Increased demand for cooling and decreased demand for heating in the built environment is one of the main anticipated modes of adaptation to higher temperatures due to climate change. California’s residential sector uses relatively little electricity for heating. It is therefore expected that the demand for electricity will increase at the intensive margin as households operate existing air con...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two large government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that are at the center of US residential mortgage finance, are “elephants in the room” that are being ignored as part of broad-brush financial sector reform. Neither the Dodd–Frank Act nor recently proposed overhauls of Dodd–Frank have addressed reform of the GSEs’ structures, although the GSEs were placed in gove...

Residential buildings consume significant amounts of energy and produce large amount of emissions and waste. However, there is a substantial potential for energy savings in this sector which needs to be evaluated over the life cycle of residential buildings. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology has been employed to study the primary energy uses and associated environmental impacts of differe...

1 Introduction Demand response (DR) refers to a set of dynamic demand mechanisms that aim to manage electricity consumption in response to supply-side signals. DR can be used for the purpose of demand regulation (e.g. to maintain voltage and frequency within safety limits) as well as for energy balance (e.g. to shift demand to off-peak periods, to curtail demand during emergency situations, or ...

Various green projects were executed to reduce the energy consumption in building sector. In particular, it is necessary to improve the thermal insulation performance of existing residential buildings. Even though it is critical to evaluate the thermal insulation performance in operation and maintenance phase, most of the policies and previous studies have focused on thermal insulation material...

BACKGROUND Young people in out-of-home care are more likely to experience poorer mental and physical health outcomes related to their peers. Stable care environments are essential for ameliorating impacts of disruptive early childhood experiences, including exposure to psychological trauma, abuse and neglect. At present there are very few high quality data regarding the placement stability hist...

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES Through comparison of two studies undertaken three years apart the opinions of nurses working in aged care facilities in Queensland were determined. Results will support policy planning for the Queensland Nurses Union. BACKGROUND An ageing population in Australia is placing increased demands on residential aged care facilities. In Queensland, the national situation is exac...

BACKGROUND Acute psychiatric wards have been the focus of widespread dissatisfaction. Residential alternatives have attracted much interest, but little research, over the past 50 years. AIMS Our aims were to identify all in-patient and residential alternatives to standard acute psychiatric wards in England, to develop a typology of such services and to describe their distribution and clinical...

In New Zealand, as in many other countries, housing in the private-rental sector is in worse condition than in the owner-occupier housing sector. New Zealand residential buildings have no inspection regime after original construction signoff. Laws and regulations mandating standards for existing residential housing are outdated and spread over a range of instruments. Policies to improve standar...