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This paper explores the extent to which UK planning system reforms introduced during austerity affected the expectations, purposes and outcomes for and of planning. The perspectives of UK-wide planning system stakeholders were sought and collected through an extensive questionnaire. The findings indicate that though most reforms were welcomed in principle, the anticipated benefits had not been delivered. Instead, a loss of experienced staff and capacity, and the favouring of a neoliberal ideology that inadvertently constrained the purposes and delivery of the reforms, affecting in turn, planning's evolving raison d’être, occurred. With frequent mentioning of austerity as a needed tool for financial management, given the current national economic conditions—for example, in the UK (living cost crisis, post-Covid need for economic growth, public funding of facilities), the relevance of this paper is in warning about the risks of planning reforms, which must now be more precautionary and evidence driven during austerity.

To investigate the effects of narrative group counseling combined with diet modification and exercise plans on weight loss in Iranian women with obesity.Parallel 2-arm clinical trial.Fifty-six Iranian women with obesity (aged 18-50 years).The intervention group included weekly diet, exercise, and narrative-focused group counseling, whereas the comparison group included dietary modification and exercise sessions for 8 months (32 sessions).Anthropometric and body composition parameters, blood biochemical parameters (high-density lipoproteins, low-density lipoproteins, triglycerides, fasting blood sugar, ghrelin, obestatin), physical activities, and appetite scores.McNemar test was used for the variables that were not normally distributed and for scaling. Furthermore, t tests were used to compare quantitative variables with normal distributions. The original P (0.05) was adjusted to P = 0.0031 using the Bonferroni correction.Weight, body mass index, body fat proportion, and hip circumference decreased significantly in the intervention vs comparison group. Serum low-density lipoproteins, triglycerides, total cholesterol, fasting blood sugar, appetite score, and ghrelin decreased, whereas obestatin increased significantly in the intervention vs comparison group.Narrative-focused group counseling combined with traditional strategies was effective in achieving significant changes in weight, body mass index, and appetite. Future studies with a more diverse audience and a longer follow-up are warranted.

Deconstructing Placemaking is a concise, readable classification of place-making based on investigating the transformation of four neighbourhoods in Istanbul and Boston. Arefi deliberately deploys ...

The value provided by availability of environmental elements on human quality of urban life is difficult to assess and incorporate into urban planning and development. Researchers worldwide have seldom objectively factored these attributes into property pricing and associated decisions. This study contends that a better understanding of the effect of environmental elements requires systematic study of the relationship between objective and subjective measures of environmental phenomena and human responses. This paper summarizes the outcomes from applying Hedonic Pricing (HP) and Life Satisfaction(LS) methods e providing valuation in an increasingly expanding and privatized property Iranian market.A survey was carried out from 400 households that are more likely to make location choices and pay rent and property expenses in the city of Shiraz. The findings indicates that Shiraz neighbourhoods are likely to be characterized by deep environmental segregation. This study informs the decisions of policymakers and property developers regarding sales and purchases conversion, property development, urban nature conservation, and design of ecological green-space networks. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In the last two decades the world has seen a rapid transformation of society and economic and spatial changes associated with globalization, but despite this place still matters. People are deeply ...

Evyatar Erell, David Pearlmutter & Terry Williamson, Earthscan, Ashgate, 2011, 266+xviii pp., £70.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781844074679 The notion of a human-environment relationship has been the subject of...