Social Equity Impacts of Congestion Management Strategies

This white paper examines the social equity impacts of various congestion management strategies. The paper includes a comprehensive list of 30 congestion management strategies and a discussion of equity implications related to each strategy. The authors analyze existing literature and incorporate findings from 12 expert interviews from academic, non-governmental organization (NGO), public, and private sector respondents to strengthen results and fill gaps in understanding. The literature review applies the Spatial – Temporal – Economic – Physiological – Social (STEPS) Equity Framework (Shaheen et al., 2017) to identify impacts and classify whether social equity barriers are reduced, exacerbated, or both by a particular congestion mitigation measure. The congestion management strategies discussed are grouped into six main categories, including: 1) pricing, 2) parking and curb policies, 3) operational strategies, 4) infrastructure changes, 5) transportation services and strategies, and 6) conventional taxation. The findings show that the social equity impacts of certain congestion management strategies are not well understood, at present, and further empirical research is needed. Congestion mitigation measures have the potential to affect travel costs, commute times, housing, and accessibility in ways that are distinctly positive or negative for different populations. For these reasons, social equity implications of congestion management strategies should be understood and mitigated for in planning and implementation of these strategies

Policy Brief: Social Equity Impacts of Congestion Management Strategies

To better understand the equity implications of a variety of congestion management strategies, researchers at the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) at University of California, Berkeley analyzed existing literature on congestion management strategies and findings from 12 expert interviews. The literature review applies the Spatial – Temporal – Economic – Physiological – Social (STEPS) Equity Framework1 to identify impacts and classify whether social equity barriers are reduced, exacerbated, or both by a particular strategy. The congestion management strategies of interest were categorized into six broader categories: 1) pricing, 2) parking and curb policies, 3) operational strategies, 4) infrastructure changes, 5) transportation services and strategies, and 6) conventional taxation

Unveiling precedent: Reclaiming the power of women in the early church

Beginning in the earliest Christian churches in the first century and continuing in Christianity today, the religious role of women has been the subject of constant debate. Time and time again, the position of women in the church has been used to gauge orthodoxy, and delineating their proper roles has been the focus of numerous church councils, theologians, and religious authorities. However, unlike other church doctrines, the orthodox position of women has yet to be definitely established. Rather, it has been perpetually in flux, not only within the Catholic Church, but also among the many denominations of Christianity. As a result, Christian women who wish to dedicate their lives to some form of ministry are faced with the difficult question of where they can or should serve. How do we reconcile, for example, the apostle Paul’s statement in Galatians 3:28 that there is neither “male nor female” with his assertion that women were not to teach or speak in church?1 For this reason, I found it necessary to investigate the position of women in the early church to discover exactly what roles women held, how their roles changed, and the reason behind this change

Integrated health and care systems in England : can they help prevent disease?

Objectives: Over the past 12 months, there has been increasing policy rhetoric regarding the role of the NHS in preventing disease and improving population health. In particular, the NHS Long Term Plan sees integrated care systems (ICSs) and sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) as routes to improving disease prevention. Here, we place current NHS England integrated care plans in their historical context and review evidence on the relationship between integrated care and prevention. We ask how the NHS Long Term Plan may help prevent disease and explore the role of the 2019 ICS and STP plans in delivering this change. Methods: We reviewed the evidence underlying the relationship between integrated care and disease prevention, and analysed 2016 STP plans for content relating to disease prevention and population health. Results: The evidence of more integrated care leading to better disease prevention is weak. Although nearly all 2016 STP plans included a prevention or population health strategy, fewer than half specified how they will work with local government public health teams, and there was incomplete coverage across plans about how they would meet NHS England prevention priorities. Plans broadly focused on individual-level approaches to disease prevention, with few describing interventions addressing social determinants of health. Conclusions: For ICSs and STPs to meaningfully prevent disease and improve population health, they need to look beyond their 2016 plans and fill the gaps in the Long Term Plan on social determinants

Obstacles vs. resources: comparing the effects of a problem-focused, solution-focused and combined approach on perceived goal attainability and commitment.

Previous research suggests that solution-focused (SF) questions may be superior to problem-focused (PF) alternatives for a range of practical and psychological outcomes. However, a great deal remains unknown regarding the effects of specific SF (or PF) approaches and the mechanisms through which they occur. The aim of this pre-registered study was to investigate the extent to which SF questions targeting resources have a more positive effect on perceived goal attainability (PGA) and goal commitment than PF questions targeting obstacles or a combination of PF & SF questions targeting both resources and obstacles. 115 students aged 15-16 were randomly assigned to either (i) a SF condition targeting resources, (ii) a PF condition targeting obstacles or (iii) a combined-approach condition targeting both. All participants were asked to identify a challenging area of study before answering condition-specific questions. Although not all statistically significant, results indicated that the SF group had higher mean PGA and goal commitment than both the PF and combined PF & SF group. Effect size estimates were small-to-medium for PGA and small for goal commitment. Results of a mediation analysis suggested that condition had an indirect effect on goal commitment through enhanced PGA. Qualitative data analysis suggested that the PF question was more likely than the SF question to elicit thoughts of self-regulation, whereas the SF question was more likely to elicit thoughts of tools and resources. These findings are consistent with those from previous research and broaden our understanding of SF (vs PF) questions

The effect of solution-focused scaling and solution-focused questions on expectancy and commitment.

Solution-focused (SF) approaches are widely used in schools. The present study examined the effects of a central SF technique—'scaling'—on female secondary students’ improvement expectancy (IE) and commitment to improvement (CTI). Popular follow-up questions were also tested. In Experiment 1, 120 students were randomly assigned to a 'success scaling', 'success scaling' plus follow-up SF question, or control condition. IE and CTI were higher in the scaling conditions than in the control group, but differences were small and not statistically significant. In Experiment 2, 115 students were randomly assigned to a 'success scaling' plus one SF question, 'success scaling' plus two SF questions, or problem-focused condition. Students in the doubly augmented scaling condition reported higher IE and CTI than students in the other conditions. However, differences were small and not statistically significant. The results of this study suggest that (success) scaling techniques may not be as effective as is widely supposed. Impact Statement Solution-focused (SF) approaches are common in schools and used by both teachers and school psychologists. However, SF approaches are generally multicomponent interventions, making it impossible to identify effective techniques. The present study provides the most thorough experimental evidence to date for the effectiveness of the central SF technique: (success) scaling

A phonologically congruent sound boosts a visual target into perceptual awareness

Capacity limitations of attentional resources allow only a fraction of sensory inputs to enter our awareness. Most prominently, in the attentional blink the observer often fails to detect the second of two rapidly successive targets that are presented in a sequence of distractor items. To investigate how auditory inputs enable a visual target to escape the attentional blink, this study presented the visual letter targets T1 and T2 together with phonologically congruent or incongruent spoken letter names. First, a congruent relative to an incongruent sound at T2 rendered visual T2 more visible. Second, this T2 congruency effect was amplified when the sound was congruent at T1 as indicated by a T1 congruency × T2 congruency interaction. Critically, these effects were observed both when the sounds were presented in synchrony with and prior to the visual target letters suggesting that the sounds may increase visual target identification via multiple mechanisms such as audiovisual priming or decisional interactions. Our results demonstrate that a sound around the time of T2 increases subjects' awareness of the visual target as a function of T1 and T2 congruency. Consistent with Bayesian causal inference, the brain may thus combine (1) prior congruency expectations based on T1 congruency and (2) phonological congruency cues provided by the audiovisual inputs at T2 to infer whether auditory and visual signals emanate from a common source and should hence be integrated for perceptual decisions

Correction: Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Multiple Sclerosis and Migraine.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.PMCID: PMC3613438PMCID: PMC3613438PMCID: PMC3613438PMCID: PMC3613438[This corrects the article on p. e45295 in vol. 7.]

Structure- and context-based analysis of the GxGYxYP family reveals a new putative class of glycoside hydrolase.

BackgroundGut microbiome metagenomics has revealed many protein families and domains found largely or exclusively in that environment. Proteins containing the GxGYxYP domain are over-represented in the gut microbiota, and are found in Polysaccharide Utilization Loci in the gut symbiont Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, suggesting their involvement in polysaccharide metabolism, but little else is known of the function of this domain.ResultsGenomic context and domain architecture analyses support a role for the GxGYxYP domain in carbohydrate metabolism. Sparse occurrences in eukaryotes are the result of lateral gene transfer. The structure of the GxGYxYP domain-containing protein encoded by the BT2193 locus reveals two structural domains, the first composed of three divergent repeats with no recognisable homology to previously solved structures, the second a more familiar seven-stranded β/α barrel. Structure-based analyses including conservation mapping localise a presumed functional site to a cleft between the two domains of BT2193. Matching to a catalytic site template from a GH9 cellulase and other analyses point to a putative catalytic triad composed of Glu272, Asp331 and Asp333.ConclusionsWe suggest that GxGYxYP-containing proteins constitute a novel glycoside hydrolase family of as yet unknown specificity