Older people are often over-represented in morbidity and mortality statistics associated with hot and cold weather, despite remaining mostly indoors. The study “Improving thermal environment of housing for older Australians” focused on assessing the relationships between the indoor environment, building characteristics, thermal comfort and perceived health/wellbeing of older South Australians over a study period that included the warmest summer on record. Our findings showed that indoor temperatures in some of the houses reached above 35 °C. With concerns about energy costs, occupants often use adaptive behaviours to achieve thermal comfort instead of using cooling (or heating), although feeling less satisfied with the thermal environment and perceiving health/wellbeing to worsen at above 28 °C (and below 15 °C). Symptoms experienced during hot weather included tiredness, shortness of breath, sleeplessness and dizziness, with coughs and colds, painful joints, shortness of breath and influenza experienced during cold weather. To express the influence of temperature and humidity on perceived health/wellbeing, a Temperature Humidity Health Index (THHI) was developed for this cohort. A health/wellbeing perception of “very good” is achieved between an 18.4 °C and 24.3 °C indoor operative temperature and a 55% relative humidity. The evidence from this research is used to inform guidelines about maintaining home environments to be conducive to the health/wellbeing of older people. Original publication at MDPI: https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13010096 © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI.
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The Assassin’s Creed franchise mainly consists of video games but has over the years created a narrative universe spanning different media. Seeing how the traversal from the individual installment Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag into the narrative universe of Assassin’s Creed changes player engagement with the franchise allows one to understand audience interaction with different mediaproducts in a transmedia and convergent culture. Seen as a performed possible world, the individual installment is shown, through a three part gameplay analysis, to function as an unfinished commodity. This implies striking a balance between an individually satisfying experience and a plot-hole ridden incentive for further activity. When the individual installment incites traversal into a narrative universe, the player can construct the universe from installments through a hyperdiegetic, intermedia, or crossmedia engagement, depending on the reliance on medium specificity. Ultimately, this article provides a model for audience interaction in the transmedia age.
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