Home or Hotel? A Contemporary Challenge in the use of Housing Stock

Over the past five years there have been significant changes made to Private Rented Sectors (PRS) across the UK. The PRS has become increasingly important to providing a home to millions, and there has been increased political focus towards renting at both National and Devolved Governments. At the same time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of short-term holiday lets enabled by online platforms such as Airbnb. There are concerns that housing stock is being transferred from being a home in the PRS to being tourist accommodation. This paper aims to explore the policy nuances that encourage short-term holiday lets over private rented accommodation. Furthermore, this paper examines the growth in short-term lets on Airbnb in London and identifies the extent to which professional property investors are using this platform. To accomplish this, we analyse secondary data on Airbnb listings across a four-year period. This analysis identified that there was a 283% increase in the number of listings available over this period, to 70,534 listings in London, and that there was a 316% increase in the number of listings provided by a professional host to 31,400 listings over the same period. The analysis of this data and the review of previous literature provides evidence to support the argument that previously privately rented homes are now being offered as tourist accommodation. The paper analyses the struggles this poses for policy makers, communities and housing providers, and then sets out challenges for future research

The global integrated world ocean assessment: linking observations to science and policy across multiple scales

In 2004, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly approved a Regular Process to report on the environmental, economic and social aspects of the world's ocean. The Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects produced the first global integrated assessment of the marine environment in December 2016 (known as the first World Ocean Assessment). The second assessment, to be delivered in December 2020, will build on the baselines included in the first assessment, with a focus on establishing trends in the marine environment with relevance to global reporting needs such as those associated with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Central to the assessment process and its outputs are two components. First, is the utilization of ocean observation and monitoring outputs and research to temporally assess physical, chemical, biological, social, economic and cultural components of coastal and marine environments to establish their current state, impacts currently affecting coastal and marine environments, responses to those impacts and associated ongoing trends. Second, is the knowledge brokering of ocean observations and associated research to provide key information that can be utilized and applied to address management and policy needs at local, regional and global scales. Through identifying both knowledge gaps and capacity needs, the assessment process also provides direction to policy makers for the future development and deployment of sustained observation systems that are required for enhancing knowledge and supporting national aspirations associated with the sustainable development of coastal and marine ecosystems. Input from the ocean observation community, managers and policy makers is critical for ensuring that the vital information required for supporting the science policy interface objectives of the Regular Process is included in the assessment. This community white paper discusses developments in linking ocean observations and science with policy achieved as part of the assessment process, and those required for providing strategic linkages into the future.Agência financiadora - United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Seainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Restoring native ecosystems in urban Auckland: urban soils, isolation, and weeds as impediments to forest establishment

New Zealand urban environments are currently dominated by exotic plant species. Restoring native vegetation and its associated native biodiversity in these landscapes is desirable for both cultural and ecological reasons. We report on the first four years of an ongoing vegetation restoration experiment in Waitakere City, Auckland, that addresses four challenges to urban restoration: weeds, Anthropic Soils, attraction of frugivorous birds, and patch isolation. Nine commonly planted native species, grouped separately into wind- and bird-dispersed species, were planted across four sites increasingly isolated from native bush patches, using two site preparation methods. By year three, woody weeds >50 cm tall had established with an average density of 1.7 plant m across all sites. This was more than 17 times denser than all established wild native woody seedlings of any height. One of our establishment methods, sparse planting with mulch, resulted in higher native plant survival and faster plant growth. However, after 4 years, the more intensive method, dense planting and ripping of the soil, resulted in a denser canopy and a 2.8-fold reduction in woody weed establishment. The typically urban soils of all sites were highly modified, with substantial variation in compaction, ponding risk, and fertility over distances of 5-15 m. Several, but not all, species were detrimentally affected by soil compaction and ponding. Many bird-dispersed species, both native and non-native, colonised the experiment, although this did not differ between plots with planted wind-dispersed and bird-dispersed species, perhaps due to the small size of these plots. Site colonisation by native species was particularly high at sites ≤ 100 m from existing native vegetation, suggesting that even small patches of native vegetation in urban landscapes will be valuable as seed sources for accelerating native plant establishment at nearby receptive sites © New Zealand Ecological Society

The role of demonstrator familiarity and language cues on infant imitation from television

An imitation procedure was used to investigate the impact of demonstrator familiarity and language cues on infant learning from television. Eighteen-month-old infants watched two pre-recorded videos showing an adult demonstrating a sequence of actions with two sets of stimuli. Infants' familiarity with the demonstrator and the language used during the demonstration varied as a function of experimental condition. Immediately after watching each video, infants' ability to reproduce the target actions was assessed. A highly familiar demonstrator did not enhance infants' performance. However, the addition of a narrative, developed from mothers' naturalistic description of the event, facilitated learning from an unfamiliar demonstrator. We propose that the differential effect of demonstrator familiarity and language cues may reflect the infants' ability to distinguish between important and less important aspects in a learning situation. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Galactomannan Does Not Precede Major Signs on a Pulmonary Computerized Tomographic Scan Suggestive of Invasive Aspergillosis in Patients with Hematological Malignancies

Background. Detection of serum galactomannan (GM) antigen and presence of the halo sign on a pulmonary computerized tomographic (CT) scan have a high specificity but a low sensitivity to diagnose invasive aspergillosis (IA) in patients at risk for this disease. To our knowledge, the relationship between the time at which pulmonary infiltrates are detected by CT and the time at which GM antigens are detected by enzyme immunoassay (EIA) has not been studied. Methods. In a prospective study, tests for detection of GM were performed twice weekly for patients with hematological malignancies who had undergone hematopoetic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) or had received induction and/or consolidation chemotherapy. A pulmonary CT scan was performed once weekly. Infiltrates were defined as either major or minor signs. IA was classified as proven, probable, or possible, in accordance with the definition stated by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer-Invasive Fungal Infections Cooperative Group and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Mycoses Study Group. Results. We analyzed 161 episodes of infection in 107 patients (65 allogeneic HSCT recipients, 30 autologous HSCT recipients, and 66 induction and/or consolidation chemotherapy recipients). A total of 109 episodes with no IA, 32 episodes with possible IA, and 20 episodes with probable or proven IA were identified. Minor pulmonary signs were detected by CT in 70 episodes (43%), and major pulmonary signs were detected by CT in 11 episodes (7%). Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed no significant association between detection of GM by EIA and detection of abnormal pulmonary signs by CT. A significant association was found between GM levels and receipt of piperacillin-tazobactam. GM test results were not positive before major signs were seen on CT images. Only 7 (10%) of 70 patients with minor pulmonary signs had positive GM test results before detection of the greatest pathologic change by CT. Conclusions. We show that detection of GM by EIA does not precede detection of major lesions by pulmonary CT. In the clinical setting, the decision to administer mold-active treatment should based on detection of new pulmonary infiltrates on CT performed early during infection, rather than on results of EIA for detection of G