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Another way of thinking about oil paint : fine art oil painting strategies without the use of volatile solvents /
No full textThis study is an action research project carried out with sixteen contemporary artists, exploring and evaluating historically informed materials in contemporary practice. It takes information from conservation science and through the methodology of action research makes use of it. Through the theoretical lens of materiality, it puts forward ways to make sense of it. Participants were introduced to a set of materials that were the same as those now known to be those used by seventeenth century painters such as Rembrandt and Velazquez. All the participants were by the end of the study able to remove volatile solvents from their painting practice, with significant benefits to their practice, health, and the environment. All sixteen reported feeling happy with the work that they created during the project. All sixteen reported feeling better about the prospect of working without the need for
them or family members to regularly be exposed to volatile solvents.
The study is documented using qualitative research methods, observation, structured and semi structured interviews, studio diaries, artefacts. The participants found the materials invited an interesting change in approach on their part. Many of the participants found that they were able to develop a broader textural range in their painting than they had been able to achieve before, characteristics we recognise in the works of Rembrandt and Velazquez. The art historical implication being that the materials of Seventeenth century painting may have more to do with a rapid way of working than with creating surface effects.
The research has led to a collaboration with Dr Jesse Ash at the Royal College of Art in London centred on materiality as an interpretive tool and the implementation of non-solvent oil painting workshops at the RCA.ye
Meeting Ireland's Sustainability Challenges and Obligations: The potential and viability of small-scale anaerobic digestion platforms for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions /
No full textTo combat the potentially disastrous consequences of climate change, the European Union (EU)
has set a goal of reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80-95% by 2050, relative to 1990 levels.
Of all the European Union (EU) countries, Ireland in particular has struggled to meet its climate action
obligations. A major contributor to this has been the country’s large agriculture sector, which
represented 37.1% of total emissions produced in 2020. The country now faces a dilemma, to either limit
or reduce the growth of its agriculture sector or to disregard its environmental obligations.
Small-scale anaerobic digestion (SSAD), i.e. plants with a CHP electrical capacity ranging from 15
to 100 kWe, is a promising technology for the treatment of livestock manure and the organic fraction of
municipal wastes, especially in low population communities or standalone waste treatment facilities.
In addition to the benefits afforded by traditional plants, SSAD provides greater portability and flexibly
options, enabling the technology's implementation in environments previously not justifiable due to
insufficient feedstock quantities. Despite the apparent benefits of SSAD, the technology is still not well
implemented with much of the research previously conducted focused on large-scale systems.
Therefore, a lack of understanding is apparent in the applicability of SSAD plants in stand-alone
agricultural environments. To address these challenges, this research aims to evaluate the current status of SSAD and then implement improvement strategies and technologies.
This study first examined the general opinions, willingness to adopt, and perceived obstacles of
potential adopters of SSAD technologies. The findings showed that approximately 41% of the 91
respondents were interested in installing AD on their farming enterprise within the next five years.
These Likely Adopters tended to have a higher level of education attainment, and together, currently
hold 4,379 cattle, potentially providing 37,122 t yr-1 of wastes as feedstock, resulting in a potential CO2
reduction of 800.65 t CO2-eq. yr-1
. Moreover, the results indicated that the primary consideration
preventing the implementation of AD is a lack of information regarding the technology and high
investment costs. Of the Likely Adopters and Possible Adopters, a self-owned and operated plant was
the preferred ownership structure, while 58% expressed an interest in joining a co-operative scheme.
The viability of SSAD in Ireland was investigated, by modelling the technical, economic, and
environmental considerations of operating such plants on commercial Irish dairy farms. The study
examines the integration of SSAD on dairy farms with various herd sizes ranging from 50 to 250 dairy
cows, with co-digestion afforded by grass grown on available land. Results demonstrate feedstock
quantities available on-farm to be sufficient to meet the farm's energy needs with surplus energy
exported, representing between 73% and 79% of the total energy generated. All scenarios investigated
demonstrate a net CO2 reduction ranging between 2059–173,237 kg CO2-eq. yr-1
. The study found SSAD
8 of 200
systems to be profitable within the plant’s lifespan on farms with dairy herds sizes of >100 cows (with
payback periods of 8–13 years).
This research developed a corresponding universal decision support tool to optimise the design
and management of agriculture-based AD plants. The developed evaluation process was applied to a
case study to test its usefulness, where the analysis showed key assessment indicators. For the sample
case, the study found that the lignocellulose and non-lignocellulose biomass within a 10 km distance of
the site could adequately meet the plant’s seasonal feedstock requirements. The analysis revealed that
the local energy demand could be satisfied with an AD plant configuration consisting of a digester
volume of 2,893m3 and a combined heat and power (CHP) unit capacity of 812kWe, resulting in a
thermal output of 7,613 MWh yr-1 and electrical output of 5,141 MWh yr-1
. The economic assessment
showed that the installation would require a capital expenditure of €2.31M and generate a discounted
payback period of 5.65 years. The installation would achieve a net CO2 reduction of 8,069 tonnes CO2-
eq. yr-1
.
This PhD study found SSAD to be a viable mechanism for the mitigation of GHG emissions within
Irish agriculture environments. It is hoped that the insights generated will make a significant
contribution to the future research, development, and application of SSAD technologies and will
accelerate efforts to decarbonise the Irish agriculture sector. This research has been carried out under
the EU INTERREG funded Renewable Engine project with collaboration from an industry partner
(Organic Power).ye
Magnetically recyclable Schiff-based palladium nanocatalyst [Fe3O4@SiNSB-Pd] and its catalytic applications in Heck reaction
No full textAbstract A magnetically separable palladium nanocatalyst has been synthesized through the immobilization of palladium onto 3-aminopropylphenanthroline Schiff based functionalized silica coated superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles. The nanocatalyst (Fe3O4@SiNSB-Pd) was fully characterized using several spectroscopic techniques, such as FT-IR, HR-SEM, TEM, XRD, ICP, and XPS. The microscopic image of Fe3O4 showed spherical shape morphology and had an average size of 150 nm. The Pd-nanoparticles exhibited an average size 3.5 ± 0.6 nm. The successful functionalization of Fe3O4@SiNSB-Pd was identified by FT-IR spectroscopy and the appearance of palladium species in Fe3O4@SiNSB-Pd was confirmed by XRD analysis. While XPS has been utilized for the determination of the chemical oxidation state of palladium species in Fe3O4@SiNSB-Pd. Several activated and deactivated arene halides and olefines were employed for Mizoroki-Heck cross-coupling reactions in the presence of
e3O4@SiNSB-Pd, each of which produced the respective cross-coupling products with excellent yields. The Fe3O4@SiNSB-Pd
shows good reactivity and reusability for up to seven consecutive cycles.ye
Reflections on the Multidisciplinary Health Force: much done, but more to do
Get PDFWright et al. are to be commended for providing a factual, historical and albeit rather staid, detailed account of the development of the multidisciplinary public health workforce in the UK.1 These authors ask if the work is ‘almost there?’ The assumption being that the work is perhaps effectively complete and that this is a reasonable question. This commentary is an unapologetically situated, opinionated and deliberately provocative response. My aim is to challenge the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) and other Public Health leaders to critically evaluate current practices, trends, and its wider responsibilities and opportunities to drive and define Public Health leadership globally. This response will also explore potential impacts of the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on developments in the multidisciplinary public health (MDPH) workforce into the future.ye
D6.1 RUN-EU Plus Innovation Ecosystem
Get PDFThe RUN European University Innovation Ecosystem will promote a knowledge sharing approach and knowledge transfer capacity, valorising the entrepreneurial mind-set amongst our researchers and innovators. Building on innovative partnerships between RUN-EU researchers and industry partners and other stakeholders, the aim is to remove existing obstacles to innovation and revolutionize the way the public and private sector work together to bring research developments and advancements to the marketplace for societal benefit. Since its launch in 2020, the RUN-EU Erasmus+ project (grant agreement no. 101004068) has already developed key pillars of this innovation ecosystem which include the introduction of 3 innovation hubs and 8 themed research clusters.
This document presents these already established key elements in addition to a review of the current innovation capacity of the RUN-EU partner institutions which was undertaken by the RUN-EU PLUS Horizon 2020 project (grant agreement no. 101035816). It proposes an Innovation Capacity Programme and a governance structure which will build the RUN-EU Innovation Ecosystem as a pan-European ecosystem of innovation embedded in all RUN-EU partner regions and allows pan-European collaboration in business, research, and education as a vehicle of regional development
Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) as an in vivo infection model for domestic effluent contamination in seawater
Get PDFContamination of water and food are responsible by many outbreaks and deaths worldwide. Pathogens such as bacteria, yeasts
and viruses can reach the shellfish by several routes, where the discharge of domestic effluent in estuaries and production areas
can be the main factor for an extensive trophic level contamination. The constant analysis of pathogen levels in local waters and
shellfish organs is essential to ensure the consumer safety, and the development of in vivo models are an important resource to
assist in laboratory studies. In this poster we present the Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) as an in vivo model of contamination
by Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and spores of Bacillus thuringiensis
A reinforcement learning based collaboration framework for autonomous mobile robots
Get PDFManufacturing has shifted from mass production to mass customisation. The increased product varieties have created significant challenges in the manufacturing process. This
demands reconfigurable work cells and manufacturing lines, faster integration time, reusable robotic systems, reduced factory footprint, high-mix and low-volume productions
and reduced programming costs. Therefore, an AI based flexible and adaptive robotic control and multi-robot collaboration system is essential to address these challenges and
to autonomously react to the environmental and production line changes without human intervention.
Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR), Fig. 1(a), are proposed to address these agile manufacturing challenges. AMRs are devices that can perform tasks and moving through the
environment without the need of a predefined path or intervention from human operators. Integration of AMRs with manipulators (robotic arms) and grippers, Fig. 1(b), can
support intelligent gripping and placing tasks, e.g., pick up objects, place them on the AMR platform and move the objects to another place, or pick up the objects and places
them to different pallets. In realistic industry environments, there are a large number of possible combinations of these AMRs, the robotics arms, grippers and tasks, e.g., a
combination of an AMR/ Robotic Arm/ Gripper can be used for different pick and place tasks, and different combinations of AMR/ Robotic Arm/ Gripper can be used for the
same pick and place tasks. Training a machine learning model for each of the combinations is time consuming and not adaptable
We have a solution for plastic pollution!
Get PDFMost plastics degradation methods are currently inefficient and are limited by
processing difficulties, quality loss and diminished value. This research focuses
on the development of novel ultra-green chemical recycling of PET plastic waste
followed by enzymatic depolymerisation for the recovery of valued added
monomers
Turning agricultural waste into wealth: production of sustainable cellulose for hydroponic farming
Get PDFGlobally, it is estimated that approximately 998 million of agricultural wasteis produced yearly. This enormous amount of waste has become a matter of great public concern. However, agricultural waste is a natural resource from which cellulose can be recovered. Ireland generates 1.1m tonnes of food waste every year, 40% of which comes from food production
Digital transformation of peatland eco-innovations (‘Paludiculture’): Enabling a paradigm shift towards the real-time sustainable production of ‘green-friendly’ products and services
Get PDFThe world is heading in the wrong direction on carbon emissions where we are not on track to limit global warming to
1.5 °C; Ireland is among the countries where overall emissions have continued to rise. The development of wettable
peatland products and services (termed ‘Paludiculture’) present significant opportunities for enabling a transition
away from peat-harvesting (fossil fuels) to developing ‘green’ eco-innovations. However, this must be balanced with
sustainable carbon sequestration and environmental protection. This complex transition from ‘brown to green’ must
be met in real time by enabling digital technologies across the full value chain. This will potentially necessitate creation
of new green-business models with the potential to support disruptive innovation. This timely paper describes digital
transformation of paludiculture-based eco-innovation that will potentially lead to a paradigm shift towards using
smart digital technologies to address efficiency of products and services along with future-proofing for climate change.
Digital transform of paludiculture also aligns with the ‘Industry 5.0 - a human-centric solution’. However, companies
supporting peatland innovation may lack necessary standards, data-sharing or capabilities that can also affect viable
business model propositions that can jeopardize economic, political and social sustainability. Digital solutions may re duce costs, increase productivity, improve produce develop, and achieve faster time to market for paludiculture.
Digitisation also enables information systems to be open, interoperable, and user-friendly. This constitutes the first study to describe the digital transformation of paludiculture, both vertically and horizontally, in order to inform sus tainability that includes process automation via AI, machine learning, IoT-Cloud informed sensors and robotics, virtual
and augmented reality, and blockchain for cyber-physical systems. Thus, the aim of this paper is to describe the appli cability of digital transformation to actualize the benefits and opportunities of paludiculture activities and enterprises
in the Irish midlands with a global orientation.ye