Towards quantifying the quality of tranquil areas with reference to the National Planning Policy Framework.

yesThe UK has recently recognized the importance of tranquil spaces in the National Planning Policy Framework, NPPF. This paper reports on applying the tranquillity rating prediction tool, TRAPT for predicting the perceived tranquillity of a place and using this tool to classify the levels of tranquillity in existing areas. The tool combines soundscape and landscape measures to produce a tranquillity rating on a 0-10 rating scales. For these purposes noise maps, spot noise level measurements, photographic surveys were used to predict tranquillity levels in 8 parks and open spaces in or near the city of Bradford in West Yorkshire in the UK. In addition interviews were conducted with visitors to validate these predictions. It was found that there was a reasonably close relationship between predicted and average assessments given by park visitors which confirmed the usefulness of the tranquillity rating prediction tool for planning and conservation purposes

Factors affecting tranquillity in the countryside.

yesPrevious work on elucidating the tranquillity of various environments has largely focussed on prediction and validation in urban environments. The setting for the latest phase of research was an English country park and surrounding moors on the urban fringe located 8 miles west of Bradford. Within the area selected there were a number of environments and man-made features and sounds that were thought to significantly affect tranquillity and which were not covered in earlier studies. The experiment extended over a number of months and utilised a jury technique for evaluation involving leading small groups of walkers to different locations in quasi-random order. At each location participants were asked to complete a short questionnaire and measurements of the physical soundscape and landscape images were used to interpret the results and give insights into the importance of the various factors affecting tranquillity. Such data will be useful for effective environmental management and conservation in the countryside

Investigation of noise and disturbance from vehicles crossing cattle grids and examination of options for mitigation

YesCattle grids are used on roads and tracks to prevent grazing animals from leaving an open space without fencing onto a more controlled area where access to the road from surrounded land is more limited. They are widely used in the UK at the entrances to common and moorland areas where animals are free to roam, but also on private drive entrances. Typically, they consist of a series of metal bars across the road that are spaced so that an animal’s legs would fall through the gaps if it attempted to cross. Below the grid is a shallow pit that is intended to further deter livestock from using that particular crossing point. The sound produced as vehicles cross these devices is a characteristic low frequency “brrrr” where the dominant frequencies relates to the bar passage frequency under the tyres. The sound can be disturbing to riders and their horses and walkers and residents living close by as evidenced by press reports and the need to consider noise aspects in planning for new installations. For this reason and due to the lack of available information on the size and nature of the problem measurements and recordings have been made at a number of sites in Yorkshire in the UK. In addition, questionnaire surveys of residents living close by and façade measurements have also been used to gauge impact. Results show that there is a wide variation in the maximum noise level produced by cattle grids of apparently similar design. This can be related to impact noise produced by the movement of all or part of the grid as the frame comes under impulsive loading as the vehicle crosses. It was further established that some residents living close to the cattle grids were disturbed by the noise, and in some cases vibration, and wanted them removed or suitably modified. Means of reducing the problem are proposed

Tranquillity and soundscapes in urban green spaces ¿ predicted and actual assessments from a questionnaire survey.

A pilot study had previously demonstrated the utility of a tranquillity prediction tool TRAPT for use in 3 green open spaces in a densely populated area. This allows the calculation of perceived levels of tranquillity in open spaces. The current study expands the range of sites to 8 and importantly considers the views of visitors to these spaces. In total 252 face to face interviews were conducted in these spaces. An important aim of the survey was to determine the extent to which reported tranquillity obtained from the questionnaire survey could be predicted by a previously developed prediction tool TRAPT. A further aim was to determine what additional factors may need to be considered in addition to the purely physical descriptors in TRAPT. The questions included the sounds and sights that were noticed, factors affecting tranquillity as well as questions relating to the benefits of visiting these areas. Predictions were considered satisfactory and could be further improved by taking account of issues surrounding personal safety. Examining the trends in these data it was also shown that the percentage of people feeling more relaxed after visiting the spaces was closely related to overall assessments of perceived tranquillity. Further trends and their implications are presented and discussed in the paper.Made available in full text March 2014 at the end of the publisher's embargo period

Measurement and subjective assessment of water generated sounds

YesThere is increasing concern with protecting quiet and tranquil areas from intrusive noise. Noise reduction at source and barriers to transmission are mitigation measures often considered. An alternative is to attempt to mask or distract attention away from the noise source. The masking or distracting sound source should be pleasant so that it does not add to any irritation caused by the noise source alone. The laboratory measurements described in this paper consisted of capturing under controlled conditions the third octave band spectra of water falling onto water, gravel, bricks and small boulders and various combinations. These spectra were then matched with typical traffic noise spectra to assess the degree of masking that could be expected for each option. Recordings were also taken during each measurement and these were used later to enable the subjective assessment of the tranquility of the sounds. It was found that there were differences between water sounds both in terms of masking and their subjective impact on tranquility

Identifying tranquil environments and quantifying impacts

The UK has recently recognized the importance of tranquil spaces in the National Planning Policy Framework. This policy framework places considerable emphasis on sustainable development with the aim of making planning more streamlined, localized and less restrictive. Specifically it states that planning policies and decisions should aim to "identify and protect areas of tranquillity which have remained relatively undisturbed by noise and are prized for their recreational and amenity value for this reason". This is considered by some (e.g. National Park Authorities) to go beyond merely identifying quiet areas based on relatively low levels of mainly transportation noise, as the concept of tranquillity implies additionally a consideration of visual intrusion of man-made structures and buildings into an otherwise perceived natural landscape. In the first instance this paper reports on applying a method for predicting the perceived tranquillity of a place and using this approach to classify the level of tranquillity in existing areas. It then seeks to determine the impact of a new build, by taking the example of the construction of wind turbines in the countryside. For this purpose; noise level measurements, photographs and jury assessments of tranquillity at a medium sized land based wind turbine were made. It was then possible to calculate the decrement of noise levels and visual prominence with distance in order to determine the improvement of tranquillity rating with increasing range. The point at which tranquillity was restored in the environment allowed the calculation of the position of the footprint boundary

The ‘‘ICE’’ Study: Feasibility of Inexpensive Commercial Coolers on Mobile EMS Units

Introduction: Prehospital postresuscitation induced hypothermia (IH) has been shown to reduce neurological complications in comatose cardiac-arrest survivors. Retrofitting ambulances to include equipment appropriate to initiate hypothermia, such as refrigeration units for cooled saline, is expensive. The objective of this nonhuman subject research study was to determine if inexpensive, commercially available coolers could, in conjunction with five reusable ice packs, keep two 1 L bags of precooled 0.9% normal saline solution (NSS) at or below 48C for an average shift of eight to 12 hours in a real-world environment, on board in-service Emergency Medical Service (EMS) units, over varying weather conditions in all seasons. Methods: The coolers were chosen based on availability and affordability from two nationally available brands: The Igloo MaxxCold (Igloo Products Corp., Katy, Texas USA) and Coleman (The Coleman Company, Wichita, Kansas USA). Both are 8.5 liter (nine-quart) coolers that were chosen because they adequately held two 1 L bags of saline solution, along with the reusable ice packs designated in the study design, and were small enough for ease of placement on ambulances. Initial testing of the coolers was conducted in a controlled environment. Thereafter, each EMS unit was responsible to cool the saline to less than 48C prior to shift. Data were collected by emergency medical technicians, paramedics, and resident physicians working in seven different ambulance squads. Data analysis was performed using repeated measurements recorded over a 12-hour period from 19 individual coolers and were summarized by individual time points using descriptive statistics. Results: Initial testing determined that the coolers maintained temperatures of 48C for 12 hours in a controlled environment. On the ambulances, results based on the repeated measurements over time revealed that the saline solution samples as defined in the protocol, remained consistently below 48C for 12 hours. Utilizing the lower bound of the 2- sided 95% exact binomial confidence intervals, there was less than a five percent chance that saline samples could not be maintained below 48C for 12 hours, even during the summer months. Conclusions: Simple, commercially available coolers can maintain two 1 L bags of 0.9% NSS at 48C for 12 hours in ambulances in varying environmental conditions. This suggests that EMS agencies could inexpensively initiate prehospital IH in appropriate cases

Evolutionary Modeling and Prediction of Non-Coding RNAs in Drosophila

We performed benchmarks of phylogenetic grammar-based ncRNA gene prediction, experimenting with eight different models of structural evolution and two different programs for genome alignment. We evaluated our models using alignments of twelve Drosophila genomes. We find that ncRNA prediction performance can vary greatly between different gene predictors and subfamilies of ncRNA gene. Our estimates for false positive rates are based on simulations which preserve local islands of conservation; using these simulations, we predict a higher rate of false positives than previous computational ncRNA screens have reported. Using one of the tested prediction grammars, we provide an updated set of ncRNA predictions for D. melanogaster and compare them to previously-published predictions and experimental data. Many of our predictions show correlations with protein-coding genes. We found significant depletion of intergenic predictions near the 3′ end of coding regions and furthermore depletion of predictions in the first intron of protein-coding genes. Some of our predictions are colocated with larger putative unannotated genes: for example, 17 of our predictions showing homology to the RFAM family snoR28 appear in a tandem array on the X chromosome; the 4.5 Kbp spanned by the predicted tandem array is contained within a FlyBase-annotated cDNA

Tranquillity trails - linking positive soundscapes for healthier cities

N

The effects of "greening" urban areas on the perceptions of tranquility

NoA number of studies have been conducted at the Bradford Centre for Sustainable Environments at the University of Bradford which have examined the effects of natural features on ratings of tranquillity. These include quantifying the effects of the percentage of natural and contextual features and man-made noise on rated tranquillity. Recently the resulting prediction equation TRAPT (Tranquillity Rating Prediction Tool) has been used to examine a number of scenarios including city parks and square, country parks and moorland areas and to relate predictions to ratings made by visitors to these green spaces and reported levels of relaxation. The tool has also been used for predicting tranquillity in city squares of different sizes, to examine tranquillity behind natural (green) and manufactured noise barriers and to assess the benefits of “greening” streets in urban areas using avenues of trees, hedges and grass verges. The paper reviews these studies and gives examples of the extent to which introducing vegetation is predicted to provide benefits