• Energy Research
• engineering and technology close
• 3. Good health close
• GB close
• AU close
• FR close

Twenty-minute neighbourhoods highlight the importance of well-connected and mixed-used neighbourhoods and communities with proximate access to employment, essential services, public transport, and open spaces. Shorter distances together with re-prioritised public spaces encourage more active transport choices, resulting in public health benefits and reduced environmental pollution. Higher liveability brought about by mixed-use developments enables people to have equitable access to local facilities, amenities, and employment opportunities, promoting vibrancy, social cohesion, and intergenerational connections. The attributes of 20-minute neighbourhoods also combine to create places, that are acknowledged as friendly for all ages, address changing needs across the life course, and provide better support for the ageing population. Furthermore, there are indications that 20-minute neighbourhoods may be more resilient against many of the negative impacts of stringent public health protocols such as those implemented in periods of lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, we evaluate and compare planning policies and practices aimed at establishing 20-minute neighbourhoods in Melbourne (Australia) and Scotland (the UK). Using case studies, we discuss similarities and differences involved in using place-based approaches of 20-minute neighbourhoods to address 21st-century challenges in key areas of health and wellbeing, equity, environmental sustainability, and community resilience.

Abstract Techniques for evaluating water management are critical to diagnose the performance of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Acoustic emission as a function of polarisation (AEfP) has been recently introduced as a non-invasive, non-destructive method to analyse the water generation and removal inside a PEMFC during polarisation. AEfP was shown to provide unique insight into water management within a conventional PEMFC and correlating it to cell performance. Here, AEfP is used to characterise the performance of fractal PEMFCs by evaluating the hydration conditions inside them. This is achieved by probing the water dynamics inside two different fractal flow-field based PEMFCs, namely 1-way and 2-way fractal PEMFCs, and measuring the corresponding acoustic activity generated from them. AEfP is performed on the fractal PEMFCs under relatively humid (70% RH) and fully humidified (100% RH) reactant relative humidity (RH) conditions. Flooding in the 2-way fractal PEMFC, as opposed to the 1-way fractal PEMFC, is demonstrated under different operating conditions by the relatively higher acoustic activity it generates. Corroborating evidence of flooding in the 2-way fractal flow-field under different conditions is provided by its polarisation curves, impedance tests and galvanostatic (current hold) measurements.

Abstract In order to achieve a perfect bottom-up electroplated Cu filling with a minimal surface thickness, 2-mercaptopyridine (2-MP) was investigated as a new leveler for replacing Janus Green B (JGB) for bottom-up copper filling. Electrochemical impedence results indicate that 2-MP has a stronger suppression for Cu deposition than JGB. With the addition of 2-MP, the filling capability of the electroplating solution is improved significantly with the Cu thickness on surface decreasing from ∼16 μm to ∼10 μm. The interaction mechanisms of 2-MP, bis(3-sulfopropyl) disulfide (SPS), Cl − and tri-block copolymer of PEG and PPG with ethylene oxide terminal blocks (EPE) in the plating solution are studied by galvanostatic measurements (GMs). The acceleration effect of SPS and the inhibition effect of 2-MP on copper deposition occur in the presence of EPE, and the convection-dependent adsorption (CDA) behavior of additives usually occurs with the injection of four additives at optional concentrations. Further, it was found that when 1.0 ppm 2-MP, 1.0 ppm SPS and 200 ppm EPE were injected into the basic electrolyte, the potential difference ( Δ h) value of the electrolyte became positive, and the bottom-up electroplated copper filling was obtained in the electrolyte in absence of Cl − . The interaction mechanisms of three additives for bottom-up filling have been investigated by GMs.

Abstract Novel proton-conducting electrolytes were prepared from the sol–gel precursor 1-[3-(trimethoxy-λ4-silyl)propyl]imidazole with the addition of either trifluoroacetic or acetic acid. The presence of trimethoxysilyl groups enabled the solvolysis and condensation reactions of silsesquioxane species. IR spectroscopy revealed that more cube-like species formed in the electrolyte prepared from trifluoroacetic acid, while cube- and ladder-like silsesquioxanes were present in the electrolyte with acetic acid. This assignation was independently confirmed by 29Si NMR analyses revealing the T3 signals of trisiloxane bonding. IR spectroscopy also pointed to the formation of hydrogen bonding in the latter electrolyte, since the frequencies of the observed bands at 1710, 1409, and 1272 cm−1 approached those of acetic acid. In contrast, the IR bands at 1662, 1204, and 1130 cm−1 confirmed the existence of trifluoroacetate anions in the case when the electrolyte was prepared from trifluoroacetic acid. The presence of free trifluoroacetate anions contributed to the moderately higher specific conductivity of this electrolyte (4.6×10−5 S/cm) compared to that of acetic acid (1.6×10−5 S/cm). The specific conductivity of the electrolytes could be further increased by the addition of a lithium salt. All electrolytes were employed in electrochromic devices with optically active WO3 and various inorganic counter-electrodes (CeVO4, V2O5, Ti/V-oxide). Photopic transmittance changes from 30% to 40% were achieved.

In this paper, we apply game theory to study the price competition between drugstores and hospitals in China’s pharmaceutical supply chain. Motivated by drug shortages and price disparity problems, we build a simplified model with one supplier, one hospital, and one drugstore in which the sellers sell one kind of drug and compete on price. The hospital receives a discount from the government when ordering the drug and both sellers face a price-sensitive and uncertain demand. The existence and uniqueness of a Nash equilibrium are proved and closed-form solutions are found for linear demand cases. We characterize the pricing and ordering decisions of the hospital and drugstore. The analysis shows that high ex-factory price, high price sensitivity, and a small discount are three factors contributing to drug shortages. We consider two special kinds of linear demand to obtain insights into the drug price disparity problem.

HOUSING, FUEL POVERTY AND HEALTH: A PAN-EUROPEAN ANALYSIS Jonathan Healy Ashgate Publishing 2004, 249 pp, US$99.95 ISBN 0 7546 4218 6This is a very important book. Housing is a basic human right, embedded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948), and in major international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN 1966). More recently, the Ottawa Charter blueprint for health promotion identified the prerequisites for health as being peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity (WHO 1986). It is against this backdrop of international law and governance that the author tells the story of inequity in a basic necessity for health: adequate housing.The book embraces primarily housing-related, structural, and material determinants of health, but contextualises the observations within cultural and social policy considerations; describing how these upstream conditions shape (beneficially or otherwise), housing related matters and subsequently, health. Specifically, using a comparative framework, it sets out to examine, for Europe, the relationship between domestic energy efficiency, fuel poverty and related health impacts. The Republic of Ireland is used as a specific country context case study on the premise that it has high rates of fuel poverty, excess winter mortality, energy inefficient housing, high domestic energy consumption, and greater environmental emissions. While the introductory chapter rationalises the approach taken throughout the book, no explicit working definition is given for fuel poverty. Just as food poverty encompasses a number of domains including nutritional, social and health connotations, it would have been useful to make clear, upfront, the constituents of fuel poverty. Following from this, the book would benefit from a conceptual framework at the beginning, providing a heuristic device from which to consider the various ways fuel poverty and related socio-environmental factors affect health.The book makes excellent use of existing dataseis from a diversity of sources to illustrate systematic inequalities in key components of housing related socio-environmental determinants of health, both between countries and within countries. Chapters two to nine explore the empirical data, demonstrating marked gradients across Europe in housing conditions, levels of deprivation, affordability and general satisfaction with housing. The book highlights data limitations within the European countries, but is not unduly constrained by them. A key message from the book is the usefulness and necessity for harmonisation of public health related data and development of multilevel surveillance systems. In Chapter three, a new approach to measuring fuel poverty (and hence its definition) provides the mechanism by which to quantify and demonstrate the severity of fuel poverty within Europe. In an economically rich country such as Ireland, a remarkable 17% of households were found to be fuel poor.The final results chapter combines the various risk factors, explored until now in singular fashion, and assesses their impact on seasonal mortality, specifically excess winter mortality. It is hard to imagine that the inhabitants of Portugal - a country which provokes images of hot summers and unexceptional winters - experience the highest seasonal variation in mortality across the EU, with a winter increase of 28%. However, using a collection of datasets from 1988-97, Healy demonstrates that relative excess winter mortality is highest in southern Europe, Ireland and the UK. …

This work was intended to develop and evaluate a new polymeric system based on amphiphilic carboxymethylpullulans (CMP(49)C(8) and CMP(12)C(8)) that can spontaneously self-assemble in aqueous solutions and efficiently solubilize hydrophobic drugs.The self-assembling properties of CMP(49)C(8) and CMP(12)C(8) were characterized by fluorescence spectroscopy and surface tension measurements. The solubilization of benzophenone and docetaxel was assessed from surface tension measurements, UV spectrometry and HPLC assays. The in vitro cytoxicity of CMP(49)C(8) solutions and the docetaxel commercial vehicle (Tween 80/Ethanol-water) were evaluated in the absence and in the presence of docetaxel.Compared to CMP(12)C(8), CMP(49)C(8) in aqueous solutions appeared to self-organize into monomolecular aggregates containing hydrophobic nanodomains, and to significantly increase the apparent solubility of benzophenone. Docetaxel solubility could also be improved in the presence of CMP(49)C(8) but to a lower extent due to the surface properties of the drug. Nevertheless, in vitro, the cytotoxicity studies revealed that against cancer cells, the CMP(49)C(8)-docetaxel formulation was equipotent to the commercial docetaxel one. Furthermore, in the absence of the drug, CMP(49)C(8) appeared less cytotoxic against macrophages than the Tween 80/Ethanol-water.CMP(49)C(8) is a good candidate for solubilizing hydrophobic drugs and could be applied to docetaxel formulations.

This paper analyses the dynamic impact of fossil energy shocks (crude oil and Natural gas) on renewable clean energy stock markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a time-varying VAR model with ...

The outbreak of SARS-COV-2 disease 2019 (COVID-19) abruptly changed the patterns in electricity consumption, challenging the system operations of forecasting and balancing supply and demand. This is due to the mitigation measures that include lockdown and Work from Home (WFH), which decreased the aggregated demand and remarkably altered its profile. Here, we characterise these changes with various quantitative markers and compare it with pre-COVID-19 business-as-usual data using Great Britain (GB) as a case study. The ripple effects on the generation portfolio, system frequency, forecasting accuracy and imbalance pricing are also analysed. An energy data extraction and pre-processing pipeline that can be used in a variety of similar studies is also presented. Analysis of the GB demand data during the March 2020 lockdown indicates that a shift to WFH will result to a net benefit for flexible stakeholders, such as consumer on variable tariffs. Furthermore, the analysis illustrates a need for faster and more frequent balancing actions, as a result of the increased share of renewable energy in the generation mix. This new equilibrium of energy demand and supply will require a redesign of the existing balancing mechanisms as well as the longer-term power system planning strategies.

The energy conversion and storage are great challenges for our society. Despite the progress accomplished by the Lithium(Li)-ion technology based on flammable liquid electrolyte, their intrinsic instability is the strong safety issue for large scale applications. The use of solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) is an adequate solution in terms of safety and energy density. To increase the energy density (resp. specific energy) of the batteries, the positive electrode thickness must be augmented. However, as for Li-ion liquid electrolyte, the cationic transference number of SPEs is low, typically below 0.2, which limits their power performance because of the formation of strong gradient of concentration throughout the battery. Thus, for a given battery system a compromise between the energy density and the power has to be found in a rapid manner. The goal of this study is to propose a simple efficient methodology to optimize the thickness of the SPE and the positive electrode based on charge transport parameters, which allows to determine the effective limiting Li+ diffusion coefficient. First, we rapidly establish the battery power performance thanks to a specific discharge protocol. Then, by using an approach based on the Sand equation a limiting current density is determined. A unique mother curve of the capacity as a function of the limiting current density is obtained whatever the electrode and electrolyte thicknesses. Finally, the effective limiting diffusion coefficient is estimated which in turn allows to design the best electrode depending on electrolyte thickness.