Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements reveal a striking difference in intermolecular interactions between two short highly charged peptides—deca-arginine (R10) and deca-lysine (K10). ...Comparison of SAXS curves at high and low salt concentration shows that R10 self-associates, while interactions between K10 chains are purely repulsive. The self-association of R10 is stronger at lower ionic strengths, indicating that the attraction between R10 molecules has an important electrostatic component. SAXS data are complemented by NMR measurements and potentials of mean force between the peptides, calculated by means of umbrella-sampling molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. All-atom MD simulations elucidate the origin of the R10–R10 attraction by providing structural information on the dimeric state. The last two C-terminal residues of R10 constitute an adhesive patch formed by stacking of the side chains of two arginine residues and by salt bridges formed between the like-charge ion pair and the C-terminal carboxyl groups. A statistical analysis of the Protein Data Bank reveals that this mode of interaction is a common feature in proteins.
Housing-led regeneration has been shown to have limited effects on mental health. Considering housing and neighbourhoods as a psychosocial environment, regeneration may have greater impact on ...positive mental wellbeing than mental ill-health. This study examined the relationship between the positive mental wellbeing of residents living in deprived areas and their perceptions of their housing and neighbourhoods.
A cross-sectional study of 3,911 residents in 15 deprived areas in Glasgow, Scotland. Positive mental wellbeing was measured using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale.
Using multivariate mulit-nomial logistic regressions and controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and physical health status, we found that several aspects of people's residential psychosocial environments were strongly associated with higher mental wellbeing. Mental wellbeing was higher when respondents considered the following: their neighbourhood had very good aesthetic qualities (RRR 3.3, 95% CI 1.9, 5.8); their home and neighbourhood represented personal progress (RRR 3.2 95% CI 2.2, 4.8; RRR 2.6, 95% CI 1.8, 3.7, respectively); their home had a very good external appearance (RRR 2.6, 95% CI 1.3, 5.1) and a very good front door (both an aesthetic and a security/control item) (RRR 2.1, 95% CI 1.2, 3.8); and when satisfaction with their landlord was very high (RRR 2.3, 95% CI 2.2,4.8). Perception of poor neighbourhood aesthetic quality was associated with lower wellbeing (RRR 0.4, 95% CI 0.3, 0.5).
This study has shown that for people living in deprived areas, the quality and aesthetics of housing and neighbourhoods are associated with mental wellbeing, but so too are feelings of respect, status and progress that may be derived from how places are created, serviced and talked about by those who live there. The implication for regeneration activities undertaken to improve housing and neighbourhoods is that it is not just the delivery of improved housing that is important for mental wellbeing, but also the quality and manner of delivery.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The affinity of halide anions to the water/oil interface is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations effectively accounting for polarization effects by an electronic continuum correction, ...which is practically realized via rescaling of the ionic charges. This simple and computationally efficient correction to nonpolarizable simulations is suited for electronically homogeneous media, and we show that it works well also for the water/oil interface, which exhibits practically no electronic discontinuity. Consequently, for this interface, the current simulations give interfacial affinities of halide anions, which are consistent with experiment and previous explicitly polarizable calculations. For the water/vapor interface, however, the present method overestimates the anionic surface affinities, which can be traced back to the abrupt change in the electronic part of the relative permittivity upon moving from the liquid to the gas phase.
The SHARP study was set up to evaluate the short (1 year) and longer-term (2 year) effects on health and wellbeing of providing new social housing to tenants. This paper presents the study ...background, the design and methods, and the findings at one year.
Data were collected from social tenants who were rehoused into a new, general-purpose socially-rented home developed and let by a Scottish Registered Social Landlord (the "Intervention" group). These data were collected at three points in time: before moving (Wave 1), one year after moving (Wave 2) and two years after moving (Wave 3). Data were collected from a Comparison group using the same methods at Baseline (Wave 1) and after two years of follow-up (Wave 3). Qualitative data were also collected by means of individual interviews. This paper presents the quantitative and qualitative findings at 1 year (after Wave 2).
339 Intervention group interviews and 392 Comparison group interviews were completed. One year after moving to a new home there was a significant reduction in the proportion of Intervention group respondents reporting problems with the home, such as damp and noise. There was also a significant increase in neighbourhood satisfaction compared with Baseline (chi(2) = 35.51, p < 0.0001). Many aspects of the neighbourhood improved significantly, including antisocial behaviour. In terms of environmental aspects and services the greatest improvements were in the general appearance of the area, the reputation of the area, litter and rubbish, and speeding traffic. However, lack of facilities for children/young people and lack of safe children's play areas remained a concern for tenants.
This study found that self-reported health changed little in the first year after moving. Nonetheless, the quantitative and qualitative data point to improvements in the quality of housing and of the local environment, as well as in tenant satisfaction and other related outcomes. Further analyses will explore whether these effects are sustained, and whether differences in health outcomes emerge at 2 years compared with the Comparison group.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
There is little robust evidence to test the policy assumption that housing-led area regeneration strategies will contribute to health improvement and reduce social inequalities in health. The GoWell ...Programme has been designed to measure effects on health and wellbeing of multi-faceted regeneration interventions on residents of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the city of Glasgow, Scotland.
This mixed methods study focused (initially) on 14 disadvantaged neighbourhoods experiencing regeneration. These were grouped by intervention into 5 categories for comparison. GoWell includes a pre-intervention householder survey (n = 6008) and three follow-up repeat-cross sectional surveys held at two or three year intervals (the main focus of this protocol) conducted alongside a nested longitudinal study of residents from 6 of those areas. Self-reported responses from face-to-face questionnaires are analysed along with various routinely produced ecological data and documentary sources to build a picture of the changes taking place, their cost and impacts on residents and communities. Qualitative methods include interviews and focus groups of residents, housing managers and other stakeholders exploring issues such as the neighbourhood context, potential pathways from regeneration to health, community engagement and empowerment.
Urban regeneration programmes are 'natural experiments.' They are complex interventions that may impact upon social determinants of population health and wellbeing. Measuring the effects of such interventions is notoriously challenging. GoWell compares the health and wellbeing effects of different approaches to regeneration, generates theory on pathways from regeneration to health and explores the attitudes and responses of residents and other stakeholders to neighbourhood change.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Recycling is a basic anthropological process of humankind. The reutilization of materials or of ideas from the past is a process determined by various natural or cultural causes. Recycling can be ...motivated by a crisis or by a complex symbolic cause like the incorporation of the past into the present. What archaeology has not insisted upon is the dimensional scale of the process, which operates from the micro-scale of the recycling of the ancestors' material, up to the macro-scale of the landscape. It is well known that there are direct relations between artefacts and landscapes in what concerns the materiality and mobility of objects. An additional relation between artefact and landscape may be the process of recycling. In many ways artefact and landscape can be considered as one aspect of material culture, perceived at a different scale, since both have the same materiality and suffer the same process of reutilisation.
Current regeneration policy has been described as 'state-led gentrification', with comparisons made with the 'social disruption' caused by slum clearance of the 1950s and 1960s. This article takes ...issue with this approach in relation to the study of the restructuring of social housing areas. The terms 'forced relocation' and 'displacement' are often too crude to describe what actually happens within processes of restructuring and the effects upon residents. Displacement in particular has important dimensions other than the physical one of moving. Evidence from a recent study of people who have moved out of restructured areas shows that although there is some evidence of physical displacement, there is little evidence of social or psychosocial displacement after relocation. Prior attitudes to moving and aspects of the process of relocation-the degree of choice and distance involved-are important moderators of the outcomes. Issues of time and context are insufficiently taken into consideration in studies and accounts of restructuring, relocation and displacement.
Few studies have simultaneously examined the relationship of levels of recorded crime, perceptions of crime and disorder, and safety from crime with rates of physical activity. We developed a series ...of multilevel ordinal regression models to examine these aspects in relation to self-reported neighbourhood walking frequency in a cross-sectional sample of 3824 British adults from 29 deprived neighbourhoods in Glasgow, UK. Perceptions of several serious local antisocial behaviours (drunkenness and burglary) and feelings of personal safety (feeling safe in the home and if walking alone in the local area at night) were consistently associated, respectively, with less and more frequent walking. Conversely, perceiving drug dealing or drug use as a serious problem was associated with walking more frequently. There was a small but significant association between walking frequency in neighbourhoods with higher recorded person crime (but not property crime) rates when considered in conjunction with other aspects of disorder and crime safety, although not when additionally controlling for sociodemographic, neighbourhood and community aspects. The magnitude of these objective and perceived crime-related effects is modest and features of the psychosocial environment and social cohesion (having a sense of progress from living in the neighbourhood, group participation and positively rating social venues), as well as health and personal income deprivation, may more strongly determine levels of neighbourhood walking. Nevertheless, physical activity benefits may accrue at the population level through provision of environments that are safer from crime. Our study also shows the importance to local walking of neighbourhood management, which reduces problems of disorder, and of social regeneration, which helps strengthen sense of community.
•People perceiving drunkenness or burglary as a problem walked locally less often.•People perceiving drugs as a problem tended to walk locally more often.•People who felt safe, or who trusted their neighbours tended to walk more often.•People tended to walk more often in areas with higher recorded person crime rates.•Good psychosocial and social cohesion ratings were linked to more frequent walking.
This paper examines the archaeological settlement pattern and vegetation history of Bela krajina region of Slovenia in order to better understand the interaction of human activities and environmental ...processes in the landscape. Pollen record of two small palaeoecological sites (Mlaka and Griblje) indicates that human impact on the vegetation at circa 4150 calBC was intensive (forest cutting/burning, beech decline and formation of fields, pastures, meadows) and can be associated with numerous Neolithic/Eneolithic sites, located in the Lahinja river basin and the Kolpa lowlands. Human pressure on the (lowland/riverine) environment slightly decreased between c. 3750–2850 calBC. This coincides with the appearance of a more dispersed settlement pattern, including the formation of short-term settlement/activity areas on the karst plateau. This change to a more extensive Eneolithic settlement pattern can be presumably associated with change in economy (more intensive pastoralism and transhumance, possibly also soil erosion) and is partially borne out by evidence from excavated sites in the area.
Perceptions of neighbourhood change have been an important area of inquiry for several reasons, including for their effects upon place attachment, mobility intentions, and links to mental and ...physical health. In this article, we take a different perspective by assessing residents' perceptions of neighbourhood compositional changes relating to social class and ethnicity and considering them as potential pathways to other social and psychosocial outcomes. In addition, we examine how these relationships are moderated in situations where policy is a prime cause of neighbourhood change through state-led regeneration. Across deprived areas, perceptions of social mix are positively associated with residential satisfaction, community cohesion, and feelings of empowerment and safety. Perceptions of ethnic diversity are positively associated with empowerment and safety, and negatively with area reputation. In regeneration areas, perceived social mix is positively associated with most outcomes but perceived ethnic mix holds negative associations; neither appears to impact external reputations.
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