• Energy Research
• 2016-2025close
• Restricted close
• Embargo close
• IT close
• GB close
• CN close

This dataset was generated via a focused piece of research conducted by Dr Matilda Aspinall and Dr Amy Twigger Holroyd which investigated the experiences of students and staff involved in Fashion Fictions projects in 2022 at two institutions: LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore and Nottingham Trent University. This focused research was situated within the broader Fashion Fictions project. Fashion Fictions, founded by Amy Twigger Holroyd in 2020, brings people together to generate, experience and reflect on engaging fictional visions of alternative fashion cultures and systems. Through these activities, we gain new perspectives on challenges, possibilities and pathways for change in the real world. The project is structured in three stages. Stage 1 prompts contributors to create brief written outlines of fictional fashion cultures and systems, known as Worlds; at Stage 2, participants put flesh on these outlines and create visual or material prototypes to represent their cultures, known as Explorations; at Stage 3, they performatively enact practices or events from the fictional worlds. To find out more about Fashion Fictions, visit the project website. To see other data linked to the project, visit the Fashion Fictions Zenodo community. -------------------------------- In both institutions, Fashion Fictions was initially introduced to the curriculum in the 2020/21 academic year; the activities discussed here took place in the following year, with a second cohort of students. At NTU, first-year undergraduate students from BA (Hons) courses in Fashion Design, Textile Design and Fashion Knitwear Design & Knitted Textiles undertook a short Stage 2 Fashion Fictions project. Spanning three two-hour workshops, the project was part of a Future Thinking toolkit within a module that aims to develop students’ intellectual curiosity and appreciation of the future as something that can be shaped and questioned. Working in small cross-course groups, students were given a specified Stage 1 fiction and asked to create a visual or material prototype to represent everyday life in that world, presented via a selection of images and a short explanatory text. At LASALLE, Fashion Fictions was set up as a major project extending across a 14-week semester for second-year students on two BA (Hons) programmes: Fashion Media and Industries and Fashion Design and Textiles. Also working in cross-course collaborative groups, the students first created their own Stage 1 world and then progressed to create a collection of Stage 2 prototypes in the form of garments and related media such as photographs and films, accompanied by an extensive body of supporting work. -------------------------------- in April and May 2022 we conducted semi-structured interviews with tutors involved in the projects – Lorraine Warde (Principal Lecturer in Fashion Design) at NTU and Martin Bonney and Kathryn Shannon Sim Yen Ping (Lecturers in Fashion, interviewed together) at LASALLE – and with three student groups, selected by the tutors, from each institution. The interview schedules for students and tutors each comprised four reflective questions, designed to gain an insight into the students’ experiences and the tutors’ observations. Each recorded interview lasted between twenty and sixty minutes. -------------------------------- The dataset is organised in nine folders: 1 Project context Project website About page from February 2022 (explaining the wider project at the time of this research). Project website Education projects page from January 2022 (giving context to the education projects taking place at the time of this research). 2 Activity guidance Project website Stage 1 (World) online guide from January 2022 (as available for use by LASALLE students). NTU virtual workspace Stage 2 (Exploration) guidance (as used by NTU students and providing an indication of the type of guidance that would have been offered to LASALLE students for their Stage 2 work - although their project was much longer in duration). 3 Interview documentation Information sheet and consent form given to research participants. Interview questions for staff and students, shared with all participants in advance. 4 LASALLE staff interview Transcript of interview with Martin Bonney and Kathryn Shannon Sim Yen Ping (Lecturers in Fashion). 5 LASALLE student interviews Transcripts of interviews with three student groups, each identified by the number/letter of the Stage 1 World and Stage 2 Exploration they created (as listed on the project website Worlds and Explorations pages). 6 LASALLE student work Project work (Stage 1 Worlds and Stage 2 Explorations) created by the three student groups interviewed, as displayed on the project website. One group (World 154) did not submit their Exploration for the website. 7 NTU staff interview Transcript of interview with Lorraine Warde (Principal Lecturer in Fashion Design). 8 NTU student interviews Transcripts of interviews with three student groups, each identified by the number/letter of the Stage 2 Exploration they created (as listed on the project website Explorations page). 9 NTU student work Project work (Stage 2 Explorations) created by the three student groups interviewed. Two groups' work is as displayed on the project website. One group (World 95, Exploration X) did not submit their Exploration for the website and so their internal presentation has been included instead.

The global restoration agenda can help solve the biodiversity extinction crisis by regenerating biodiversity-rich ecosystems, maximising conservation benefits using natural regeneration. Yet, conservation is rarely the core objective of restoration, and biodiversity is often neglected in restoration projects targeted towards carbon sequestration or enhancing ecosystem services for improved local livelihoods. Here, we synthesise evidence to show that promoting biodiversity in restoration planning and delivery is integral to delivering other long-term restoration aims, such as carbon sequestration, timber production, enhanced local farm yields, reduced soil erosion, recovered hydrological services and improved human health. For each of these restoration goals, biodiversity must be a keystone objective to the entire process. Biodiversity integration requires improved evidence and action, delivered via a socio-ecological process operating at landscape scales and backed by supportive regulations and finance. Conceiving restoration and biodiversity conservation as synergistic, mutually reinforcing partners is critical for humanity's bids to tackle the global crises of climate change, land degradation and biodiversity extinction.

Abstract With drastic fossil fuel depletion and environmental deterioration concerns, a move towards a more sustainable bioenergy-based economy is essential. Lately, the application of microwave (MW) irradiation for waste processing has been attracting interest globally. MW-assisted heating possesses several advantages such as the provision of high microwave energy into dielectric materials with deeper penetration for internal heat generation, showing beneficial features in improving the heating rate and reducing the reaction time. Consequently, the most recent literature regarding the applications of MW-assisted heating for biomass pretreatment as well as biofuel and bioenergy production was reviewed and consolidated in this study. An impressive increase in the product yield and improvement of the product properties are reported, with the use of MW-assisted heating in several conversion routes to produce biofuels. Despite being a promising technology for biofuel production, some major fundamental data of MW-assisted heating have not been comprehensively identified. Therefore, the feasibility of this technology for large-scale implementation is still subpar. Understanding the interaction between the feedstock and the microwave electromagnetic field, and the optimization of several operational and mechanical parameters are the two main keystones that would propel the industrialization of MW heating in the near future. This provides key insights leading to increased feasibility and more advanced application of MW heating.

Diesel engine exhausts from a common rail 3.0 L F1C diesel engine were analyzed at two different load conditions of the WLTC testing cycle downstream of both the diesel particulate filter (DPF) and selective catalytic reactor (SCR) to verify their effect on the characteristics of carbon particulate matter. An array of chemical, physical and spectroscopic techniques (gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), mobility analyzer, UV-Visible absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy) was applied for characterizing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), heavy aromatic compounds and soot, constituting the particulate matter (PM) sampled from the exhaust. The engine was operated in half load (HL) (188 Nm, representing the more common condition for engine in urban traffic) and full load (FL) (452 Nm, representing the best performance of the engine operation) conditions, at the same engine speed (2000 rpm). Soot formation was enhanced in HL condition, with respect to FL, but, just because of the much lower soot amount, the after-treatment systems in this last condition resulted to be less efficient in the soot abatement. Indeed, the abatement through DPF was about 40% lower in the FL condition with respect to HL condition, and any significant further concentration decrease was found after SCR, in both conditions. By contrast, PAH concentration after DPF abatement was found to be higher in the HL with respect to FL condition. A further PAH concentration decrease of about 30% was found after the SCR in the HL condition whereas in FL the reduction was only about 5-6%. Also the heavy aromatic compounds having molecular weight above the GC-MS detection limit (300 u), were mitigated by SCR. Therefore, SCR did not cause a further soot reduction, whereas it was effective in largely reducing PAH and heavy aromatics emissions, especially in the lower temperature condition featuring the half-load condition, when combustion efficiency is worse. Moreover, SCR system reduced the emission of small particles probably due to an enhanced agglomeration of particles, with beneficial effect on the harmfulness to human health.

Originally developed and validated at the Cabauw (Netherlands) topographically flat onshore location, the alpha-I wind resource extrapolating method was tested at the FINO3 offshore site in the North Sea (Germany). The aim was to prove its validity also when applied over a substantially different environment in terms of surface characteristics and stability conditions. Data from local mast at 30, 80, and 100 m were used, with extrapolations to 80-m and 100-m turbine hub heights accomplished based on 30-m turbulence intensity observations. Trained over a 2-year period (2011-2012), the method was validated on year 2013. Similarly to the onshore application, the method was reliable in extrapolating wind speed to both 80 m and 100 m, with bias within 5%, NRMSE = 0.20 and r = 0.94. Conversely, scores were largely better than at the onshore site in predicting the annual energy yield, biased by 0.41-1.02% at 80 m, and 1.12-1.36% at 100 m. The method proved to be highly sensitive to the stability classification, as not considering this option increased its biases to 4.51-5.93% at 80 m, and 7.46-8.23% at 100 m. Method's reliability might suitably help reduce the number of masts installed throughout a large offshore area.

Sul mercato esistono molti materiali adsorbenti (prevalentemente a base di carboni attivi eventualmente impregnati, zeoliti, alcuni ossidi metallici) per la desolforazione e la rimozione di VOC anche a temperatura e pressione ambiente. Tuttavia questi materiali mostrano capacità relativamente basse e/o cinetiche di cattura lente a temperatura ambiente, che inevitabilmente si traducono nella necessità di utilizzare grandi volumi di impianto. La ricerca svolta dall'IRC-CNR Napoli e DSC-UNINA, in stretta collaborazione, parte dalla considerazione che lo sviluppo di nuovi materiali e processi ad alta efficienza per la desolforazione (in particolare attraverso adsorbimento) rappresenta un traguardo cruciale per l'impiego vantaggioso di una fonte energetica rinnovabile e residuale quale il biogas, anche su piccola scala in un'ottica di generazione distribuita di energia. La ricerca è stata indirizzata allo sviluppo di materiali adsorbenti ad alte prestazioni e basso costo in grado di far fronte a condizioni operative assai diversificate in termini di temperature (già a partire da temperatura ambiente) e composizioni dei gas da trattare (es. presenza di altri inquinanti).

From the British debate on the depletion of coal in 1865 to the First World Power Conference held in London in 1924, scientists, engineers, industrialists, and politicians produced new interpretations of the past, present, and future in terms of the mobilisation of energy resources. This thesis identifies an emerging ‘energy developmentalism’, which called for maximising energy use to maintain or improve a nation’s place in international competition. Energy developmentalism was not a marginal worldview confined to ‘energeticists’, but a coherent set of claims, measurements, and arguments that informed energy governance on an international scale. Rather than focusing on a single resource, energy developmentalism applied a unified schema to all energy sources, including those like solar and tidal energy that were still mostly theoretical. Drawing on sources from across Europe, while staying grounded in political changes in Britain and France, makes it possible to understand how a general formula for transforming raw materials with maximum efficiency was applied differently depending on specific political contexts. This period saw the articulation of problems like the depletion of resources, the difference between renewable and nonrenewable energy, the intermittency of renewables, the overreliance on a single source of energy, and the centrality of energy to modern economies – problems that are often associated with later periods. Scientific measurements of efficiency, horsepower, and kilowatts became operators in political debates centred on questions of national standing and progress. Even as oil became increasingly important in the world economy, the delegates at the First World Power Conference transformed a vision of a renewable energy future into one of a general expansion of energy consumption as the basis of progress. In so doing, they downplayed the continued importance of fossil fuels and equated ‘conservation’ with the fullest possible use of all energy sources, renewable or not.

This paper aims to correlate the in-cylinder soot formation and the exhaust particle emissions for different methods of gasoline/ethanol fueling in spark ignition engine. In particular, the engine was fueled with gasoline and ethanol separately and not, in this latter case both blended (E30) and dual fueled (EDF). For E30 the bend was direct injected and for EDF, the ethanol was injected in the combustion chamber and the gasoline into the intake duct. For both the injection configurations, the same percentage of ethanol in gasoline was supplied: 30%v/v. The measurements were carried out at 2000 and 4000 rpm, under full load, and stoichiometric condition, in small single cylinder optical engine. 2D-digital imaging was performed to follow the combustion process with a high spatial and temporal resolution through a full-bore optical piston. The two-color pyrometry was applied for the analysis of the in cylinder soot formation in the combustion chamber. Particle mass concentration was evaluated at the exhaust by means of a smoke meter. The particle size distribution function was measured in the range from 5.6 to 560 nm by an Engine Exhaust Particle Sizer (EEPS). It was observed that the use of ethanol allows the reduction of soot formation and particles emission in DI configuration. However, for E30 the in-cylinder soot formation and emissions are larger than EDF. This result is mainly due to the different contribution of gasoline. Optical analysis shows that in E30 the direct injected gasoline causes wide diffusive flames where soot formation is promoted; whereas for EDF the better evaporation and mixing of gasoline, typical of PFI configuration, results in few, small, and localized diffusive flames producing smaller particle emissions.

ON 16 NOVEMBER 2000, the final report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) was launched in London, in the presence of South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela. This represented a remarkable milestone in the history of dam policy and politics. During its two-year existence, WCD had conducted the most extensive review of research and evidence regarding the planning, impacts, and management of large dams. It had engaged with numerous stakeholders around the globe. It also made comprehensive recommendations about how to improve dam planning and management.