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Systematic assessment of wastewater resource circularity and sustainable value creation
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Data will be made available on request.Supplementary materials are avalable online at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043135424000411#sec0032 .Copyright © 2024 The Authors. The circular use of wastewater has attracted significant attention in recent years. However, there is a lack of universal definitions and measurement tools that are required to achieve the circular economy's full potential. Therefore, a methodology was developed using three indicator typologies, namely resource flow, circular action, and sustainability indicators, to facilitate a robust and holistic circularity assessment. The method uses value propositions to integrate the assessment of intrinsic circularity performance with consequential circularity impacts, by quantifying sustainable value creation (using techniques such as life cycle assessment or cost-benefit analysis). Assessment method capabilities were exhibited by applying the defined steps to a wastewater treatment plant, comparing conventional and novel photobioreactor technologies. The resource flow indicator taxonomy results highlight improved outflow circularity, renewable energy usage, and economic efficiency of the novel system. Action indicators revealed that the photobioreactor technology was successful at achieving its defined circular goals. Lastly, sustainability indicators quantified a reduction of carbon footprint by two thirds and eutrophication by 41%, a M€ 0.5 per year increase of economic value, and that disability adjusted life year impacts are 58% lower. This supports that improving wastewater system circularity using photobioreactor technology results in environmental, economic, and social value for stakeholders.Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme DEEP PURPLE. The H2020 DEEP PURPLE project has received funding from the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 837998. The JU receives support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Bio-based Industries Consortium
Towards carceral protectionist territories: Relational geographies of anti-trafficking confinement in Nepal
Get PDFThe article draws on labour and migration bans in Nepal as a case study to advance nascent, yet growing attention towards trafficking borders in critical geographical research on anti-trafficking. It does so by highlighting a relational geography of carceral protectionist spaces which are encountered, navigated, and sometimes escaped by women citizens on the move who are pre-emptively rescued/‘saved’ from the possibility of being ‘trafficked.’ Specifically, we aim to extend these critical interventions on carceral protectionism in two interconnected ways. First, whilst extant research mainly focuses on institutions and actors within migrant destination states, we examine the operations of carceral protectionist spaces within the home countries of migrant women. Second, we tease out the ways carceral protectionist spaces can actively produce the very subjects they seek to deter or eradicate as they navigate and challenge these institutional spaces. Through the discussion, we develop threads of the conceptualisation of a carceral protectionist territory to indicate the multiple and diffuse, yet interconnected, sites through which women’s mobility aspirations are constrained by anti-trafficking infrastructures.The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article
E-service failure and recovery strategy in times of crisis: effect on peer attitudes, expectation and future intention
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None.This study analyses the impact of the critical issues on Travel and Tourism e-service failure and explores specifically how peer-to-peer accommodation business can cope with the potential collapse in demand caused by global crises. The purpose is to examine the impact of peer-to-peer accommodation’s recovery offer on revisiting intentions and relationships termination in light of justice-, fairness-, and attribution theory. In this vein, the main aim is to develop a theoretical model which is underpinned by an understanding of the consequences of e-service failure and the effectiveness of recovery strategies for business competitiveness. To gauge peer perceptions of peer-to-peer accommodations, we employed a mixed-method approach. Alongside 17 interviews with peers and industry experts, a survey involving 404 peer-to-peer accommodation users was conducted. Structural equation modelling was applied to unravel the intricate relationships and influences at play. The findings suggest that managers and service providers need to focus on timely recovery and building stronger relationships with peers, to increase repurchase intention and post-recovery satisfaction and to better front the crises times. This could be implemented efficiently via the platform of social media. This study offers specific theoretical and practical implications by providing a fair recovery strategy to result in the satisfaction of both parties.Open access funding provided by Università degli Studi di Salerno within the CRUI-CARE Agreement
Singing for lung health in COPD: a multicentre randomised controlled trial of online delivery
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Data are available upon reasonable request. Individual participant data that underlie the results in the article, after de-identification (text, tables, figures and appendices) will be available on reasonable application to the corresponding author. Data will be made immediately available following publication, no end date. Data will be available to anyone who wishes to access the data, for any purpose. Data will be available indefinitely.Supplementary materials:
Supplementary Data are available online at: https://bmjopenrespres.bmj.com/content/11/1/e002365.info .Background: Singing for lung health (SLH) is an arts-based breathing control and movement intervention for people with long-term respiratory conditions, intended to improve symptoms and quality of life. Online, remotely delivered programmes might improve accessibility; however, no previous studies have assessed the effectiveness of this approach.
Methods: We conducted an assessor-blind randomised controlled trial comparing the impact of 12 weeks of once-weekly online SLH sessions against usual care on health-related quality of life, assessed using the RAND 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) Mental Health Composite (MHC) and Physical Health Composite (PHC) scores.
Results: We enrolled 115 people with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), median (IQR) age 69 (62–74), 56.5% females, 80% prior pulmonary rehabilitation, Medical Research Council dyspnoea scale 4 (3–4), forced expiratory volume in 1 s % predicted 49 (35–63). 50 participants in each arm completed the study. The intervention arm experienced improvements in physical but not mental health components of RAND SF-36; PHC (regression coefficient (95% CI): 1.77 (95% CI 0.11 to 3.44); p=0.037), but not MHC (0.86 (95% CI −1.68 to 3.40); p=0.504). A prespecified responder analysis based on achieving a 10% improvement from baseline demonstrated a response rate for PHC of 32% in the SLH arm and 12.7% for usual care (p=0.024). A between-group difference in responder rate was not found in relation to the MHC (19.3% vs 25.9%; p=0.403).
Discussion and conclusion: A 12-week online SLH programme can improve the physical component of quality of life for people with COPD, but the overall effect is relatively modest compared with the impact seen in research using face-to-face group sessions. Further work on the content, duration and dose of online interventions may be useful.
Trial registration number NCT04034212.KEJP is supported was supported by the Imperial College Clinician Investigator Scholarship (no specific grant number/code). DF was supported by the Wellcome Trust [205407/Z/16/Z]
Understanding lived experiences and perceptions of resilience in black and South Asian Muslim children living in East London: a qualitative study protocol
Get PDFSupplementary materials: Supplementary Data are available online at: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/4/e082346.info .ProtocolIntroduction: It is important to promote resilience in preadolescence; however, there is limited research on children’s understandings and experiences of resilience. Quantitative approaches may not capture dynamic and context-specific aspects of resilience. Resilience research has historically focused on white, middle-class Western adults and adolescents, creating an evidence gap regarding diverse experiences of resilience in middle childhood which could inform interventions. East London’s Muslim community represents a diverse, growing population. Despite being disproportionately affected by deprivation and racial and cultural discrimination, this population is under-represented in resilience research. Using participatory and arts-based methods, this study aims to explore lived experiences and perceptions of resilience in black and South Asian Muslim children living in East London.
Methods and analysis: We propose a qualitative study, grounded in embodied inquiry, consisting of a participatory workshop with 6–12 children and their parents/carers to explore lived experiences and perceptions of resilience. Participants will be identified and recruited from community settings in East London. Eligible participants will be English-speaking Muslims who identify as being black or South Asian, have a child aged 8–12 years and live in East London. The workshop (approx. 3.5 hours) will take place at an Islamic community centre and will include body mapping with children and a focus group discussion with parents/carers to explore resilience perspectives and meanings. Participants will also complete a demographic survey. Workshop audio recordings will be transcribed verbatim and body maps and other paper-based activities will be photographed. Data will be analysed using systematic visuo-textual analysis which affords equal importance to visual and textual data.Barts Charity, UK (charity number: 212563, project code: MRC&U0042)
Wireless power transfer for electric vehicles using variable capacitor technique in compensated circuit
Get PDFThis thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThe Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) systems provide a platform by which the electric energy from the power grids can be conveyed to Electric Vehicles (EVs) by only using the electromagnetic fields, i.e. without necessarily the contacts. Other enhancements that WPT offers include: its ability to address some issues inherent in the "plug-in" charging technique like vulnerability to vandalism, power inefficiencies, and the dangers of exposed connectors as well as loose wires, among other things. Additionally, this technology makes it convenient for EVs to be charged while they are moving or parked.
Comprehensive research has been carried out in the last decades in the development of wireless power transfer technologies for electric vehicles. Literature review in the field of wireless power transferred has revealed that inductive resonance with series-series compensation circuit is the most efficient compensated circuit in inductive resonant technology as it plays important role in the system resonance. The resonance frequency is the key point which could be disturbed because of external and internal disturbance of the inductor values. To overcome this limitation a variable capacitor technique is used to achieve the required resonance frequency.
A proposed variable capacitor technique implemented in wireless power transfer circuit is designed, simulated and practically implemented with 87.75% efficiency. In this research the fixed capacitor in the proposed compensation circuit is replaced with a controlled variable capacitor in order to achieve a fine-tuned resonance frequency. Also, the speed of selecting the required tuned capacitor is achieved using high frequency (100kHz). The main idea is to select different values of the resonant capacitor in order to achieve different resonance frequencies.
Inductor coil design is also presented in this research using Ansys Electronic software in order to find the optimum inductor and optimum airgap used in the design of the variable-capacitor compensated circuit.
A circuit using the proposed technique is built in the lab to verify the design and simulation results. Overall, this research is based on static wireless charging
Flow boiling pressure drop correlation in small to micro passages
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Data will be made available on request.An accurate and acceptable correlation for the prediction of two-phase pressure drop is considered a crucial step in heat exchanger design. Although many existing models and correlations were developed and proposed in the past, their ability to predict within acceptable error bands when applied in general to flow boiling flows is limited, even within their originally recorded ranges. The discrepancies are worse when predicting two-phase pressure drop in small to micro-scale passages. Therefore, the aim of the work described in this paper is to assess the most well-known models and correlations using a large experimental data-bank. The data-bank includes four refrigerants, namely R134a, R245fa, HFE-7100 and HFE-7200, small to micro heat exchangers made of different metals and different channel configurations. In addition, the data cover a large range of operating conditions, which can allow generally applicability of new correlations developed. This range covers channel hydraulic diameter of 0.46−4.26 mm, heated length of 20−500 mm, system pressure of 1 − 14 bar, mass flux of 50−700 kg/m2 s, wall heat flux ranging from 2 to 234 kW/m2 and exit vapour quality up to one. Twenty six existing models and correlations that were developed and proposed for vertical/horizontal flow, single/multi-channels and circular/non-circular channels were evaluated. Moreover, the effect of using different equations for calculating the two-phase mixture viscosity, void fraction, Fanning friction factor and Lockhart–Martinelli parameter was assessed and discussed. The mean absolute error of the existing correlations when compared with our data-bank was more than 30 %. Therefore, a new correlation for calculating the two-phase multiplier, which was strongly dependent on the Boiling number and the Lockhart–Martinelli parameter, was developed and then the frictional component and total two-phase pressure drop relationships were completed.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through grant (EP/K01112/1) and the current grant of (EP/P004709/1)
Visual working memory for natural scenes: the effect of chromatic, luminance and spatial frequency content
Get PDFThis is a preprint version available on PsyArXiv at https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/t2a8w . It has not been certified by peer review.Long-term memory for images of natural scenes is known to be very good. However visual working memory (VWM) for natural scene stimuli is less well understood. We investigated VWM for natural scene stimuli by measuring VWM performance as a function of both encoding time and cognitive load level, employing a method that approximates everyday natural vision. VWM performance was compared between (a) scenes containing either full chromatic and luminance information, (b) luminance-only (isochromatic) information and (c) chromatic-only (isoluminant) information. VWM performance was also measured for scenes in which the scene’s structure had been destroyed by Fourier phase scrambling, or following removal of either the high or low spatial frequencies. It was found that recall ability for isoluminance scenes was relatively poor, as it was also for the phase scrambled scenes with high cognitive load or short encoding time. However, recall ability was similar for the full colour (i.e., chromatic and luminance information combined) and luminance-only scenes, except for very brief presentation times where performance for the luminance-only scenes was worse. These findings suggest that spatial scene structure is important for good VWM performance, and for very brief presentations there is a particular reliance on chromatic information.This research is supported by Canadian Institute of Health Research grant #MOP 123349 given to F.
Unmasking inequalities of the code: Disentangling the nexus of AI and inequality
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No data was used for the research described in the article.This article provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the complex dynamics between artificial intelligence (AI) and inequality, drawing upon social sciences and technology studies. It scrutinises the power dynamics that shape the development, deployment, and utilisation of AI technologies, and how these dynamics influence access to and control over AI resources. To do so, we employ Margaret Archer's social realism framework to illuminate the ways in which AI systems can reinforce various forms of inequalities. This theoretical perspective underscores the dynamic interplay between social context, individual agency, and the processes of morphostasis and morphogenesis, offering a nuanced understanding of how inequalities are reproduced and potentially transformed within the AI context. We further discuss the challenges posed by the access and opportunity divide, privacy and surveillance concerns, and the digital divide in the context of AI. We propose co-ownership as a potential solution to economic inequalities induced by AI, suggesting that stakeholders contributing to AI development should have significant claims of ownership. We also advocate for the recognition of AI systems as legal entities, which could provide a mechanism for accountability and compensation in cases of privacy breaches. Finally, we conclude by emphasising the need for robust data governance frameworks, global governance, and a commitment to social justice in navigating the complex landscape of AI and inequality.This research is supported by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 European project: “HumMingBird – Enhanced migration measures from a multidimensional perspective” (GA: 870661)
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