Book Review: Carmona M (ed.) (2014) Explorations in Urban Design: an Urban Design Research Primer, Farnham, Ashgate.

This paper examines some of the planed townscape changes affecting large city centre conservation areas and that have influenced policy through over twenty years of control. Data from local planning authority planning application files are used to identify the development trends in central conservation areas and the difficulties these pose for conservation policies. Detailed examination highlights the significant changes that can occur in central areas at the small scale, and some of the processes of change which remain largely unexamined by planning authorities. Identification of this ‘hidden’ change demonstrates the importance of monitoring at the small scale, and can identify key conservation ‘problems’ affecting these areas, including facadism, erosion of character and the weakness of local policies

In hot pursuit: Gothic virgins and villains in nineteenth-century American fiction

This dissertation investigates how three significant nineteenth-century American female writers strategically transform a central Gothic motif – the virtuous heroine pursued by a villain who lusts for sexual and socioeconomic power – to tell new stories about gendered bodies and the erotic relations between them. Established in the genre-defining British Gothic novels of the late eighteenth century, this popular motif endured throughout the nineteenth century in texts written and read on both sides of the Atlantic. This project examines understudied texts by E.D.E.N. Southworth, Louisa May Alcott, and Julia Ward Howe that exhibit a striking intertextual awareness of the motif, reformulating it to critique the era’s marital and inheritance practices that enable and reinforce persistent gender inequities. These texts presciently recognize the performative nature of gender, centering on protagonists that move fluidly between genders with strategic choices about dress, speech, and social roles. By examining these texts together, this project shows that they anticipate the insights of contemporary feminist and queer theory as their protagonists deliberately calculate how to blend traditionally gendered behaviors and transform sexual threats into situations in which they can either consensually participate or cleverly elude. Chapter One argues that E. D. E. N. Southworth’s popular serial novel The Hidden Hand (1859) rewrites the narrative pattern that situates Gothic heroines as vulnerable to rape by positioning its heroine as aware of her fictional status and therefore capable of using her metafictional knowledge to reconfigure sexually threatening situations. Chapter Two examines how Louisa May Alcott’s sensation tale A Long, Fatal Love Chase (1866) blends traditionally male and female Gothic narratives to cast its heroine as a female Faust figure whose desperate desire for freedom leads her to enter naively into a bigamous partnership with a Mephistophelean man whose relentless pursuit ultimately causes her death. Chapter Three contends that Julia Ward Howe’s recently recovered manuscript The Hermaphrodite (1848) situates its ambiguously sexed but male-identifying protagonist as a Gothic “heroine” who employs unconventional strategies to cope with conventional threats to his physical and financial autonomy and rejects all interpersonal bonds because of the gendered restrictions they impose upon him.2019-07-31T00:00:00

The Energetic Cost of Anthropogenic Disturbance on the Southern Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris nereis)

With increased human populations and tourism in coastal areas, there is greater potential for disturbance of marine wildlife. Having high metabolic rates, sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) are at risk of increased energetic costs due to disturbance. To investigate these effects, sea otter activity in response to potential disturbance stimuli was recorded over three years, at three California locations: Monterey, Moss Landing, and Morro Bay. A hidden Markov Model was developed to examine how activity varies as a function of location, group size, pup to adult ratio, kelp canopy, and occurrence of and proximity to disturbance stimuli. Results were combined with published estimates of activity-specific metabolic rates, translating activity change into energetic costs. The effects of disturbance stimuli on sea otter behavior appear location specific, and vary non-linearly with distance from disturbance stimuli. The model quantifies the distance-disturbance relationship, calculating distance at which the likelihood of disturbance is low (i.e. averaged across locations, there is \u3c10% potential for disturbance when stimuli are \u3e54 m away). Energetic costs (kJ) for Monterey, Moss Landing, and Morro Bay (given six small-craft approaches of 20 m for a 27.7 kg male otter in kelp, group size 10, and pup ratio 0.5) are expected to increase by 210.1 kJ ± 80.76, 160.07 kJ ± 65.24 and 58.44 kJ ± 23.66, respectively. Our analyses represent a novel approach for estimating behavioral responses and energetic costs of disturbance, furthering understanding of how human activities impact sea otters and providing a sound scientific basis for management

Your Teaching Strategy Matters: How Engagement Impacts Application in Health Information Literacy Instruction

The purpose of this study was to compare two pedagogical methods, active learning and passive instruction, to determine which is more useful in helping students to achieve the learning outcomes in a one-hour research skills instructional session

Conservation Planning and the Development Trajectory of the Historic Core of Worcester, England

For over half a century many urban centres in England have been influenced by local conservation policies designed to preserve and enhance their historic townscapes. Whilst these policies have been viewed as broadly successful in preventing the loss of valued historic buildings, there has been limited detailed evaluation of their impact on the localised trajectories of development and change within cities. This article seeks to examine one of these localised trajectories through consideration of the impact of conservation planning on the nature of major development in the commercial core of the historic city of Worcester, England. Utilising local authority planning records, it explores the complex local unfolding of wider conservation and development interests through a focus on the outcomes of planning decision-making evident in the changing nature, location and architectural style of major development in the city core from the late 1980s onwards. The article uses the idea of conservation planning as an “assemblage” to consider how variation in the extent and nature of change across the core reflected the outcome of a complex web of decision-making, moulded by the material agency of a “heritage map” of heritage asset designation. Three distinct “turns” are noted over the study period when shifts in the wider discourses of conservation planning, changing local planning contexts, and amendments to the heritage map produced changes in the local conservation planning assemblage. The discussion highlights how a policy deficiency in articulating the value and significance of the existing urban form and character of the area impacted development proposals and outcomes, leading to the incremental erosion of local character, both in terms of morphological and functional change. The article concludes by reflecting on how exploration of change within local conservation-planning-assemblages might provide insights into some of the current challenges facing urban conservation practice in seeking to articulate how the management of historic urban landscapes can support sustainable urban development

Towards a systems-based framework for understanding the diffusion of technology: A case study of a modest technological innovation in the multi-agency context of policing

Technological innovation in policing is being given greater emphasis. In public discourse about technology and policing, there is often a focus on large-scale projects that are known to fail, sometimes at significant cost. The implementation of smaller innovations are often overlooked. This thesis examines practice of innovation and adoption in the context of multi-agency working. The literature review in this thesis reveals that little is known about contexts where decision making does not rest with the police and exposes potential limitations in the use of diffusion and adoption frameworks/models. The research question is: In the context of multi-agency diffusion and adoption of a technology to enhance policing, can systems thinking techniques enhance, or even replace, existing frameworks and models? This empirical research study looks at the adoption of a relatively simple technology that scans identification documents. However, the decision to adopt and implement an ID scanner takes place within a complex setting. Tracking an adoption decision requires understanding of the various actors and their roles. The research includes 48 semi-structured interviews with police officers, premises owners and managers and other stakeholders involved in the decision to adopt an ID scanner. Their perceptions of the history leading to an adoption decision, their own role and that of other key actors is examined. Initial analysis takes place using spray diagrams and further analysis is made through the lenses of existing diffusion and adoption frameworks/models. Subsequently systems thinking techniques are deployed and the additional insights they provide are highlighted. This research finds that systems thinking can extend understanding of multi-agency diffusion and adoption decisions when compared with solely utilising existing frameworks/models. Finally, the research proposes a systems-based framework for collaborative diffusion and adoption analysis

Protecting the past and planning the future : conservation planning and urban change in historic city centres

This paper examines the impact of conservation policy from the late-1960s to the present on the commercial core of the city of Worcester in the U.K. Using data from local authority planning records, it examines the complex relationship between conservation policy and other development concerns through a focus on the outcomes of planning negotiations manifest in the changing nature, location and architectural style of major development proposals. Detailed consideration of major development proposals from the late-1980s onwards reveals the way in which the 'heritage map' of area and asset designation influenced the nature and location of development. Using insights from Conzenian urban morphological approaches to the assessment of townscape character, the paper reflects on the extent to which understanding of the existing urban form and character of the area informed these development proposals and outcomes

British urban morphology: Time to take stock and regroup?.

This article reviews the contribution of the work of the Urban Morphology Research Group (UMRG) to British urban morphological research. The group, led by Jeremy Whitehand, provided a focus for British research in urban morphology grounded in the work of M.R.G Conzen and the historico-geographical approach. The article reviews four core strands to this work: definition of the historico-geographical approach, morphological regions, the processes and people shaping urban landscapes and linking research and practice. The article also provides an overview of other areas of research into urban form within Britain beyond the UMRG, from scholars working in disciplines such as geography, architecture, and urban design. Two broad areas of work are focussed on, namely spatial analytical and configurational approaches and British urban geographical traditions. In conclusion, the article reflects on the future for British urban morphology following the loss of Whitehand as its long-standing figurehead and champion, suggesting that is it time to form a new network to replace the now-dormant UMRG to ensure the continued vibrancy and visibility of urban morphological research in Britain

Mobile Work in Long Harbour

Long Harbour is a host community for most mobile workers employed at Vale’s nickel processing facility. Workers were found to commute into Long Harbour from across the province but mostly from communities within the St. John’s Census Metropolitan Region (CMA). Findings suggest that Long Harbour is also a source community, with many residents commuting daily into St. John’s for work and some commuting long-distance to Alberta and Ontario. This project, however, focused on the community impacts of mobile workers commuting to and from the nickel processing facility both for their source and host communities in the provinc