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A quantitative case study to assess the performance of UK supermarket buildings in relation to future climate change and modern construction techniques (MMCs)
Get PDFThis study examines several non-domestic building construction techniques and their impact on a typical UK supermarket's building performance under the worst-case scenarios of the period of climate change in the 2080s. To determine operating energy consumption and carbon emissions, emphasis is placed primarily on the three LIDL-approved construction techniques and the materials used in their construction. The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) provides the current and projected weather files to be tested, and Thermal Analysis Software (TAS), a dynamic building simulation tool, is used to quantify the results and generate reports. The case study is based on a recently constructed single-story supermarket building in Norwich and employs three building models, P1, P2, and P3, each of which uses a particular set of construction materials. The results indicate that the percentage increase in energy consumption and carbon emissions for models P1 and P2 is close to 8.80%. However, P3 model has an increase of less than 8.50% when compared to the building's current condition, making it a marginally better option. It suggests that a precast concrete and glulam beam structure offer the best resistance against the worst climate change scenario. While presenting the findings, this investigation merges the two distinct aspects of the built environment, construction and operation
Rapid injection of lumbar dorsal root ganglia under direct vision: relevant anatomy, protocol, and behaviors
Get PDFDorsal root ganglia (DRG) are anatomically well-defined structures that contain all primary sensory neurons and are distension nodules of the dorsal root in the spinal cord near the medial surface of each foramen. Therefore, DRG is considered to be a desirable target for injection to manage chronic pain. But it presents a limitation in probing deep into it without in vivo injection technology. Here, we described a technique for administering intraganglionic injections of lumbar DRG under direct vision. We used partial osteotomy rather than laminectomy, which removes more bone, to preserve spinal structures while gaining adequate DRG access. To monitor the intraoperative progress of the DRG injection, a non-toxic dye was utilized. The effectiveness of the injection on the diffusion of AAV within the ganglion was assessed by histopathology at postoperative day 21. Behavioral tests showed that neither motor nor sensory abilities were affected by saline or AAV injections. Meanwhile, the decreased pain threshold of SNI was considerably restored by pharmacological inhibition of DRG neurons. Our research achieved a more minimally invasive and intuitive intra-ganglionic injection in mice without damage to the spinal cord. In addition, the current methodology could be a valuable way that supports DRG injection preclinical investigations
Whole life carbon assessment of a typical UK residential building using different embodied carbon data sources
Get PDFThe climate crisis in many sectors is driving rapid and substantial changes. Considering the fact that the building sector accounts for 39% of energy related carbon emissions, it is important to take swift actions to reduce these emissions. This study will identify the accuracy and availability of the embodied carbon databases. In this regard, the effect of using different embodied carbon databases on the total emissions during product and end-of-life stages will be compared. The results showed that using the UK Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy database (BEIS) overestimates the embodied carbon emissions. Additionally, using the Environmental product declarations database (EPDs), compared to the Inventory of Carbon and Energy database (ICE), can reduce embodied carbon for some materials up to 100%. The end-of-life calculation showed a huge difference between the two databases. In addition, Whole Life Carbon Assessment (WLC) has been carried out. The findings revealed that 67% of emissions come from operational carbon and embodied carbon is responsible for 33% of emissions. Using LED lights and installing PV panels can reduce the total CO2 emissions by 24.82 tonCO2. In addition, using recycled metal, less carbon intensive concrete, and recyclable aluminium can reduce the total CO2 emissions by 18.57, 2.07, and 2.3 tonCO2e, respectively
When is a fund not a fund? Exploring the financial support for levelling up
No full textThis paper will examine the different funding streams associated with the levelling up agenda pursued by the Conservative government elected in the United Kingdom in 2019. It will explore in detail a number of funding streams that this government has associated with levelling up to understand their relationship to the levelling up agenda. The article will also analyse the relationship between the levelling up missions and the funding associated with levelling up. The Levelling Up White Paper released in February 2022 included 12 missions that were intended to provide a ‘targeted, measurable and time-bound objective, or set of objectives, from which a programme of change can then be constructed or catalysed’. The analysis of the funding streams outlined in this paper shows that the relationship with the missions is overall a tangential one. The lack of clarity on what is and is not a levelling up fund, coupled with the loose relationship with the levelling up missions may diminish the impact that the levelling up agenda will have on regional inequality in the UK
Digital Transformation in Nursing Education: A Systematic Review on Computer-Aided Nursing Education Pedagogies, Recent Advancements and Outlook on the Post-COVID-19 Era
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has transformed nursing education worldwide. Due to the globally applied restrictions of interpersonal interactions, many educational institutions transitioned from traditional to computer-aided nursing education pedagogies. However, an obligatory change, this digital transformation in nursing education, has been deemed promising by students and academics, yet raising concerns about the effectiveness of innovative nursing pedagogies. Hence, this systematic literature review aims to investigate the state of the art of computer-aided nursing pedagogies in the post-COVID-19 era and provide recommendations for further research investigation. Specifically, it utilises a mixed methods approach to examine (1) the evolution of computer-aided nursing pedagogies before and after COVID-19; (2) their effectiveness against traditional methods in terms of knowledge, skills acquisition and self-efficiency; and (3) nursing students’ experiences and opinions when exposed to computer-aided nursing education pedagogies. For this purpose, several databases (PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL Complete, Academic Search Elite, IEEE, ACM, Scopus, ERIC and Cochrane Library (Controlled trial requests) were searched,
initially retrieving 802 articles published between 2013-2023. After removing duplicates, exclusion criteria
and assessment for eligibility, the number of articles assessed for eligibility was reduced to 78 conducted in 20 different countries. The articles comprised quantitative research (n=37), including Randomised Control Trials (n=14) and Quasi-experimental studies (n=23), and qualitative research (n=41) including observational studies (n=14), mixed-methods methodological design (n=15), pilot studies (n=7) and conference papers (n=5). Moreover, this SLR utilised the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodological
approach for conducting a mixed-methods systematic review (MMSR) and provided a narrative synthesis of all studies. The results of this mixed-methods SLR suggested that the post-COVID-19 era has enabled the implementation of a variety of computerised systems in nursing education, including desktop-based systems, mobile applications, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and holograms, haptics, Artificial Intelligence-enabled chatbots and systems, smart glasses and multimodal systems. The authors found that these computer-aided nursing education pedagogies were superior to traditional nursing pedagogies regarding acquiring knowledge, skills, and self-efficiency. However, the generalisability of the above findings should be interpreted with caution due to variations in sample size and effect size established via Hedges’ g calculations among the 35 quantitative articles. Nevertheless, nursing students’ experiences and opinions were encouragingly positive. Further research is needed to incorporate more realistic and memorable scenarios and examine the effects of computer-aided nursing educational pedagogies on long-term knowledge gains and the effective learning domain
The Customer Service Excellence Journey
Get PDFJulian Roland has approaching forty years experience in organisational, FE and HE libraries. As Head of Customer Experience for UWL Library Services’; a post he has held since 2014, Julian is responsible for the library’s front line services, customer engagement and its marketing and communications. Julian has led the Customer Service Excellence project for the library service since 2016 and the library is now in its third three-year cycle with an outstanding record of continuing improvement as evidenced by 14 of the 57 areas graded as Compliance Plus in its 2023 assessment.
In his presentation, Julian discusses the Customer Service Excellence Journey, that both the Library Service and he personally have been on since 2016 with advice to those setting out on their own journeys and to those looking to maintain the award
“There is no part of my life that hasn't been destroyed”: the impact of parental alienation and intimate partner violence on fathers
Get PDFPrevious research has demonstrated the profound negative impact of both intimate partner violence (IPV) and parental alienation (PA) on both the mental and physical health of fathers. However, considering the increasing arguments for PA to be categorised and examined as a form of IPV, there is an urgent need to explore the impact of PA as part of a broader pattern of IPV. This is a particularly relevant line inquiry for fathers for fathers, as men are largely invisibilised in research examining IPV. The present study analysed qualitative responses to an online survey by 171 fathers who have experienced alienating behaviours within the context of IPV. Three themes were identified: Impact on fathers (including health, finances, grief, identity, and relationships), perceived impact on children (including siblings and extended family, health and wellbeing, loss of childhood), and impact on relationships with children (including lack of closeness, feeling responsible, and improvements over time). The impacts described by men are discussed in relation to the theoretical and practical relationship between IPV and PA, and implications for support and help seeking for men experiencing this form of abuse
Advances and prospects on estimating solar photovoltaic installation capacity and potential based on satellite and aerial images
Get PDFSolar photovoltaic (PV) system, as one kind of the most promising renewable energy technologies, plays a key role in reducing carbon emissions to achieve the targets of global net zero carbon. In the past few decades, PV installations have seen a rapid growth. Predicting the installed amount and the capacity of solar PV systems is therefore useful for formulating effective carbon reduction policies in the related area. In the present study, the methods of identifying PV installation based on satellite and aerial images have been reviewed. Suggestions have been put forward to optimize the identification process and to predict the potential of rooftop PV installation. The results show that the specific purposes of PV identification can be categorized as image classification, object detection and semantic segmentation. The available identification methods encompass pixel-based analysis method (PBIA), object-based analysis method (OBIA) and deep learning. Deep learning has a high accuracy in segmentation for all sizes of PV systems, with precision and recall of rooftop PV segmentation in the range of 41–98.9% and 54.5–95.8%, respectively. OBIA has the best accuracy in detecting centralized PV systems with relatively low-resolution multispectral images. Furthermore, a grading segmentation strategy for PV segmentation in the large region is presented, combining the three identification methods and the images with different resolutions. In addition, the potential of rooftop PV installation can be predicted by segmenting the available roof area in the images. After considering the shading effects, upper structure and other uses, the roof availability coefficient tends to be in the range of 0.25–0.46. It is also suggested to combine PV and roof segmentation to estimate the installation potential more accurately, in the context of rapid growth of the rooftop PV
Thermal behavior and performance of shallow-deep-mixed borehole heat exchanger array for sustainable building cooling and heating
No full textGeothermal energy system is a renewable, sustainable and clean source for building heating and cooling, which is important for reducing both building energy use and carbon emissions. Currently, both shallow borehole heat exchangers (SBHEs) and deep borehole heat exchangers (DBHEs) are popular in applications. However, SBHEs and DBHEs have inherit limitations when used alone. SBHEs suffer from lower heating/cooling capacities and ground imbalance problems in long run, while DBHEs are mainly used for building heating. In this study, combining both SBHEs and DBHEs is proposed as a shallow-deep-mixed borehole heat exchanger (SD-BHE) array, and more importantly a new scheme is proposed that the DBHE tube could be switched to SBHE tube in summer. SD-BHE is a new design, focusing on the combination of DBHE and shallow tube group. Its heat transfer model is established on the basis of single tube heat transfer model and tube group heat transfer model. In the analysis, the heat extraction capacity per linear meter of DBHE and SBHE is compared and analyzed for various parameters. It is found that when the cooling load of a building is greater than the heating load, the shallow-deep-mixed borehole heat exchanger (SD-BHE) array has less influence on ground temperature and provides better stability of the outlet water temperature than the SBHE array. The present study can offer a new paradigm for geothermal energy-based building cooling/heating
