I Stood Up: Social Design in Practice

Through practice-based research, we explore how interdisciplinary design projects can function to address social issues concerning environmental and social problems. Using two case studies developed between London in the United Kingdom, and Delhi and Ahmedabad in India, we discuss the importance of engagement with the people who the design ultimately serves. Finally, we argue that design concerned with complex social problems require equally complex, multidimensional responses, informed by bodies of knowledge, practices and approaches that lie outside of traditional design approaches

I stood up (2015)

I Stood Up, was a practice-based research project developed collaboratively between an interdisciplinary team of artists and designers based in London, and Delhi and Ahmedabad, India between September 2014 and April 2015. The research team of Corby (visual arts), Williams (fashion design and sustainability), Sheth (exhibition and spatial design), and Dhar (performance and design) was convened at the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad in early 2014 supported by the British Council and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. Our project hypothesized a role for interdisciplinary design practices to act as a platform for public articulation of ‘real world’ problems in urban settings with a particular focus on the often connected problems of environmental degradation and gendered violence. Completed work consisted of workshop situations, installations, graphical posters and T-shirt designs. Exhibitions and events took place in Ahmedabad, New Delhi and London. Exhibitions/events/workshops Unbox at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, 5-7th February 2014 Unbox Festival at IGNCA Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi from 12 to 14 December 2014. 'I stood up' workshop and exhibition, Faculty of Architecture at the Centre for Environment Planning & Technology (CEPT University) in Ahmedabad between December 2014-March 2015. 'I stood up' workshop and presentation, at Being Human, a festival of the Humanities, 12 Nov- 22 Nov 2015 Funding AHRC Research Grant I Stood Up to Violence (Principal Investigator) £25,000 (2014) AHRC Unbox Fellowship, National Institute of Design, India (2014

Factors associated with using a care home for older people living in Scotland: analyses using linked administrative data

BACKGROUND: Scotland has an ageing population, so an increasing responsibility for old age social care. Research elsewhere has demonstrated that several socio-demographic, geographical and health factors predict entry to a care home. Scotland has some key originalities, even compared to other UK countries. Thus, it was important to investigate the factors associated with using social care here. OBJECTIVES: This thesis used routinely collected administrative data to identify socio-demographic, self-rated health, geographical and household factors which were associated with institutional social care use in later life in Scotland. It aimed to investigate whether factors known to be associated with care use for older people through research elsewhere, were generalisable to Scotland. Additionally, it aimed to explore some factors which may not have been investigated elsewhere. METHODS: Linked administrative data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), a 5.3% representative sample of the Scottish population (https://sls.lscs.ac.uk/) - provided a longitudinal dataset including people aged 65 years and older, who were still living at home. Information about socio-demographics, household members, informal care, geography and health were gathered from their census responses. Then care status – living in a nursing/care home or not – was determined from the next census. Logistic regression was used to model the associations of these factors with care outcome at follow-up. KEY FINDINGS: The analyses considered two time periods: 1991-2001 and 2001-2011. In the 1991-2001 sample, three lesser researched factors were found to be associated with care use – 1) living in a flat (1.21 (1.04, 1.41))*, 2) recent employment (0.66 (0.53, 0.80)), and 3) population density (Low density 9.71 (7.85, 12.03)); plus an interaction between population density and urban rural classification – with highest attributable risk in low-density city areas (12.83 (9.64, 17.07)). Additionally, patterns for living with different relatives originally found in a Northern Irish study were replicated, with living alone or with siblings associated with increased odds of being in care at follow-up. In the 2001-2011 sample, most associations were consistent, however, this was not the case for the area-based measures such as deprivation and measures of geography, which were no longer associated with care outcome. It was also possible to look at the association of receiving and providing informal care in this later sample, both of which were associated with care outcome (1.81(1.42, 2.29) and 0.70 (0.53, 0.91) respectively). Sex/gender differences were also evidenced for several factors. CONCLUSIONS: Administrative data were used to identify both lesser researched and known factors associated with institutional care use in Scotland, over two different time periods. The factors associated with being in a care home at follow-up in Scotland were broadly similar those evidenced by previous literature in other global-northern populations. The possible explanations for the differences between the samples, which evidence reduced spatial inequality in the later cohort, are discussed, such as the introduction of a new social care policy in 2002 and broader changes to the health and social care landscape in Scotland. Recommendations for future policy and practice are also considered. *(Odds Ratio (95% Confidence Interval)) Note: for the odds ratio the null value is 1. Source: SLS. The help provided by the staff of the Longitudinal Studies Centre – Scotland (LSCS) is acknowledged. The LSCS is supported by the ESRC/JISC, the Scottish Funding Council, the Chief Scientist’s Office, and the Scottish Government. The authors alone are responsible for the interpretation of the data. Census output is Crown copyright and is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the King’s Printer for Scotland

The influence of mortality and socioeconomic status on risk and delayed rewards: a replication with British participants

Here, we report three attempts to replicate a finding from an influential psychological study (Griskevicius et al., 2011b). The original study found interactions between childhood SES and experimental mortality-priming condition in predicting risk acceptance and delay discounting outcomes. The original study used US student samples. We used British university students (replication 1) and British online samples (replications 2 and 3) with a modified version of the original priming material, which was tailored to make it more credible to a British audience. We did not replicate the interaction between childhood SES and mortality-priming condition in any of our three experiments. The only consistent trend of note was an interaction between sex and priming condition for delay discounting. We note that psychological priming effects are considered fragile and often fail to replicate. Our failure to replicate the original finding could be due to demographic differences in study participants, alterations made to the prime, or other study limitations. However, it is also possible that the previously reported interaction is not a robust or generalizable finding

Periodontal dysbiosis associates with reduced CSF Aβ42 in cognitively normal elderly

Introduction: Periodontal disease is a chronic, inflammatory bacterial dysbiosis that is associated with both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Down syndrome. / Methods: A total of 48 elderly cognitively normal subjects were evaluated for differences in subgingival periodontal bacteria (assayed by 16S rRNA sequencing) between cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker groups of amyloid and neurofibrillary pathology. A dysbiotic index (DI) was defined at the genus level as the abundance ratio of known periodontal bacteria to healthy bacteria. Analysis of variance/analysis of covariance (ANOVA/ANCOVA), linear discriminant effect‐size analyses (LEfSe) were used to determine the bacterial genera and species differences between the CSF biomarker groups. / Results: At genera and species levels, higher subgingival periodontal dysbiosis was associated with reduced CSF amyloid beta (Aβ)42 (P = 0.02 and 0.01) but not with P‐tau. / Discussion: We show a selective relationship between periodontal disease bacterial dysbiosis and CSF biomarkers of amyloidosis, but not for tau. Further modeling is needed to establish the direct link between oral bacteria and Aβ

The factors associated with entry to formal care for the elderly in Scotland: A longitudinal analysis

Background Losing independence is a concern for older people, and sadly a reality for many. In Scotland there is an ageing population and unlike the rest of the UK, a policy to provide free personal and nursing care for those in need of assistance; this makes loss of independence high on the agenda of government, local authorities, care providers, older people and their families alike. Objectives This study aimed to investigate the factors associated with entry to formal care for older people in Scotland. In addition to socio-demographic, geographical and health characteristics, this study considered three lesser studied or novel factors: living in a flat, population density and recent employment. Methods A Scottish Longitudinal Study project (https://sls.lscs.ac.uk/) provided a 5.3% representative sample of the Scottish population for longitudinal analysis. This included people aged 65 and older in 1991 whose care-entry status was then followed-up in 2001. Findings Associations were found for age, sex, marital status, longterm illness, housing tenure, recent employment, urban/rural classification and population density. Notably, whilst living in rural areas had a protective association with formal care home entry (OR 0.35 [95% CI 0.29,0.43]), paradoxically, living in areas with a low population density was associated with greatly increased odds (OR 9.05 [95% CI 7.34, 11.19]). Conclusions This study indicates that the factors associated with care-entry in the Scottish population are similar to those in other Western countries. Possible explanations and justifications for the apparently paradoxical association found for population density are discussed. This finding might be relevant in populations outside Scotland, and future research should explore this

Validation of an integrated pedal desk and electronic behavior tracking platform

Background This study tested the validity of revolutions per minute (RPM) measurements from the Pennington Pedal Desk™. Forty-four participants (73 % female; 39 ± 11.4 years-old; BMI 25.8 ± 5.5 kg/m2 [mean ± SD]) completed a standardized trial consisting of guided computer tasks while using a pedal desk for approximately 20 min. Measures of RPM were concurrently collected by the pedal desk and the Garmin Vector power meter. After establishing the validity of RPM measurements with the Garmin Vector, we performed equivalence tests, quantified mean absolute percent error (MAPE), and constructed Bland–Altman plots to assess agreement between RPM measures from the pedal desk and the Garmin Vector (criterion) at the minute-by-minute and trial level (i.e., over the approximate 20 min trial period). Results The average (mean ± SD) duration of the pedal desk trial was 20.5 ± 2.5 min. Measures of RPM (mean ± SE) at the minute-by-minute (Garmin Vector: 54.8 ± 0.4 RPM; pedal desk: 55.8 ± 0.4 RPM) and trial level (Garmin Vector: 55.0 ± 1.7 RPM; pedal desk: 56.0 ± 1.7 RPM) were deemed equivalent. MAPE values for RPM measured by the pedal desk were small (minute-by-minute: 2.1 ± 0.1 %; trial: 1.8 ± 0.1 %) and no systematic relationships in error variance were evident by Bland–Altman plots. Conclusion The Pennington Pedal Desk™ provides a valid count of RPM, providing an accurate metric to promote usage

High efficiency water splitting photoanodes composed of nano-structured anatase-rutile TiO2 heterojunctions by pulsed-pressure MOCVD

In this article, thin solid films are processed via pulsed-pressure metal organic chemical vapour deposition (PP-MOCVD) on FTO substrates over a range of processing times to produce a range of thicknesses and microstructures. The films are highly nanostructured anatase-rutile TiO2 composite films with unique single crystal dendrites. After annealing, carbon was removed, and materials showed improved water splitting activity; with IPCEs above 80% in the UV, photocurrents of ∼1.2 mA cm−2 at 1.23 VRHE at 1 sun irradiance and an extension of photoactivity into the visible range. The annealed material exhibits minimal recombination losses and IPCEs amongst the highest reported in the literature; attributed to the formation of a high surface area nanostructured material and synergetic interactions between the anatase and rutile phases

Racism, anti-racist practice and social work: articulating the teaching and learning experiences of Black social workers

In the mid 1990s a Black practice teacher programme was established in Manchester and Merseyside with the primary aim to increase the number of Black practice teachers in social work organisations, and in turn provide a supportive and encouraging learning environment for Black student social workers whilst on placement. In the north‐west of England research has been undertaken, to establish the quality of the practice teaching and student learning taking place with Black practice teachers and students. This paper is an exploration of the ideas generated within the placement process that particularly focused on the discourse of racism and ant‐racist practice. Black students and practice teachers explain their understanding of racism and anti‐racist practice within social work. From the research, the paper will critique some of the ideas concerning anti‐racism. In particular, it will question whether anti‐racist social work practice needs to be re‐evaluated in the light of a context with new migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. It will concluded, by arguing that whilst the terms anti‐racism, Black and Minority Ethnic have resonance as a form of political strategic essentialism, it is important to develop more positive representations in the future