A wireless multi-sensor subglacial probe: design and preliminary results

This paper introduces a new way to investigate in situ processes, the wireless multi-sensor probe, as part of an environmental sensor network. Instruments are housed within a 'probe' which can move freely and so behave like a clast. These were deployed in the ice and till at Briksdalsbreen, Norway. The sensors measure temperature, resistivity, case stress, tilt angle and water pressure and send their data to a base station on the glacier surface via radio links. These data are then forwarded by radio to a reference station with mains power 2.5 km away, from where they are sent to a web server in the UK. The system deployed during 2004/05 was very successful and a total of 859 probe days worth of data from the ice and till were collected, along with GPS, weather and diagnostic data about the system

So What If There Were a Larger and More Sustained Energy Efficiency Effort across the Economy, What Would be the Impact? Research Briefing 03

The real challenge of positive economic impacts is to those policy makers who are working hard to develop sustainable energy savings. As disposable household income is spent, additional energy is consumed as the economy seeks to meet increased demand for goods and services. Over time this can erode the initial absolute energy savings of the original initiative. Thus, a key challenge in the near term is to better understand this type of economic rebound effect and its impact on net energy savings. Improving our understanding of how people use this income released by lower energy bills will allow energy policy makers to better forecast net energy efficiency outcomes and to better accommodate economic growth, while retaining energy savings and carbon reductions

So Which Households Can Benefit from Energy Efficiency and is there an Argument to Fund from the Public Purse? Research Briefing 04

Improving household energy efficiency has a positive impact on a more efficient household’s income. This is because money saved by the permanent reduction in energy bills will be available to spend year on year. An EPSRC funded team at the Centre for Energy Policy and Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde has analysed the macroeconomic expansion likely to follow successful energy efficiency measures. This highlights the multiple dividends of energy savings, boosted GDP, employment and income benefits which result from energy efficiency measures. This latest work begins to explore the impact of focusing policy only on fuel poor households but finds that the more wide-ranging the boost to energy efficiency, the greater the economic expansion is likely to be. The multiple dividends are particularly obvious in the case where all households rather than just fuel poor households are targeted. This is due to both the greater stimulus and limited spending power of low income households. Governments should consider the wider economic and social benefits of spending on energy efficiency when designing energy efficiency policy, evaluating its outcome and making budget decisions

How Improving Household Efficiency Could Boost the Scottish Economy

While European governments continue to invest in energy efficiency as a key tool of energy and climate policy, there is increased interest in the broader economic benefits of energy efficiency in a social and economic context. Recent studies show that, beyond the direct effects on energy use and spending, multiple positive impacts of energy efficiency improvements exist in the wider economy as a whole. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increases linked to household efficiency enhancements could well be an outcome of both implementing and realising energy efficiency measures. A team from the Centre for Energy Policy (CEP) and Fraser of Allander Institute (FAI) at the University of Strathclyde have used modelling and simulation to explore the economy wide impacts of energy efficiency improvements in households.1 A clear, long lasting stimulus to the economy is triggered by improving the energy efficiency of homes; this is because the disposable income of householders increases as a result of saving money on energy bills. The team used modelling to trace the economic impact of this disposable income increase. The simulation suggested that a spending-led GDP boost can be triggered and could have wider impacts in employment and public budgets. Associated with the increased economic activity will be an increase in energy use that tends to reduce the ultimate level of energy savings from an energy efficiency action. Such an effect is called “rebound”. However, by encouraging spending in low carbon products and services, the erosion of energy savings could be minimised

Redefining welfare in Scotland - with or without women?

A significant by-product of the Scottish Independence Referendum debate was the flourishing of proposals across a range of public policy domains. From the Scottish Government’s White Paper to the propositions of Common Weal, the formal parties and their various commissions, and the informal groups in between, taxation, welfare reform, childcare and social care, corporate representation among other policy areas featured in formal policy documents. Using CFA, this paper analyses the extent to which these policy proposals were framed as advancing women’s social, economic and political independence and the extent to which policy and political institutions demonstrated a failure to mainstream gender analysis in public policy formulation despite the political and discursive opportunities offered by structural change

Attitudes and practices of physicians and nurses regarding physical activity promotion in the Catalan primary health-care system

Background: In Catalonia a high percentage of the population remains inactive. General practices are an ideal setting to advise on physical activity (PA). However, there is a lack of evidence regarding practices, barriers and predictors of such promotion in the Catalan primary health-care system. This study set out to establish descriptive baseline data for PA promotion in Catalan general practices, and to explore the experiences of doctors/nurses in promoting PA in their day-to-day professional lives. Methods: A mixedmethod approach was adopted. A survey was conducted with 245 physicians/nurses (58% response rate). Subsequently, focus groups (n ¼ 5) and semi-structured interviews (n ¼ 7) were conducted with 18 physicians and 15 nurses. After coding for important themes, the final interpretation was confirmed by contributors. Results: Eighty-eight percent of physicians/nurses promoted PA at least infrequently. However, work conditions were perceived as unfavourable, with the main barriers being lack of (i) time, (ii) training and (iii) protocols. Qualitative data showed that PA promotion was opportunistic, focused on selected patients, used generalized messages and was highly dependent on personal interests. Regular promotion was encouraged by direct experiences of the benefits of regular exercising, knowing patients well, being supported by medical colleagues and creating links with other community institutions. PA promotion was especially hindered by seeing PA promotion as a secondary task, and patients ignoring recommendations. Conclusions: PA promotion in Catalonia remains to be integrated into practice consultations. Therefore, strategies should be developed within public health. Using a mixed-method approach provided a broader range of evidence than most studies, which rely on quantitative methods

Relationship between Sedentary Time, Physical Activity and Multiple Lifestyle Factors in Children

An improved understanding of relationships between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), screen-time and lifestyle factors is imperative for developing interventions, yet few studies have explored such relationships simultaneously. Therefore, the study’s aim was to examine the relationship between sufficient MVPA (≥60 min·day–1) and excessive screen-time (>2 h·day–1) with lifestyle factors in children. In total, 756 children (10.4 ± 0.6 years) completed a questionnaire, which assessed sleep duration, MVPA, homework/reading, screen-time and diet, and a 20 metre multi-stage shuttle run test to assess cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). Body mass and stature were measured and used to calculate BMI (body mass index) for age/sex z-scores. Fruit and vegetable consumption and CRF were positively associated with sufficient MVPA, irrespective of sex (p < 0.05). Excessive screen-time was positively associated with sugary snack consumption in boys and girls, and diet soft drink intake in boys (p < 0.05). In addition, excessive screen-time was negatively associated with MVPA before school for both boys and girls, as well as with sleep duration and fruit and vegetable consumption for girls (p < 0.05). Sufficient MVPA and excessive screen-time were associated with healthy and unhealthy factors, respectively, with relationships sometimes differing by sex. Future health promoting interventions should consider targeting change in multiple lifestyle factors

Potential Economic Impacts of the Scottish Governments £20million 'Post-Brexit' Energy Efficiency Spending Stimulus

In September 2016, Scotland's First Minister announced the allocation of £20 million to be spent on energy efficiency measures, split between £10 million in social housing and £10 million in public buildings. The spending was announced as part of an economic stimulus package. Here we consider the potential impacts on several key performance indicators of the spending injection itself and of the intended boost to energy efficiency in the two targeted sectors

Perceptual phenomenology

I am looking at an apple. The apple has a lot of properties and some, but not all, of these are part of my phenomenology at this moment: I am aware of these properties. And some, but not all, of these properties that I am aware of are part of my perceptual (or sensory) phenomenology. If I am attending to the apple’s color, this property will be part of my perceptual phenomenology. The property of being a granny smith apple from Chile is unlikely to be part of my perceptual phenomenology. Here are two problems for anyone who is interested in conscious experience in general, and perceptual experience in particular: (a) How can we tell which properties are part of our phenomenology and which ones are not? (b) How can we tell which properties are part of our perceptual phenomenology and which ones are part of our non-perceptual phenomenology? I will focus on (b) in this paper. My aim is twofold: I propose a methodology for answering the question of which properties are part of our perceptual phenomenology and I provide an example for how this methodology could be applied

International children's accelerometry database (ICAD): design and methods.

BACKGROUND: Over the past decade, accelerometers have increased in popularity as an objective measure of physical activity in free-living individuals. Evidence suggests that objective measures, rather than subjective tools such as questionnaires, are more likely to detect associations between physical activity and health in children. To date, a number of studies of children and adolescents across diverse cultures around the globe have collected accelerometer measures of physical activity accompanied by a broad range of predictor variables and associated health outcomes. The International Children's Accelerometry Database (ICAD) project pooled and reduced raw accelerometer data using standardized methods to create comparable outcome variables across studies. Such data pooling has the potential to improve our knowledge regarding the strength of relationships between physical activity and health. This manuscript describes the contributing studies, outlines the standardized methods used to process the accelerometer data and provides the initial questions which will be addressed using this novel data repository. METHODS: Between September 2008 and May 2010 46,131 raw Actigraph data files and accompanying anthropometric, demographic and health data collected on children (aged 3-18 years) were obtained from 20 studies worldwide and data was reduced using standardized analytical methods. RESULTS: When using ≥ 8, ≥ 10 and ≥ 12 hrs of wear per day as a criterion, 96%, 93.5% and 86.2% of the males, respectively, and 96.3%, 93.7% and 86% of the females, respectively, had at least one valid day of data. CONCLUSIONS: Pooling raw accelerometer data and accompanying phenotypic data from a number of studies has the potential to: a) increase statistical power due to a large sample size, b) create a more heterogeneous and potentially more representative sample, c) standardize and optimize the analytical methods used in the generation of outcome variables, and d) provide a means to study the causes of inter-study variability in physical activity. Methodological challenges include inflated variability in accelerometry measurements and the wide variation in tools and methods used to collect non-accelerometer data.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are