Building governance and energy efficiency: Mapping the interdisciplinary challenge

Improving the energy efficiency of multi-owned properties (MoPs)—commonly known as apartment or condominium buildings—is central to the achievement of European energy targets. However, little work to date has focused on how to facilitate retrofit in this context. Drawing on interdisciplinary Social Sciences and Humanities expertise in academia, policy and practice, this chapter posits that decision-making processes within MoPs might provide a key to the retrofit challenge. Existing theories or models of decision-making, applied in the MoP context, might help to explain how collective retrofit decisions are taken—or overlooked. Insights from case studies and practitioners are also key. Theories of change might then be employed to develop strategies to facilitate positive retrofit decisions. The chapter maps the issues and sets an agenda for further interdisciplinary research in this novel area

Finding and Resolving Security Misusability with Misusability Cases

Although widely used for both security and usability concerns, scenarios used in security design may not necessarily inform the design of usability, and vice- versa. One way of using scenarios to bridge security and usability involves explicitly describing how design deci- sions can lead to users inadvertently exploiting vulnera- bilities to carry out their production tasks. This paper describes how misusability cases, scenarios that describe how design decisions may lead to usability problems sub- sequently leading to system misuse, address this problem. We describe the related work upon which misusability cases are based before presenting the approach, and illus- trating its application using a case study example. Finally, we describe some findings from this approach that further inform the design of usable and secure systems

Using virtual reality in criminological research

Since the pioneering early studies of the 1990s hinted at its promise as a research method, virtual reality (VR) technology has increasingly been used by social scientists. Given recent developments that have greatly enhanced realism, reduced costs, and increased possibilities for application, VR seems well on its way to become an established research tool in the social sciences. However, as with other ethodological innovations, the field of criminology hasbeen slow to catch on. To address this gap, this article explores the potential of VR as a tool for crime research. It provides readers with a brief and non-technical description of VR and its main elements and reviews severalapplications of VR in social scientific research that are potentially relevant for criminologists. By way of illustration, we identify and discuss in more detail different areas in which we think the field of criminology can particularly benefit from VR and offer suggestions for research. Some of the equipment available on the consumer market is also reviewed.In conjunction, the different sections should equip readers interested in applying VR in their own research with a fundamental understanding of what it entails and how it can be applied

Incorporating psychology into cyber security education: A pedagogical approach

The role of the human in cyber security is well acknowledged. Many cyber security incidents rely upon targets performing specific behavioural actions, such as opening a link within a phishing email. Cyber adversaries themselves are driven by psychological processes such as motivation, group dynamics and social identity. Furthermore, both intentional and unintentional insider threats are associated with a range of psychological factors, including cognitive load, mental wellbeing, trust and interpersonal relations. By incorporating psychology into cyber security education, practitioners will be better equipped with the skills they need to address cyber security issues. However, there are challenges in doing so. Psychology is a broad discipline, and many theories, approaches and methods may have little practical significance to cyber security. There is a need to sift through the literature to identify what can be applied to cyber security. There are also pedagogical differences in how psychology and cyber security are taught and also psychological differences in the types of student that may typically study psychology and cyber security. To engage with cyber security students, it is important that these differences are identified and positively addressed. Essential to this endeavor is the need to discuss and collaborate across the two disciplines. In this paper, we explore these issues and discuss our experiences as psychology and cyber security academics who work across disciplines to deliver psychology education to cyber security students, practitioners and commercial clients

Facial-muscle weakness, speech disorders and dysphagia are common in patients with classic infantile Pompe disease treated with enzyme therapy

Classic infantile Pompe disease is an inherited generalized glycogen storage disorder caused by deficiency of lysosomal acid α-glucosidase. If left untreated, patients die before one year of age. Although enzyme-replacement therapy (ERT) has significantly prolonged lifespan, it has also revealed new aspects of the disease. For up to 11 years, we investigated the frequency and consequences of facial-muscle weakness, speech disorders and dysphagia in long-term survivors. Sequential photographs were used to determine the timing and severity of facial-muscle weakness. Using standardized articulation tests and fibreoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing, we investigated speech and swallowing function in a subset of patients. This study included 11 patients with classic infantile Pompe disease. Median age at the start of ERT was 2.4 months (range 0.1-8.3 months), and median age at the end of the study was 4.3 years (range 7.7 months −12.2 years). All patients developed facial-muscle weakness before the age of 15 months. Speech was studied in four patients. Articulation was disordered, with hypernasal resonance and reduced speech intelligibility in all four. Swallowing function was studied in six patients, the most important findings being ineffective swallowing with residues of food (5/6), penetration or aspiration (3/6), and reduced pharyngeal and/or laryngeal sensibility (2/6). We conclude that facial-muscle weakness, speech disorders and dysphagia are common in long-term survivors receiving ERT for classic infantile Pompe disease. To improve speech and reduce the risk for aspiration, early treatment by a speech therapist and regular swallowing assessments are recommended

Bystander responses to a violent incident in an immersive virtual environment

Under what conditions will a bystander intervene to try to stop a violent attack by one person on another? It is generally believed that the greater the size of the crowd of bystanders, the less the chance that any of them will intervene. A complementary model is that social identity is critical as an explanatory variable. For example, when the bystander shares common social identity with the victim the probability of intervention is enhanced, other things being equal. However, it is generally not possible to study such hypotheses experimentally for practical and ethical reasons. Here we show that an experiment that depicts a violent incident at life-size in immersive virtual reality lends support to the social identity explanation. 40 male supporters of Arsenal Football Club in England were recruited for a two-factor between-groups experiment: the victim was either an Arsenal supporter or not (in-group/out-group), and looked towards the participant for help or not during the confrontation. The response variables were the numbers of verbal and physical interventions by the participant during the violent argument. The number of physical interventions had a significantly greater mean in the ingroup condition compared to the out-group. The more that participants perceived that the Victim was looking to them for help the greater the number of interventions in the in-group but not in the out-group. These results are supported by standard statistical analysis of variance, with more detailed findings obtained by a symbolic regression procedure based on genetic programming. Verbal interventions made during their experience, and analysis of post-experiment interview data suggest that in-group members were more prone to confrontational intervention compared to the out-group who were more prone to make statements to try to diffuse the situation

Politeness and compassion differentially predict adherence to fairness norms and interventions to norm violations in economic games

Adherence to norms and interventions to norm violations are two important forms of social behaviour modelled in economic games. While both appear to serve a prosocial function, they may represent separate mechanisms corresponding with distinct emotional and psychological antecedents, and thus may be predicted by different personality traits. In this study, we compared adherence to fairness norms in the dictator game with responses to violations of the same norms in third-party punishment and recompensation games with respect to prosocial traits from the Big Five and HEXACO models of personality. The results revealed a pattern of differential relations between prosocial traits and game behaviours. While norm adherence in the dictator game was driven by traits reflecting good manners and non-aggression (i.e., the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness and HEXACO honesty-humility), third-party recompensation of victims—and to a lesser extent, punishment of offenders—was uniquely driven by traits reflecting emotional concern for others (the compassion aspect of Big Five agreeableness). These findings demonstrate the discriminant validity between similar prosocial constructs and highlight the different prosocial motivations underlying economic game behaviours

Incipient Social Groups: An Analysis via In-Vivo Behavioral Tracking

Social psychology is fundamentally the study of individuals in groups, yet there remain basic unanswered questions about group formation, structure, and change. We argue that the problem is methodological. Until recently, there was no way to track who was interacting with whom with anything approximating valid resolution and scale. In the current study we describe a new method that applies recent advances in image-based tracking to study incipient group formation and evolution with experimental precision and control. In this method, which we term "in vivo behavioral tracking," we track individuals' movements with a high definition video camera mounted atop a large field laboratory. We report results of an initial study that quantifies the composition, structure, and size of the incipient groups. We also apply in-vivo spatial tracking to study participants' tendency to cooperate as a function of their embeddedness in those crowds. We find that participants form groups of seven on average, are more likely to approach others of similar attractiveness and (to a lesser extent) gender, and that participants' gender and attractiveness are both associated with their proximity to the spatial center of groups (such that women and attractive individuals are more likely than men and unattractive individuals to end up in the center of their groups). Furthermore, participants' proximity to others early in the study predicted the effort they exerted in a subsequent cooperative task, suggesting that submergence in a crowd may predict social loafing. We conclude that in vivo behavioral tracking is a uniquely powerful new tool for answering longstanding, fundamental questions about group dynamics

The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face

Can the effects of social comparison extend beyond explicit evaluation to visual self-representation—a perceptual stimulus that is objectively verifiable, unambiguous, and frequently updated? We morphed images of participants' faces with attractive and unattractive references. With access to a mirror, participants selected the morphed image they perceived as depicting their face. Participants who engaged in upward comparison with relevant attractive targets selected a less attractive morph compared to participants exposed to control images (Study 1). After downward comparison with relevant unattractive targets compared to control images, participants selected a more attractive morph (Study 2). Biased representations were not the products of cognitive accessibility of beauty constructs; comparisons did not influence representations of strangers' faces (Study 3). We discuss implications for vision, social comparison, and body image