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Tailoring piezoresistive response of carbon nanotubes sensors by hybridization of cellulose nanocrystals for composite structures
Get PDFHere, the piezoresistive behavior and the underlying sensing mechanism of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) composite strain sensors were studied. Aqueous CNT/CNC inks were developed, characterized, and applied on the surface of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites to function as strain sensors. The sensor's behavior and sensitivities at small and large strains depended on the initial composition of CNCs. The sensor with a CNT/CNC composite with composition of 0.8:0.4 (wt%:wt%) had gauge factors of 0.9 and 6.4 at 0.60 % and 1.35 % strains, respectively. At higher composition of 0.8:4.0 (wt%:wt%), gauge factors of 0.5 and 22.2 were calculated for the same strain regions. Through analytical model and morphology analyses, we discussed the influence of CNCs on CNT contact types and on the average tunneling distance between CNTs and the their piezoresistive performance. It was also discussed that CNC particles control the types of contacts between adjacent CNTs. As a result, tailoring piezoresistive behavior was demonstrated. In conclusion, applying a binder-free and environmentally friendly sustainable aqueous ink on a surface of a composite was revealed to be an effective and practical approach for tailored strain sensing
The journey to work of young adults with mobility disability: A qualitative study on the digital technologies that support mobility
Get PDFMobility is essential in navigating familiar and unfamiliar environments. People with disability may experience vulnerability in navigating the external environment, when mobility is hindered by discomfort, commodification, or disorientation. Independent commute, choice, and control can be enhanced with appropriate aids, technology, and infrastructure. Self-determination can also be seen to enhance mobility through the realisation of strengths and limitations of the individual and the opportunity to act with self-regulation, in a way that responds to events in an empowered way. Utilising a critical incident technique, this qualitative study examines the enabling and disabling factors that impact self-determination of young adults with mobility disability in the context of their journey to work and explores the role digital technologies can play in this journey. Key findings related to the importance of mobility planning, transport options and communication in the journey to work are discussed. The importance of digital technologies is highlighted including the proposed features of digital enabling platforms
Circular colour: Reusing colour from previous textile lifecycles in textile finishes
Get PDFColour is a key component of textiles, drawing interest while also changing with the seasons, which calls for a systemic perspective of its materials circularity in the context of future product lifetimes. To develop new design processes with regenerated cellulose obtained from post-consumer textiles, an exploration of solely undyed materials is not consistent with the reality that established design techniques produce a wide range of multi-coloured textiles. On the other hand, the presence of dyes reportedly impacts on chemical recycling, and conventional dyestuff for cellulosic materials is often oil-based and includes persistent dyestuff made up of unknown chemicals. Keeping the dyes of discarded textiles in a closed loop would replace the need for new dyestuff, reducing the use of water and energy for dyeing and de-dyeing processes, and avoiding the dispersion or landfill of potentially hazardous chemicals. This paper presents a textile technique that reuses the colour from waste textiles as the dye for cellulose-based textile screen printing processes. This was developed from the interaction and integration of textile design techniques with materials science processes for cellulose regeneration using a methodology developed by the author. When printed textile finishes reuse the colour from the cellulose source from previous textile lifecycles, no added dyes are needed, and the resulting mono-material textiles are compatible within the context of the circular bioeconomy. The results facilitate a material’s future circularity, since the reused dyes do not disrupt the chemical recycling process in the regeneration of colourful, cellulose-based textiles for future product lifetimes
Conosciamo i sensori e i dati che raccolgono. Kit per bambini e genitori
Get PDFAn Italian translation of the booklet titled "I Spy Sensors: A Spotters Guide To The Objects That Sense You". The booklet is a guide to the type of sensors contained in common digital devices, and is part of the Countermeasures research project led by Angus Main. The booklet was translated by Lorenzo Giuseppe Zaffaroni as part of the DataChildFutures project
The garment life matrix: A tool for negotiating complexity in Design for Sustainability
Get PDFThis research project develops a new tool, ‘The Garment Life Matrix’ (GLM), to enable the fashion industry to shift towards a sustainable circular economy model. Fashion is a complex system, with long supply chains, and vast networks of actors and physical components participating in different parts of the system. Fashion’s emissions are produced not just at the production stage, but at multiple points throughout the lifecycles of garments. This complexity makes it challenging for designers to identify where best to focus their efforts to conduct sustainable practice. A substantial number of strategies for Design for Sustainability (DfS) have been proposed, but the tangible impact of these on fashion design practice has been limited. A key reason for this is a lack of understanding amongst designers as to how to implement them efficiently in practice. The effectiveness of DfS strategies depends on the designer's ability to holistically consider factors which impact on a garments’ sustainability and based on this understanding, select the most appropriate strategies for each case. Several tools have been developed to support designers to do this, but these do not provide sufficient consideration of crucial factors and prescribe overly granular approaches, as well as present overly complex guidance that is unsuitable for design practice. There is a need for more straightforward and applicable support for applying DfS strategies in garment design practice. In other words, designers need a systematic approach to help them choose the most effective “tool” in the “toolbox” of DfS strategies. My project aims to redress this gap. This research project develops a tool that supports garment designers in considering and negotiating the many factors that interrelate to determine the environmental impact of garments’ lifecycles. This research project has two main contributions. The first is the identification of a set of key factors for enabling sustainable garment design, consisting of the primary and enabling factors, and putting these factors into a relationship. The identification of these factors was based on a review of literature on DfS and DfS tools, and further established through empirical research which included two studies. Study 1, which comprised a series of interviews with consumers, investigated if/how the identified DfS-factors were affected by/affected their behaviour. And Study 2, which enriched understanding of the identified key factors by drawing in the perspective of garment industry professionals to understand if and how the identified factors were affected by/affected their practice. Findings from these studies and a supplementary review of literature were used as input for designing ‘The Garment Life Matrix’ (GLM) framework, which articulates the key factors for DfS and their relationship. Through a series of Research through Design experiments, the GLM framework was developed into an interactive tool, proposed as DfS support. This leads to the thesis’ second contribution: A new DfS tool and method which enables designers to manage effective selection and implementation of DfS strategies. By prompting designers to systematically consider a holistic set of DfS factors, and articulating how these correlate to affect garment’s lifecycles, the GLM supports designers to competently select and combine appropriate DfS strategies for each product they are working on. The tool and method were developed and tested with garment designers through a series of action research studies. First, as support for designers to diagnose the sustainability of their current practice and pin-point relevant opportunities to improve this. Next, as support for designers to systematically select and apply appropriate DfS strategies to ensure their efficacy
Protocol for intervention development to improve adolescent perinatal mental health in Kenya and Mozambique: The INSPIRE project
Get PDFIntroduction Mental health interventions have traditionally been developed by clinicians and researchers without the meaningful engagement and partnership with those who would receive, deliver, and fund them. Recent progress has highlighted the importance of the co-design of interventions, through stakeholder participation, as a means of increasing the integration of mental health interventions into existing health, education, and social care systems. This protocol describes the pre-implementation phase of the INSPIRE (Innovative approaches to adolescent perinatal wellbeing) project which aims to identify challenges, and design and test interventions to promote mental wellbeing and good mental health of adolescent girls during pregnancy and the year after birth with local stakeholders in Kenya and Mozambique. Methods A participatory approach that blends human-centred design, systems thinking, and implementation science methods will be used to engage adolescents (aged 15–19 years), their families, and other stakeholders who can influence implementation efforts, in planning and preparing interventions. First, an understanding of context, barriers, and opportunities related to adolescent perinatal mental health will be elicited through individual interviews, focus group discussions, and observations. This will be complemented by a scoping review of relevant interventions. The research team will identify contextual insights relating to adolescent and system characteristics, strengths, and challenges. These will be shared with and refined by stakeholders. Thematic analysis will be conducted to describe the experiences of adolescent girls, and barriers and enablers to maintaining good mental health. The former will be triangulated with the Context and Implementation of Complex Intervention (CICI) framework. Causal loop diagrams will be developed to illustrate the individual and system-level variables which influence adolescent perinatal mental health. Stakeholder workshops will be used to identify priorities, brainstorm potential interventions, develop a program theory, and prototype an intervention and implementation strategies. Intervention acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility will be assessed, and a theory of change map finalized. Results To date the study has recruited 169 participants to complete individual interviews, focus group discussions and observation activities. Conclusions It is anticipated that the use of a participatory and systematic approach to the development of an intervention to improve mental health, will improve its perceived appropriateness, acceptability, and feasibility among key stakeholders. This may, in turn, significantly improve its availability, uptake, and sustainability
Rippling: Towards untamed domesticity
Get PDFThe paper proposes ‘rippling' as a practice of untamed domesticity that contests the hegemony of the essentialised model of modern nuclear family and its associated domesticity. The conceptualisation of ‘rippling' derives from a context of the dissolved household in contemporary rural China — they are families of China's 285 million floating population who have seen the absence of a middle generation. At the intersection of architecture and anthropology, and with Shigushan village in Wuhan as the primary site of fieldwork since 2015, the point of entry is spatial and ethnographic observations and documentations of everyday practice in and around ordinary self-built family houses. The material traces and empirical evidence manifest a constantly diffused distinction between the domestic and the public, enacted by the rural dissolved household. In this way, the practice of ‘rippling' defies the confinement and codification of domesticity. Importantly, ‘rippling' and ‘dissolving' are a temporary, transient state that has become part of a broader structure rather than an exception. Through inhabiting and altering a multiplicity of spatial, social, and political thresholds, an elastic form of association is enacted, through which the act of mediating between genders, generations, households, neighbours, and the village community is constantly framed, and even spreads to the city through ‘floating’. Spatially stretched from house to territory and temporally coordinated from daily to multi-year cycles, domesticity as such is untamed
Guest editorial
Get PDFThis introduction to ‘Well-Making and Making-Well: Craft, Design and Everyday Creativity for Health and Well-Being’ outlines some of the background, thinking and research that underpins well-making as a concept and approach. Entangled in everyday lived experiences of health and creativity, well-making is concerned with the changes that can happen when people make things together, paying attention to the processes, places, people and materials involved. Well-making is applied and engaged research which, more often than not, involves working collaboratively with stakeholder partners and community groups. The editors of this Special Issue argue that, while well-making is a concept/approach in process, the articles here and related research help us better understand the principles that underpin this work, enabling more productive outcomes when we make together and helping to evidence the beneficial impact of such research
Seeing through the walls of Silicon Valley
Get PDFAn illustrated article on the methods of recreating through drawing and virtual reality the Silicon Valley campuses of Apple, Alphabet-Google, and Meta (Facebook)