20253 research outputs found
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Deconstructing the ivory tower: The liminal space between margins and centers in climate research
No full textWhat does it mean to produce climate science in 2026? Building on the dialogical approach of Fenner and Harcourt [1], this paper explores how positionalities and emotional landscapes shape the work of three female researchers in climate science. Through a collective, reflexive dialogue, we confront the personal and structural tensions embedded in global climate science, examining power asymmetries, the tokenization of diversity, and the hegemonic dominance of quantification and masculinized norms. Our reflections draw attention to how scientific practices often, even unintentionally, perpetuate the very injustices they aim to address. These inherent exclusionary practices lead us to the idea of academia as a border. By weaving together anecdotal recollections and critical theory, we illuminate how situatedness matters, not just methodologically but politically. We critique the neoliberal and heteronormative underpinnings of academic institutions and propose a future-oriented agenda grounded in relationality, emotional honesty, and epistemic inclusivity. Our concluding recommendations aim to shift academic practice from extractive performance metrics to spaces of resistance, care, and collective transformation. As part of this, we bring a reflective tool inspired by Audre Lorde's [2] Questionnaire to Oneself to invite deeper engagement with the contradictions and silences within our own scholarly work
Digging in the shadows: A grounded theory study on the drivers of illegal well drilling in southern Iran
Full text linkThe agricultural sector is the largest consumer of water resources in Iran. Due to the country's physical and geographical constraints, groundwater overexploitation has intensified, making illegal well drilling an increasingly critical and uncontrolled national issue. This study investigates the underlying causes of illegal well drilling in Bushehr province using a qualitative grounded theory approach. Data was collected through in-depth, open-ended interviews, document analysis, and observations. The study's statistical population comprised farmers with water wells and experts from relevant organizations. Using snowball sampling, data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached, resulting in a total of 53 interviews (23 farmers and 30 experts). The grounded theory analysis followed three coding stages: open, axial, and selective coding. Open coding yielded 322 concepts, which were refined into 21 categories during axial coding. Ultimately, a paradigm model of the drivers of illegal well drilling in southern Iran was presented including the main phenomenon, contextual conditions, causal conditions, intervening conditions, strategies, and consequences. Providing a comprehensive conception of the subject, the findings can pave the route for mitigating illegal well drilling and promoting sustainable groundwater management
Development of a Virtual Reality Training Program: Integrating FDS Simulation and Performance Optimization with Unreal Engine on Heterogeneous Hardware
No full textTo develop a more realistic virtual reality firefighting training platform, this study utilizes fire spread data, including smoke and heat, obtained from numerical simulations using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). FDS employs MPI and OpenMP for large-scale fire simulations by dividing computational domains into sub-domains, with OpenACC applied to support heterogeneous hardware architectures. Performance tests using CSIRO Grassland Fires demonstrated a 1.89 × speedup with combined CPU-GPU computation and a 21 × speedup with 1 GPU and 16 CPUs, validating enhanced fire analysis capabilities. Additionally, existing VR engines were improved by integrating WFDS data into Unreal Engine for realistic smoke and heat visualization using FGA files. The program dynamically visualizes flame and smoke movements based on wind speed and direction, achieving a 100% match between WFDS data and Unreal Engine output, with combustion stages rendered in real-time through mass-based material updates
Development of a Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) emission inventory in Korea
No full textIn this study, an emission inventory of 16 PAHs, including 7 carcinogenic PAHs, was developed using the latest data for Korea. The study incorporated emission sources that had been omitted in previous studies. PAHs emissions were estimated by region (at city, county, and district levels) and sector to enable a more precise identification of the emission status in Korea. The total annual emission of 16 PAHs in Korea in 2017 was 1259.7 Mg, with 7 PAHs contributing 41.77 Mg. The major sector of the emissions of the 16 PAHs was industrial process (33.5 %). For the 7 PAHs, other area source was the major emission sector (38.8 %), mainly due to wildfires. In terms of regional aspects, regions with high Industrial Process activities such as ULSAN, JEONNAM, CHUNGNAM, along with GYEONGGI, a major hub for Korean Energy Transport and Storage, showed the highest emissions. The developed emission inventory was intercompared with other inventories, ensuring the appropriate application of emission factors for each emission sector. Especially, it was found that the Korean PAH emissions reported in EDGARv6.0 were 1.9–5.1 times different from those estimated in this study, depending on the pollutant. It was discovered that the emission factors in the residential sector in EDGARv6.0 may differ from the actual emission characteristics in Korea. The PAHs emission inventory developed in this study is anticipated to be used for the establishment and regulation of PAHs policies in Korea. Furthermore, the research results are expected to be essential reference material for refining the emission inventory of PAHs for Korea, which is used in atmospheric transport modeling
Humor for health: a randomized controlled trial of clown visits in Palestinian hospitals
No full textHospitalization can be a highly stressful experience for children, potentially affecting their well-being and recovery. This study evaluates the impact of hospital clown visits on pediatric patients in Palestine. The health system of the country is severely challenged by the ongoing conflict and sociopolitical tensions which have major implications for the physical and mental health of children and obstruct patients’ access to healthcare services. We conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to estimate the effects of clown visits on caregiver-rated health outcomes: children’s well-being during hospitalization, subjective recovery, and perceptions of hospital quality. We find that clown visits had a statistically significant positive effect on children’s well-being with levels of well-being in the treatment group being 0.25 standard deviations higher than in the control group. The effect was stronger among children from higher socio-economic backgrounds and those with a favorable predisposition towards clowns. We found no significant effects on caregiver-rated subjective recovery or perceptions of hospital quality. Our findings suggest that low-cost, non-medical interventions can play a meaningful role in improving the hospital experience for children, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings
Obesity, sedentary behavior and lifestyle: A lifecycle model of eating and physical activity
No full textWe propose a theoretical model to study individual lifestyle choices related to calorie intake and physical activity, depending on personal fitness and body weight. The model builds on the rational eating literature and can generate a variety of behaviors that are consistent with the empirical evidence. In particular, we show that engaging in periods of a sedentary lifestyle can be a rational, utility-maximizing decision—a finding that is not present in the existing literature but is empirically widespread. Additionally, we show the possible existence of multiple equilibria and multiple indifferent lifestyles. The former justifies policy interventions to help individuals exit a self-reinforcing, but unhealthy equilibrium; the latter provides a theoretical basis for remediation plans that compensate for earlier unhealthy behaviors
Diffusion of electric vehicles – The spillover effect of charging facilities and government demonstrations for neighbouring and peer regions
No full textPromoting the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is important for the decarbonisation of the transportation sector. Existing research indicates that the diffusion of new technologies tends to be highly spatially correlated. This study explores whether a region's adoption of EVs is positively related with the availability of charging facilities and government demonstrations promoting EVs in peer regions. This study develops a dynamic spatial panel data model based on the Spatial Dubin Model to explore this question using panel data from 28 provinces in China from 2013 to 2020. The main findings of this study include the following: 1) Not surprisingly, the high availability of charging facilities in a region and its local government's demonstration effort contribute to the adoption of EVs in the region; 2) the adoption of EVs in one region can contribute to EV adoption in its peer regions – so-called spillover effect; in particular, the government's demonstration effort contributes significantly to this effect, but the high availability of charging facilities does not; and 3) such spillover effects are more significant in regions with higher economic levels or regions with warm temperatures. Our study provides implications for EV makers to identify further potential markets for EVs
Planning for just relocations in Europe in times of climate change: a comparative study
No full textPlanned relocation is gaining traction as a preventive adaptation measure to protect communities from the impacts of climate change. While its justice implications are increasingly recognised, empirical studies often focus on single dimensions such as distributive outcomes or procedural fairness. This paper proposes a more comprehensive approach that identifies multiple forms of justice—distributive, corrective, procedural and recognitional—as relevant for planning and implementing planned relocation. It further operationalises them through the lenses of the utilitarian, libertarian, egalitarian and prioritarian philosophical traditions, and offers a framework for uncovering the implicit assumptions about justice that shape relocation policy and practice. The framework is applied to four case studies of preventive relocation in the context of flood risk in Europe (Portugal, Italy, Austria, UK). The application shows that utilitarian understandings of distributive justice dominate policy framings at national and regional levels, while prioritarian concerns emerge at community level, suggesting that different criteria can coexist across scales. An egalitarian approach characterises the sharing of costs and responsibilities, with cross-country difference in financial coverage and compensation models. Procedural justice is motivated on egalitarian grounds but practised performatively or with the utilitarian aim to promote acceptability, and it is often constrained by a reliance on technical expertise which sidelines local knowledge. Recognitional justice oscillates between exclusion based on property rights and attempts to prioritise the most vulnerable. By offering a framework to identify and clarify implicit justice assumptions in relocation decisions, this paper paves ways to support more transparent and accountable policymaking
Evaluating the performance of seasonal pumped hydro storage coordinated operation with cascade hydropower station integrating variable renewable energy
No full textSeasonal pumped hydro storage (SPHS) presents a promising solution for China's evolving power systems dominated by variable renewable energy (VRE) sources with pronounced seasonal variations. Unlike conventional pumped storage addressing short-term fluctuations, SPHS integrates new upstream reservoirs with existing cascade hydropower through reversible units and pipelines to mitigate seasonal generation disparities in river-based hydropower systems. This study develops a refined nested long-short term production simulation model to evaluate SPHS's potential in facilitating VRE integration. The model examines three operational modes (non-regulation, short-term regulation, seasonal regulation) across different hydrological conditions and seasonal periods. Case results demonstrate that SPHS implementation enhances system VRE accommodation capacity by 20 % despite having only 8.6 % (1:11.6 ratio) of the downstream reservoir's storage capacity. Annual generation increases by 1.60 %, 1.02 %, and 0.84 % in wet, normal, and dry years respectively, while maintaining stable power supply. The analysis reveals significant sensitivity of system performance to SPHS's water storage redistribution strategies, suggesting seasonal flexibility optimization could yield additional benefits. The findings demonstrate SPHS's capacity to address seasonal hydropower variability while establishing a scalable framework for advancing pumped hydro storage's operational flexibility and evaluation methodologies in long-term renewable energy integration scenarios
Deployment of China's hydrogen production with loose or tight carbon-reduction paths
No full textHydrogen is likely to play an important role in achieving China's carbon neutrality target which is crucial for coping with the global climate change. Given that different regions of China are heterogeneous in terms of resources and demand, this study developed a provincial-level China energy system optimization model that considers ultra-high voltage (UHV) electricity transmission and hydrogen pipeline transmission among provinces. With the model, we evaluated the optimal deployment of hydrogen in China under two paths to be carbon-neutral: a relatively loose path for the 2 °C Global Temperature Target and a relatively tight path for the 1.5 °C Global Temperature Target. This study found that the tight path indicates a faster substitution of blue and green hydrogen for gray hydrogen, which is associated with the relocation of hydrogen production from coal-rich provinces to renewable-rich ones. Compared with the loose path, the tight path would require approximately 100 %–120 % higher annual investment in China from 2025 to 2035. This study also revealed that both the paths would increase the inter-provincial carbon emission transfer from developed to less-developed provinces. A policy implication is that China should consider implementing carbon accounting at the demand side, which would be vital for an equitable regional development