For over 30 years, the concept of home has been a popular, yet contested subject of research for scholars from different disciplines, e.g. architecture, philosophy, sociology, psychology and cultural studies. In line with this multifaceted, interesting subject, quite some studies have been devoted to the subject of homemaking.However, when reviewing the literature on home and homemaking, a great deal of scholars seems to have overlooked to date the home situation, and thus the homemaking activities and practices of single person households, or so called ‘solo livers’. This is remarkable because the number of single person households is increasing worldwide, as different recent studies show e.g. (Palmer G. , 2006), (Klinenberg, 2012), (Jamieson & Simpson, 2013). The aim of this working paper – which is part of a PhD proposal in progression – is to address the homemaking process from the perspective of solo living people in the geographical setting of the Provence of Groningen, in the northern part of the Netherlands. An underlying assumption is that by focusing on the homemaking of solo living people, i.e. on the individual level, this typical human phenomenon can be studied in its ‘purest form’.In the paper on homemaking in low-cost areas, Aziz & Ahmad (2012) connect the concepts of appropriation, attachment and identity as homemaking mechanisms, through which residents strive to achieve satisfaction and turn the surrounding area into their home. Aziz & Ahmad seek to identify specific behavioural components, called ‘attributes’, that belong to these three different concepts, in which they make a distinction between physical and social attributes. This focus of this paper is on the concept of appropriation as homemaking mechanism and how this concept can be refined to serve as conceptual framework.
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Although there is an array of technical solutions available for retrofitting the building stock, the uptake of these by owner‐occupants in home improvement activities is lagging. Energy performance improvement is not included in maintenance, redecoration, and/or upgrading activities on a scale necessary to achieve the CO2 reduction aimed for in the built environment. Owner‐occupants usually adapt their homes in response to everyday concerns, such as having enough space available, increasing comfort levels, or adjusting arrangements to future‐proof their living conditions. Home energy improvements should be offered accordingly. Retrofit providers typically offer energy efficiency strategies and/or options for renewable energy generation only and tend to gloss over home comfort and homemaking as key considerations in decision‐making for home energy improvement. In fact, retrofit providers struggle with the tension between customisation requirements from private homeowners and demand aggregation to streamline their supply chains and upscale their retrofit projects. Customer satisfaction is studied in three different Dutch approaches to retrofit owner‐occupied dwellings to increase energy efficiency. For the analysis, a customer satisfaction framework is used that makes a distinction between satisfiers, dissatisfiers, criticals, and neutrals. This framework makes it possible to identify and structure different relevant factors from the perspective of owner‐occupants, allows visualising gaps with the professional perspective, and can assist to improve current propositions.
MULTIFILE
In case of a major cyber incident, organizations usually rely on external providers of Cyber Incident Response (CIR) services. CIR consultants operate in a dynamic and constantly changing environment in which they must actively engage in information management and problem solving while adapting to complex circumstances. In this challenging environment CIR consultants need to make critical decisions about what to advise clients that are impacted by a major cyber incident. Despite its relevance, CIR decision making is an understudied topic. The objective of this preliminary investigation is therefore to understand what decision-making strategies experienced CIR consultants use during challenging incidents and to offer suggestions for training and decision-aiding. A general understanding of operational decision making under pressure, uncertainty, and high stakes was established by reviewing the body of knowledge known as Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM). The general conclusion of NDM research is that experts usually make adequate decisions based on (fast) recognition of the situation and applying the most obvious (default) response pattern that has worked in similar situations in the past. In exceptional situations, however, this way of recognition-primed decision-making results in suboptimal decisions as experts are likely to miss conflicting cues once the situation is quickly recognized under pressure. Understanding the default response pattern and the rare occasions in which this response pattern could be ineffective is therefore key for improving and aiding cyber incident response decision making. Therefore, we interviewed six experienced CIR consultants and used the critical decision method (CDM) to learn how they made decisions under challenging conditions. The main conclusion is that the default response pattern for CIR consultants during cyber breaches is to reduce uncertainty as much as possible by gathering and investigating data and thus delay decision making about eradication until the investigation is completed. According to the respondents, this strategy usually works well and provides the most assurance that the threat actor can be completely removed from the network. However, the majority of respondents could recall at least one case in which this strategy (in hindsight) resulted in unnecessary theft of data or damage. Interestingly, this finding is strikingly different from other operational decision-making domains such as the military, police and fire service in which there is a general tendency to act rapidly instead of searching for more information. The main advice is that training and decision aiding of (novice) cyber incident responders should be aimed at the following: (a) make cyber incident responders aware of how recognition-primed decision making works; (b) discuss the default response strategy that typically works well in several scenarios; (c) explain the exception and how the exception can be recognized; (d) provide alternative response strategies that work better in exceptional situations.
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