A qualitative investigation of older pedestrian views of influences on their road crossing safety

With Australia’s population rapidly ageing, older pedestrian safety has begun to receive greater attention from road safety researchers. However, reliance on simulator studies and observational techniques has limited current understanding of why older pedestrians adopt particular crossing behaviours, and how they perceive crossing the road. The current study aimed to investigate the psychological factors that may contribute to older pedestrians’ crash risk by examining their perceptions of the issues they encounter on the road. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with 18 pedestrians aged 55 years and older were conducted, and the interview transcripts underwent thematic analysis. From this analysis, four key themes emerged. Firstly, the physical design of the road was perceived as posing a significant threat for older pedestrians, particularly sloped, semi-mountable kerbs and designated crossings. Secondly, declines in older pedestrians’ confidence in their ability to cross the road were evident through fewer reported risks being taken. Additionally, older pedestrians sensed an increased threat from other road users when crossing the road, particularly from drivers and cyclists. Finally, older pedestrians referred to the informal rules and strategies used to guide their road crossing. The results suggest that the road environment is perceived as increasingly dangerous and hazardous environment for older pedestrians. Implications regarding the physical road design in areas with an existing high proportion of elderly people are discussed

Social influences on drivers in China

China is one of Asia’s many rapidly-motorising nations and recent increases in private-vehicle ownership have been coupled with an escalation in novice drivers. Several pieces of road safety legislation have been introduced in recent decades in China. While managing the legal aspects of road use is important, social influences on driver behaviour may offer alternative avenues to alter behaviour, particularly in a culture where such factors carry high importance. This paper reports qualitative research with Beijing drivers to investigate social influence factors that have, to date, received little attention in the literature. Findings indicated that family members, friends, and driving instructors appear influential on driver behaviour and that some newly licensed drivers seek additional assistance to facilitate the transition from learning to drive in a controlled environment to driving on the road in complex conditions. Strategies to avoid detection and penalties for inappropriate road use were described, many of which involved the use of a third person. These findings indicate potential barriers to implementing effective traffic enforcement and highlight the importance of understanding culturally-specific social factors relating to driver behaviour

From Bit Valley to Bitcoin: the NASDAQ Odyssey

Over the past 15 years, NASDAQ, the world’s first all-electronic stock exchange, has actively engaged in efforts to serve the global digital economy by expanding its reach beyond its original domestic U.S. market. They have attempted to create a global 24/7 trading platform, to serve customers in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. These efforts have met with varying degrees of success. More recently, the renamed NASDAQ OMX Group has been experimenting with the disruptive fintech (financial technology) Bitcoin and its underlying technology blockchain to develop robust trading solutions, which drastically reduce transaction and record keeping costs. In this paper we analyze the various approaches taken by NASDAQ in its expansion ventures. We describe the similarities and differences in these undertakings, in order to identify successful strategies for firms who desire to increase the quality of their products while increasing efficiency and reducing the costs of their services. Drawing upon the strategy literature, we also develop theoretical models on how markets operate, and derive a series of propositions about the interplay between technology and markets

Lightning Studies Using VHF Waveform Data

Several atmospheric electricity studies were begun utilizing VHF lightning data obtained with the lightning detection and ranging system (LDAR) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The LDAR system uses differences in the time of arrival of electromagnetic noise generated by the lightning process to seven antennas to calculate very accurate three dimensional locations of lightning. New software was developed to obtain the source location of multiple, simultaneous, and spatially separate lightning signatures. Three studies utilizing these data were begun this summer: (1) VHF observations of simultaneous lightning, (2) ground based VHF observations of transionospheric pulse pairs (TIPPs), and (3) properties of intra-cloud recoil streamers. The principal result of each of these studies are: (1) lightning commonly occurs in well separated (2-50 km) regions simultaneously, (2) large amplitude pairs of VHF pulses are commonly observed on the ground but had not been previously identified due to the large number of signals usually observed in the VHF noise of close lightning, and (3) the VHF Q-noise and pulse signatures associated with K-changes within intra-cloud lightning propagate at velocities of more than 10(exp 8) m/s. The interim results of these three studies are reviewed in this brief report

There Are Moments That Hang Suspended

This project is the culmination of ten years of work in poetry. It was begun in imitation of those who impressed, not only with their fine words and dexterity with language, but also with their clear conviction in their subject material. Reflected in the works of Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, and Adrienne Rich, among others, was evidence of a life lived, in Thoreau\u27s term, deliberately. The writing of poetry seemed to be not simply a means of expression, but a goad to live a life worth examining, and to keep doing so; a progress report for a radical mind. Politics and poetry have always been connected, though at times the connection is difficult to locate. Overtly political poems often flop rather than booming; didactic, sentimental, tinny. If the connection between them is not found solely in the political poem, maybe it can be found in the conditions of the poem\u27s creation. Life is so often ineffable, betraying words and the minds that would use them. To write a poem, one must first be connected to life, using that connection to enliven inert language. The political journey of poetry is the management of that relationship, and the deliberate definition of its forms and avenues. The first and best tool in this process is attention. This includes attention to oneself, to the myriad entities, relationships, institutions and literatures surrounding the writer, and finally to the poem itself. If a poem is to stand as a piece of art, it is measured by its intentionality, by the evidence of its purposefulness. Though the situation that occasions a poem must be considered as given, the poem, as response, is in effect a series of choices. These choices are the essence of the poem itself, and they are moral choices. Which word to use, how to break a line, how to represent one\u27s perspective on the world, are choices which directly entangle the poet with their surroundings, with their language and literature, and with their reader. This sense of the primacy of a living relationship, of a poetry that knows it is in the world and cannot forget that fact, is perhaps the first choice. Then, in the words of Adrienne Rich, I hope you find here: not a map of choices but a map of variations/on the one great choice

Contending expertise: an interpretive approach to (re)conceiving wind power's 'planning problem'

We explore the complex and multidimensional nature of wind power's ‘planning problem’ by investigating the ways different knowledges and knowledge holders seek to accumulate authority over the ‘facts’ of a situation. This is undertaken through an interpretive analysis of how different parties to contentious wind farm debates in Ireland strived to mobilize contending realities wherein they were advantageously positioned as credible sources of knowledge. We advance a novel approach grounded in rhetorical theory that reveals and explains how the different parties to these debates deployed nuanced discursive strategies that constituted their character (ethos) by skilfully interlacing implicit and explicit portrayals of scientific objectivity (logos) with emotive subjectivity (pathos). In doing so, we identify the important role played by ‘rescaling’ in privileging and marginalizing different perspectives within both the contending discourses and the formal processes of planning application assessment. We draw conclusions from this analysis regarding broader debates in environmental governance and suggest how wind power's ‘planning problem’ should be reconceived

Silicon Stoke 2023: Developing Film and TV Content in North Staffordshire

A report, commissioned by Stoke-on-Trent city council to identify areas for growth and approaches for levelling up the screening industries in North Staffordshire