Perceived sensory dimensions : a study of Slottsparken, Malmö during wintertime

Idag spenderar vi människor alltmer tid inomhus vilket tenderar att ha negativa effekter på vår hälsa. Det är konstaterat att utomhusvistelse i all form är bra för oss människor och eftersom det naturliga dagsljuset är begränsat under vintern blir det extra viktigt att vistas ute under denna tid. Hur parker planeras och utformas kan ha en stor betydelse för upplevelsen hos besökaren och bör därför vara gestaltade för att bidra med kvaliteter året om. Patrik Grahn, professor i landskapsarkitektur, har studerat grönområdens inverkan på människors hälsa och har tillsammans med forskningskollegor utvecklat åtta specifika parkkaraktärer (Bengtsson et al. 2018): artrikedom och variation, social gemenskap, kultur och historia, öppet och utsikt, känsla av rymd, rofylldhet, vildhet och natur och avskilt och skyddat. Med utgångspunkt i denna bakgrund är vårt syfte att undersöka hur parkkaraktärerna kan upplevas i verkligheten och hur de kan användas som utvärderande verktyg av grönområden. Vårt arbete undersöker parkkaraktärerna i teorin genom en litteraturstudie där forskning av miljöpsykologer som Kaplan och Kaplan, Ulrich, Hartig och Stoltz lyfts fram. Forskningen tar upp betydelsen av natur för människans välmående och bär på många likheter med Grahns teori. Litteraturstudien fortsätter sedan med ett fokus på vinteraspekter där upplevelsevärden belyses. Därefter undersöks parkkaraktärerna i praktiken med hjälp av en observationsstudie och med Slottsparken som exempel. För att ta reda på hur de upplevs i verkligheten har en lista med beskrivningar av parkkaraktärerna använts. Resultatet visar att alla åtta parkkaraktärer går att hitta i Slottsparken. En del finns på flera olika platser medan en del är mer sällsynta. I en och samma plats kan flera karaktärer ingå, de överlappar varandra. Parkkaraktärerna är komplexa att beskriva med ord, de är inte mätbara och vissa tenderar att vara mer spekulativa än andra. Slottsparken har vissa platser där ingen karaktär passar in och dessa har vi benämnt som icke-karaktärer. Under vårt platsbesök kom vi fram till att Slottsparken bär på kvaliteter i vintertid. Dessa kan delas upp i visuella och upplevelsemässiga kvaliteter. Slutligen kan vi konstatera att parkkaraktärerna kan användas som stöd för att utvärdera och förstå en plats, men är tolkningsbara och är därför inte heltäckande. Däremot kan parkkaraktärerna fungera som inspiration för en landskapsarkitekts designprocess och fungera som ett hjälpmedel vid gestaltning av parker.Most of us people today tend to spend more time indoors which can result in negative effects on our health. It is established that outdoor stay in all forms has a positive impact on us and since the natural daylight is limited during wintertime it becomes particularly important to stay outside. How parks are planned and designed may be important for the experience of the visitor and should therefore be designed to contribute with qualities all year around. Patrik Grahn, a professor in landscape architecture, has studied the impact of green spaces on humans health and together with research colleagues developed eight specific Perceived Sensory Dimensions PSD (Bengtsson et al. 2018): Rich in Species, Social, Culture, Prospect, Space, Serene, Nature, and Refuge. With this background in mind is our main purpose to examine how the PSD can be experienced and how it can be used as a tool for evaluating green spaces. Our work examines PSD in theory with a literature study where research by environment psychologists such as Kaplan and Kaplan, Ulrich, Hartig, and Stoltz are presented. The research highlights the importance of nature for human health and there is a lot of resemblance with the theory of Grahn. The literature study continues then with a focus on winter aspects where experiential value is highlighted. Furthermore, examines the PSD in practice with help of an observation study and with Slottsparken in Malmö as an example. A list of descriptions is used to investigate how they are experienced. Our result shows that all eight PSDs are possible to find in Slottsparken. Some of them are found in different places while others are rare. In the same place, multiple PSDs can be found, and they overlap each other. The PSD is complex to describe with words, they are not measurable and some tend to be more speculative than others. Slottsparken has some places where no PSD fits and those we call non-PSD. Slottsparken has qualities during the winter that we discovered during our field visit. Those can be divided into two different qualities, visual and experience based. Finally, we can conclude that the PSD can be used for support when evaluating and understanding an environment, but are interpretable and are therefore not comprehensive. However, the PSD might work as an inspiration for a landscape architect’s design process and work as guidance when designing parks

Farm the rooftops! : social and health related aspects of urban rooftop farms

Uppsatsen skrivs med tanke på snabbt växande städer med krympande tillgång till grönområden som följd, ökat intresse för odling och medvetenhet om gröna miljöers betydelser för miljö, hälsa och socialt liv. Huvudfokus i detta arbete är dels att ta reda på hälsoaspekter och sociala aspekter av stadsodling och gröna miljöer. Dels att titta på några befintliga takodlingar samt diskutera några av de utmaningar som kan finnas med att odla på tak. Hur kan vi platsutnyttja effektivt samtidigt som vi stärker hälsa och social hållbarhet? Vilka förutsättningar kan finnas för takodlingar och vilka typer av roller kan de spela i en tät stad? Hur fungerar sådana odlingar idag och vilka typer av utmaningar kan finnas med sådana odlingar, ur hälso- och social hållbarhetsperspektiv? Genom litteraturstudie och personlig kontakt har ett antal funna takodlingar på olika platser i världen bidragit till infallsvinklar i diskussionen kring täta städer, hälsa och social hållbarhet, med stöd i relevant litteratur. Utifrån inhämtade kunskaper inklusive teorier och forskning på området har slutsatser dragits och ett resonemang kring tillämpning i designoch planeringsprocesser har förts. Alla studerade exempel visar att takodlingar utgör viktiga delar i en hållbar grön stad, och att viljan bland både privata och offentliga aktörer är stor när det gäller att uppmuntra platsutnyttjande och gröna lösningar i städer. En sammanfattande slutsats är att det behövs mer utförliga riktlinjer för hur tak ska och kan användas, exempelvis genom en stads grönplan. Det behövs breda samarbeten mellan aktörer för att få kvalitativa lösningar, där takodling ses som en självklar del i den hållbara staden. Det behövs mer forskning på området som, åtminstone i Sverige, fortfarande är relativt nytt.This thesis takes into notice the rapid growth of cities with lesser access to green areas as a consequence. It also emphasizes the urban farming movement, and the general awareness of the impacts of green environments on health and social sustainability. The main focus in this work lies on understanding health and social aspects of urban farming and green environments. It also targets to look at existing rooftop farms to see how they function and to discuss some of the potential challenges with rooftop farms. How can we use space effectively at the same time strengthen health and social sustainability? Which are the prerequisites for having an urban rooftop farm and what roles can they play in a dense city? How do urban rooftop farms work today and what types of challenges can apply, in terms of issues in health and social sustainability? Through literature study and personal contact, a number of rooftop farms around the world have been found and studied. With support from relevant literature, they contribute to perspectives to the discussion regarding dense cities, health and social sustainability. By learning from theories and the examples, argumentation and suggested applications have been made, to support the implement of rooftop farms in planning and design processes. All of the studied examples shows that rooftop farms make important parts of a green, sustainable city, and that both private and public actors have a great will to encourage and provide places for green solutions. A summarization is that more precise guidelines are needed, when it comes to wanted and supported use of roofs, for example by municipal green strategies. Broad cooperation amongst different actors are essential in reaching long-term qualitative solutions, where urban farming on roofs is a natural part of the sustainable city. More research is needed, however, since the subject is rather new, at least when it comes to rooftop farms in Sweden

The link between place and human

Målet för denna masteruppsats var att få reda på hur användningen av offentliga platser kan styras av utformningen. I vår studie utgick vi ifrån litteratur inom miljöpsykologi och från Jan Gehls teorier. Miljöpsykologi studerar människors upplevelser av olika miljöer, med hjälp av denna litteratur har vi fått en djupare förståelse för hur gestaltning kan påverka människors beteenden. Vår ambition är att bredda våra kunskaper inom ämnet för att kunna applicera det i framtida projekt som landskapsarkitekter. Genom litteraturstudie och observationer har vi analyserat tre torg i Malmö för att jämföra de mot varandra och huruvida litteraturen kan appliceras på platserna. Vi utgick ifrån Gehls 12 kvalitets- kriterier för att bedöma torgens helhetskvalitéer och kompletterade med egna tabeller som utgår ifrån Gehls teorier om olika typer av aktivitet, utrustning, objektsorientering och antal besökare. Vi analyserade även rörelsemönster för att få en uppfattning om hur gestaltningen kan styra användningen utifrån platsens kontext. Genom detta har vi kommit fram till slutsatsen att teorierna kring hur en plats ska utformas stämmer väl överens med våra egna upplevelser vid observationstillfällena. För att en plats ska upplevas kvalitativ och trygg behövs det byggstenar såsom sociala aktiviteter, belysning, rumslighet, mänsklig skala, sittplatser, estetiska värden, väderskydd, växtlighet, cykelplatser etc. Avslutningsvis kan det konstateras att alla platser har sin egen identitet samt rumslighet, vilket innebär att varje plats bör utformas på sitt sätt. Man kan således använda dessa rekommendationer att utgå ifrån men eftersom alla platser ser olika ut kan det aldrig bli en identisk gestaltning. Som landskapsarkitekter har vi nu ökade kunskaper om hur platser bör utformas för att få en ökad trivsel samt en förståelse av hur människor använder offentliga rum.The goal with this essay for our master’s degree was to find out about how the use of public places can be controlled by the formation. We used environmental psychology literature and Jan Gehl’s theories for this study. Environmental psychology is a study of the human experiences of different environments, with help of this literature we gained a deeper understanding on how the conformation can affect the human behaviour. Our ambition is to broaden our knowledge within the subject of being able to apply it in future projects as landscape architects. Through the studying of the literature and observations, we have analysed three town squares in Malmö to compare them and how the literature can be applied on the locations. We used Gehl’s 12 quality criterias to assess the individual town squares’ general quality and our own tables with inspiration from Gehl’s theories on different kinds of activities, equipment, the orientation of the objects and the number of visitors. We analysed patterns in movements to gain an understanding on how the formation can direct the usage from the context of the locations. Because of this, we have come to the conclusion that the theories regarding how a location should be formatted agrees to our experiences from observing the locations. For a place to be portrayed as qualitative and feel safe, there needs to be building blocks as well as social activities, lighting, spacious, clean, reasonable scale, seating areas, aesthetic, vegetation, bicycle areas, etc. In conclusion, all locations have their own identity as well as spatiality, which means that every location is formatted in its own way. These recommendations can be used as an inspiration, but since all locations are different there will never be an identical formation. As landscape architects, we now have the knowledge of how locations should be formatted to increase well-being and an increase in the understanding on how people use public areas

Combined Experimental and System-Level Analyses Reveal the Complex Regulatory Network of miR-124 during Human Neurogenesis

Non-coding RNAs regulate many biological processes including neurogenesis. The brain-enriched miR-124 has been assigned as a key player of neuronal differentiation via its complex but little understood regulation of thousands of annotated targets. To systematically chart its regulatory functions, we used CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to disrupt all six miR-124 alleles in human induced pluripotent stem cells. Upon neuronal induction, miR-124-deleted cells underwent neurogenesis and became functional neurons, albeit with altered morphology and neurotransmitter specification. Using RNA-induced-silencing-complex precipitation, we identified 98 high-confidence miR-124 targets, of which some directly led to decreased viability. By performing advanced transcription-factor-network analysis, we identified indirect miR-124 effects on apoptosis, neuronal subtype differentiation, and the regulation of previously uncharacterized zinc finger transcription factors. Our data emphasize the need for combined experimental- and system-level analyses to comprehensively disentangle and reveal miRNA functions, including their involvement in the neurogenesis of diverse neuronal cell types found in the human brain

Emission Line Abundances of Absorption Selected Galaxies at z<0.5

We have obtained optical spectra of four galaxies associated with MgII QSO absorbers at redshifts 0.10 < z < 0.45. We calculate the gas-phase oxygen abundance of these galaxies using the empirical R23 strong line method. The absolute B-band magnitudes of the galaxies span -20.6 < M_B < -18.3. If the metallicities lie on the R23 upper branch (8.4 < log (O/H) + 12 < 8.9), then the metallicities of these absorption selected galaxies span the range between 0.5--1.4 solar and would be consistent with the well-known luminosity-metallicity relation for 0.10 < z < 0.45 emission-line galaxies. However, such metallicities would be 0.5--1.0 dex higher than those observed in damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) via absorption line measurements at similar redshifts. Conversely, the lower R23 branch calibration yields metallicities approximately 1/7 solar, consistent with the DLA absorption metallicities at low redshifts. In this case, the absorption selected galaxies would lie significantly lower than the luminosity-metallicity relation for emission-line galaxies at z<0.5. We discuss the implications and possible solutions for each scenario.Comment: Accepted for publications in MNRA

Comorbid Chronic Pain and Depression: Who Is at Risk?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence and demographic risk factors of chronic pain and its comorbidity with depression. Computer-assisted telephone interviewing was utilized to obtain a representative community sample in the state of Michigan (N = 1,179). The prevalence of chronic pain due to any cause was 21.9%. Approximately 35% of participants with chronic pain also had comorbid depression (7.7% of the entire sample). Depression was not associated with pain types or sites. A multinomial regression analysis revealed several demographic correlates of chronic pain and depression. Participants with chronic pain or comorbid pain and depression were more likely to be older, female, employed less than full-time, and have less education than persons without either condition. Logistic regression analyses showed that younger participants were more likely to have comorbid pain and depression than chronic pain only. A similar but marginally significant effect was found for African-American participants. Compared to the depression only group, those in the comorbid group were more likely to be women and middle-aged. These findings provide additional evidence on the prevalence of comorbid pain and depression in the community and suggest that certain demographic groups with chronic pain may especially benefit from depression screenings

High precision astrometry mission for the detection and characterization of nearby habitable planetary systems with the Nearby Earth Astrometric Telescope (NEAT)

(abridged) A complete census of planetary systems around a volume-limited sample of solar-type stars (FGK dwarfs) in the Solar neighborhood with uniform sensitivity down to Earth-mass planets within their Habitable Zones out to several AUs would be a major milestone in extrasolar planets astrophysics. This fundamental goal can be achieved with a mission concept such as NEAT - the Nearby Earth Astrometric Telescope. NEAT is designed to carry out space-borne extremely-high-precision astrometric measurements sufficient to detect dynamical effects due to orbiting planets of mass even lower than Earth's around the nearest stars. Such a survey mission would provide the actual planetary masses and the full orbital geometry for all the components of the detected planetary systems down to the Earth-mass limit. The NEAT performance limits can be achieved by carrying out differential astrometry between the targets and a set of suitable reference stars in the field. The NEAT instrument design consists of an off-axis parabola single-mirror telescope, a detector with a large field of view made of small movable CCDs located around a fixed central CCD, and an interferometric calibration system originating from metrology fibers located at the primary mirror. The proposed mission architecture relies on the use of two satellites operating at L2 for 5 years, flying in formation and offering a capability of more than 20,000 reconfigurations (alternative option uses deployable boom). The NEAT primary science program will encompass an astrometric survey of our 200 closest F-, G- and K-type stellar neighbors, with an average of 50 visits. The remaining time might be allocated to improve the characterization of the architecture of selected planetary systems around nearby targets of specific interest (low-mass stars, young stars, etc.) discovered by Gaia, ground-based high-precision radial-velocity surveys.Comment: Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy. The full member list of the NEAT proposal and the news about the project are available at http://neat.obs.ujf-grenoble.fr. The final publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

The Barents and Chukchi Seas: Comparison of two Arctic shelf ecosystems

This paper compares and contrasts the ecosystems of the Barents and Chukchi Seas. Despite their similarity in a number of features, the Barents Sea supports a vast biomass of commercially important fish, but the Chukchi does not. Here we examine a number of aspects of these two seas to ascertain how they are similar and how they differ. We then indentify processes and mechanisms that may be responsible for their similarities and differences.Both the Barents and Chukchi Seas are high latitude, seasonally ice covered, Arctic shelf-seas. Both have strongly advective regimes, and receive water from the south. Water entering the Barents comes from the deep, ice-free and "warm" Norwegian Sea, and contains not only heat, but also a rich supply of zooplankton that supports larval fish in spring. In contrast, Bering Sea water entering the Chukchi in spring and early summer is cold. In spring, this Bering Sea water is depleted of large, lipid-rich zooplankton, thus likely resulting in a relatively low availability of zooplankton for fish. Although primary production on average is similar in the two seas, fish biomass density is an order of magnitude greater in the Barents than in the Chukchi Sea. The Barents Sea supports immense fisheries, whereas the Chukchi Sea does not. The density of cetaceans in the Barents Sea is about double that in the Chukchi Sea, as is the density of nesting seabirds, whereas, the density of pinnipeds in the Chukchi is about double that in the Barents Sea. In the Chukchi Sea, export of carbon to the benthos and benthic biomass may be greater. We hypothesize that the difference in fish abundance in the two seas is driven by differences in the heat and plankton advected into them, and the amount of primary production consumed in the upper water column. However, we suggest that the critical difference between the Chukchi and Barents Seas is the pre-cooled water entering the Chukchi Sea from the south. This cold water, and the winter mixing of the Chukchi Sea as it becomes ice covered, result in water temperatures below the physiological limits of the commercially valuable fish that thrive in the southeastern Bering Sea. If climate change warms the Barents Sea, thereby increasing the open water area via reducing ice cover, productivity at most trophic levels is likely to increase. In the Chukchi, warming should also reduce sea ice cover, permitting a longer production season. However, the shallow northern Bering and Chukchi Seas are expected to continue to be ice-covered in winter, so water there will continue to be cold in winter and spring, and is likely to continue to be a barrier to the movement of temperate fish into the Chukchi Sea. Thus, it is unlikely that large populations of boreal fish species will become established in this Arctic marginal sea. © 2012 Elsevier B.V