Monthly Archives: September 2018

Epilogue: ‘Sobre las conciencias de los hombres’: A medical ecological view on post-Maria Puerto Rico (Part 4)

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Dr Timothy Dye

One year has passed since two major hurricanes struck the Caribbean, devastating the islands of Puerto Rico. In the first three blogs in this series I discussed what was happening in communities across Puerto Rico through the lens of medical ecology, a view of the world where we are all part of an integrated ecosystem. In this blog I follow up on the long term damage and recovery of the environment, the islands’ infrastructure and the lives of the people who live there.

A model to predict Airbnb distribution in cities

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Giovanni Quattrone

The distribution of Airbnb listings has been the topic of much discussion among citizens and policy-makers, particularly in major cities. In an article published in EPJ Data Science, Giovanni Quattrone and colleagues looked into the many factors determining the spacial penetration of Airbnb in urban centers and developed a model that aims to predict this distribution in other cities. Among others, the presence of creative communities emerges as an important factor in the adoption of the housing plaftform.

Understanding complexities for household energy management: lessons from a smart grid pilot project

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Bronwyn Lazowski, Dr. Paul Parker & Dr. Ian H. Rowlands

Smart grid tools increase opportunities to reduce or shift residential electricity consumption, but can they shape residential energy culture? And what underlying factors influence this shift? A recent attempt at answering these questions is the focus of a study published in Energy, Sustainability and Society, by members of the Energy Policy Research Group and the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

The effects of public pre-kindergarten attendance on first grade literacy achievement: a district study

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Michael Haslip

Does preschool influence childrens’ literacy positively? Several findings from a recent study published in the International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy suggest that it does. The policy decision to expand public preschool to a universal and better funded system in the US requires more evidence demonstrating that this is an impactful investment for children.

Do you like reading? Promoting reading attitudes of girls and boys

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Dr. Sonja Nonte

Since the beginning of the century, we have known that there is a gender gap between girls and boys when it comes to reading habits and reading achievement, suggesting that girls have a more positive attitude. What are the differences and how do they come about? How can we improve students’ reading engagement? A recently published article in Large-scale Assessments in Eduction provides an overview on where we stand in this new challenge for educational policy.

The role of planning towards sustainable urban mobility

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Hana Brůhová Foltýnová

In Europe, 74% of the population live and work in cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. This, together with an aging urban population, has the potential to strengthen problems related to mobility and transport systems. Cities are confronted with the pressing dilemma of how to increase the quality of life in face of these demographic changes. A new article collection published in European Transport Research Review highlights different areas of concern and proposes a number of solutions.

30 million downloads of open access book chapters

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Christina Emery

We’re proud to announce that there have now been more than 30 million chapter downloads across our open access (OA) books portfolio. That is for just over 500 OA books published by Springer Nature since we started tracking downloads from our official platform, SpringerLink, in 2013. We very recently published our 550th OA book. At… Read more »