Identifying the task variables that predict object assembly difficulty.

We investigated the physical attributes of an object that influence the difficulty of its assembly. Identifying attributes that contribute to assembly difficulty will provide a method for predicting assembly complexity

An objective examination of consumer perception of nutrition information based on healthiness ratings

Objective. Previous research on nutrition labelling has mainly used subjective measures. This study examines the effectiveness of two types of nutrition label using two objective measures: eye movements and healthiness ratings. Design. Eye movements were recorded while participants made healthiness ratings for two types of nutrition label: standard and standard plus the Food Standards Agency’s ‘traffic light’ concept. Setting. University of Derby, UK. Subjects. 92 participants (mean age 31.5 years) were paid for their participation. None of the participants worked in the areas of food or nutrition. Results. For the standard nutrition label, participant eye movements lacked focus and their healthiness ratings lacked accuracy. The traffic light system helped to guide the attention of the consumer to the important nutrients and improved the accuracy of the healthiness ratings of nutrition labels. Conclusions. Consumer’s have a lack of knowledge regarding how to interpret nutrition information for standard labels. The traffic light concept helps to ameliorate this problem by indicating important nutrients to pay attention to

One thousand good things in Nature: aspects of nearby Nature associated with improved connection to Nature

As our interactions with nature occur increasingly within urban landscapes, there is a need to consider how ‘mundane nature’ can be valued as a route for people to connect to nature. The content of a three good things in nature intervention, written by 65 participants each day for five days is analysed. Content analysis produced themes related to sensations, temporal change, active wildlife, beauty, weather, colour, good feelings and specific aspects of nature. The themes describe the everyday good things in nature, providing direction for those seeking to frame engaging conservation messages, plan urban spaces and connect people with nearby nature

GC Insights: Nature stripes for raising engagement with biodiversity loss

Globally there has also been a stark decline in biodiversity since 1970 yet climate change receives far greater attention. The &lsquo;warming stripes&rsquo; have shown the power of very simple graphical visualisations of data for communicating with broad audiences. The &lsquo;nature stripes&rsquo; show how biodiversity data can also be presented in a similar way to positive effect.</p

The Impact of Children’s Connection to Nature: A Report for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)

Connecting with nature should be part of every child’s life as it has the potential to aid nature’s revival while benefiting the child. To embed nature connection within our social norms, there is a need to be able to understand the benefits and set targets for levels of nature connection. This report presents findings on the impact of connection to nature from a survey of 775 children, using the child as the unit of analysis, rather than aggregated data. The results demonstrated that children who were more connected to nature had significantly higher English attainment, although this wasn’t repeated for Mathematics. Further, the 1.5 Connection to Nature Index (CNI) level was found to be a significant threshold across other measures, with those children with a CNI of 1.5 or above having significantly higher health, life satisfaction, pro-environmental behaviours and pro-nature behaviours. The analysis found strong correlations between CNI and pro-nature behaviours and pro-environmental behavior. A positive correlation was also evident between CNI and days spent outdoors and days spent in nature over the past week, suggesting that the more time spent in nature is associated with child’s connection to nature. Finally, weak correlations were found between connection to nature, health and life satisfaction. When more refined attainment results for English were explored, (n = 512) further weak correlations were found between English attainment and attendance, English and life satisfaction, and between English attainment and connection to nature. There are a multitude of factors associated with a child’s English attainment, so, although the correlations are weak, it is noteworthy that connection to nature is as important to children’s achievement in English as life satisfaction and attendance at school

Joy and calm: how an evolutionary functional model of affect regulation informs positive emotions in nature

Key theories of the human need for nature take an evolutionary perspective, and many of the mental well-being benefits of nature relate to positive affect. As affect has a physiological basis, it is important to consider these benefits alongside regulatory processes. However, research into nature and positive affect tends not to consider affect regulation and the neurophysiology of emotion. This brief systematic review and meta-analysis presents evidence to support the use of an existing evolutionary functional model of affect regulation (the three circle model of emotion) that provides a tripartite framework in which to consider the mental well-being benefits of nature and to guide nature-based well-being interventions. The model outlines drive, contentment and threat dimensions of affect regulation based on a review of the emotion regulation literature. The model has been used previously for understanding mental well-being, delivering successful mental health-care interventions and providing directions for future research. Finally, the three circle model is easily understood in the context of our everyday lives, providing an accessible physiological-based narrative to help explain the benefits of nature

Microbial Similarity between Students in a Common Dormitory Environment Reveals the Forensic Potential of Individual Microbial Signatures.

The microbiota of the built environment is an amalgamation of both human and environmental sources. While human sources have been examined within single-family households or in public environments, it is unclear what effect a large number of cohabitating people have on the microbial communities of their shared environment. We sampled the public and private spaces of a college dormitory, disentangling individual microbial signatures and their impact on the microbiota of common spaces. We compared multiple methods for marker gene sequence clustering and found that minimum entropy decomposition (MED) was best able to distinguish between the microbial signatures of different individuals and was able to uncover more discriminative taxa across all taxonomic groups. Further, weighted UniFrac- and random forest-based graph analyses uncovered two distinct spheres of hand- or shoe-associated samples. Using graph-based clustering, we identified spheres of interaction and found that connection between these clusters was enriched for hands, implicating them as a primary means of transmission. In contrast, shoe-associated samples were found to be freely interacting, with individual shoes more connected to each other than to the floors they interact with. Individual interactions were highly dynamic, with groups of samples originating from individuals clustering freely with samples from other individuals, while all floor and shoe samples consistently clustered together.IMPORTANCE Humans leave behind a microbial trail, regardless of intention. This may allow for the identification of individuals based on the "microbial signatures" they shed in built environments. In a shared living environment, these trails intersect, and through interaction with common surfaces may become homogenized, potentially confounding our ability to link individuals to their associated microbiota. We sought to understand the factors that influence the mixing of individual signatures and how best to process sequencing data to best tease apart these signatures

Tres cosas buenas de la naturaleza: prestar atención a la naturaleza cercana produce incrementos prolongados en conexión con la naturaleza

Connecting people more fully with nature is emerging as a societal issue owing to the state of nature, links to pro-environmental behaviour and benefits to wellbeing. Simple, low-cost, interventions that deliver sustained increases in nature connectedness would be valuable. Participants (n=50) noted three good things in nature each day for five days and a control group noted three factual things (n=42). The intervention group showed sustained and significant increases in nature connectedness compared to the control group. Increases in nature connectedness were associated with psychological health improvement in the intervention group. Noting the good things in nature each day can deliver sustained increases in peoples’ connection with nature.; Connecting people more fully with nature is emerging as a societal issue owing to the state of nature, links to pro-environmental behaviour and benefits to wellbeing. Simple, low-cost interventions that deliver sustained increases in nature connectedness would be valuable. Participants (n = 50) noted three good things in nature each day for five days and a control group noted three factual things (n = 42). The intervention group showed sustained and significant increases in nature connectedness compared to the control group. Increases in nature connectedness were associated with psychological health improvement in the intervention group. Noting the good things in nature each day can deliver sustained increases in people’s connection with nature

Effect of self-adjustable masking noise on open-plan office worker’s concentration, task performance and attitudes

The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes of workers in an open-plan office towards concentration, task performance and co-worker interaction when wearing earphones with masking noise and when not wearing earphones. The earphones with masking noise were evaluated over the course of a working day and the level of the office noise varied between 51 and 59 dBA. The spectrum of the masking noise was brown noise modified by a PC audio controller and earphones (the spectrum of the modified brown noise was substantially different to that of brown masking noise). The questionnaire based quantitative study (Study 1, n = 28) indicates that disturbance to concentration and task performance is reduced by modified brown masking noise thereby confirming previous studies. However all the participants in the qualitative study, which involved both open ended questionnaire and focus group interviews, (Study 2, n = 28 for open ended questionnaire and 12 for focus groups) identified that they would not use earphones with modified brown masking noise to counteract office noise. An important reason for this is that modified brown masking noise obscured nearby relevant conversations, which participants identified as being crucial to the success of their overall work task. Other participants rejected the brown masking noise delivered through earphones as it caused irritation and discomfort. It is recommended that future studies into the effectiveness of masking noise in open-plan offices should include consideration of the relevance of nearby conversations. Future studies should also consider other types of masking noise and should measure the level and duration of the masking noise.N/