Lost Alternatives to Council Housing? An examination of Stirling's alternative housing initiatives, c. 1906-1939

First paragraph: It is almost a century since the beginning of the great ‘social experiment’ that was council housing. Born out of a recognition of the poor quality of most housing for the working classes and the attendant health and mortality issues associated with overcrowding and poor sanitation and fuelled by the war-time promise of ‘homes fit for heroes to live in’ the agency chosen to deliver that promise was local government; councils constructing houses for rent backed by central state subsidy. In post-World War One (WW1) Scotland council housing almost immediately became the major provider of new houses, surpassing the number of new private builds as early as 1921 and thereafter out-performing the private sector every year (with the temporary exceptions of 1924 and 1925) until 1978 when the balance shifted back to the private sector which has maintained its dominance ever since. While the move to private build predates the Thatcherite ‘privatisation’ of selling off council houses to sitting tenants, that policy clearly reinforced the trend; whereas in the 1970s more than half of all homes were rented from a council, by 2011 the social rented sector provided just 24 per cent of homes with councils responsible for less than 13 per cent. Over the same period the proportion of owner-occupied homes doubled to over 60 per cent

Neighbourhood identity

From Executive Summary: This study explores the ways in which neighbourhood identity is formed over time and place, and considers the implications this may have for policies that seek to improve and enhance neighbourhoods and communities. Part of the motivation for the study was to explore why ‘regeneration policies’ often fail in their objectives and why the reputations of housing estates – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – display a remarkable longevity and resilience to change. Hence the interest focused on how such reputations are established and understood by those within and outside of particular places, and what implications this has for the identities of neighbourhoods and the individuals who live in them. In so doing, the study concentrated on three neighbourhoods in the City of Stirling in central Scotland, namely, Raploch, Riverside and Randolph Road. Each was chosen for its distinct socio-economic profile and differing relative identity. To this end, the study also explored what it meant to individuals to ‘come fae’ (come from) each of these areas as a way of understanding issues of ‘belonging’ and ‘attachment’ to particular places

Family-centred care in cystic fibrosis: a pilot study in North Queensland, Australia

Aims: The aims were to: (i) examine perceptions of family-centred care of parents of children with cystic fibrosis and healthcare professionals who care for them; (ii) test design and tools in a regional population. Design: Quantitative pilot study of existing questionnaire. Methods: The methods involved were comparative, cross-sectional survey of parents of children with cystic fibrosis and health staff in North Queensland, using “Perceptions of Family Centered Care – Parent” and “Perceptions of Family Centered Care – Staff” questionnaires; and descriptive study of tools. Results: Eighteen staff, 14 parents (78%, 61%); using Mann–Whitney U, showed no significant differences in scores in categories: ‘support’ ‘respect’, ‘collaboration’. Comments about suitability of questionnaires varied, but were largely positive

Implications for telehealth for accessing education in rural areas: children with a severe chronic disease.

Children and their families who live in rural and remote areas are often disadvantaged by distance. In healthcare, this can be especially problematic. Children can suffer from a range of chronic conditions, e.g. diabetes, asthma, cardiac conditions, cystic fibrosis and others. In Australia, health services for children and families with such conditions are centred in specialist children’s hospitals in the capital cities in each state, but the burden of health care often falls to the parents and the children themselves. While rural health services do a wonderful job providing health care for these children, it is very rare to find specialist services in any rural situation. For example, children with cystic fibrosis who live in remote parts of Queensland attend specialist clinics in their local hospital twice or three times a year for routine check-ups, when the cystic fibrosis team of nurses, doctors and allied health staff from the children’s hospital in Brisbane travels to rural areas. If children become acutely ill, they might be able to be treated in the local hospital if they are not too sick, or they could be taken to the children’s hospital in Brisbane by their parents. If they are having a serious exacerbation of the illness, they will be transported there by aircraft and ambulance. Any child being sick is stressful for the family, regardless of where they live. However, if families live thousands of kilometres from the main treatment centres, scenarios described above can be common, with subsequent family disruption and emotional, social and economic costs. Telehealth is being installed in many rural and remote health services, thereby allowing country families the benefit of specialist consultation and care. However, governments and health departments are only slowly engaging with such technology. This paper presents findings of a study in Far North Queensland which examined how care was delivered to rural and remote families with children with cystic fibrosis, and how they cope. It will discuss how telehealth could improve care to such families and pose questions about why this is so slow in being implemented in Australia

Proximal genomic localization of STAT1 binding and regulated transcriptional activity

BACKGROUND: Signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) proteins are key regulators of gene expression in response to the interferon (IFN) family of anti-viral and anti-microbial cytokines. We have examined the genomic relationship between STAT1 binding and regulated transcription using multiple tiling microarray and chromatin immunoprecipitation microarray (ChIP-chip) experiments from public repositories. RESULTS: In response to IFN-γ, STAT1 bound proximally to regions of the genome that exhibit regulated transcriptional activity. This finding was consistent between different tiling microarray platforms, and between different measures of transcriptional activity, including differential binding of RNA polymerase II, and differential mRNA transcription. Re-analysis of tiling microarray data from a recent study of IFN-γ-induced STAT1 ChIP-chip and mRNA expression revealed that STAT1 binding is tightly associated with localized mRNA transcription in response to IFN-γ. Close relationships were also apparent between STAT1 binding, STAT2 binding, and mRNA transcription in response to IFN-α. Furthermore, we found that sites of STAT1 binding within the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) region are precisely correlated with sites of either enhanced or diminished binding by the RNA polymerase II complex. CONCLUSION: Together, our results indicate that STAT1 binds proximally to regions of the genome that exhibit regulated transcriptional activity. This finding establishes a generalized basis for the positioning of STAT1 binding sites within the genome, and supports a role for STAT1 in the direct recruitment of the RNA polymerase II complex to the promoters of IFN-γ-responsive genes

Local elites and social control: Building council houses in Stirling between the wars

This article examines the role played by local councillors in constructing new housing in Scotland during the inter-war period. Rather than view local authorities as simply the objective agency of central government's ambitions to construct council houses, we argue that the self-interest and motivations of councillors have to be recognized as significant factors in this process. It is argued also that the concerns of private landlords were neither ignored nor sacrificed in the rush to build new housing. Rather, given that councils remained dominated by local business men, many of whom were private landlords, councillors acted in ways to protect their own material and class interests. In so doing, they consciously, if implicitly, shaped the social geography of twentieth-century Scotland

Maker Movements, Do-It-Yourself Cultures and Participatory Design: Implications for HCI Research

Falling costs and the wider availability of computational components, platforms and ecosystems have enabled the expansion of maker movements and DIY cultures. This can be considered as a form of democratization of technology systems design, in alignment with the aims of Participatory Design approaches. However, this landscape is constantly evolving, and long-term implications for the HCI community are far from clear. The organizers of this one-day workshop invite participants to present their case studies, experiences and perspectives on the topic with the goal of increasing understanding within this area of research. The outcomes of the workshop will include the articulation of future research directions with the purpose of informing a research agenda, as well as the establishment of new collaborations and networks

The Raploch: A history, people's perceptions and the likely future of a problem housing estate

This article explores the experience of belonging and identity, and the social distance and separateness which has long characterised aspects of Stirling’s Raploch housing estate. Detailed historical archive work uncovered the limited social planning and architectural ambitions set for this housing estate, when compared to the earlier Riverside development. The consequences of such decision making and subsequent poor management of the estate is then articulated through a series of qualitative interviews which explore attitudes to the construction and sustaining of neighbourhood and community identities. Achieving a physical solution to Raploch's social problems has eluded a series of recent regeneration initiatives and this paper suggests that the core problem is not primarily architectural but rather one of class related discrimination and stigma which has been core to Raploch's identity since the 16th Century