propose that PICK1 negatively regulates neoplastic infiltration of astrocytic tumors and that manipulation of PICK1 is an attractive possibility for therapeutic intervention

DETI Inspire Engagement Report 2020-2021

From September 2020 to December 2021, DETI Inspire has delivered an impressive array of outputs and engagement activities. In two years, the team have directly engaged 6,832 children and 216 teachers from 73 schools and community groups in the West of England, with an estimated 97,550 children reached altogether through dissemination efforts. Along the way, children have been able to have conversations with real-life engineers through (online) Q&A sessions, card games and skill shares. 455 engineers have so far shared their experiences, as well as at least 17 industry partners and three charities.42% of total direct engagements (N=3,415) came directly through in-person BoxED sessions, all four developed and launched by DETI Inspire in 2021: The West in Minecraft (N=2,047, 60%), Engineering Curiosity (N=357, 10%), WeCount (N=319, 9%), and We Make Our Future (N=692, 20%). 42% (10) of all the schools engaged in BoxED sessions (total = 24) came from areas within the most deprived 20% of the country, and 17% (4) came from the most deprived 30%.The last 20 months has seen the programme: pair female junior engineers with senior female mentors (page 13); establish a network of 102 engineers from diverse backgrounds (page 13); distribute 132 Engineering Curiosity card packs to schools and community groups and launch 40 Tik-Tok videos to accompany them (p 16); host a Sustainable Solutions Summit to 16-18-year-olds (page 26); champion sustainable engineering at COP26 (page 28); beam in engineers to 3,500 children during the height of the pandemic (p39); and reach over 250,000 people through social media (p 35). For a full list of highlights, and for details of DETI Inspire’s engagements, see Table 1.Despite another year of uncertainty, with rules around in-person events frequently changing, the DETI Inspire programme has excelled under the circumstances. Adapting to the changing rules and guidance, the team managed to engage in-person when they could – enriching children and young people’s cultural experiences, limited by the pandemic – and offer well attended online events when they could not. For instance, from two online events alone, DETI Inspire reached 9,000 children and young people.DETI Inspire will continue to deliver BoxED activities to schools across the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), with a full calendar of bookings right up until June. The programme will also support this year’s Leaders Award (p 42), Great Science Share (p51), and take part in the long-awaited return of Bristol’s Storytale Festival (p 511), among other activities. DETI Inspire is excelling in promoting engineering for sustainability among children, young people and adults from diverse backgrounds, not only in WECA, but also nationally and across Europe

The antagonistic modulation of Arp2/3 activity by N-WASP/WAVE2 and PICK1 defines dynamic changes in astrocyte morphology

Astrocytes exhibit a complex, branched morphology, allowing them to functionally interact with numerous blood vessels, neighboring glial processes and neuronal elements, including synapses. They also respond to central nervous system (CNS) injury by a process known as astrogliosis, which involves morphological changes, including cell body hypertrophy and thickening of major processes. Following severe injury, astrocytes exhibit drastically reduced morphological complexity and collectively form a glial scar. The mechanistic details behind these morphological changes are unknown. Here, we investigate the regulation of the actin-nucleating Arp2/3 complex in controlling dynamic changes in astrocyte morphology. In contrast to other cell types, Arp2/3 inhibition drives the rapid expansion of astrocyte cell bodies and major processes. This intervention results in a reduced morphological complexity of astrocytes in both dissociated culture and in brain slices. We show that this expansion requires functional myosin II downstream of ROCK and RhoA. Knockdown of the Arp2/3 subunit Arp3 or the Arp2/3 activator N-WASP by siRNA also results in cell body expansion and reduced morphological complexity, whereas depleting WAVE2 specifically reduces the branching complexity of astrocyte processes. By contrast, knockdown of the Arp2/3 inhibitor PICK1 increases astrocyte branching complexity. Furthermore, astrocyte expansion induced by ischemic conditions is delayed by PICK1 knockdown or N-WASP overexpression. Our findings identify a new morphological outcome for Arp2/3 activation in restricting rather than promoting outwards movement of the plasma membrane in astrocytes. The Arp2/3 regulators PICK1, and N-WASP and WAVE2 function antagonistically to control the complexity of astrocyte branched morphology, and this mechanism underlies the morphological changes seen in astrocytes during their response to pathological insult

Supporting retrofit decisions using smart meter data: a multi-disciplinary approach

The UK Government’s flagship energy efficiency program, the Green Deal, provides retrofit advice for household occupants based on a technical house survey and an engineering modelling tool. Smart meter data provides an opportunity to give bespoke advice to occupants based on the actual performance of their home and their own heating practices as well as visualisations of hourly and daily energy use. This work presents initial results from one component of a complex multidisciplinary research project which aims to use smart meter and smart home data to design and develop retrofit decision support concepts. Home visits involving creative design based research activities were carried out in five homes. Household occupants were presented with two types of energy use report; 1) a Green Deal advice report which includes suggested retrofit measures and annual energy consumption figures based on a steady state modelling approach and; 2) a personalised energy use report, based on smart meter data collected in their homes over a 12 month period. The home visits were carried out with the occupants to discuss a range of possible retrofit measures and gather feedback regarding the communication method for advice about energy efficiency improvements. Initial findings from the home visits indicate that the provision of energy feedback using smart meter data did not directly influence the occupants to make energy efficient retrofits any more than the Green Deal advice reports. However, the visualisation of actual hourly and daily energy use enabled householders to make links with their lived experience and stimulated discussions about their energy use which may impact on their preconceived ideas about energy use and energy efficiency measures

Supporting retrofit decisions using smart metering data : a multi-disciplinary approach

The UK Government’s flagship energy efficiency program, the Green Deal, provides retrofit advice for household occupants based on a technical house survey and an engineering modelling tool. Smart meter data provides an opportunity to give bespoke advice to occupants based on the actual performance of their home and their own heating practices as well as visualisations of hourly and daily energy use. This work presents initial results from one component of a complex multidisciplinary research project which aims to use smart meter and smart home data to design and develop retrofit decision support concepts. Home visits involving creative design based research activities were carried out in five homes. Household occupants were presented with two types of energy use report; 1) a Green Deal advice report which includes suggested retrofit measures and annual energy consumption figures based on a steady state modelling approach and; 2) a personalised energy use report, based on smart meter data collected in their homes over a 12 month period. The home visits were carried out with the occupants to discuss a range of possible retrofit measures and gather feedback regarding the communication method for advice about energy efficiency improvements. Initial findings from the home visits indicate that the provision of energy feedback using smart meter data did not directly influence the occupants to make energy efficient retrofits any more than the Green Deal advice reports. However, the visualisation of actual hourly and daily energy use enabled householders to make links with their lived experience and stimulated discussions about their energy use which may impact on their preconceived ideas about energy use and energy efficiency measures