Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security: Integrated Approaches to Addressing Multiple Challenges in the Coral Triangle

The Coral Triangle is the most biologically and economically valuable marine ecosystem on the planet. Covering just three percent of the globe, the region represents more than half of the world's reefs and boasts 76 percent of its known coral species. Sustaining more than 130 million people who rely directly on the marine ecosystems for their livelihoods and food, the marine habitats of the Coral Triangle contribute billions of dollars each year toward the economies of the region.Although the environmental imperative for preserving this area of incredible value and biodiversity is obvious, the growing pressures and threats from widespread poverty, rapid development, and global demands continue to place enormous strain on the natural marine resources of the Coral Triangle

The Innovation Deficit: The importance of the physical office post-COVID-19

After more than a year of dealing with the fallout from COVID-19, much has been learnt about the benefits of working from home. There is plenty of evidence for people wishing to retain at least some of the flexibility that working from home has brought post-pandemic. However, what has also been shown is that a well-designed office is more often better than home at supporting some types of activity, especially those involving socialisation and collaboration with others. This paper takes stock of what the office is good for and argues that without opportunities to meet in unplanned ways face-to-face, innovation, the life blood of many businesses, is at risk. In so doing a different way to think about the post-pandemic office is proffered; one that is designed to realise the benefits that being physically co-present can bring and thus avoid the so-called innovation deficit. By using this way of thinking, this paper concludes with an evaluation of how some organisations are already ‘re-imagining’ their post-pandemic workplaces

Data-driven design — Using data on human behaviour and spatial configuration to inform better workplace design

Recent studies have shown that the majority of staff are dissatisfied with their workplace environment. At the same time, scientists are beginning to discover clearer and recurring patterns that show how the spatial design of a workplace affects staff satisfaction, well-being, exchange of information, communication and movement flows. This paper argues that insights from this body of research could be used to improve workplace design. It gives an overview of evidence-based and data-driven design as new emerging practices, which base design decisions on rigorously collected data. Using various case studies from Spacelab — a London-based practice — as an example, the paper shows how the typical needs of clients can be solved more profoundly by relying on data rather than intuition, opinion or office politics. The main insights include answers to the questions of how to fit more people into a space, whether everyone needs a desk, who should sit where, how to find the perfect property and how to establish the success of a project. In conclusion, the paper identifies key barriers for the further integration of research findings into design practice and suggests how they might be overcome in the future

Spatial databases: Generating new insights on office design and human behaviours in the workplace

Space Syntax research has shown how human behaviours in the workplace are shaped by spatial configuration; in turn, evidence-based design practices have highlighted ways in which this data can be used to inform tailor-made solutions in office design. Yet, existing research focuses on either single case studies or comparisons of a few cases on a small scale. Also, each study uses its own methods and metrics which makes it difficult to establish wider patterns beyond single datasets. This paper presents a larger than usual data set on workplaces, which has been collected by Spacelab, a design and consultancy practice based in London. This dataset includes spatial and space usage information such as syntactic analysis and desk occupancy on client companies. It resides in a spatial relational database, allowing for systematic combination of the collected data, useful for doing either deeper analysis, or generating benchmarks and baselines. These insights are not only highly relevant to clients but also give rise to opportunities to generate new insights on office design and human behaviours in the workplace from a research perspective Two main research questions relating to the size of samples are discussed: Firstly, whether large samples are necessary to fully understand phenomena, and secondly, whether behavioural patterns vary across cases. Observation data and syntactic analysis are combined to understand in which areas of an office different activities take place. Observation data is also brought together with the functional allocations of space in order to ask whether activities follow the programme introduced by functions such as meeting rooms, kitchens, workspaces, etc. It is shown that observation data only becomes robust and reliable with longer periods of observations than previously recommended. Three to four full days seems to produce reasonably stable results for desk occupancy, while five full days seemed required for percentages of people walking and interacting. Some surprising findings were revealed regarding the distribution of activities in space, for instance dispelling the myth that interactions happen in corridors and highlighting that interactions tend to occur in rather segregated spaces. While it is argued that predictive power of the analysis varies, first steps towards establishing generic patterns have clearly been taken

Hydrological effects of the temporal variability of the multiscaling of snowfall on the Canadian prairies

Daily historical snowfall data were analysed with the objective of determining the stability of their variability at short temporal scales. The data are weakly multifractal over periods shorter than one month, which controls their scaling properties and which can be used to statistically downscale monthly data to shorter-duration values. Although the daily snowfall values appear to be stationary, their multifractality displays much temporal variability, with most sites showing statistically-significant trends. Through use of a physically-based hydrological model, it is demonstrated that the variability of the multiscaling of snowfall can affect the timing and quantity of snow accumulation in catchments where the snowpacks are subject to wind redistribution. Therefore trends in scaling, based on multifractal characteristics, should be taken into account when downscaling climate model scenario outputs

Feasibility of a randomized controlled trial of functional strength training for people between six months and five years after stroke: FeSTivaLS trial

Background: Functional Strength Training (FST) could enhance recovery late after stroke. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a subsequent fully powered, randomized controlled trial. Methods: The study was designed as a randomized, observer-blind trial. Both interventions were provided for up to one hour a day, four days a week, for six weeks. Evaluation points were before randomization (baseline), after six weeks intervention (outcome), and six weeks thereafter (follow-up). The study took place in participants’ own homes. Participants (n = 52) were a mean of 24.4 months after stroke with a mean age of 68.3 years with 67.3% male. All had difficulty using their paretic upper (UL) and lower limb (LL). Participants were allocated to FST-UL or FST-LL by an independent randomization service. The outcome measures were recruitment rate, attrition rate, practicality of recruitment strategies, occurrence of adverse reactions, acceptability of FST, and estimation of sample size for a subsequent trial. Primary clinical efficacy outcomes were the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and the Functional Ambulation Categories (FAC). Analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of participants’ views of FST. A power calculation used estimates of clinical efficacy variance to estimate sample size for a subsequent trial. Results: The screening process identified 1,127 stroke survivors of whom 52 (4.6%) were recruited. The recruitment rate was higher for referral from community therapists than for systematic identification of people discharged from an acute stroke unit. The attrition rate was 15.5% at the outcome and follow-up time-points. None of the participants experienced an adverse reaction. The participants who remained in the study at outcome had received 68% of the total possible amount of therapy. Participants reported that their experience of FST provided a sense of purpose and involvement and increased their confidence in performing activities. The power calculation provides estimation that 150 participants in each group will be required for a subsequent clinical trial. Conclusions: This study found that a subsequent clinical trial was feasible with modifications to the recruitment strategy to be used

Measurement of parity-nonconserving rotation of neutron spin in the 0.734-eV p-wave resonance of 139La^{139}La

The parity nonconserving spin rotation of neutrons in the 0.734-eV p-wave resonance of $^{139}La$ was measured with the neutron transmission method. Two optically polarized $^3He$ cells were used before and behind a a 5-cm long $^{139}La$ target as a polarizer and an analyzer of neutron spin. The rotation angle was carefully measured by flipping the direction of $^3He$ polarization in the polarizer in sequence. The peak-to-peak value of the spin rotation was found to be $(7.4 \pm 1.1) \times 10^{-3}$ rad/cm which was consistent with the previous experiments. But the result was statisticallly improved. The s-p mixing model gives the weak matrix element as $xW = (1.71 \pm 0.25)$ meV. The value agrees well with the one deduced from the parity-nonconserving longitudinal asymmetry in the same resonance

The Generative Office Building

The Space Syntax concept of the generative and conservative building describes the effect of spatial configuration on knowledge creation: a building that acts generatively allows new relationships, new ideas, new products and new knowledge to emerge by maximising random encounters between people. In contrast, a building that acts conservatively preserves and mirrors existing relationships, existing ideas and existing knowledge by reinforcing a specific interface between people. A key criterion for the generativity of a building was proposed to be an integrative layout. However, evidence of patterns of encounter, movement flows and organisational behaviour suggests that not every building with high levels of integration is automatically generative of new knowledge. What is more, looking at a spatial layout it is difficult to judge whether the level of integration is rather high or low given size and structure of the space (e.g. number of floors, size of floor plate). Therefore the question of what constitutes a generative office building remains unanswered. Using a large sample of 62 different organisations and their office spaces, this paper therefore aims to create a better understanding of what renders an office building generative or conservative, by expanding on the original theory of generativity and including a more detailed articulation of the spatial qualities that are influential. For the analysis, results of a VGA of each of the office buildings in the sample are compared, investigating not only overall levels of integration, but also the distribution of integration and the relationship between integration levels and structural features. This allows the construction of a benchmark of possible ranges of integration for office buildings. It is further investigated which of the buildings are deemed generative by the inhabitants and how this relates to various spatial characteristics. The paper finally proposes a variety of different factors that may have a bearing on the generativity of an office building. This list of factors combines suggestions from the original theory of generative and conservative buildings with additional syntactical, spatial and organisational aspects of space usage. The paper concludes that the generativity of an office space depends on several factors and features, including but not limited to integration and syntactical measures that can be analysed on the basis of a floor plan. Implications for theory and workplace consultancy practice are discussed and reflected on

A High Efficiency Ultra High Vacuum Compatible Flat Field Spectrometer for EUV Wavelengths

A custom, flat field, extreme ultraviolet EUV spectrometer built specifically for use with low power light sources that operate under ultrahigh vacuum conditions is reported. The spectral range of the spectrometer extends from 4 nm to 40 nm. The instrument optimizes the light gathering power and signal to noise ratio while achieving good resolution. A detailed description of the spectrometer and design considerations are presented, as well as a novel procedure that could be used to obtain a synthetic wavelength calibration with the aid of only a single known spectral feature. This synthetic wavelength calibration is compared to a standard wavelength calibration obtained from previously reported spectral lines of Xe, Ar and Ne ions recorded with this spectrometer

Turning with the others: novel transitions in an SPP model with coupling of accelerations

We consider a three dimensional, generalized version of the original SPP model for collective motion. By extending the factors influencing the ordering, we investigate the case when the movement of the self-propelled particles (SPP-s) depends on both the velocity and the acceleration of the neighboring particles, instead of being determined solely by the former one. By changing the value of a weight parameter s determining the relative influence of the velocity and the acceleration terms, the system undergoes a kinetic phase transition as a function of a behavioral pattern. Below a critical value of s the system exhibits disordered motion, while above it the dynamics resembles that of the SPP model. We argue that in nature evolutionary processes can drive the strategy variable s towards the critical point, where information exchange between the units of a system is maximal.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys Rev