Social factors. The theme of social factors is defined as “any discussion of the influence or impact of cultural and social contexts on the healthcare experience in Lebanon”. This concept emerged whenever participants discussed socio-cultural or socio-environmental factors that could explain patterns in healthcare. This included, but was not limited to, the nature of patient-provider interactions, the lack of social accountability for physicians, and the influence of social factors on medical practice. Participants report multiple experiences and observations of social constructs influencing the way healthcare is conducted. Like most countries, homosexuality in Lebanon is condemned religiously, socially, and legislatively. This, too, has reportedly been linked to mistreatment and discrimination of LGBT individuals in healthcare, ultimately leading to poor health outcomes. Humiliation, outing, and judgmental attitudes were reported as common incidents of discrimination in healthcare. Culture as a connective theme was pervasive throughout primary themes and contextually informative of the patterns seen both across and within groups. Barriers & Social Factors While half of activists attributed barriers in healthcare to widespread lack of LGBT health competency, a third also identified culture and social taboos as main drivers of non-LGBT- friendly healthcare. In addition to lack of LGBT awareness within the medical community, activists and patients claimed that provider assumptions ultimately stem from socio-cultural misconceptions. These misconceptions and the social setting itself were described as major influencers of healthcare experience, especially regarding barriers like privacy/trust and cost/accessibility. When commenting on the poorly-structured Lebanese healthcare system, one LGBT patient stated that “the social setting doesn’t make [healthcare-seeking/experiences] any better.” The participant refers here to the general shame and isolation of LGBT individuals in Lebanese society. A third of patients said that the social taboo attached to homosexuality has major health and behavioral implications such as delaying testing, inconsistent treatment follow- up, and ultimately poor health outcomes. According to some physicians, activists, and LGBT patients, doctors in Lebanon are not held accountable for LGBT-related discrimination or breaches in patient confidentiality. One LGBT patient discussed the lack of accountability or “supervision over the proper regulation of h...
Social factors. People's knowledge of Energy Storage Systems and DSM is still relatively limited. Promoting initiatives to raise people's awareness of these technologies and the benefit they could bring may be an effective strategy to overcome such a barrier. In Madeira, for example, during the participants' recruitment phase, the local partners organized several information sessions to explain how the system works and address UPACs concerns about energy storage technologies. Adopting this strategy allowed the research team to engage the local community and gain their trust. An aspect, the latter, that is extremely important when people do not trust the technology. An additional social barrier - though deeply related to regulatory and economic factors - encountered during the project is the lack of interest of some UPACs in improving their systems. Some of the potential participants initially approached reported to regret the decision of installing a PV generation asset and claimed not to be willing to invest any more time or money into it. This disappointment is due to the fact that in Madeira there are no incentives for installing solar PV panels, and currently, the feed-in tariff is very low, which limits the ROI. Once again, engaging the community in discussions around energy generation and strategies for better management of their installations helped mitigate this initial barrier. Ultimately, energy storage systems could be considered unappealing. In Madeira, only a few participants expressed (minor) concerns in this regard. However, in a different geographic/cultural context, the aesthetics of such systems could represent a potential barrier to technology adoption. Technological factors The minimum requirements for implementing this solution are: ● Reliable internet connection. Such a requirement represented a barrier in Madeira. In fact, due to the poor quality of the internet connection in those installations located in rural areas, the local partners had to install a dedicated network. ● Energy monitoring system (collecting consumption and production data). Poor quality of the PV installation or the use of the so-called plug-and-play PV systems may prevent installing any monitoring system. In Madeira, some of the participants initially engaged in the project have been dropped because of this limitation. ● Communication gateway (in case the energy monitoring system do not provide access to consumption and production data).
Social factors. The limited penetration of EVs and the fact that people are still not familiar with smart charging represent potential barriers towards the acceptance of the proposed solution. This barrier was particularly relevant in Madeira, since our is probably the first EVs smart charging pilot ever implemented on the island. EV drivers and garage staff at both Tukxi and EEM were concerned about the risk of a possible failure of the charging system and therefore showed some initial resistance towards its adoption. In order to overcome this barrier, the local partners conducted several visits to the pilot sites in order to train the garage staff in how to use the systems and address all their questions on the smart charging mechanism. One other potential barrier (not pertinent to Madeira demonstrator but worth mentioning) is the fact that some smart-charging strategies might not be advantageous to all of the relevant stakeholders. For example, a strategy based on the availability of RES brings benefits to grid operators while could negatively affect energy consumers by resulting in an increase in the electricity bill. Technological factors The minimum requirements for implementing this solution are: ● Reliable internet connection. ● Monitoring equipment. ● Communication gateway. Although this solution (software-side) is highly compatible with several systems, the communication gateway used should allow the use of ModBus protocol.
Social factors. The plant should not interfere with the urban planning. The plant can be a tourist attraction, at least for energy tourists, politicians, and journalists. This could be valid for all countries. On Samsø, the marina offers a service to the visiting boats. Optimal service is more important than optimising the share of renewable energy. Therefore, the visiting boats should not have to bother with complex solutions, such as a tariff that changes by the time of day. On the contrary, the advanced technical solutions, such as buying and selling from the public grid at advantageous times of the day, should work in the background, invisible to the visiting boat owners.
Social factors. The Kaluza platform protects participants against running out of heating and hot water supply by ensuring the equipment meets minimum requirements without an internet connection, and that overriding the equipment is a secondary feature. This limits the potential for participants being unhappy with the equipment and the project’s operation. Due to the requirements if a property to make ASHPs effective, there were properties that registered interest that could not be selected. This made up a bracket of the demographic in Orkney which wished to make the change to a low emission heating system, but could not access it yet due to the need for additional expensive intervention measures. Along this trajectory, there is a risk of such demographics being “left behind”. Through testing the designed solutions in Orkney, the feedback from partners, contractors and participants have provided enough insight into where the systems could be changed in order to increase acceptance. The changes would principally be down to the level of control in the properties. This would increase the acceptance of the solutions, as well as the replicability. For the solutions demonstrated in Orkney to meet the social requirements of the population in Orkney, there must be no degradation in the reliability of the equipment to provide heating and hot water on demand. Ideally, the systems would be able to provide increased comfort for a reduced cost. For example, stored thermal energy for hot water or central heating will have a faster response time than first allowing a heat pump to get to temperature before providing heat.
Social factors. The requirements on any DSM load, relevant to social factors, are that the access to the energy from the load is not negatively impacted as a result of its altered operation. For example, a property still has access to heating and hot water. In the case of the Orkney-based aggregator, the heating provided was secondary to the equipment’s primary function. As a result, the homeowners were not impacts by either the operation or lack of operation. Due to the nature of the project, there was a high dependency upon the homeowners actively contributing the operation of the aggregated loads. This put the homeowners in the participant category. In order for this system to be fully applicable to Orkney, the level of intervention per property would need to be dropped considerably by having equipment which was more consistent in its operation and connectivity. During the length of the project the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions caused an altered used of energy as homeowners were instructed to remain home as much as possible. This saw a higher demand on energy in the properties, but not a change in the requirements of the equipment. In order for the solution tested in Orkney to be fully realised, in line with social requirements, the control equipment would require to be more reliable. Due to technical limitations, homeowners were required to intervene and attempt to help get equipment reconnected to the control platform. This could be seen to limit the acceptance of the innovation in the face of inconvenience. Furthermore, in some cases unreliable communications equipment resulted in less discounted heating and hot water being provided to homeowners; again, impacting the acceptance of the equipment and innovation.
Social factors. The social evaluation is aimed at measuring the impact of the MAtchUP interventions on citizens, stakeholders and policy makers, using existing social indicators developed within the CITYkeys initiative themes and considering other relevant indicators developed in the field of smart cities and impact assessment methodologies. A preliminary selection of social indicators was realized based on relevant literature on Smart Cities (aligned with the methodological framework followed in WP1 for the social characterization of the cities), the CITYkeys themes and relevant literature on social performance measurement. Based on the outcome of the social characterization literature review, the following social factors were identified as particularly relevant, and as a conceptual reference for the social evaluation: social and human capital. A city is smart when investments in human and social capital, traditional and modern communication infrastructure, fuel sustainable economic development and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory governance (Bencardino & Greco, 2014). This notion involves improving life quality in terms of public services, social cohesion and safety, while a better quality of life and well-being of citizens is the main outcome of smart sustainable cities (Bibri & Krogstie, 2017). Well-being is a multidimensional concept encompassing environmental, economic and social life (Xxxxxxxx, Xxx, & Xxxxxxxx, 2009), while quality of life covers material living conditions, health, work, education, social connections, civic engagement and governance, environment and subjective well-being (OECD3; EC4). The multidimensional prosperity concept is also frequent in the literature on smart cities, and groups similarly quality of life, equity and social inclusion, and governance (UN-Habitat5). Similarly, the CITYkeys framework focuses on the main themes of people, planet, prosperity, governance and propagation, among which, according to the previous considerations the relevant ones from the social perspective are: - People - Prosperity - Governance Besides, in the smart city the dimension of equity must be taken into consideration. Equity must take account of the distribution and redistribution of the benefits of prosperity of a city, in order to obtain a reduction of poverty, a supply of adequate 3 Better Life Initiative: Measuring Well-Being and Progress.
Social factors. In this section, participants were presented questions on how some social conditions may influence human behaviours; for example, 65% of the respondents strongly or somewhat agreed that teachers are able to encourage pro-social behaviours and resilience against extremist narratives. 31% provided a neutral answer and 4% somewhat or strongly disagreed. Moreover, 77% of the participants somewhat or strongly agreed that trusting people who are close to us increases the sense of belonging to the community. 8% of them somewhat or strongly disagreed, and 15% provided a neutral answer.
Social factors. This section aimed at investigating how social factors affect human behaviours and how, specifically, these factors can prevent or lead to radicalisation. Questions focused on a number of topics, such as: family, peer relations, education, extra-curricular activities at local level (e.g. sports, cultural or art associations etc.), and online activities. Answers to this type of questions were more fragmented. For example, 65% believe that teachers play a fundamental role in building resilience to extremist narratives (while 25,8% provide a neutral answer) and 56% agree that displaying preferences among students may reinforce extremist attitudes among students. Nonetheless, only 42,5% consider education as a fundamental protective factor against extremism, while 22,7% provided a neutral answer and 24,2% disagree. Similarly, when asked whether support by the family can prevent young people from adopting at-risk behaviours, students’ answers were profoundly fragmented, and almost half of them did not agree. However, nearly 81% of respondents recognise that trusting closed people (e.g. family, friends) can reinforce social trust in community and society – a feeling considered a protective factor against extremism. An interesting feature is also the unbalanced answers regarding online and offline activities and extremism. On the one hand, when asked if offline extracurricular activities (e.g. sports, playing an instruments etc.) and interest can prevent young people to embrace extremism, only 39% agreed or partially agreed, while 31,8% provided a neutral answer and 22,7% somewhat disagreed. On the other, the nexus between time spent in online activities and potential radicalisation was validated only in a limited extent (24%) while the majority of the respondents gave a neutral answer (34,8%) or disagree (34,9%). The fragmented answers regarding online activities highlight how the relation between young people and the virtual dimension has profoundly changed and evolved over the last years, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, which made Internet a fundamental tool to keep in touch with people or living.
