Milton Keynes Research Articles

Towards evaluation design for smart city development

Smart city developments integrate digital, human and physical systems in the built environment. With growing urbanization and widespread developments, identifying suitable evaluation methodologies is important. Case-study research across five UK cities ‒ Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough ‒ revealed that city evaluation approaches were principally project-focused with city-level evaluation plans at early stages. Key challenges centred on selecting suitable evaluation methodologies to evidence urban value and outcomes, addressing city authority requirements. Recommendations for evaluation design draw on urban studies and measurement frameworks, capitalizing on big data opportunities and developing appropriate, valid, credible integrative approaches across projects, programmes and city-level developments.

Patients should be at the heart of decision-making

Journal of Kidney CareVol. 3, No. 3 EditorialPatients should be at the heart of decision-makingPeter EllisPeter EllisSearch for more papers by this authorPeter EllisPublished Online:22 May 2018https://doi.org/10.12968/jokc.2018.3.3.141AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article References Standing M. Clinical judgement and decision making in nursing and interprofessional healthcare. Milton Keynes: Open University Press; 2010 Google Scholar FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 2 May 2018Volume 3Issue 3ISSN (print): 2397-9534ISSN (online): 2397-9542 Metrics History Published online 22 May 2018 Published in print 2 May 2018 Information© MA Healthcare LimitedPDF download

Roadmaps to utopia: Tales of the smart city

Notions of the smart city are pervasive in urban development discourses. Various frameworks for the development of smart cities, often conceptualised as roadmaps, make a number of implicit claims about how smart city projects proceed but the legitimacy of those claims is unclear. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. We explore the development of a smart transport application, MotionMap, in the context of a £16M smart city programme taking place in Milton Keynes, UK. We examine how the idealised smart city narrative was locally inflected, and discuss the differences between the narrative and the processes and outcomes observed in Milton Keynes. The research shows that the vision of data-driven efficiency outlined in the roadmaps is not universally compelling, and that different approaches to the sensing and optimisation of urban flows have potential for empowering or disempowering different actors. Roadmaps tend to emphasise the importance of delivering quick practical results. However, the benefits observed in Milton Keynes did not come from quick technical fixes but from a smart city narrative that reinforced existing city branding, mobilising a growing network of actors towards the development of a smart region. Further research is needed to investigate this and other smart city developments, the significance of different smart city narratives, and how power relationships are reinforced and constructed through them.

Invigorating Animism ResearchAnimate Planet: Making Visceral Sense of Living in a High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World. By Kath Weston. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook and Film ReviewsInvigorating Animism Research Animate Planet: Making Visceral Sense of Living in a High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World. By Kath Weston. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.Graham HarveyGraham HarveyReligious Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, United Kingdom ([email protected]). Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 59, Number 1February 2018 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/696102 Views: 133Total views on this site HistoryAccepted October 26, 2017 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Actual energy and environmental savings on energy retrofit works at the Lakes Estate, Milton Keynes

The EU 2020 package sets three legally binding climate and energy targets: 1) a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions (from 1990 levels); 2) 20% of EU energy from renewables; and 3) a 20% improvement in energy efficiency. In the UK, the Milton Keynes Council has sought to an implement energy performance retrofit of their building stock to achieve these targets.This research study was conducted to determine whether the abovementioned targets could be achieved, and in order to gain further understanding over the impact of the energy retrofits on the environmental conditions at each property and the behaviour of tenants. Therefore, a sample of eight council-owned properties on the Lakes Estate, representative of 70% of the council’s stock, were monitored from January 2015 to April 2016. Energy consumption and environmental parameters were measured before and after refurbishment. Building fabrics were tested pre- and post-retrofit, and a Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) evaluation was completed. Further, occupancy behaviour surveys were conducted before and after to understand occupant energy demand and habits.On average, total gas usage was reduced by 24%, despite the average internal temperatures for the equivalent periods in pre- and post-retrofit being higher post-retrofit while the total energy demand was reduced by 14%. At the same time energy efficiency ratings improved by an average of 19% (10 SAP points).

Technoeconomic Distribution Network Planning Using Smart Grid Techniques with Evolutionary Self‐Healing Network States

The transition to a secure low‐carbon system is raising a set of uncertainties when planning the path to a reliable decarbonised supply. The electricity sector is committing large investments in the transmission and distribution sector upon 2050 in order to ensure grid resilience. The cost and limited flexibility of traditional approaches to 11 kV network reinforcement threaten to constrain the uptake of low‐carbon technologies. This paper investigates the suitability and cost‐effectiveness of smart grid techniques along with traditional reinforcements for the 11 kV electricity distribution network, in order to analyse expected investments up to 2050 under different DECC demand scenarios. The evaluation of asset planning is based on an area of study in Milton Keynes (East Midlands, United Kingdom), being composed of six 11 kV primaries. To undertake this, the analysis used a revolutionary new model tool for electricity distribution network planning, called scenario investment model (SIM). Comprehensive comparisons of short‐ and long‐term evolutionary investment planning strategies are presented. The work helps electricity network operators to visualise and design operational planning investments providing bottom‐up decision support.

The Formative Spirituality of John Punshon (1935–2017)

John Punshon has been one of the premier Quaker historians and spokes-persons over the last four decades. Serving as Quaker Tutor at Woodbrooke, Visiting Professor of Quaker Studies at George Fox University, and the first Geraldine Leatherock Chair of Quaker Studies at the Earlham School of Religion, John Punshon has contributed greatly to present historical and theological understandings of the Quaker movement, and he will be greatly missed. From his childhood experiences in a local church whilst living with his grandparents during the War to his education at Oxford, his public and political service and his development into a leading interpreter of Quaker history, faith, and practice, his own reflections, shared at Milton Keynes Friends Meeting in 2003, provide a basis for understanding the origins of his thought and convictions as represented more extensively in his writings and spoken ministries. He will be greatly missed, but his contributions extend beyond the boundaries of space and time.

‘Entering the age of the hypermarket cinema’: The First Five Years of the Multiplex in the UK

During the first five years of its development from the opening of The Point in Milton Keynes in 1985, multiplex cinemas radically changed the previous exhibition landscape, modernising the business of cinema exhibition and shifting the site of film consumption to new, out-of-town shopping and leisure centres. This article considers certain key developments in that initial period of the multiplex cinema's introduction into the UK, with particular emphasis on three aspects of its diffusion: the importance of regeneration and enterprise, the multiplex's role in stimulating associated leisure and commercial developments, and its relationship to out-of-town and regional shopping developments. In order to illustrate these themes, the article will consider the opening of four complexes: The Cannon in Salford Quays, and the AMC multiplexes in Telford in Shropshire, in Sheffield and in Dudley Merry Hill in the West Midlands.

Historicizing Urban Sustainability: The Shifting Ideals Behind Forus Industrial Park, Norway

AbstractUrban sustainability interventions must always contend with the built environment––the historically accumulated materialization of previous rounds of city building. In this article we argue for a historicized perspective on urban sustainability that allows us to consider how ideals of the past, materialized in the urban built environment, constrain current sustainability interventions. Drawing on the policy mobility literature, science and technology studies, and assemblage thinking, we examine the recursive relationship between mobile ideas on the one hand and urban materiality on the other. Empirically we analyse the historical development of Forus Industrial Park in Stavanger, Norway, and current attempts to transform this into a compact, ‘post‐fossil’ space. We focus on two phases: the late 1960s, following the discovery of oil, when Forus started developing into the core oil cluster in Norway, drawing on ideals from Houston and Milton Keynes; and the current preoccupation with sustainable mobility and density, drawing on ideals from compact European cities like Copenhagen. We show how the inertia of the built environment exercises a form of distributed agency constraining interventions towards sustainable urbanism. Therefore, we argue, truly powerful interventions in urban sustainability are those that effectively reconfigure and retrofit, and reassemble existing materialities into new formations.

Dental nurses to convene in Milton Keynes

Dental nurses to convene in Milton Keynes

Every House on Langland Road – the production of archival, architectural and artistic spaces

This article describes an Arts Council England project, undertaken by the author and a photographer, to examine spatial and temporal relations between an art project, its subject and its audience. The project explored and documented the architecture of a modernist 1970s housing estate, Netherfield, designed by a group of four architects for the new city of Milton Keynes. The estate has not aged well and the visual remnants of what had been an ambitious and idiosyncratic housing scheme were to be photographed and juxtaposed with the original architectural drawings. The photographic process contributed to a more complex series of perspectives which included the archival history of the estate and its surrounding new city, the people who live there and my own reflections on a council estate childhood. In turn, these perspectives are set out in this article in terms of the spatial and temporal realms in which they are, and continue to be, produced. Loosely conceived in terms of Lefebvre’s production of space triad, these realms are traced through the estate’s historical narrative from plans to buildings which then converge in the eventual art work. The gallery is seen as an assemblage of multiple connections drawn between various productions of archival, architectural and artistic spaces.

Can a galacto-oligosaccharide reduce the risk of traveller's diarrhoea? A placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind study.

Diarrhoea is a common medical problem affecting travellers to Asia, Africa and Latin America. The use of prophylactic antimicrobial agents may increase the risk of contracting resistant bacteria. Findings indicate that oligosaccharides, i.e. carbohydrate chains of 3-10 monosaccharides, reduce the risk of diarrhoea. We performed a placebo-controlled, double-blind study of a galacto-oligosaccharide, B-GOS (Bimuno®, Clasado Ltd, Milton Keynes UK), vs placebo for participants travelling to countries with a high/intermediate risk of diarrhoea for 7-15 days. The participants ingested 2.7g of B-GOS daily from 5 days prior to departure throughout the travel period, and returned a questionnaire, with a diarrhoea log, after their return. The case definition of diarrhoea was three or more loose stools per day. Of 523 enrolled subjects, 334 travellers managed to comply per protocol (PP), 349 followed the protocol at least until the onset of diarrhoea (conditionally evaluable, CE), and 408 followed the protocol with fewer than 5 days of deviance from the protocol (intention to treat, ITT). There was a significant reduction of diarrhoea incidence in the PP group (odds ratio = 0.56, P = 0.03), while the effect in the CE group was non-significant (OR = 0.65, P = 0.08). No significant effect was found during the first 7 days after starting with B-GOS, but from day 8 there was a significant effect in both the PP and CE groups (OR = 0.47, P = 0.02 and OR = 0.53, P = 0.03, respectively). The entire effect was seen in 1-day (i.e. self-limiting) diarrhoea (PP: OR = 0.25, P = 0.004). There was no effect on duration or the number of bowel movements during diarrhoea. The severity of diarrhoea was not affected. B-GOS reduces the risk of diarrhoea lasting 1 day. The protection seemed to start after a week of treatment with B-GOS. Strict compliance is crucial. The treatment is environmentally friendly and without adverse effects.

Metabolic clinic for individuals with HIV/AIDS: a commitment and vision to the future of HIV services.

One of the biggest current challenges in managing an ageing cohort living with the HIV is handling dyslipidaemia, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Combination antiretroviral therapy decrease mortality and morbidity in HIV patients, but lead to increase in insulin resistance, dyslipidaemia, abnormalities of fat distribution and high risk of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, a metabolic clinic was established for individuals living with HIV in the Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The clinic meets considerable demands by service users and hence has the potential to be popular. This review focuses on the importance of the development of a metabolic clinic for the purpose of audit, research, teaching and exchange of knowledge between HIV specialists and the metabolic team in the management of complex cases. Therefore, the metabolic clinic should be an integral part of HIV services especially as the cohort of the 'older' HIV population increases.

A bird\u2019s eye view: using circuit theory to study urban landscape connectivity for birds

ContextConnectivity is fundamental to understanding how landscape form influences ecological function. However, uncertainties persist due to the difficulty and expense of gathering empirical data to drive or to validate connectivity models, especially in urban areas, where relationships are multifaceted and the habitat matrix cannot be considered to be binary.ObjectivesThis research used circuit theory to model urban bird flows (i.e. ‘current’), and compared results to observed abundance. The aims were to explore the ability of this approach to predict wildlife flows and to test relationships between modelled connectivity and variation in abundance.MethodsCircuitscape was used to model functional connectivity in Bedford, Luton/Dunstable, and Milton Keynes, UK, for great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), drawing parameters from published studies of woodland bird flows in urban environments. Model performance was then tested against observed abundance data.ResultsModelled current showed a weak yet positive agreement with combined abundance for P. major and C. caeruleus. Weaker correlations were found for other woodland species, suggesting the approach may be expandable if re-parameterised.ConclusionsTrees provide suitable habitat for urban woodland bird species, but their location in large, contiguous patches and corridors along barriers also facilitates connectivity networks throughout the urban matrix. Urban connectivity studies are well-served by the advantages of circuit theory approaches, and benefit from the empirical study of wildlife flows in these landscapes to parameterise this type of modelling more explicitly. Such results can prove informative and beneficial in designing urban green space and new developments.

“You’ve never seen anything like it”: multiplexes, shopping malls and sensory overwhelm in Milton Keynes, 1979–1986

From 1979, the new town of Milton Keynes embraced a new marketing approach which emphasised its capacity to elicit wondrous, uplifting, and desirable bodily sensations. This coincided with the transformation of the town’s central landscape, with Britain’s largest mall, The Shopping Building opening in 1979, followed in 1985 by Britain’s first multiplex cinema, The Point. This new direction in Milton Keynes’ marketing rejected national media narratives of the town’s sterility, while reorienting its administration away from the now-toxic political legacy of Keynesianism and towards consumer capitalism. This presented the Shopping Building, The Point and Milton Keynes as a whole, as containing forces that intensified and proliferated potential sensory experiences which resisted quantification and could only be understood fully through immediate presence. This deliberate non-specificity equated the undifferentiated general ideal of sensation with the liberatory capacities of consumer choice, while concealing the encroaching constraints on human possibility arising from commodification of sensations and public space. While critical accounts identified this new determinism as a damaging force, Milton Keynes was nonetheless able to redefine its public image during the early years of the Thatcher government by association with private consumption and private sensation.

When looking after a loved-one is too much: caring for carers.

British Journal of Community NursingVol. 22, No. 5 Looking at Long-Term ConditionsWhen looking after a loved-one is too much: caring for carersAllie AndersonAllie AndersonSearch for more papers by this authorAllie AndersonPublished Online:3 May 2017https://doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2017.22.5.256AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article References Carers Trust (2017) What is a carer? https://carers.org/what-carer (accessed 18 April 2017) Google ScholarCarers UK (2014) Carers at breaking point. www.socialwelfare.bl.uk/subject-areas/services-activity/social-work-care-services/carersuk/166981carers-at-breaking-point.pdf (accessed 18 April 2017) Google ScholarCarers UK (2017) Facts & figures. www.carersuk.org/news-and-campaigns/press-releases/facts-and-figures (accessed 18 April 2017) Google ScholarDepartment of Health (2016) Care Act factsheets – Factsheet 8: The law for carers. www.gov.uk/government/publications/care-act-2014-part-1-factsheets/care-act-factsheets#factsheet-8-the-law-for-carers (accessed 18 April 2017) Google ScholarNHS England (2016) A practical guide to healthy caring. www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/nhs-practcl-guid-caring.pdf (accessed 18 April 2017) Google ScholarNursing and Midwifery Council (2015) The Code – Professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses and midwives. www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/nmc-publications/nmc-code.pdf (accessed 18 April 2017) Google ScholarRowland C et al. (2017) The contributions of family care-givers at end of life: A national post-bereavement census survey of cancer carers' hours of care and expenditures. Palliat Med 31(4): 346–55 Crossref, Medline, Google ScholarThe Queen's Nursing Institute (2017) Supporting Carers. www.qni.org.uk/nursing-in-the-community/supporting-carers/ (accessed 18 April 2017) Google ScholarTwigg J, Atkin K (1994) Carers Perceived: Policy and Practice in Informal Care. Milton Keynes: Open University Press Google Scholar FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 2 May 2017Volume 22Issue 5ISSN (print): 1462-4753ISSN (online): 2052-2215 Metrics History Published online 3 May 2017 Published in print 2 May 2017 Information© MA Healthcare LimitedPDF download

City approaches to smart city evaluation and reporting: case studies in the United Kingdom

Smart technologies create opportunities for urban development and regeneration, leading to a proliferation of projects/programmes designed to address city strategies around environmental, economic and social challenges. Whilst there is considerable critical debate on the merits of smart city developments, there has been surprisingly little research on the evaluation of smart interventions, and the outcomes of embedded smart technologies for cities and citizens. This examines case-study research undertaken in Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough, on city approaches to smart city evaluation and reporting. Findings exemplify contemporary city evaluation and reporting practices, challenges and recommendations to support smart urban development.

The 36th Scientific Meeting of the Physiotherapy Research Society: 27 April 2017, Milton Keynes College, Milton Keynes

Conference Abstract for The 36th Scientific Meeting of the Physiotherapy Research Society: 27 April 2017, Milton Keynes College, Milton Keynes

The smart city and its publics: insights from across six UK cities

In response to policy-makers’ increasing claims to prioritise ‘people’ in smart city development, we explore the publicness of emerging practices across six UK cities: Bristol, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, and Peterborough. Local smart city programmes are analysed as techno-public assemblages invoking variegated modalities of publicness. Our findings challenge the dystopian speculative critiques of the smart city, while nevertheless indicating the dominance of ‘entrepreneurial’ and ‘service user’ modes of the public. We highlight the risk of bifurcation within smart city assemblages, such that the ‘civic’ and ‘political’ roles of the public become siloed into less obdurate strands of programmatic activity.

A review of a pilot project providing a memory screening service to GP practices in Milton Keynes

Purpose:To describe findings from a primary care memory screening pilot project in Milton Keynes.Background:The Milton Keynes Specialist Memory Service provided a pilot memory screening service to nine GP practices, for individuals identified as ‘at risk’ of dementia. The Paired Associate Learning task on the CANTAB mobile was used. Participants who showed memory difficulties were referred for a full assessment at SMS, resulting in various outcomes, including possible diagnoses of dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI).Methods:Data were collated in relation to participant numbers, outcomes and demographics. Questionnaire and focus group data were also collected, to gather patient experience information. Thematic analysis was used to analyse focus group data.Conclusions:871 participants attended and completed memory screening appointments. 254 participants were offered further assessments, and 144 people attended and completed further assessments. 61.8 per cent of these individuals either received a diagnosis (of dementia or MCI), or continued to have involvement with the service for further investigations or monitoring. Questionnaire and focus group responses and themes were generally positive. Main themes related to early identification/support and increased awareness/education. Negative responses and themes related predominantly to anxiety. Overall, the screening project was acceptable to a large number of people. It identified a number of individuals who were found to have diagnoses of dementia or MCI, however there were also false positives. Questionnaires and focus groups indicated generally positive views and experiences. The pilot has resulted in discussions regarding a permanent memory screening service.