Polluted Britain - what are the facts about air pollution.

This week Britain received a final warning from the European Commission over  air pollution limits for nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Its website gives details over the regulations and other nations which were also warned.

Here are some places to trace facts on air pollution levels.

UK facts

UK DEFRA has a daily monitong site of levels.
there is also

UK NAEI - National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory

There are also local authority CO2 emissions 

For a different perspective see the Friends of the Earth campaign for cleaner air. They have a national air pollution map
Greenpeace campaigns


European Perspectives.
Eurostat has some data on excedence of air quality levels in urban areas in EU nations.
Its website also has a larger section on air polution statistics which provides free access to a range of data topics

European Topic Centre for Air Pollution and Climate Change Mitigation (ETC/ACM)
The ETC/ACM is a consortium of 14 European organisations with the Netherlands Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) as its lead organisation.

Main tasks of the ETC/ACM are to:
Assist the European Environment Agency (EEA) in its support to EU policy on air pollution. Its website provides free access to reports, guidelines and a number of free databases.

Airbase. The European air quality database system. It contains, next to multi-annual time series of measurement data and their statistics for a representative selection of stations throughout Europe

European Interpolated Air Quality Maps Annual European air quality maps for urban and rural background concentrations

Global Data

WHO Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database (update 2016)

Climate and Clean Air Coalition involves the United Nations, USA and other nations, read reports  on its website.

Social science sites of the week

Here is the latest round up of new and interesting sites form social scientists

Holocaust Remembrance Day

27th January has been designated as  as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust by the United Nations as it commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp . Our special blog posting has links to resources for background information as well as a focus on the 2016 theme : Don’t stand by.

Flames for Humanities Heroes is a national art project which saw 12 groups of students across the UK create artwork that tells the stories of heroes who refused to stand by when faced by Nazi atrocities. View examples of their stunning work online

Presidential Elections in Haiti

Run off presidential elections in Haiti have been postponed for the third time. Use the links from our special election blog posting to find out more on the background and impact of this.

Councils struggling to cope with homeless people

This is the finding from the latest annual review of the extent and nature of homelessness in England published this week by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of its Homelessness monitor series. The homelessness monitor is a five year study (2011-2015), funded by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, that provides an independent analysis of the impact of recent economic and policy developments in the UK on homelessness. There are particular concerns about young homeless people

Also launched this week from Crisis as part of a new campaign Crisis- Lead London Home Manifesto for
single homeless people 2016 

On this topic see the official Uk government statistics on homelessness

They include rough sleeping, families in bed and breakfast accommodation

St Mungos publishes research on the lives of homeless people as well as policy issues

Homelessness in Europe FEANTSA is the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless is an umbrella of not-for-profit organisations which participate in or contribute to the fight against homelessness in Europe. It maintains the European Observatory on homelessness

Which offers free access to the European Journal of Homelessness

UN Demographic yearbook has statistics on household characteristics by country. Most recent covering 2014. This includes the homeless.

In which British city do people earn the most?

Find out this and other fascinating facts and figures on the economic and social indicators of Britain’s major cities by consulting the latest Cities outlook 2016  which has just been published by the Centre for Cities.

It also has a great associated data tool which enables you to generate and compare your own map. 17 main indicators are covered including

Population, Business dynamics, Productivity , Innovation , Employment, Skills, Wages , Housing,  Environment, Digital connectivity

Political TV Ad Archive,

Just launched by the Internet Archive to provide a resource for the 2016 US elections.

This fabulous  free online digital library resource where reporters can find political TV ads from key primary states in the 2016 elections. Each ad has its own page with metadata files that can be downloaded by researchers. There are also sections on the site which fact check the facts. It is possible to browse ads by candidate, sponsor . There are currently over 50 ads for Donald Trump.

Parents, Teens and digital monitoring

Find out what percentage of American parents surveyed checked their teenagers Facebook accounts, texts and emails in this enlightening new study from Pew Internet Research Centre  

The EU Kids online research network website contains a wealth of reports and data on children’s internet use. Its 2014 report 

The Berkman Digital Literacy Platform provides free access to resources for educators, parents and the public covering online safety, privacy, information quality, creativity, and copyright.

World Humanitarian Data And Trends 2015
The United Nations Office For the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Has just released the latest annual report which has overall country and regional data. The full text can be
downloaded from the website. A review of natural and conflict related disasters in 2014. Topics covered include overall funding and capacity., displacement , data collection. There is a companion site which contains visualizations and instagrams of key facts and figures. Also valuable for exploring the trends is the UNOCHA sponsored Humanitarian Data Exchange project website. Also valuable for exploring the trends is the UNOCHA sponsored Humanitarian Data Exchange project website launched in 2014 it also provides free access to some other datasets from research bodies covering conflict, disasters food security.

Why Ethnic Minorities see immigration differently.

As the prime minister announces plans to require Muslim women to learn English, this new report from the Runnymede Trust gives the perspectives of BME Ethnic Minority groups on immigration to the UK. This covers  also considers attitudes towards integration.It is based on qualitative interviews with 7 focus groups involving 65 people.

Get more links to recent grey literature and reports covering social policy, economic policy and UK government publications on our current awareness blog which is updated daily.

New York Public Library digital Collections enhanced access     

From January 2016 the New York Public library provided enhanced public domain access to its online collections which include thousands of stunning historical images. See this announcing blog post which has lists of possible uses. These include usage of bulk API  data.  A great example is this 5^th Avenue now and then which compares 1911 with 2015 Google street views. The Green Book is a shocking example of racial segregation shown in maps between 1936-1944 it listed hotels restaurants and other public buildings where black travellers were welcome. The site also has many subject based collections – including Gay and lesbian history
Posters of the Russian Civil War and fashion illustrations and advertising

Also this week as part of a new exhibition the Bank of England Archive has released some of its historic photographs online. Some fascinating examples on the BBC website show the changing workplace. There is also a free Flickr site      

Social Science sites of the week

Happy new year

Welcome to 2016 with the latest update of new and interesting sites for social scientists

 

New Year’s resolutions.

Try  the RSA social brain quiz to find out what new year’s resolution you should choose and how you can stick to it.

It is based on the findings of a recent Royal Society report Easier Said than done – why we struggle with healthy behaviours and what can be done about it. This 33 page report has some practical tips on positive lifestyle changes to encourage healthy walking, eating, sleeping and talking which are based on psychological research

See some links to insights from psychology research on our recent blog posting.

Central African Republic elections.

Elections finally took place on the 31^st December. Find out more about the human rights background plus get news reports and  press releases from the 2015 election observation teams on our elections blog.

Fat Cat Tuesday

On the 5^th January 2016 top bosses salaries  FTSE CEOS will already have exceeded the average annual pay of many workers (£27,645) according to the High Pay Centre

Find out how your wages compare using their pay calculator

Price Waterhouse Cooper conducts regular surveys on the state of executive pay in the UK

According to a recent survey from CIPD 71% of employees think CEO pay is too high in the UK.

In an associated report on the behavioural impact of high wages on CEO behaviour and motivation CIPD recommended that pay rises became evidence based.

NCVO conducted an inquiry into executive pay in the charity sector. The final report from 2014 can be downloaded from their website

Norton Rose Fulbright maintain a UK Corporate Governance portal which as a really useful collection of links to recent reports from the UK government, trade associations and other bodies on executive pay. These cover regulation, performance related pay and ethics related issues.

First Anniversary of Charlie Hebdo attacks

Twitter coverage of the anniversary

The University of Oxford has translated and made free on the Internet a book on tolerance. With extracts from key French philosophers and writers. The original text was

La Société Française d'Etude du Dix-Huitième Siècle (ed.), Tolerance: le combat des Lumières (Paris: SFEDS, 2015). Contents include:

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, 1789
Voltaire, ‘Prayer to God’, from Treatise on Tolerance, 1763
Three aphorisms from Denis Diderot, Philosophical Thoughts, 1746; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748; and Voltaire, Portable Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
Nicolas de Condorcet, 'On Admitting Women to the Rights of Citizenship', 1790
John Locke, Letter on Toleration, 1686

Harvard University is in the middle of creating a physical and virtual archive of materials relating to the 2015 attack. See an explanation of the archive on its own pages. This page has some preliminary data visualizations of georeferenced tweets using the Je suis charlie hashtag

New York Times Learning Network lesson plans to encourage students to consider concepts relating to journalism and blasphemy

Newsmuseum – has archived front pages of over 900 newspapers which enables some brief comparison of coverage and headlines across the world. January 8^th 2015 coverage and

January 12^th Coverage

The Internet Archive has preserved over 3,000 pages from a variety of institutions and social media preserving contemporary responses to the attacks

What makes cities competitive?

Find out by downloading a recent working paper from the World Bank

Kilroy, Austin Francis Louis; Mukim, Megha; Negri, Stefano. 2015. Competitive cities for jobs and growth : what, who, and how. Competitive cities for jobs and growth. Its objective is to create a knowledge base on what  makes cities competitive, to improve the understanding of  job creation at the city level, and to establish a foundation for

a community of practice on this topic

The A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index (GCI) ranks 125 cities according to 27criteria  across five main themes  business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement.

JLL’s Global300 cities has a ranking of cities worldwide attracting the most commercial real estate activity.

Cities of Opportunity Price Waterhouse Cooper ranks 30 leading cities in terms of social and economic factors such as cost, transport infrastructure, safety, ease of doing business

‘Many Postgraduates are overwhelmed by their workloads’

According to the results of the latest Postgraduate Taught Experience survey published by the Higher Education Academy 72,000 students from over a 100 institutions took part giving their opinion on workloads, motivation, and quality of teaching and learning.

Some potentially interesting points arising for service providers problems relating to workload – can libraries help students organise their time / research more effectively/ develop time management skills?

Employability – large numbers of students mention that a key motivation in enrolling was to improve career prospects. Can libraries highlight / teach skills that will help students in the workplace or find jobs?

Find more free reports on HE education, teaching and learning on our scoop,it page

Agents of Future Promise: children’s burden or benefit?

During 2015 researchers at the University of Leeds, Cardiff and Huddersfield. Examined ideology in the portrayal of children in British and French history from the 19^th century to the post war era. The project website now has videoed discussion from the end of project workshop help in September 2015. Topics covered include toys and gender, toys and the British empire, the Vichy regime and children, the use of children to envisage the future in wartime Britain.

Top 100  Global Innovators.

Thomson Reuters has just released its annual ranking of the most innovative global organisations .  It analyses patent  and citation data across four main criteria: volume, success, globalization and

influence using Thomson Reuters solutions including Derwent World Patents

Index (DWPI), Thomson Innovation and Derwent Patent Citations Index (PCI). The site includes breakdowns by region and industry as well as details on the methodology used.

Coming soon: 2016 US elections.
RealClearPolitics: Election 2016

This site from RealClearPolitics offers readers daily updates on polls, interviews, speeches, and other news related to the 2016 election. It currently includes polls relating to the Republican and Democratic nominations.

Stunning images of Earth

As Tim Peake and space continue to dominate the news. View some amazing images of earth from the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. The site also has some free downloads of lunaserv mapping